In the aftermath of the last chapter, the Expedition must decide how to proceed. Loyalties are challenged, and a new complication arises…

Into the second half of There Shall Be Wings, we deal with the aftermath of the disaster that befell Lieutenant Carpathish. The final main character is introduced and the gears that will lead the story to its end begin spinning. The rest of the story having been edited, I will try to post them on an accelerated cadence so if you want to wait to read everything at once, there's that. Thanks for the comments and feedback from all of you, and for :iconSpudz: who has been invaluable in keeping me going here.

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

There Shall Be Wings by Rob Baird

Part 4: "With Quiet, Lifting Mind"

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I should have listened to every voice counseling my return. Every bone in my body aches with regret. They will not even understand. It has been nearly ten days. I have almost trained myself to see nothing, in the darkness, but it takes so little before it all comes back to me…
— Memory-stone of Kio Tengaru, 28th day of 4th chase, year 577

Most of the Otiric's crew was ashore in Port Tarmett, for as small and cramped as the town was, at least it offered company and fresh air — and alcohol. Kio desired none of these; she retreated to her quarters and cast a spell against the porthole to keep the light from coming in.

She sat on her bed with her back against the wall, facing the door, her bare legs drawn up before her and her head resting on her knees. Motionless, Kio ignored the passage of time — identical minutes blending into shapeless hours around her.

The leopardess kept a small stone, from her homeland; by its warmth she could tell how far away she was. Far away, indeed — thousands of miles from the snow and the quiet of the deep caves. What had she even been thinking?

Iyashi chita dojagoya: 'a strong mountain does not move.'

Her mother repeated the proverb to her when the younger Tengaru announced that she was going on a pilgrimage. Such things were, themselves, not rare.

Flatlanders tended to think of the Otonichi as reclusive homebodies, never venturing below ten thousand feet nor further than the massive falls past which the Sheyib was no longer navigable. The Sheyib River was a great artery for most of the continent, which it divided; it powered the mills of the Dominion and watered the fields of the Confederacy and a dozen other minor kingdoms.

The falls served as a convenient gateway to the Ishonko Mountains, where the Otonichi made their home. And it was true that many Otonichi did not descend below the falls; there was not much of any use in the flatlands except trading partners.

But some did.

More restless souls spent a few years wandering: learning from the Ellagdrans, or trading with the mountain-dwelling tribes near Dhamishaya. And centuries before, an Otonichi explorer had been the only person to visit the city of Angbasa and return.

With all the time they spent below-ground, the Otonichi knew better than anyone the great, timeless cycle of the earth. Even great boulders eventually wore away to dust, dust that sank into the ground until it melted and was forged again in the universe's great furnace.

It was not socially unacceptable to leave for a time — even for something so undignified as the pursuit of adventure. She'd felt comfortable ignoring her mother's advice.

Now, she wanted nothing more than to be listening to it again, in her mother's own voice.

Instead, someone was knocking at the door to her cabin. She hoped that they would go away. After several seconds of silence, the knocking resumed. I know you're in there, a voice called out.

With a flick of her paw, the door unlocked itself. “Come in."

“Hello, Kio," Sessla-Daarian said.

“Close the door."

The badger paused, turning his head from side to side. “It's pitch black in here."

“It was," she countered. And she wanted it to be again.

Toth shut the door behind him, and felt his way to a chair. She heard him settling down. “Not seen much of you ashore, this last day or so."

“I don't like the port."

“Me either. Can't wait to be back out at sea."

She'd known that the conversation was coming. Although Dr. Röhaner had asked the pair to write a report on the balloon flight, she hadn't spoken to the badger in two days. 

Not since Rassulf's vote on the future of the Tannadorean Expedition — which they had been on opposite sides of. “You don't always keep it so dark in here, do you?"

“No."

More silence. No light reached beneath the door; none came through the porthole. It was so black that her senses were beginning to compensate in other ways. She could see the badger's aura without even trying, now — a faint, glowing outline around his body. He was looking in her direction. “Kio…"

“Yes, Dr. Toth?"

“We need to talk."

“What is there to talk about, Dr. Toth?"

Kio wasn't a practiced empath, but if she concentrated she could see Toth's aura ripple, and darken, and shift to a deeper blue over the next few minutes. “Very well. We don't need to talk. I need to listen." 

It caught her by surprise. “What?"

The badger set his bag down lightly, and folded his paws in his lap. He took a moment to choose his words. “Kio, we fight a lot. Gods know some people think it's all I do is fight. But… I fight you because I respect you. I want to know what you're thinking." 

Considering how often they butted heads — and how flippant he could be — she was surprised to find that she didn't really doubt what he said. After all, at least he argued with her; he'd simply told Haralt Berdanish to shut up.

I don't want to talk about it. That was the easiest answer, and if she kept insisting Toth would eventually become bored or irritated enough to leave. She didn't have to give in simply because he wanted her to, after all. Strong mountains did not move.

Iyashi chita dojagoya. 

Sometimes particularly troublesome Otonichi replied with another proverb, its inversion: ga chita kobah doja. 'No mountain moves itself,' the meaning of which depended on its speaker. One illustration, carved into the cave walls, showed a miner digging at the mountainside with a tiny spade to suggest the futility of the act.

Another, though — carved in parody by another sculptor — showed a line of such miners, each carrying a stone in their clasped paws. Yet a third contrasted two mountains, one untouched and one tunneled through and transformed into a clan's fortress.

I don't want to talk about it, she thought again; her charm-accustomed eyes were looking at the badger's soft aura, and the way his breath disturbed the air in pale, pearlescent billows. I don't want to talk about it because if I do then I… I…

“I killed her."

Toth froze. “What? How?"

“My confidence. I know you said that it would work. And she said that it would work. I don't blame you, Dr. Toth. I shouldn't have let myself become so… reckless."

“It wasn't reckless, Kio. We were doing the best we could with the information we had."

Although he couldn't see her, the snow leopardess shook her head sharply. “No. No. It was reckless. After those first experiments, I started to think that I really knew what was happening. And it… it killed her. I killed her."

Toth kept his paws folded, saying nothing. Finally he got up. She watched his head glance in the direction of the door — done with her, already, and it hadn't taken as long as she'd thought.

But then he turned, and walked over to her bed. He couldn't see, she knew that — he was moving carefully. But his analytical mind had committed the room's layout to memory well enough for him to navigate.

When his foot brushed against the edge of the bed, he stopped. “I'm sitting, yeah?"

She shrugged, before remembering that he couldn't see her. Then she held out her paw, palm facing upwards, and called forth a dull red flame that was enough for him to see by until he'd settled down. “Why?"

“Don't want to shout. Because I'm going to say some things that'll make one of us want to."

Kio closed her paw, and the light winked out. “I do not need your comforting, Dr. Toth."

A softer warmth replaced the flame: Toth's paw resting lightly on her own. “You didn't kill her. Criticize yourself for not knowing more — I guess — but we all made our own decisions. The lieutenant included. You didn't force her to any gallows."

“There's very little difference. I'm the only one who knows magic, Dr. Toth. Maybe Miss Calchott can look at one of your designs and see something wrong with it — or if Dr. Röhaner wants to sail in some direction, Captain Medastria can offer advice. Me… you have to rely on me… and you can't."

“We all thought we knew better, Kio. Telmer was the one who swore up and down that a balloon was the best way to look at the storm up close. I didn't know her that well, but I don't think she was just boasting. She really believed it! And we relied on her, too."

He was neglecting the differences, though. It was not merely that she was the only one of the Expedition to truly understand magic; to most of them, even to Toth, it was a complete mystery. The technical expertise to operate a hydrogen balloon might've taken training, but all of them knew how a balloon worked.

So the others looked at her as though she could do anything. For them, summoning fire from empty air and crafting a crude thaumaturgic telegraph were all part of the same discipline. She'd never been able to convince them that it wasn't so easy.

Dr. Toth, and his idol Gavich Retiz, reduced it to a trite axiom — charm was simply the interaction of the physical realm and the aether. Apply flame to a pot of water and it eventually boiled: that was heat. Release a stone from atop a building and it plummeted to the ground: that was motion. Put a copper statue outside and it turned green: that was metallic decay.

What Toth refused to see was that it always took the same amount of heat to make the same amount of water boil. The stone always dropped at the same speed. Copper always developed a patina, and iron always rusted. It never melted instead, or sprouted flowers, or crumbled to dust; the stone never fell upwards.

He refused to accept that there was no simple relationship — that it depended on the personality of the aether on any given day, and the personality of the mage. Levitating a drop of water was very different from freezing it, or making it disappear, or turning it into gold.

Serious scholars of the charmed arts tended to specialize. Scryers spent years learning how to read omens from random patterns; they wouldn't know the first thing about giving autonomy to a clockwork machine. Rock-warpers had absolute control over the molten stone of a mountain's depths — twisting tons of magma in long, graceful ribbons, drawing the energy off into something useful and productive. But they could not predict the future.

“You're a scholar. Rassulf Röhaner is a scholar. I do not know about Miss Calchott, but she has years of experience in... building things. Crafting things. It is a ship all of experts! I am... I am a conjurer who, when they ask it, I am willing to come along."

“So you're learning. Cargal'th, Kio; we're all learning. None of us has done this before. Save Marray, I suppose. But that bastard Haralt's right — he's not exactly a brilliant role model. You still know more than anybody else here, even if you aren't one of the te kazhi yun otokachiki urayozo."

