The Tannadorean Expedition reaches the End of the World, faces its first major challenge, and is forced to make a weighty decision about how much overcoming that challenge is worth.

Here is the third part of There Shall Be Wings, in which the last of the major players (Haralt, 15th Earl Erdurin) gets a narrative part and in which the Expedition hits its first crisis. Thanks to :iconSpudz: for help getting this off the ground, so to speak -- and sorry this took so long to get posted!

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 3: "Illusions of Godhead"

---

Do you remember how your brother Iza said that one day he would find a ruby too big for even father to carry? You were old enough to laugh his hubris. You thought only a cub could be so boldly foolish.

You knew nothing of hubris. Why did you think you could do this, little Kiojo? How can you return? What would Iza say? 
— Memory-stone of Kio Tengaru, 11th day of 4th chase, year 577

“Ready. Three. Two. One. Fire! Distance — mark!"

Kio closed her eyes, and tried to concentrate on the little bundle that Rassulf had fired, out towards the chaos storm on the horizon. How far away was it? Nobody knew. That was her job, but…

Focus. Feel for it…

But despite her best efforts at meditation, no sooner had her target disappeared from sight than she could no longer make any sense of the way it perturbed her thoughts.

The storm's position seemed to be fixed; it was the only bit of good luck they had encountered so far. It was neither coming closer nor receding — it remained as an angry, twisting ribbon bounding the edge of the world in violent fire. And nothing about it made sense. Nothing!

Her mentor, the great Noga Pishderu, said that magic could be unpredictable. It has a spirit, Kio. A personality. You must learn to accept that. Befriend it. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it did not — that was why they used spells, after all, or magic charms. It gave them a mnemonic to work from, something to focus on.

Itashkigo fangteh Pishderu, she murmured. Ane irohashon. Help me. 

Pishderu's voice in her head was silent.

Rassulf was firing a small package, tied to the end of a five-hundred yard line. Inside it was wrapped a small totem, the ofeng chowa, a sacred stone from Kio's mountain home. It was nothing much — not like the monstrous, enchanted carvings that came from the Dead City. But she had carried it with her for fifteen years, long enough to know by heart how it felt in her paw, or ten feet away, or ten miles.

The snow leopard hoped that by firing it a fixed distance and judging the feeling of the charm in her mind, she could get a sense for how strong the magic of the warp affected things. Too much, was the obvious answer. At times the stone pulsed so strongly she thought it was right beside her; at others, it seemed to be hundreds of miles away. There was no rhyme or reason — nothing sensible she could divine.

Sighing, she made a few notes in her book and told Dr. Röhaner to haul the line in again.

“Any more luck?" the wolf asked.

She shook her head. “This is, I must say, a very strange place indeed."

“We always knew that…" Rassulf still seemed to be optimistic — but then, they were keeping a good distance from the worst of the storm, and they had yet to run through all of their options for investigating it. Two days after arriving, the Otiric was still a horizon's length away from the End of the World.

A dozen fruitless casts later, the wolf collected them in the book-filled room he had designated as the expedition's headquarters. Aureli Calchott, the weasel who represented Carregan Transcontinental, paced back and forth, chewing her lip. “Do we need to get closer?"

“Yes."

Kio knew that Sessla-Daarian Toth would've been the one to suggest it. She had grown accustomed to his rashness. “Not without knowing more about it, Dr. Toth."

“In two days," the badger countered, “what have we learned? We've learned that you can't predict anything about it, and we're too far away to draw any conclusions from our own instruments. The automatons we designed — what's their range? Two miles. How far away are we?"

“Fifteen, at least," Kio admitted. “But for safety's sake… Dr. Röhaner…"

The mountain folk were naturally cautious. Rashness led people to fall off cliffs; it provoked avalanches and cave-ins. Perhaps in the ghastly open heathlands of Aernia there was no consequence for rushing blindly ahead, but Kio Tengaru had long been drilled on the necessity of caution.

