“Something in the ground?” he wondered. “In the mountain?” He thought of mining equipment, but didn’t think they were near any mines.
Then lights came into view, a lot of lights. And they weren’t on the ground. They outlined a sleek black dome-shaped craft gliding into view above a pair of peaks to the north. The noise grew louder as it cleared the ridge.
Akstyr had no idea what it was—some kind of flying contraption, but it didn’t have a balloon for lift, nor could he see any propellers or wings. All he knew was that it was huge. Anything should have appeared small next to the substantial mountain peaks, but it did not. He looked down at the dirigible for comparison. This new machine had to be at least four times the size. More like four hundred times the size, if one didn’t count the balloon on the dirigible, but only the occupiable space.
The lights illuminated hints of an inky black hull, but Akstyr would need a spyglass to see details. Or he’d need to be a lot closer, but that didn’t sound like a good idea. Somehow he doubted the thing was friendly.
After the craft cleared the ridge, it turned toward Akstyr, showing a narrower but still substantial profile and confirming that there weren’t wings. He let his eyelids drop and stretched out with his senses, seeking the telltale tingle of a construct that had been crafted using the mental sciences. He sensed... nothing.
“Mundane technology?” Akstyr muttered, shaking his head. How could that be? There wasn’t anything in the empire like that. Was there? Maybe he was just too far away to sense the Science being used.
He squinted at a horizontal bank of light near the top half of the dome’s front end. The illumination seemed to come from within rather than from the running lights—or whatever one called them—attached to the hull. Maybe the windows represented a navigation chamber, similar to the one Books occupied. Except there had to be room for a whole crew behind them.
A wolf howled in the distance, and another responded from a different ridge. The nocturnal wildlife was probably wondering what sort of monstrosity had invaded the mountains.
A cone of red light shot out of the base of the craft. Akstyr jumped. The crimson light bathed the snowy landscape below the dome, then started moving slowly from side to side.
“Searching,” he mumbled.
Akstyr stretched out his senses again. No kerosene lantern could throw out a beam like that. This had to be something made from the Science. But again, he sensed nothing.
The only thing he knew for certain was that it was heading in their direction.
Akstyr scrambled toward the slope he had climbed up to reach the precipice. He had no idea what they could do—that dirigible didn’t even have weapons—but he had to warn Books.
Snow sloughed down the slope ahead of Akstyr as he half-ran, half-slid back to where a rope dangled from the hatchway at the bottom of the dirigible. His leg and shoulder sent stabs of pain shooting through him, but he ignored them. If that flying behemoth found them, he might have a lot more than minor wounds to trouble him. He figured it belonged to that Forge group, but he couldn’t help but wonder if his mother had been the one to tip them off to the team’s location as well. If so, his stupid plan might have dropped buckets of donkey piss all over the team, and there’d be no cleaning up that mess.
Akstyr leapt out of the snow and caught the rope. “Books!” he called up. “Books, are you there?”
He was almost to the top when a shadow fell across the rope. Books grabbed his arm and helped him inside the craft.
“I told you to simply signal with a flag that they were coming,” Books said. “I would have flown closer to pick you up.”
“We didn’t work out a signal for gia-gantuan flying machine bearing down on us.” Akstyr slammed the hatch shut, not worrying about the rope still dangling through it. He pushed past Books and grabbed the ladder. He would have rushed straight up to navigation by himself, but he had no idea how to fly the dirigible. “Are you coming?” he demanded.
Books hadn’t moved. “I... yes. I’m just stunned.”
“By the flying machine?”
“That and the fact that you think giant can legitimately be combined with gargantuan to form a word.” Books collected himself and waved for Akstyr to continue up the ladder.
“Cut out that light, will you?” Akstyr pointed at a lantern on the wall. “Maybe if we go completely dark and stay in this little nook they won’t be able to see us.”