“Otokachikigo," she corrected the badger softly; he'd forgotten the superlative in the word 'songworthy.' “Why do you know my language, anyway?"

Toth laughed, and tapped her paw. “Don't change the subject. Nobody's weaving your tapestry, Kio; it's not about documenting your history. And thank the gods for that — you keep forgetting I'm supposed to be a madman, spotty one."

“You know I do not think you are."

“Good. Then you also know you're not the only one past your limits."

“But you're supposed to be here..." Her head drooped; she buried her muzzle between her knees and didn't bother to raise her muffled voice. “It's different."

“Supposed to be here? That's up for bloody debate, though, isn't it?"

Most of the time she felt comfortable with her knowledge of the Aernian language. It was only at the most crucial times that her ability to explain herself failed. But she had to try: “You need to."

“To be here?"

Kio fidgeted; tiny sparks, just barely visible, ran down her fingers. “You think that you are going to save the world by understanding this. Dr. Röhaner, I hear him; he talks of the Dead City — he wishes he is protecting his homeland against them. Miss Calchott, this is the future of her company to her. I... I am not that."

“Then who are you?"

I am not very much of a strong mountain, that's what. “I left because I wanted..." She knew the word — saying it was the hard part. “I want… think I want… wanted… an adventure. I wanted to see more than the mountains. I wanted to learn how to be a good mage. Not otokachikigo urayo — but good."

“Most of us could sympathize."

“No. This is what a cub does, Dr. Toth. By my age I should be happy with our mountain — not — not to go chasing stories! When Dr. Rassulf met me and... and said that I impress him, I believed that maybe I was not wrong to go searching." 

“You weren't," the badger said firmly — as though he knew what he was talking about. “None of us were."

“But I'm not one of you. Rassulf thought that — you thought that — and I'm really just a..." Once more she forced herself to tell the truth. “Just someone who wasn't happy in the mines."

“So? Nobody said you needed a mission, spotty one."

“So... it was fun... at first. Pretending. But it came to be out of control, and I — I feel like I am in an avalanche now. I will fall or I will be buried. My mother was right to tell me I should not have left, Dr. Toth... but now it is too late, and nothing I can do will put the snow back where it was."

“You weren't pretending. Cargal'th! If it weren't for you, we'd still be in Tabisthalia listening to Rassulf narrate old storybooks. You can't pretend a bloody steamship out here — for fuck's sake, Kio, you up and invented a wireless telegraph! You don't pretend that, either."

“But I wasn't good enough to —"

He squeezed her paw tightly, and the snow leopardess fell silent. “No. Stop. None of us were fucking good enough. You didn't know how your magic would react. What if Marray had known what a chaos storm looked like at altitude? What if I'd made the emergency valve work faster when we redesigned the gasbag? What if Aureli had demanded that we test the wind currents aloft before letting Telmer persuade us it didn't matter? You think we're not all asking those questions?"

“Then how can you think it was worth it?" She hadn't meant for the way she hissed to sound so accusatory, but lacked the energy to apologize properly. “How?"

“You should read the poems they print in our newspapers, spotty one. Most of them are about the great battles my country has fought. Some of them in other lands — some of them against one another. Do you do that? Do your clans fight?"

Atnai, the self-igniting compound flatlanders called 'Otonichi spark,' was not only used for campfires; it could also be used to tip the bolts of a tenku noyo. Nor was that contraption merely a hunter's weapon: few hunters truly needed a repeating crossbow. “Yes," she admitted. “We fight."

“The poets clean it up, but the dead are still dead. For what? A thousand young men die, Kio, and for what? To move the border a few leagues, or to buy a prince's honor — or for revenge, sometimes, which is what honor really means when they want you to kill for it. Is that worth it?"

“You say... Lieutenant Carpathish was a soldier, and so..."

“No, that's not what I'm saying. She died in a tragic accident — and the fault belongs to all of us. So we also own the burden of what her death means. If we think Telmer died in vain, Kio, then all she's worth is a poem for the broadsheets. If we think she didn't, then we need to figure out how it never happens again. Either way, we'd better start writing."

If she believed him, though, that meant digging herself in deeper. Carrying herself ever-further beyond the world she knew. The leopardess swallowed, closing her eyes so that even Toth's aura vanished. “I can't..."

A jolt of warmth fell across her back. It took her a shocked second to realize that she felt the heat of the badger's arm, and his fur melting into hers. He was hugging her, gently; his short, sharp muzzle had found itself within range of her ear. “You can. If I can, you can, spotty one."

She turned to protest, but when she drew breath her nose filled with the badger's presence, the scent of redleaf and of woodsmoke from a tavern in Tarmett. Something about its familiarity was overwhelming.

“And if you can't, I can't. We're in this one together, I'm afraid."

“You'd manage, Dr. Toth."

“No. I'd tell Rassulf that, but I'm afraid it'd be a lie. And as long as I'm admitting that, you might as well just call me Daari."

“Why?"

“Like my friends do."

She inhaled deeply, and surrendered, leaning herself against the badger and letting his aura imprint itself in her mind. “If I call you that, will we still fight?"

“Well, if you want. You win most of the time, anyway, it's not like it's a bloody great deal for me — even if I do like a good argument. Friends can fight, sure."

“I probably will not have agreement with you on all of what you say in this report," she mused aloud. “Friends can be stubborn, too?"

“Wouldn't have it any other way."

She was given to wonder, in the quiet that followed, how long his antagonism had masked some degree of respect for her. He did only seem to argue with those he admired: Dr. Röhaner, but not Aureli Calchott; Kio, but never Haralt Berdanish. “Very well — Daari. I… I will help you write the report, instead of a poem."

“Good!" His arm squeezed her, firmly, and didn't offer any obstacle to the way she snuggled briefly against his side. “I'm a terrible poet anyway. Shall we get started?"

“Perhaps." It was like being back in the mountain, deep underground with nothing but old, soothing sounds and friendly companionship. And though she was ready, she was also comfortable — for the first time in months. “Or perhaps in… in a bit."

---

Day 46: Practicalities. We have finished removing the balloon equipment from the Otiric and shall install a new workshop, the better to aid Aureli Calchott and the engineers. 

Spirits are low, and some in the Expedition have not been seen since our return to the port. If there shall be a way to carry on, it will require much work to discover.
— Tannadorean Expedition Record, 28 Deyrnsev, 913

The report that Rassulf had received was appreciably complex — in parts beyond his ability to understand it. It suggested that while they had endeavored to make the balloon and gondola thaumaturgically nonreactive, they had neglected the hydrogen gas that filled it.

They had also trusted Telmer's assessment of the wind currents, and her ability to ascend and descend rapidly between them. Close to the End of the World, though, the lifting gas behaved unpredictably. Not only did it keep the balloon more buoyant than it should've, but it seemed to have been attracted in some fashion to the storm.

Three variants of this hypothesis took up the first five handwritten pages; the remaining six covered not only suggestions for future work but a number of experiments that would allow them to test those conjectures thoroughly.

We propose to contain a fixed quantity of hydrogen and a keng ribbon of length two inches in a Rudlan sphere, immersed in purified water enchanted so that it matches the alignment of experimenter's ofeng chowa [fig. 6]. When the temperature of the water is increased, we observe the perturbations of the keng ribbon when an affinity spell is cast, repeating this process for varying distances of the ofeng chowa. Experimenter predicts the keng ribbon will be unaffected. Dissenting prediction: the keng ribbon will be perturbed at a variable rate based on interaction effects between the hydrogen and the lodestone, with lower bound set by the polynomial equation…

Rassulf, until that point, had not sufficiently grasped the value of the team formed by Sessla-Daarian Toth and Kio Tengaru — the latter of whom he had not seen since the Otiric docked in Port Tarmett. He knew the snow leopardess had taken the loss of Lieutenant Carpathish heavily, although he did not know why.

Her work was apparent in the report, though, which meant that somehow Dr. Toth had brought her around. They were kindred spirits, of a fashion, despite being so completely different from one another that Rassulf had originally thought they might come to blows.

Over the next few days, he observed her mood until at last he felt comfortable enough to ask directly. Less reserved than she'd been at the vote, the snow leopard nodded and agreed that she would remain on the team.

He might well have embraced her, if she'd seemed like the type for that — Aernians were not as physically affectionate as his own people, and the Otonichi were even more reclusive. But his heart jumped nonetheless.

If Kio was still willing to continue, they had a way forward; Rassulf did not see a way for the Tannadorean Expedition to function without an expert in magic. Aureli Calchott, when he explained this to her in presenting his new plans, agreed. “And even then…"

“There are ways," the wolf said.

“Ways?"

The Otiric had, at that point, been docked for nearly two weeks. One of the empty cargo holds had been replaced with a shop capable of working iron and other metals; Calchott supplied an engineer from the Railroad as the foreman and a few Meteor Islanders agreed to come aboard as assistants.

Without Carpathish, they didn't have anyone with experience in flying balloons, but Rassulf pointed out that there was nothing to keep them from sending a few up unmanned. Once they had proper charts of the wind currents, and once the scientists' experiments were complete, they'd be able to judge the risk accurately.

“At that point, we have several options. One, we could send up another balloon. Dr. Toth told me that Kio is working on an improved version of her thaumaturgic telegraph — one that might even be able to show us the other side. Like a… ah…" 

“Sympathetic aetherscope. Ramigora, in Dhamishi. I asked for one, but apparently they've all been lost." Dhamishaya was now a colony of Aernia, but before its conquest they had been adept magic-users in their own right. Where Kio's device transmitted only sound, a sympathetic aetherscope acted like a mirror — only it showed the reflection of a different aetherscope, hundreds of miles away.