Of course there were limits. She had been willing to descend from the mountains, after all — worse still, she had been willing to put to sea, with the stars glaring down from a cloudless sky and the horrid blank horizon yawning all around them.

Rassulf looked to Aureli Calchott, as if seeking her counsel, and then made the decision on his own. “Tomorrow morning, Miss Tengaru. If you haven't gleaned anything useful by then, I'll have Captain Medastria bring the ship in closer."

“About time," Toth grunted.

“Dr. Röhaner…"

“I'm sympathetic to your concerns," the wolf said. “But Dr. Toth is right. We're not accomplishing anything this far out. We should be cautious, Kio, but we can't be crippled by our fear."

Decorum meant that she was obliged to defer to him; even without decorum, she trusted him — he had sided with her enough, before, for the snow leopard to believe that he was doing what he thought was right. But she worked with a renewed drive, through the evening and into the night, trying everything she knew to pierce the veil of the tempest off the ship's prow.

Nothing. Nothing worked. She was, at last, forced to concede.

The night passed without sleep; Kio was no stranger to such nights, having trained herself well to best them. She stood apprehensively at the ship's railing, straining her eyes as, behind them, the dawn stole nearer.

Not that it was ever truly dark. Hideous, whirling flame kept the clouds on the horizon at a constant boil. At night, tongues of green and purple sky-fire lapped at the stars, bright enough to see by. When the sun set behind the clouds, they refracted it like a prism, casting spears of colored light in every direction.

Her father was a miner. Once, he had taken a young Kio down many old tunnels, into the heart of the mountain where the rock-warpers dwelled, crooning to the liquid depths and spinning them into the energy that fed the furnaces and the water-distilleries and the light of the cavern-farms.

Even from the rim, the heat was oppressive. A thousand feet below, molten rock bubbled and grumbled, white-hot and painful to look at. Tunnels dug all the way to the surface sucked cold mountain air in — the only thing that kept it in any way bearable.

From time to time the rock-warpers drew a spiraling ribbon of rock from the white lake up, up, in a huge arc to where the tendrils of the old enchanting-lines could capture its power. The rock shrieked as it cooled, deepening to red and then a crackling, deep, cold black. Then it fell again, to begin a cycle that, according to legend, was older than the dawn of time itself.

That was the memory that the chaos storm evoked. Kio had the sense that she was looking into something primordial and monstrous — the same energy that bubbled and surged below the mountains. Only here there were no mages to bring it to heel, and her father's reassuring paw was an eternity away.

“You're worried." Sessla-Daarian had not, it seemed, had any more luck sleeping.

“Of course I'm worried."

“So am I."

“You?"

The badger hauled himself up, standing on the lowest railing. Even still he was shorter than she by an inch or so — as was his habit, all the emphasis came from his force of personality. “Look at that! How could you be anything but worried?"

“I thought you'd be excited."

“Yes," the badger agreed. “I am. But I'm only reckless, spotty one, not mad."

Kio smiled, and thought of everything she'd heard. “I heard a rumor that you were both. Removed from your school and your… otah runga." 

“Patron. Yes, spotty one, that's true. Of all the iron things my people love, the chains they bind their thinking with are by far their favorite." Mindful of his precarious position — half his bulk was above the topmost rail — he dropped back to the deck. “They like only what they can beat with a hammer."

“What happened?"

The badger scoffed. “They ran up against the limits of their own weakness, is what."

“Weakness, Dr. Toth?"

He raised one bushy eyebrow, as if trying to decide whether the story was worth telling. “Hm. You really want to know?"

Kio looked off towards the horizon again. “Better than that I hear from the rumor-makers, is it not? I've heard everything from that you tried to assassinate a prince to that you tried to find immortality." She did not think that he was violent or political, so the first seemed unlikely. But the subtle arts exerted their draw in even subtler ways, sometimes…

“I was at a market in Stanlira when I found a necklace. The merchant thought that it was merely some ordinary diamond but I recognized it as a Kahnayan eyestone." 