Books blew out the lamp and rushed to navigation, while Akstyr ran through the corridor and the cargo room, turning off every lamp he found. The engine pulsed softly in its room, throwing alternating light and shadows against the walls. Akstyr thought about tossing a blanket over it, but there weren’t any windows or portholes in that cabin, so he simply shut the door and let it be.
By the time he stumbled into the navigation cabin, Books had darkened it as well and had his nose pressed to the bank of windows. Fortunately, none of the gauges or panels in front of Books glowed or blinked—as far as Akstyr could tell their engine was the only Science-based mechanism in the dirigible, and nothing else was likely to glow sporadically. Unfortunately, they were still hanging from a giant beige balloon that would stand out against the snow and craggy lines of the mountains.
“I see it,” Books said. “What is it?”
“I don’t know, but can you really disagree that it’s gia-gantuan?”
“Now is not the time for jokes.”
“Who’s joking?” Akstyr leaned closer to the window, trying to see the details of the valley beneath them. “Can you take us lower? So that we’re right above the snow? Maybe we’ll blend in.”
“Maybe we’ll blend in?” Books frowned over his shoulder. “We’re mounted under an enormous balloon. It’s not white, so unless you want to get climb out and shovel snow on top of it, we’re not going to blend in. Besides, that... that... thing has a light beam shooting out of it. It must be magic. Won’t they just sense us out there?”
“It’s not Science-based.”
“What?” Books leaned so close to the window that he bumped his nose. “You must be wrong. There’s no mundane technology in the world that could put something like that into the air.”
“I’d be able to sense it if it were a construct.”
“They must be cloaking themselves from you somehow.”
“Whatever,” Akstyr said. It was impossible talking Science with people that hadn’t studied it at all.
“Whatever it is, that beam is searching systematically, like it expects us to be here.” Books’s words came out in a tumble. He was scarcely taking time to breathe.
Akstyr had seen Books get nervous before, and he wasn’t much use when he was like that. Amaranthe could always get him to calm down, but Akstyr didn’t think he could have the same effect. Nobody on the streets had ever told him he was reassuring.
“All our lights are off, and... maybe I can do something to help camouflage us.” Akstyr didn’t say the latter with a lot of conviction. He had studied illusions, sure, and he could do a few tricks, the sorts of things that might impress dumb guards on a train, but could he hide the entire dirigible?
“They’re getting closer.” Books’s gaze was riveted to the window, his hands gripping the console, his shoulders hunched and tense. The craft was higher than the dirigible, and Akstyr couldn’t see it from his spot behind Books, but the red search beam came into view, sweeping left and right, probing the snow with its telling light. “If we try to leave now, they’ll see us,” Books said. “But we’re too close to the pass too. If they keep coming toward it, they’re sure to see us anyway.”
“Not if we hide,” Akstyr said.
Books was only shaking his head. He didn’t seem to hear.
“If you don’t lower us deeper into this little canyon—” Akstyr rapped his knuckles on the control panel, “—I will.”
That broke through Books’s worried trance.
“Dear departed ancestors, no.” Books plopped down into the seat. “
I’ll do it.” His voice lowered to a mutter. “If I can find the cursed levers in the dark.”
Akstyr allowed himself a tight smile. If he couldn’t be reassuring, threatening was an option.
The dirigible engine offered a smooth ride, and Akstyr might not have noticed they were descending except that the scenery outside the windows changed. The view of distant mountains disappeared, replaced with nearby cliffs and snowy slopes.
Akstyr sat cross-legged on the floor. He wished he had more time to think about how to go about manufacturing the illusion. He’d seen the terrain around the dirigible when he’d been up on the precipice, but he hadn’t thought to memorize it and think about how best he could add a piece to it—a piece that would make it appear like someone was looking at an empty canyon instead of a ship tucked in a nook. The artistry required daunted him. Even if he could pull it off, he would have to hope nobody over there was a practitioner, someone who could see right through such guises.