“Unfortunate. But if she can manage — ah, by the way… please don't mention it to anyone else. Dr. Toth said she didn't want to get our hopes up. If she can manage, we'd have a way to collect all the observations we need of the chaos storm." 

“Can she manage?"

She said so, and it was not Rassulf's place to doubt her abilities. “I believe she can, yes."

The ermine's look darkened slightly. “It's so… strange, though; unpredictable. I never thought I'd feel that way about something, but I wish I didn't have to deal with it."

“Magic?"

Aureli nodded. “My supervisor says that I'm merely being superstitious and closed-minded. She believes it can be understood, and used — like you and Dr. Toth do. She's right, of course, I know — else I wouldn't be here — but I've seen her do things that I…"

Stories of the Railroad were as common as stories of the Dead City. Rumors of massacres in the desert; of slave labor in the Shrouded Rocks of the cold northern waters. Rumors that they'd had King Chatherral IV murdered.

Like most rumors, there was never any proof; Rassulf knew that stories attached themselves as if magnetically drawn to powerful entities. It was the first time that he'd heard any hint of it from someone in a position to know for certain.

“What sort of things?"

Aureli Calchott didn't answer, and her eyes flicked away from his. “What if the balloons don't work?"

He debated pressing the issue — but it was none of his business, only his curiosity, and they both had more immediate concerns. “If the balloons don't work, we'll look to the clouds at sea level. More of those clockwork probes — perhaps we can find a sort of eddy, a way to get closer without putting ourselves in danger."

“And if not that?" 

“If not that, there's the Kamiri glider. If not that, Dr. Toth thinks that a probe beneath the surface might work."

She tilted her head; Rassulf noticed that she was once again meeting his eyes. “I thought they said it was worse in the water?"

“I don't entirely understand what is meant," the wolf admitted. “Dr. Toth and miss Tengaru were rather animated in their explanation. Also, they began arguing. But they say that although the energy is greater, the dense medium means that it changes less rapidly and is therefore more predictable."

“Something to test, in any case…" She nodded again, and signed her name to the bottom of the report they would send back to Tabisthalia. “Progress would be better, but I admit — I'm grateful we're not stalled. After the accident…"

She didn't have to say anything else. 

The regular ship from Tabisthalia arrived two days later, when Rassulf was busy studying in the Expedition's planning room. A knock at the door startled him from his reading; he looked up to see an Otiric crewman, waiting at attention. “Dr. Röhaner, a passenger has reported aboard and requested to see you." 

“They have?" He marked his place in the book, a translation of an early archaeological survey at the ruins of Kessea — one of the few glimpses they had at the fall of the World Before. It would have to wait: “Well, send them in."

He was not required to, and did not, meet all of the Otiric's crew — most of them engineers and craftsman the Railroad sent to monitor the ship's performance as a unique prototype. The figure who stepped into the office, though, was clearly not one of them.

Despite the relative cool of the islands the jackal was lightly attired: a short tunic bared most of her belly, and her trousers were made of thin, loose Tiurishkan cotton. “Simrabi Kaszul?" he guessed.

“In my tongue, the family name comes first — but yes, you would say it thus." The jackal bowed; as she did so he noticed a necklace made of purple, gold and white stones — the only thing lending color to her dun body. “And you are Rassulf Röhaner ev Kalzlanvast, it seems."

“Yes. I wasn't aware you'd be on that ship — but welcome, please; we'd already prepared a stateroom. I'm happy that you've agreed to join us."

Simrabi smiled thinly. “Was there an agreement?"

The city-state of Kamir was no longer independent, she explained as he led her towards the passenger deck. Following the shah's defeat, it had become a vassal of Aernia — and because the defeat had come at the hands of the Carregan Transcontinental Railroad, it was really owned by the company.

According to the jackal, the request to join the expedition had been accompanied by two armed guards of the Railroad's secret police, and a contingent of engineers who proceeded to disassemble her workshop. “I don't pretend that I have any say in this matter, sir."

Rassulf frowned, furrowing his brow in displeasure. “You should. You do. I was under the impression…"

“Might I speak freely?"

“Of course."

“Kamir is an occupied town, Dr. Rassulf, and my clan has no favor with its occupiers. My workshop has been ransacked four times; my surviving siblings are in prison. I draw breath only at the pleasure of the Carregans, and they grant that pleasure only when they can find something more vicious."

“The Kamir War was twenty years ago. Affairs remain so tense?"

“Some of the Carregan family have very long memories, sir. My generation will be the last of the Kaszuls; that has been made abundantly clear. But perhaps if I die at my work, my line will end with some dignity."

He left Simrabi to settle in and went to find Aureli Calchott. The ermine shook her head, when he asked if the jackal had been summoned under duress. “Not by me, at least."

“Your superiors?"

Reluctantly, Calchott admitted the possibility; there was little love for Kamir from the Railroad, and less from Rescat Carregan herself. Calchott's superior had famously been the one to prosecute the war, and Rassulf recalled the way Aureli had hinted at vague, unpleasant 'things' Carregan did.

“We can't keep Miss Kaszul as a slave."

Aureli shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I don't know the history, and I don't know how she was asked to join us." This had not actually risen to the level of a reply, and she knew it. “I'm not going to defend everything the Railroad has done, Dr. Röhaner. But maybe it is best for her if she's here."

“By her will. If she doesn't want to join us, we'll have to send her home." Aureli didn't answer. “That will not be a problem, I trust."

“I don't know what will happen to her there."

“Miss Calchott!"

She looked away. “I'll do what I can."

It wasn't satisfactory, and Rassulf knew it, but the internal politics of the Iron Kingdom and its vassals were beyond the wolf's ability to influence. He put a decision off by calling the rest of the Tannadorean Expedition together to meet their newest member.

He decided to choose his words carefully. “This is Simrabi Kaszul, of Kamir; I've asked her to consider joining the expedition based on her work with gliders — by your recommendation, Miss Tengaru." The snow leopard nodded, exchanging a friendly smile with Simrabi.

He introduced the rest of them in turn, and watched the jackal's reaction from the corner of his eye. Her composure never truly slipped, although he caught her tense when he explained Aureli Calchott's relationship to the Railroad.

“And Haralt, Lord Erdurin, serves as the voice of the king."

Haralt glanced at Simrabi, started to nod, and then froze. “Welcome. I kindly ask you to remove the necklace."

Rassulf blinked; it seemed an unremarkable piece of jewelry, made of simple painted clay spheres. “We do not have a dress code, as such, Lord Erdurin..."

“All the same, Dr. Röhaner, she will not wear it."

“Is it... enchanted?"

Aureli coughed quietly. “The colors of the deposed shah. Their conspicuous use is taken as a... show of solidarity with the Kamiri independence movement."

“And they are officially proscribed," the bear added. “As they have been since a provisional mandate from your company, thereafter established as law by the King's mandate. Therefore..."

“Of course, we're some distance from Tabisthalia," Rassulf began, trying to defuse the situation.

Aureli's eyes stayed low. “I don't have a problem with it, Mr. Berdanish."

“I do."

“Lord Erdurin —"

“No," the bear interrupted Rassulf, with a sharper edge to his voice than the wolf had heard before. “This time you're not dismissing me. This is a direct matter of royal prerogative. You may be more loyal to your ledgers than your country, Miss Calchott, but my oath is to my king, and though I tolerate your madness I categorically will not brook sedition."

Unfortunately Rassulf knew that the bear had a point; there was a difference between pushing boundaries and expressly violating laws. Pushing the issue was not likely to calm Haralt down; on the other hand, it did not make for a particularly warm welcome.

Before he could answer, Simrabi Kaszul nodded, removed the necklace, and folded it in her paw. “I meant no injury to you, my lord."

“Indeed," Haralt answered curtly. “On behalf of our king, I repeat my welcome and extend you the same courtesies as I would any other Aernian. If you require the crown's assistance, I am here to serve."

“No doubt, my lord." The jackal's paw stayed closed, and her face remained expressionless. When the regular Expedition affairs had been concluded, Rassulf motioned for her to stay behind.

“Miss Kaszul, I would like to clarify the terms under which you have joined our party."

“In what fashion?"

“In the fashion of where else you might go, if not the End of the World. It was suggested to me that if you returned to Kamir, the outcome might not be ideal for you."

“You mean they'd kill me? Yes, Dr. Rassulf. I know."

“If you don't want to stay, I can try to protect you. Alternatively, I can arrange asylum in my homeland... or Issenrik... or Miss Tengaru says she can find sanctuary for you in the mountains."

“You would do that?"

“I know it would not be ideal — it's a long way from the desert, and you'd likely not see your family again."

Simrabi opened her paw, which still held her necklace, and felt over the stones with her thumb. “No. But if you are sincere, doctor..."

“Of course."

The jackal flicked an ear. “Then I'll stay."

“You will?"

“I've wanted to fly since I was ten. They'll never let me in Kamir — it's why they destroy my work. They sent me here as a death sentence. Perhaps it will be. But if it's not — or if the fates give me wings for just one instant beforehand..." 

“You'll be able to work with miss Calchott?"

Her laugh was unsettlingly genuine, though her jaw remained set. “I bother her more than she bothers me — at least she has the decency for guilt. And the more I think of it, I enjoy the challenge. The Railroad always brags about how advanced they are. If one Kaszul Simrabi of Kamir is first to fly under her own power, that can never be taken from my people."

“With luck, you will be. I'm grateful you joined. And I..." he pointed to her open paw. “I apologize for the unpleasantness. Lord Erdurin can be… insistent, I suppose."

“I don't mind that." She rubbed one of the stones of her necklace between thumb and forefinger, distractedly. “I did, briefly. But he is right — as much as I might not like everything about their country, there's no reason for me to insult him by attacking his king."

“Nor was there a reason to insult you."

Finally, she smiled. “I think that he is a proud man, still finding the reason for his pride. I find no shame in the love of one's country, clearly. But while I'm here, his king is mine. I've made peace with that."

“Very well…"

“And if that is concluded, I would like to begin reconstructing my workshop. And perhaps, if you have some interest in the matter, a demonstration of my work…"

---

Finding myself glad to be at sea once more. Is this itself a form of cowardice? At times I wonder. Would it not be better to dwell on the loss? How many nights have I spent awake, recalling all those souls on the Raven? 

Dr. Röhaner told me privately that he would understand if I did not wish to continue. I don't know how to tell him that I'm more afraid of what would happen to me if I gave up. If only I could admit to the man my gratitude for the way he has saved me. 
— Personal log of Marray Medastria, captain of the steamship Otiric, 3 Æmersev 913 

Marray hadn't been specifically invited to watch the demonstration, at the Otiric's fantail, but when Rassulf mentioned it the stag decided that some curiosity was definitely called for.

In the beginning, the details of the Tannadorean Expedition hadn't really mattered to him, except for the practicalities of sailing close to a chaos storm. Figuring out the quirks and capabilities of the Otiric had been more than a full-time job, too, for the first several weeks.

Now that he felt comfortable as her captain, he allowed himself to cultivate additional interests. Jan Keering, for one; the dog had a way of grinning when she saw him that somehow served only to remind the stag of how skilled she was with her muzzle.

But he also immersed himself in Jan's engineering work, trying to learn as much as he could about how a steam engine even operated. With some effort, he had figured out the basic theory, but the role of all the pipes and valves and fittings in the boiler room escaped him. And the complex relationship between steam and speed, with the table his chief engineer referred to as the Shaft-Screw-Knots Computer, might as well have been witchcraft.

And where actual witchcraft concerned itself, Marray began to follow the work of the Tannadorean Expedition. They were a bizarre lot, and quite unlike any friends he would have made by choice. Rassulf was the easiest one to relate to — and he was a foreigner, transplanted to Aernia and making his living at the study of chaos.

He would not criticize the wolf or question his judgment in public, even if he didn't agree with every decision the Expedition's leader made. The second chance Rassulf offered him, back at the harbor bar, meant more than the world to Marray — he owed the man his loyalty. That was why he'd gone along with Rassulf's vote despite his own reservations.

Aureli Calchott wasn't all that unusual, if he ignored her hero-worship of the Carregan Transcontinental Railroad. But she was still skeptical of the stag, and his decision to keep them from returning to Tabisthalia appeared to have only confirmed her suspicions about his reliability.

Dr. Toth, the badger, had voted not to turn back also, and represented the strangest of the strange company Marray now kept. He had no sense of social mores and referred to everyone by first name. More rumors were said about Sessla-Daarian than anyone else on the ship, Marray included… and the stag had no reason to doubt any of them.

And their thaumaturgist! The snow leopardess was if anything even stranger: she spoke softly, most of the time, but he'd seen her conjure fire from thin air and Marray surmised that anyone who could do that wouldn't need to shout very often.

In this regard, the jackal Simrabi Kaszul was merely one more. Between the Menapset wasteland and the White Sea one found a host of minor principalities and city-states; Kamir was one of them, and he knew little of their history.

The wastes were full of strange, magic-using barbarians; city-states like Kamir tended to be allied more with civilized powers like the Dominion of Tiurishk, but they lived too close to the wild to be free of its influence. Probably, he decided, where she learned to make things like that…

Marray lacked the words to describe what Simrabi was holding. In one sense, it looked a little like a bird — at least, it had two wings, curved like a gull's. But it was clearly mechanical: the wings were made of thin fabric over wooden spars, and rather than being flat the machine's tail bent upwards like a shallow letter 'V.'

The skeleton of the body, also made of wood, was left uncovered so that everyone could see inside. It was empty. “This is where the helmsman will go," Simrabi explained. “When we make it for real."

Clearly no helmsman would fit in the model; even still, it was as long as the jackal was tall, and Marray had to wonder how she managed to hold it so steady.

“How does it work?" Rassulf Röhaner asked. “You call it a 'chaos glider,' right?"

“Yes." She set the machine upon a capstan. “The prow and the leading parts of the wings are enchanted to seek out areas of discordant chaos — not strongly, but enough so that the helmsman will be able to point it in the right direction."

“And then?"

Where either wing joined the body, it supported a fist-sized assemblage of what looked like jewelry: gold rings, with golden struts supporting glittering crystals of red and blue and green. Simrabi pointed to the contraption meaningfully. “Then, it is harmonized."

That didn't mean anything to Marray; he could tell by Rassulf's look that the wolf was at just as much of a loss. “I don't understand what that means, Miss Kaszul."

“A question of perspective, Dr. Röhaner," the jackal answered. “And of how one views the nature of magic. There is no correct answer, only different languages in which to speak the same word."

“This does not entirely clarify matters..."

“The mountain folk describe the answer in the words of movement. Some of the southerners use the words of color. For my people, it is always spoken of in terms of music. All magic — even everything that you call chaos — can be heard as a song." 

The word chaos, in Aernian, suggested an inherent sense of the unknowable. Certainly, Marray's experience had never given him reason to believe otherwise. It was chaos that had inexplicably clouded the skies and parted the waters of the White Sea — destruction without reason; discord without cause.

Thaumaturgy seemed just as inexplicable to the stag, in all its forms. Somehow Kio Tengaru could turn the air above her palm into a ball of flame. Somehow foreign craftsmen could make little floating trinkets and toys that they sold as curiosities in Aernian markets.

Somehow.

“Does that mean," he heard himself asking, “that you understand it? The way I do the words to a song?"

He generally remained quiet during the Expedition's meetings, when invited, and so was not surprised that they turned to look at him curiously. “Not all at once, captain. But sometimes I can hear pieces of melody. Sometimes I perceive the underlying notes. Sometimes I even notice echoes of our world's great motif. Composers grander than I have set our score, captain, and the conductors are not always clear. But yes — yes, I understand it. The way you might." 

“But I don't."

Like other mages, Simrabi's smile seemed distant and unsettling. “Where I hear music, you hear only noise. But then, where I see random ropes and pulleys you see the rigging of a sailing ship. There is no such thing as chaos. Or perhaps, everything is chaos." She turned, regarding the others so it was clear that she addressed them all. “We are only finding different metaphors to construct order from it."

“In this case, musical harmony lets you fly?" Sessla-Daarian Toth didn't sound convinced. “I'm with Marray. I don't get the connection here, Simrabi."

“When what you call chaos is harmonized, the distance between the notes creates the energy that buoys the wings of the glider. There is always some distance, and therefore always some energy. The harmonizer merely identifies the different melodies."

“And..."

The jackal puffed out her cheeks. “What if you could... what if you could somehow see that what you perceived as one color was actually a blend of two other colors. You know this happens."

“So it's a prism," Toth shrugged. “But then —"

“No, no." Kio Tengaru interrupted him, suddenly animated. “Don't you see, Dr. Toth? She's talking about a warped sieve. How do you say it — nami. Odochogo nami. Your, ah..."

“The meticulous shepherd? It's a myth. A thought experiment, spotty one. Nothing more."

Rassulf shut his eyes, and rubbed with one paw at his temple. “Might you explain the myth for our benefit, Dr. Toth?"

The badger's weary look implied that he did not think the explanation would be fruitful. He sighed, just as wearily. “Fine. It's an old legend. A shepherd was watching his flock. He noticed the dust kicked up by the sheep, and because it's bloody tedious to be a shepherd he started thinking about it."

Toth described the shepherd's musing that the cloud of dust behaved like a flock of sheep, in that it was composed of little particles. From a distance it seemed to act as one mass, but up close it was possible to see that some particles were moving in one direction, and some in another.

The shepherd wondered what would happen if he could herd them, the way his sheep were herded. If he guided all the upward-moving motes together, and all the leftward-moving motes, and so on — then there would be not one cloud but several orderly streams.

“Moreover, our fictional shepherd realized those streams could be useful. He imagined putting a windmill in their path. Like magic — useful work extracted from apparent chaos."

“The heat of water is just motion," Kio added. “Hot water boils in agitation. Cold water freezes solid. But think about pouring hot and cold water into one pot. Some of the drops are still moving quickly; some of them are barely moving. Together the pot is of middling heat. But the meticulous shepherd could separate the drops again!"

“And again, useful work could be extracted," Toth finished. “But it's just a silly thought experiment, Rassulf. Guiding the motes of dust; separating the drops of water — in all cases, the shepherd requires more effort to do his work than you get out of the result."

Marray had come to be quite impressed by Dr. Röhaner's ability to take random nonsense like what the other scientists were saying and — like such a shepherd — find something useful in it. Even though Marray was still slightly confused, the wolf seemed to have figured out the gist of the problem. “Miss Tengaru, you're saying Miss Kaszul has discovered some way around this?"

The snow leopard nodded. “I believe."