A few fat snowflakes blew across the windshield. Maybe a blizzard would roll in, forcing the other ship to abandon its search. That gave Akstyr an idea.
“This is as low as I dare get,” Books said.
A long squeal of metal assaulted their ears, and a jolt coursed through the dirigible.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have dared to get that low.” Akstyr thought the metal hull of the lower part of the craft could stand up to a few scrapes, but he was less certain about the balloon. He didn’t know what it was made from, but he assumed the material could tear.
“It’s difficult to steer a vessel this large in the dark,” Books said. “Especially when my control panel is also in the dark.”
“Just hold us here.” Akstyr closed his eyes and took several deep breaths.
“Obviously,” Books grumbled, then raised his voice and added, “They’re getting closer, so anything you’re thinking of doing should be soon.”
“I’m already doing it,” Akstyr whispered, voice strained. He opened an eye to check outside, to see if the snow appeared to be picking up. The flakes drifting across the window had increased, though some were falling straight down while others slanted at an angle. “Stupid wind,” he muttered. He’d thought it would be easier working with the existing snow than creating an illusory storm from scratch, but perhaps not.
“Are you making it snow?” Books asked.
Akstyr ignored him and closed his eyes to concentrate harder. All the flakes had to be going the same direction, and there had to be more of them, enough to shroud the dirigible and convince the other ship to call off its search until the weather improved, ideally long after the team had finished in the pass.
“You are, aren’t you?”
The touch of awe in Books’s voice was flattering, but Akstyr would have preferred silence. He needed every iota of concentration he could muster. He caught himself breathing heavily, as if he’d been running stairs at one of Sicarius’s workouts. Though cold seeped up from the metal floor, he was anything but cold. Heat flushed his face, and sweat prickled his armpits.
“That craft must be magic,” Books said. “There’s no visible propulsion system. More than that, I don’t see how something like that could achieve lift in the first place. Emperor’s teeth, it looks like a big balrock ball that some student cut in half. Though it does seem to be designed to reduce drag. Maybe it has internal engines, and the body itself acts as a...”
Getting irritated or telling Books to shut up would have disturbed Akstyr’s concentration, so he did his best to ignore the analysis.
“They’re close,” Books whispered a few moments later. “They’re angling for the pass. Maybe they’ll miss us.”
Akstyr could think about nothing but the snow. Behind his eyelids, he pictured it, from the clouds high above all the way to the drifts below. Sheer will turned it into an illusion others could see and not simply an image in his mind.
“It’s getting hard to see them,” Books murmured. “But if I can’t see them, maybe they can’t see us. Uh oh, they’ve stopped. Their beam is... it’s behind the precipice. I think they’re looking at the landslide.”
More snow, Akstyr thought. Blizzard.
“I can’t see anything now,” Books said.
“They’re still there,” Akstyr whispered. He might not sense any Science built into the craft, but he could still feel the physical presence of something that large.
“Are they... coming this way?”
“They’re not moving.”
“It’s hovering?” Books asked. “Amazing. A dirigible can hover, of course, but that’s because the hydrogen is used in the balloon, a gas that’s lighter than air, thus—”
“Nobody cares, Books,” Akstyr said.
“Can you make it snow harder over the pass? Perhaps you could throw a little wind at them too.”
Akstyr opened an eye and glared. “You don’t want much, do you?”
The exchange stole his concentration, and illusion faded, leaving a third as many snowflakes in the sky. Akstyr gritted his teeth and refocused. Only when he’d filled the sky again did he feel safe enough to add, “I don’t know how to do auditory illusions yet. No wind.”
“Oh, it’s all an illusion?” Books asked. “That’s quite good. Maybe it’s worth sending you to school, after all.”
“Glad you approve, professor.”
Something nudged Akstyr’s senses. It came from the direction of the flying craft. Maybe there was Science in the bowels of that black machine after all. But, no, it felt... sentient. Like a person, not an object.