“Metaphor, Dr. Röhaner," the jackal told them. “A shepherd thinks in the language of sheep, which are individual objects. Kamiri think in the language of tone and melody. In this metaphor such harmony may indeed be found. Not easily — I am the first, and it has not been replicated. But they may be found."

She lifted the glider up, holding it in one paw. With the other, she put her finger on one of the gold rings in the interior contraption, and with a flick started it turning. The rotation was slow, at first — but rather than halting, it started to spin faster, joined in turn by its fellows. The jewels disappeared in a blur, and a lyrical humming.

Kaszul released her hold, and the glider slid from her grasp and took flight, as though completely weightless. The observers watched in silence as it gained speed and altitude; its wing dipped and it began a widening circle over the Otiric's fantail.

“How long will it fly?"

“Forever, Dr. Röhaner. Or nearly so — until the bearings of the harmonizer wear out." The jackal spread the fingers of her paw, and waved it lightly as though guiding an invisible orchestra. The glider's wing dipped; the circle tightened, and it skimmed over the watching members of the Expedition only a few feet above their heads.

“And it will carry a person?"

“Me," she amended, in answer to the question Dr. Toth had posed. “It will carry me. We are meant to have wings, my friends. I am going to give them to us."

————

Your Excellency —

The situation aboard the survey vessel Otiric continues to deteriorate. After the loss of Lieutenant Telmer Carpathish, the Tannadorean Expedition leaders have seen fit to appoint as replacement a revolutionary of Kamir. This woman, one Simrabi Kaszul, is a person of interest in the occupied Valley. 

Although I shall do my utmost to prevent any expressly seditious activity, and have already suppressed various insults against Your Excellency's authority and legitimacy, I fear that Dr. Röhaner is persuaded by the capitalist tendencies of Miss Aureli Calchott and does not understand the potential instability.

I pray that the Expedition does not worsen, and shall exert myself to its success on Your Excellency's behalf, yet remain gravely apprehensive for what is to come.
— Dispatch of Haralt Berdanish, 15th Earl Erdurin, Royal Liaison to the Tannadorean Expedition, 15 Æmersev, 914

Harald's first thought, when he heard the ship's alarm bells sounding, was that some grievous harm had finally come to the Otiric herself, and that they were foundering. This was almost certainly not the case, for when he opened his stateroom to look outside nobody seemed to be in any kind of panic — but then, why would they be? They'd never shown much concern before.

Although none of them admitted risk in anything more than academic and meaningless tones, the simple reality remained that no ship had ever returned with direct knowledge of the End of the World. And they had! They had their notes and observations, and even the Otonichi mage's musings on its magical nature.

And yet it is not good enough for them. Haralt no longer thought that they were simply mad: they were too clever for ordinary madness, and too cunning. A madman might have carried on after Telmer's decease — but would they have been able to navigate the politics required to invite a Kamiri rebel aboard a steamship with a royal charter?

The bear could conceive of two additional possibilities. Firstly, it was possible that the Tannadorean Expedition was indeed composed of true believers — scientists or adventurers so dedicated to the pursuit of whatever they thought was at the End of the World that they would be willing to continue on after such a ghastly catastrophe.

On the other hand, it was also possible that they were working at some ulterior motive. He did not know what it might have been: anything from inventing a new weapon to seizing power in Tabisthalia itself; the latter seemed most plausible.

Aureli Calchott worried him most of all. Eastern capitalists had virtually no regard for the monarchy, and the Carregan Transcontinental Railroad repeatedly evinced a misguided belief in their own independence.

Tokeli Carregan, the Railroad's president, was accused in tawdry rumors of being the mistress of the former King, Chatherral. In public Haralt considered such rumors bald affront; in private he knew them to be just as true as anyone else did.

Tokeli had shared the King's bed as a means of insinuating herself and the Railroad closer to the crown's authority. Chatherral allowed them to create their own army, and to intercede in foreign conflicts without his approval. Still they were not satisfied.

If they were satisfied, why would they have commissioned an armored frigate like the Otiric? True, its cannons had never been installed — but they were in the plans, along with the armor belt. Haralt knew, and had told Rassulf Röhaner, that the ship had even previously been named for a great naval battle and not some mythical upstart.

Rassulf Röhaner brushed it off as a coincidence, which implied that he had been completely duped by the crafty ermine. She was agitating for something that would advance the Railroad's interests, and Haralt was quite certain those interests did not align with those of the King.

But in the two months since the Expedition's formal launch nobody had listened, and he didn't think they were about to start. And now he heard alarm bells, and was caught between apprehension and relief that it might be something serious enough to end whatever threat was brewing.

He opened a hatchway onto the open deck to find a warm afternoon and, with the exception of the ominous clouds on the far horizon, rather pleasant weather, fit for a stroll. The crew were not yet running anywhere; none of the boats had been manned.

Probably another one of their foolish 'experiments,' then, the bear grumbled to himself, and made his way forward to the ship's bridge. The Expedition's senior staff tended to gather there and, sure enough, he found most of them already assembled.

“Lord Erdurin," Rassulf greeted him politely. “Thank you for coming?"

“Is there trouble, sir?"

“Company, Mr. Berdanish." Aureli turned her head in the direction of the starboard beam, which faced out to the northeast and the Meteor Islands. “Another ship."

Other navies almost never entered the Caelish; such foreign ships as could be found were merchantmen, and hugged the continent's coast on their way south to Issenrik or Maddurai.

Had the King finally heeded Haralt's dire warnings and sent them orders to return? Surely it wasn't another ship of the Expedition, or there would be no cause to sound an alarm.

“A vessel of the King's Own Navy?" Haralt suggested it, since Aureli had not. “Who else would be so far west?"

Marray Medastria, the disgraced ship's captain, joined them as he asked the question. “'Who,' indeed? Not Aernian, no, my lord. Dr. Röhaner, the lookout says he can't make out the flag, but she flies a foreign ensign."

“If it's a steamship, might be a Carregan vessel."

“Not that, either, Miss Calchott, but the sail plan is entirely bizarre. Four masts, and triangular sails — she tacks, though not well."

Captain Medastria did not speak a language Haralt understood. Reading between the lines, he gathered that the lookout had spotted a mysterious ship approaching, with no reason to be there and no known origin. Rassulf spoke first, but Haralt had reached the same conclusion: “do you think they might be pirates, captain?"

The stag shook his head. “We're far off the tradelanes and close to dangerous waters — it doesn't seem likely, but who can say? I've asked the engine room to bring up steam, and we'll man the cannons."

“Cannons?" So the Otiric is armed after all. Haralt knew the King would not have been apprised of that particular detail: by outer inspection the ship had no weapons, and the gunports in her original design lay empty.

“Two 12-pounders, of a new and experimental type. We've not even tested them at sea, yet — we should, Captain Medastria." The suggestion, unsurprisingly, came from Aureli Calchott. “Not in anger, I hope, but we should test them nonetheless."

While they waited for the other ship to draw near, Haralt went and watched the preparations. A hatchway on the ship's bow, forward of the mainmast, opened and a single artillery piece slid up and out on rails.

The 'new and experimental' part, it seemed, was that the cannon did not need to be loaded from its muzzle. Rather, it tilted back and belowdecks, so that a sheltered crew could open the breechblock and reload the weapon.

Between it and its mate at the stern, the two cannon covered a large firing arc suitable for chasing off any meddling pirates. Or, Haralt pointed out, any nation's warship that might appear — including one of the King's Own Navy.

“Well, I'd not like to try it," Marray Medastria responded to the suggestion with a chuckle. “If it comes to that, my lord, it's on account of much worse trouble. Besides, I think a ship of the line would just shrug off a little gun like that. I put my coin on the King's Own Navy."

Aureli Calchott, observing the gunnery crew checking out their equipment, laughed too. “I don't. The Iron Corps may not be experts in artillery, but I've seen very favorable reviews of the model. Oh, now, Mr. Berdanish, don't look at me like that — you know what I meant!"

Still, the bear frowned. “Not the kind of thing one jokes about in polite company."

Aureli rolled her eyes and left.

“They're not much for polite company here, my lord."

“As I am more than aware, captain. Yet it can be hard to distinguish jest, at times — perhaps you felt that way when Dr. Röhaner asked you to sail to the End of the World."

Captain Medastria looked ready to dismiss him, as usual, but the big stag paused. “At times, it can, yes, my lord. But my trust in him has not yet been misplaced, and he hasn't jested about anything so outrageous. I think you can rest comfortably."

“Until that ship closes with us."

“Aye. Until…"

The other vessel progressed slowly, with the ponderous weight of sail instead of steam. Two hours later, it had drawn within easy sight, a task admittedly eased by its great bulk.

Haralt judged it as fifty or a hundred feet longer than the Otiric, whose general plan it shared: a bow that sloped up from the waterline in a threatening ram, and high sides.

There the similarities ended. Dark wood instead of white-painted iron; a tall forecastle and poop deck instead of the Otiric's single superstructure amidships and low fantail. Four masts, rigged with undersized triangular sails each supported by a long spar, propelled her.

When she was few thousand feet distant, the water around her began to churn; Marray was the first to realize that this was the result of oarsmen, increasing her speed to close faster with the Otiric. But, with the spyglass to his eye, he added that the gunports were closed and the archery platforms of her castles seemed to be unmanned.

The strange galleass furled her sails and came alongside on oar power alone before lowering a single boat. Haralt followed Marray, Rassulf and Aureli as they went aft to investigate further.

A single occupant stood up, meeting them. Between his brilliant azure robes and the tufts on the feline's ears there was no mistaking his origins — a representative of the Dominion of Tiurishk, an empire on the far side of the Sheyib River.

The caracal introduced himself as Admiral Dizimic Betkosh; he spoke fluent Aernian and explained that the Bachbat Vaz was a vessel on a mission of peaceful exploration. He promised that it would not interfere with, and did not require assistance from, the Otiric.

“Your exploration," Rassulf pointed out with his voice modulated diplomatically, “takes you well beyond the Dominion's borders."

“As yours takes you beyond your own." The caracal placed his paws together and bowed his head in deference somewhat belied by his thin smile. “We are merely inquisitive."

“Have you spoken with your ambassador in Tabisthalia? Do you travel here with King Enthar's permission?"

Betkosh turned to Haralt, the smile flawless and unwavering. “We travel in open waters, Lord Erdurin. Your king has no claim to them. But of course, we have no quarrel; a messenger has been dispatched to Körlyda. I'm certain with your wondrous telegraph, our intentions have already been communicated."

“And those intentions are?"

None doubted that only two powers could truly claim to be supreme on the continent: the Dominion, and Aernia itself. With endless miles of wasteland and a huge river separating them, the two had yet to fight openly.

But it was not entirely so simple. The Tiurishkans openly backed some of the more recalcitrant city-states closer to Aernia's borders, for example, and resisted the expansion of the Royal Telegraph Company or the Carregan Transcontinental Railroad to the other side of the Sheyib River.

In turn, Aernia traded extensively with Ellagdra, whose margraves engaged in perpetual conflict with Tiurishkan allies in the south. And they sought to challenge the Dominion's unquestioned supremacy on the open ocean, to little effect.

The simple fact remained that a Dominion galleass had managed to sail entirely around Aernian territorial waters, and nobody could have stopped them. The Bachbat Vaz needed to present no challenge: it was a challenge, and Haralt felt he was well within his rights to ask the question.

Betkosh smirked. “Peaceful inquisition. We are nothing but explorers and lovers of science. Just like Dr. Röhaner, who will doubtless read of our findings at an open, peaceful, inquisitive academic conference in the months to come. We come as friends, and I greet you as a friend."

“I don't trust him," Haralt said, as soon as the caracal had left.

Rassulf Röhaner looked across the calm waves separating the two ships. “I don't either. But we can't do anything about it."

“Send word back, from Tarmett."

“And then what?" Aureli asked. “The King's Own Navy has nothing that can sail this far unaided, not without half a year of preparation. Core Operations has the fourth-rate Whitehammer at Port Chirel and the frigates Ith-Adral and Sergeant Emmish at Issenrik. They could be here in… three weeks, with a good wind?"

Marray Medastria had enough experience to disagree. “Longer, Miss Calchott. The winds aren't good, not from Issenrik and not this time of year."

“Why does the Railroad have warships in neutral ports?"

Aureli shot the bear a look. “Railroad affairs."

“I would be curious, myself," Marray inadvertently came to his rescue, though the stag seemed more mildly interested than anything else.

The ermine flicked her ears, and failed to hide a brief grimace. “They're… not warships, alright? Armed merchantmen — plenty of merchantmen are armed, on those trade routes. You'd know that, Mr. Medastria. It's nothing. We just…"

“Backed a rebellion in Dhamishaya with warships like that."

“Irrespective," she hissed at Haralt. “They can't help us. And if we sailed back to Tarmett, what would we say? We saw a Dominion ship two weeks' hard sailing from Ban Sorroway? Could we even find them again?"

And this point was difficult to argue. “We'll keep an eye on them, I suppose. That's all we can do. Captain Medastria, you'll dedicate a man of your watch to observe?"

“Of course, Dr. Röhaner."

Rassulf worried two of his claws together. “I do want to avoid an incident. Lord Erdurin, please prepare what information you can provide me on your country's relationships with the Dominion."

It was rare, indeed, that the wolf came to Haralt for aid; the bear was too surprised even to show it. “Naturally. You shall know everything I do."

“Good. Carry on — and mind that we don't create any new challenges for ourselves…"

————

computer finished until we find more pressure. where to start? there's always one more knot somewhere
— Jan Keering's personal diary, 18 Æmersev 913

Jan Keering's greatest secret was that she had a list of questions written down, and she refused to die until they were answered. The questions were not existential — there was nothing about the nature of the universe, or the gods of the Coral Valley.

Mostly, they were questions about the total energy contained in a pound of anthracite, and the ideal ratio of water to furnace area for a marine boiler. Some of them were more risqué — fortunately Marray had been willing to help with that.

The mutt often added to the list, when intriguing opportunities presented themselves, and the two thaumaturgists aboard the Otiric was certainly such an opportunity. She didn't know anything about magic, and unlike Rassulf Röhaner and the charmingly mad Sessla-Daarian Toth she also had never cultivated an interest.

Something about it allowed Kio Tengaru to levitate little rocks and to turn the air above her paw into a candle's flame. Something about it allowed Simrabi Kaszul's gliders to soar on their own mysterious power. That was worth investigating!

A few thaumaturgists, none of them native, made their home in the Iron Kingdom. Some of them were samans — the word was foreign — and worked at scrying and divining auspices for sailors. Even Aernian sailors were superstitious enough that, whether or not scrying actually worked, they weren't about to pass up the opportunity.

Others were more practical. They created simple charmed locks that would only open at a particular individual's touch, or little toys — paintings of snowscapes where the snow actually seemed to fall, or flying birds, or things of that nature.

Dr. Röhaner called Kio Tengaru a 'mage.' Was that different from a saman? How? Jan knocked at the door of the mountain dweller's cabin, and waited for it to open.

Kio looked puzzled to be receiving a guest. “Hello, Lady Jan."

“Good morning! May we talk, Miss Tengaru?"

The snow leopardess hesitated, still somewhat surprised. “Well… yes, I suppose. What is it that you wish to talk of, Lady Jan?"

“Just 'Jan,' — gods, you mountain folk don't even have nobility, do you? Please! Anyway…"

The dog slipped through the opened door and into what was, she realized, a very dark cabin. The porthole had been covered, and the walls were lit dimly by strange, slow rivers of warm orange.

“Fascinating — is this lava? Molten rock?"

“Only its appearance. I would not actually melt the walls of this ship." On soft, near-silent feet she padded back to her bed, and settled upon it with crossed legs. “What did you want to discuss?"

Jan was not presumptuous enough to join her on the bed. She took a chair instead, turning it to face the feline before sitting down. “I was hoping to understand magic, a little. Maybe."

In the gentle light, the mage's silver fur seemed to be glowing, and Jan was not able to determine whether or not this was simply an illusion. Her grey eyes shone, too. “What about it?"

“I was wondering what you could do with it. Your people are master craftsmen — where does crafting end and thaumaturgy begin? Do you combine them?"

Those glimmering eyes fixed her, unblinking. “You've been speaking to Dr. Toth, I suppose?"

Jan turned her paws up in an apologetic shrug. “Guilty, yes," the mutt admitted. “We Keerings have always had a reputation for pushing boundaries — like our invention of the mechanical stoker, which I know isn't all that impressive to you, maybe. Nor should it be."

“How do you mean?"

“I've seen the things you mountain folk make."

The Ishonko Mountains soared into the clouds thousands of miles inland, and few Aernians even caught sight of them. Jan knew that much of the continent's gold and silver, and all of its corundum, came from the mountains. They exported obsidian, too, far sharper than any razor.

But the Otonichi's reputation came not from raw materials but from machines. The most skilled Aernian lensmaker could barely hope to fashion a magnifying glass keen enough to see the intricate gears of Otonichi clockwork.

At a fair in Tinenfirth one had been exhibited, an automaton in the shape of an eagle. At the push of a button, it curled one wing before its beak and pecked out a quick-tempoed symphony on skillfully tuned feathers. Another button opened two silver doors in the bird's chest, from which a miniature version emerged. There were four, nested each within another, playing as a quartet.

No one else on the continent was capable of creating such a device, and Jan had her doubts that Aernians would ever be able to. Aernians would also not be able to match their aerial tramways, or what they called a “tenku noyo," a repeating, magazine-fed crossbow.

“Those things are rarely charmed," Kio said. “One with any skill doesn't need them to be."

“But they could be?"

“With a good reason, yes."

“Right!" Jan pricked up her ears and leaned forward. Her only regret was that the cabin's darkness made it impossible to write accurately in her notebook. “That's what I'm interested in! I was hoping you could help me, perhaps."

The heavy brush of Kio's tail curled up sharply, then slowly relaxed. “Help you with what, Lady Jan?"

“Everything I know, it's just so many stories. I heard a few secondhand from the Railroad folk in their special division — they've had a mage or two, I guess."

“Typical."

“I'm not interested in stories, though. I was wondering — you can enchant metal, I presume, since you use silver in your probes. You could make it stronger."

“I could…"

“Could you make it weaker, also?"

The snow leopardess cocked her head. “What?"

“Like you said, a good engineer shouldn't need magic. I think that my engines will take another twenty pounds of pressure, at least — maybe thirty. Not all the relief valves are designed for it, though. I was thinking that you could… maybe you could tell me how to ensure that a pipe fitting failed at precisely two hundred sixty pounds — as a precaution."

Kio tilted her head further, giving every indication that she felt she had not understood what was being asked of her. “You want me to break your engine?"

“No! Well — yes, but in a specific way. Dr. Toth praised your abilities extensively. Without a good metallurgical laboratory, I hoped that you might help me safely test the cylinders."