“I think they have a practitioner.” Akstyr’s stomach sank. Maybe the person had been asleep and had woken up when he or she sensed someone manipulating the scenery. That couldn’t be good.
“You’re overdoing it,” Books said.
“Huh?” Akstyr opened his eyes to a whiteout outside the window. The rocky terrain to either side of the dirigible had disappeared behind snowfall so thick one would be lucky to see a foot ahead. The shadow of the balloon protected the windows from fat flakes that might have coated the glass otherwise, but enough snow flew sideways that it still blotted out the view. “That’s not all me.”
Akstyr let his illusion slip away, and it didn’t make a difference. Wind moaned through the mountains, though their position in the canyon protected them.
The new presence he’d sensed faded from his awareness. Akstyr stretched out with his thoughts, but it was as if the snow was somehow muffling his mental reach. No, that wasn’t it. The other vessel was moving away.
“They’re leaving,” Akstyr said.
“That’s a relief,” Books said.
“Maybe. I think they’re following the tracks.”
“North or south?”
“South,” Akstyr said. “Toward the others.”
* * * * *
Maldynado’s voice floated out of the locomotive, and his words filled Amaranthe’s ears as she swung through the door to land inside. Yara was in the engineer’s seat while Basilard leaned against the back wall. Sespian stood before the furnace, the coal shovel still in his hands. Between Yara and Sespian, Maldynado lounged against the control wall, his arms flung wide, draped over valves and pipes, as he spoke.
“...nothing monstrous in size,” he was saying, “but substantial enough to show off my handsome features. And location is important. I’d hate to be like Korgoth the Cranky with that old, dank copper statue by the sewer treatment plant. I was thinking something in the Imperial Gardens would be nice. Or perhaps in the University District where all those pretty young female students would see—”
“Maldynado,” Amaranthe said, “why are you loitering around and talking while the emperor is shoveling coal into a furnace?”
“Er.” Maldynado’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he settled on, “He was doing that when I came in. I thought he was enjoying a chance to live like a peasant and partake in menial labor.”
Though Sespian did not appear offended, Amaranthe propped her
hands on her hips and stared at Maldynado.
“Ah, yes, why don’t I handle that, Sire?” Maldynado took the shovel from Sespian and gestured for him to step aside.
Sicarius had come in after Amaranthe, but he merely stood by the door, as quiet as usual. If Amaranthe was going to convince him to chat with Sespian, or, ancestors help him, to make a joke, she would have to get rid of the crowd.
“Basilard, do you want to help me dig out our medical kits?” Amaranthe said. “It looks like we could all use some suture and bandages.”
“Alcohol, too, perhaps,” Yara said.
“For sterilizing wounds?” Amaranthe asked.
“Among other things.” Though the enforcer sergeant retained the usual determined set to her jaw, the haunted cast to her eyes suggested she had found the night’s adventure harrowing.
“We’ll see what we can find.” Amaranthe faced Sespian. “Sire, I... have to tell you that your kidnapping wasn’t entirely without casualties. I’d hoped that if it couldn’t be bloodless it could at least be deathless, but it seems that was too much to ask.”
Sespian’s young face grew grim, and he nodded. “I anticipated that. When I made the decision to contact you... It is something I carefully weighed beforehand. Perhaps it was selfish, but I assure you it wasn’t only my hide that I was thinking of. There are... things afoot that I couldn’t have halted from within the Imperial Barracks. Too many people watch me there. If I can survive long enough out here to investigate Forge’s latest scheme further, and to figure out some appropriate action to take, it will be for the good of the entire empire.”
His defensiveness startled Amaranthe. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might take the blame for the deaths of his soldiers, though, now that she thought about it, she realized it shouldn’t surprise her. He was a conscientious young man, certainly. His hints of evil afoot intrigued her, but the guarded way he was phrasing things implied he wouldn’t be sharing a lot of details. Not yet anyway. He must see her and her team as tools, not as allies. She would have to change his mind about that.