“But…"

“Is something wrong?"

“This request is the furthest from anything I had expected." She twisted her thick tail up and around her chest, gently resting her chin upon it. “I thought you would want me to teach you how to make atnai, or to burn your coal hotter…"

“Some day! I'm interested in all of that, Miss Tengaru," Jan said. “But not before I understand it, or before you think it's safe. Until then, while I hope Dr. Toth is right about the usefulness of thaumaturgy, I'd prefer to use it in ways that aren't going to break anything without me intending it first."

“Though you have had always a reputation for the pushing of boundaries…"

“Otherwise I wouldn't be here, sure. Neither would you, right?"

Kio's muzzle dipped lower, burrowing into the fluff of her tail. “I am not meant for this, though. Daari and Dr. Röhaner should not look to me as an authority."

“Then who should they look to?" The feline didn't answer. “I didn't mean it like that; I'm genuinely curious. Who would know better about this? Where are they?"

“There aren't any. It's a new field of study…"

Jan could see herself reflected in Kio's hesitation, though the mountain girl was several years younger and quite a bit more reserved. “You didn't ask for advice. But you're getting it."

“From you?"

“From me. My family, the Keerings, we've made steam engines for generations. We don't make locomotives, or looms, or anything like that, just engines. I wanted to learn more about maritime propulsion. Everyone said 'Jan, you'll never make it and it's useless to try.' Except they said it more politely, because of my family name."

A Keering — and a woman, besides — was not meant to get her paws wet. When she first read about screw propellers, and proposed to try them out, the other students had raised an eyebrow to her face and laughed uproariously behind her back.

Young and naïve though she was, nobody else at the school knew anything more because nobody else at the school was willing to investigate it. “So I am an authority… I think. You are, too. The only thing you have to do is act like it."

“You do not really understand."

“I do. You could dazzle me, I'm sure, Miss Tengaru. You could wave your paw and shower sparks everywhere and make them look like a plains greatcat about to pounce on me — I wouldn't know any better! I don't know anything about magic. None of us do. And I bet you did, didn't you?"

“Did… what?"

“Showed off. In some inn, or a lecture hall, you cast a few spells and watched us iron folk gaze at you in awe. And it was fun. Like the first time I entered an engineering competition at the school and beat all those jeering naysayers — that was fun, too."

Kio's tail wrapped more tightly around her slim neck. “Even if I did, it was only in the past. Our path is different now. There is more at stake."

“Yes. Which doesn't mean it's not fun — if I were you? If I could create a charmed mirror like you did to talk to someone else, I would have a lot of fun. But if you don't want people to be hurt, you have to bare your teeth and be assertive. You have the right to make us listen. If my idea is dangerous and you don't agree with it, tell me to sod off."

“Dr. Röhaner has already said that I am the Expedition's final… that I make the final decision, about the subtle arts." She did not sound entirely convinced. “Beyond that…"

“Then make it. Step into the role you already have, Miss Tengaru, and I think you'll find it becomes rewarding again." Jan smiled, hoping that it was welcoming in the dark cabin. “Start by telling me what you really think of my idea."

Kio's ears twitched. “I… I like that you wanted to start so simply," she said. “It is something like a spell that our rock-warpers use, to keep themselves from drawing too much at once. I believe it could be adapted. In fact…"

Jan thumped her tail, and perked up. “In fact?"

The snow leopardess spread her fingers, looking at her sharp claws, and then sighed. With a slight, hesitant smile she moved her arm in a quick arc, and the cabin's light strengthened. “Here. Let me explain…"

---

The Expedition notes for today are quite simple. We have not accomplished much. So it is here that I will record a more troubling thought, which is related: our time this season draws closer to running out. Although the weather has been generally pleasant, I cannot expect that it will endure forever.

With the Tiurishkans a constant presence, I am reminded that word of our intentions must have escaped. I know that they consider themselves to be masters of science, and I hope that they do not trouble us. But as much as I find Lord Erdurin to be a bit paranoid, I cannot argue with his skepticism.

Hopefully his worries and mine are for naught. With divine fortune, Simrabi Kaszul will be able to manufacture the device she claims will carry our equipment aloft. She believes she must fly it herself — we will see about that.
— Diary of Dr. Rassulf Keilhaf Röhaner, 4 Tænwerth 913

The Otiric had stayed at a respectful distance from the End of the World while Simrabi Kaszul worked on improving her gliders and constructing one large enough to carry a passenger. For most of the preceding two and a half weeks, the Tiurishkan galleass Bachbat Vaz did the same.

Now, according to the lookout, they seemed to be sailing in the direction of the storm. Rassulf had asked the the officer of the deck to bring them close enough to hail the other vessel; he did not know what the admiral intended but wished to avoid anything unpleasant.

Ellagadra did not generally interact with the Dominion, though they fought with her client states, and Rassulf didn't mind their presence in the same way that Haralt Berdanish and Marray Medastria did. If they wanted to research the End of the World — as clearly they did — he did not see any reason to discourage them.

At least, not as long as they maintained a degree of reason about them. Their ship was large, but also unwieldy. As the Otiric came alongside, the Bachbat Vaz furled her sails and tried to slow, but this took a great effort on the oars to overcome the inertia.

Admiral Betkosh's launch again rowed over to meet them — Aureli had joined Rassulf by this point, but the admiral was unaccompanied. “Dr. Rassulf," the caracal bowed. “May we assist you?"

“I noticed that you had unfurled your sails — are you departing?"

The Tiurishkan grinned, and pointed with an outstretched finger and a sharp claw to the west. “That way, yes. We shall be the first not merely to investigate this chaos storm — but to cross it!"

“You know how?" Aureli asked. “You've discovered a way?"

“We have theories," the admiral replied. “And we are not to be delayed further — much time has been lost already."

Rassulf wondered how much of the cost had been in time and how much had been in supplies — for no word to have reached him or Lord Erdurin, the galleass must have avoided any Aernian patrols, which implied a substantial detour to the north.

The wolf understood what this meant; their Tiurishkan counterparts were under pressure to successfully finish their assignment not only before the weather turned but also before they ran out of food and water. All the same, he stressed again to the other captain the danger of the storms.

“We've already suffered one tragedy," he added, to underscore the threat they faced. “The storm overwhelmed our balloonist. We, too, thought we knew enough to get close. But…"

“Ellagdran," Admiral Betkosh cut him off curtly. “I'm not interested in stories. We will succeed — we have already come too far to turn back. If all you wish to do is stop us, this meeting is over."

“It's not an idle threat." Despite Aureli Calchott's words, the bright summer day and the distance of the storm just beyond the horizon — at their present position mostly a line of dark clouds — made them ring hollow. “We're trying to help."

“Help by heaving to and letting us be. When we return, we'll share our results with you and you can try on your own. Until then, stay clear of our bow."

Rassulf pressed his fingers together and silently weighed his next move. He tried to put himself in Dizimic Betkosh's place: a captain just as proud of his own crew, and just as certain of their abilities. “Admiral, do I gather that you wish to make your attempt soon? But not necessarily today…"

“Yet we shall today, doctor."

“Hold for at least a brief spell. If you allow me an hour, I'll prepare copies of our most relevant notes — if you're set on challenging the tempest, please, at least allow us to help prepare you."

Dizimic Betkosh was willing to countenance the short delay, although Aureli expressed her surprise at the offer as the pair made their way back to the Expedition's meeting room. “Why are you doing this?"

“Because we should. I fear for their safety — like you do, Miss Calchott, I presume. If we can do anything…"

He already had copies of most of the material; it was his habit to rewrite a second version of the reports he was given, for he intended to send a complete set back to his homeland.

And an hour's delay gave him an opportunity to call the rest of the Expedition together. “Dr. Toth, Miss Tengaru — I'm looking to you on this. They say they can cross the End of the World. How?" He himself did not know of any option that seemed plausible.

Nor did they. “If I knew of way to do it, Rassulf, you'd be the first to know. Hells, I would've told you to do it last month."

“Maybe some old Dominion knowledge? I'm not aware of anything from any libraries in my homeland, or in the Iron Kingdom, but what of you, Miss Tengaru? Did you hear hints of anything the Tiurishkans might have unearthed?"

“No, sir." The snow leopard shook her head, looking unsettled. “I don't know what they might have found."

“We could use force to turn them back, might we not, Doctor Röhaner? The royal decree that we own all waters from our coast to the sunset remains in force."

“I'd rather not shell them, Lord Erdurin." The Ellagdrans were an inland race, with no affinity for the water; even still the idea that an Aernian king could simply assert his ownership of the ocean did not sit well with him. “I'm more interested in what they might know."

The Expedition was running out of time to guess that, though; so while she was not an official member Rassulf beckoned Simrabi Kaszul in when the jackal appeared outside the door. “Are you discussing the Tiurishkan ship?"

“Yes."

“I know that it's not my place, but…"

Rassulf felt his ears prick — and then, when he saw how her own were lowered, a sudden chill. “What? What's not your place?"

“Miss Tengaru. Do you… hear something?"

The snow leopard blinked and slowly shook her head. “No, I do not. What do you mean?"

“A chorus calls distantly to me. A muffled chorus — hidden. Silenced." Simrabi made her way closer to the table, her long ears down, her tail tucked, and her gait hesitant. “The song does not halt for breath. The words are indistinct."

With a tense jerk and an odd squeak, Kio drew away from Simrabi — and the rest of them. “No!"

“You hear it, too." 

Her eyes had gone wide. “Don't — don't even joke about that!"

“But you do." 

Rassulf swung his head between the two mages. “If you know something, please — I can't follow."

Simrabi reached her paw out, taking Kio's wrist and squeezing it comfortingly. “You know of the runes that mark the tones of the Deep Song, do you not? No one knows now the melody, but it was scribed first on the black teeth of the one we call Gos Sul-Gos."

“No. I don't know."

“Ya Goslü, in old Tiurishkan. 'The one who shatters.' After his defeat in the World Before, only his teeth remained. Still they talk. They have many voices."

Aureli gasped a quiet gods preserve us, and then raised her voice above the shocked whisper. “You mean a warped alembic, don't you?"

“Black teeth. The wailing stones."

Rassulf guessed that Simrabi referred to some recounting of the apocalypse that had ended the World Before — all traditions had some variant of it. “Can you please explain?"

“They won't." Sessla-Daarian Toth, even, was uncharacteristically reserved. His eyes had narrowed; both they and his spectacles had a cold glint. “Not without a bunch of mystical circumlocution."

“You will?"

“A good thaumaturge can do more than just transmute charmed essence. They can store it, too, like a spring. They have problems getting it out, though — like how you know there's a lot of energy in a piece of anthracite, but you have to burn it first. It has to reach a certain temperature. Expert thaumaturgists can find ways to extract the essence from coal without burning it."

Rassulf shrugged. “So?"

“So, kindling is easier to light than wood, but gives less heat. Wood is easier to light than coal — but gives less heat. There are things with lots and lots of charmed power that even the most advanced cannot unlock. But a warped alembic can."

“It makes their job easier?"

Kio Tengaru shook her head violently. “No. Not just."

“With a warped alembic, Kio could capture the energy of a thunderstorm. Or a waterfall. The storm itself would vanish, and she could use that energy for… anything. The terms are used interchangeably, but incorrectly — an alembic is only part of a stone. Just the way it extracts energy. A complete stone can also contain it, in vast quantities." The badger's eyes fell on the others, each in turn, in the menacing silence. “The name wailing stone comes because it turns out that a very rich source of charmed energy is a living being. Apparently, you can still hear the voices of the consumed."

His blood ran cold. “Akina maa."

Toth nodded.

In the center of the Dead City, according to the report of the only man to visit it and return, there rose a great obsidian stepped pyramid. It drank in the rays of the sun, darkening the city itself as it floated under a cloudless sky.

The Hakasi, denizens of the Dead City, were mostly content to stay there. But sometimes they sallied forth — sometimes, on fleet, silent steeds that had once been horses or something worse, they swept down on frontier towns and carried the residents away.

Neda Kitanagi, the Otonichi explorer who was the source of the only actual knowledge of the Dead City, said that their captives were kept bound in some form of stasis, as a spider does with a trapped insect. And he described the day of what the Hakasi called akina maa.

Either he had not been permitted to observe it or he had not been able to bring himself to write it down. All he said was that the obsidian pyramid turned somehow to brilliant, clear glass. And in his death poem, written shortly before he tossed himself into a magma chasm back in his mountain home, he had expressed a hope that the voices calling to him would finally be silent.

“I came across hinted references in some of the old books, when I was investigating thaumaturgy for my own ends," Dr. Toth said. “It must be the same process, between what the Hakasi do and what a warped alembic does — but we don't know for sure."

“The technique for crafting a wailing stone was lost when the Hakasi were chased from the north," Simrabi added. “And all that were known to exist have been destroyed, and the souls within them freed."

“But you and Miss Tengaru think they have one on that ship?"

“Simrabi says 'known to exist,'" Dr. Toth said, and then chuckled darkly. “But there are rumors. A few must've survived. I chased one called Sebgeti — they all have names — but the trail ended with a dioscurian cult that died out twenty-five years ago."

“According to a legend we heard in Kamir, the stone Zarovan lives at the heart of Körlyda, and is responsible for their great power." Simrabi's tone didn't tell Rassulf whether she believed it one way or the other, and he still had a hard time understanding whether the stones were anything but myth.

“Is it? Are they real?"

Dr. Toth looked over his shoulder, out the porthole in the direction of the Bachbat Vaz. “It seems we might find out. Of course, Rassulf, I have another question — and so should you."

“What?"

“Why did Aureli know? It's an old spook story for the mages, sure — and me, well, I'm a madman and I gravitate to mad legends. What about you, Railroad-girl?"

All eyes, the wolf's included, fell on her. The ermine bit her lip. “We know legends, too, Dr. Toth." 

“Miss Calchott, if you know anything that could help us…"

“Legends. That's all."

By the way she shifted on her feet, though, Rassulf gathered it was not 'all.' “Miss Calchott, that ship is about to sail for the End of the World, and for the first time I'm hearing about some… some terrible myth about wailing stones and souls — and the Hakasi. Please, Miss Calchott."

“I'm sworn to secrecy on certain internal matters, Dr. Röhaner. I'm sorry."

He couldn't help his frustrated growl. “Fine. If they are real, and the admiral does have one — would they be able to use it to cross the End of the World?"

“It's not…" Kio, too, started to answer and then froze up. “Well…"

The wolf snarled, and slammed his fist down on the table — channeling the pain that ran up his arm into a furious shout. “Damn it! This isn't the time for this! I need to trust you!"

“It's not that," the snow leopard choked. “Please. I want to help, but please, Dr. Röhaner, understand that these matters are… they aren't merely taboo. Even discussing such things is… it's never done…"

“It's done now!" he snapped. “You saw what happened to Lieutenant Carpathish. That was one person. This is a whole damned ship full of them, and you can't even tell me if you're just repeating an old horror story! We're scientists! In the name of every fucking god you all believe in, stop —"

“They're not a myth. The Railroad has one."

Aureli had cut his growl off with a quiet admission that startled them as much as the ordinarily reserved wolf's outburst. They all stared at the ermine. “I thought you were sworn to secrecy."

“I am. With good fortune, they won't kill me for this. I hope it's worth it, Dr. Röhaner." She took a deep breath. “I haven't seen it myself, but I know it's in the archives — our hidden library. Even I don't know its location; only the Ravens do."

“But it's real."

“I trust that it is. Its name is Tavak."

“The Lame Tortoise," Simrabi said. “From the crucible at Izkadi — it was lost with Farish the Mad."

“Farish escaped to the desert. For three hundred years he hid in a valley in the Menapset Wastes. Six decades ago, our spies uncovered information that pointed us in his direction. He's dead now — and a division and a half of the Iron Corps. Sixteen thousand men. According to the after-action report, it was a worthwhile sacrifice."

“And you used it, didn't you?" Kio sounded as certain as she was horrified. “It wouldn't have been worthwhile unless you used it…"

“To clear the Dalrath, yes. To defeat the unified tribes there. The mage who wielded it is dead. As I understand it, he had to be killed. Those who are too close to an alembic seem to go mad. That is why we have never used it since, and why its existence is such a closely guarded secret."

He was unhappy that such a secret had been kept from him, but that discussion would need to come later. “What are they planning? No, right — we can't know that for certain. Miss Kaszul and Miss Tengaru, can you conjecture as to what you might do, if your task was to cross the End of the World and you had such a thing at your command?"

The degree of discomfort that both of the mages felt, and expressed in their shared glance at one another, unsettled Rassulf more than anything else. Even after the disaster with Carpathish, Kio had not been so nervously withdrawn.

“Could you use it as a sort of shield?" Dr. Toth asked. “I heard that an alembic and its reservoir has nearly unlimited potential to store energy. Couldn't you absorb enough of it to protect yourself from the rest?"

“No. If it were magma, or a blizzard, perhaps." The snow leopardess was clearly taxing herself to even consider what he had said. “But the End of the World is pure chaos. Its behavior is completely unpredictable."

“Maybe someone with one of those things can overcome that."

“No, Dr. Toth," she insisted heatedly. “You think that the chaos storm can be harnessed in some way — it cannot! And with — with… with…"

Quivering, she fell silent. To Rassulf's shock, the badger's reaction was not to chide her, or call her names. Instead he put an arm around her, both steadying and gently hugging the mountain feline. “Alright, alright."

Exigent circumstances forced Rassulf to swallow his surprise. “Miss Kaszul?"

“The question cannot be answered. You may as well ask how a torch could be brightened by bringing the sun down to earth — the torch would cease to matter."

The hour was up before they had made any progress. Rassulf settled on a direct approach with the admiral. “Our notes will not help you, I fear, Admiral Betkosh. The risk is too great to make the attempt. All I can do is ask you to turn back."

“Nonsense!"

“I know you have an ancient artifact with you — a wailing stone. That's what you're planning to use." He hoped that revealing their knowledge might reinforce the seriousness of his objection.

Instead, Betkosh straightened up with pride. “The emperor himself gifted it to me. It is the most precious gem in all of the Dominion, and he said that my quest is its destiny. So don't tell me what risk is too great. I've seen what they can overcome."

“If you try to —"

“If you try to stop me, dog, you'll be the first demonstration. Now, will you shut your muzzle or do you intend to waste more of my time? The day wanes already, and yet you ramble on in affairs you do not even comprehend — what shall it be?"

He did not know what else to do; what else to say. Betkosh snorted at the silence, shook his head, and ordered his oarsmen to take them back to the Bachbat Vaz. At the last moment, Betkosh turned to look over his shoulder, and sneer:

“Watch and learn, dog. Watch, and learn."