To the east of the Iron Kingdom, the wastes that separated Aernia from Tiurishk and the inland empires was sparsely populated by tribes too diverse and numerous for Kio to know individually. Probably, she guessed, Toth also did not know the difference between the Kahnai and the Sujetai and the Alrajji.

Some of them used magic, to some degree or another — minor enchantments to their weapons, mostly, or in harvest rituals that were not nearly so influential as they assumed. Eyestones were not uncommon; they allowed a wielder to focus their talents, and properly controlled they also stored some amount of thaumaturgic energy.

“Those are dangerous," Kio pointed out. “In the wrong hands." They were not so terrifying as the wailing stones crafted in dark times now forgotten, which could drain the very essence from a living being, but nor were they something to be trifled with.

“And also very powerful. I have little natural talent, spotty one, not like you — yet even I could tell it was still charmed. I was able to draw the energy off by way of a Dobtan Loom, however. Oh, yes, yes. I know how you must feel about that."

The word was Tiurishkan, although the dobtanaç predated the Dominion of Tiurishk by many centuries. Dobtanal koshminlït were ancient devices; exposed to thaumaturgic energy they hummed and spun and wobbled. A skilled mage could find many uses for such behavior. “Those are not for you, Dr. Toth — they… they require years of training, and even then…"

“So I was told." 

“I don't even know where you would've found one. The knowledge to make them…"

“An expedition into Kessea."

Nobody knew what Kessea had been in the World Before. Now it was a sprawling field of ruins, and although a set of piers suggested it might once have been a port, it was sixty miles inland from the White Sea.

It was at Kessea that most archaeological work was done, from those who could tolerate the thaumaturgic aberrations. Those who stayed too long became sickly; their bodies developed strange diseases that could not be cured by any conventional medicine.

Those Aernians who had any interest in the subtle arts frequently attributed this to Kessea, whose imposing columns and weathered, decaying stone buildings hinted at what had once been glorious and powerful.

Kio knew of the city, however, only from drawings. There were rumored equivalents in the wild mountains to the southeast of her homeland, but no good Otonichi ever explored there and she was not about to be the first.

“You went yourself?" 

“I did. I volunteered to help a team of young, silly pups — because I was the only one who knew the kinds of things they might find there."

“Like a Dobtan Loom."

“Precisely. When I connected it to the well at the university complex, the loom powered the pump for nearly a week off that one eyestone. And do you know what they did to me when they found out? Do you suppose they congratulated me for my ingenuity?" 

The snow leopard cocked her head at him. Clearly, she knew the answer — the college had fired him; possibly the rumors were even true that he'd been exiled from the city. But nothing in his face suggested any guilt whatsoever at his actions.

Certainly, he should've felt some. To have treated magic so cavalierly, as something to be consumed like the Iron Kingdom burnt coal and wood, was a grave sin. And with a start, she understood that it went further than that:

“That's… why you're here. That," she said, looking pointedly towards the horizon. “Where I seek to understand, you think you could… tame the chaos…"

There was still not a trace of humility in his expression. “Whoever learns how to control it would be the master of this entire continent. That kind of power could do so much…"

“But…"

“You can do clever things, spotty one. But there are people with talents far beyond your own — did you ever peruse the report of the Dalrath Expedition? No, of course you did not: it was locked away in the Carregan Archives, under guard of their damned Ravens — the secret police. Have you ever met a Raven, Kio?"

Carregan Transcontinental, by nearly any measure one of the most powerful entities in the Known World, had created more than its share of legends. The 'Ravens,' a mysterious, cultish guild, were only one of these; she knew of them only distantly. “No."

“Hope that it stays that way. The things I had to do to sneak a copy of that report…" His expression flickered, momentarily subdued. “The Railroad spent a fortune on a spur line from Tilladen to Salketh to New Jarankyld. It crosses the Dalrath — leagues and leagues of impenetrable forest."

“Which they penetrated, because your kind have never had much patience for nature."

“No." Toth chuckled, though it lacked mirth. “In the forest, they found a tribe of the same barbarians that destroyed the city of Old Jarankyld. According to the report, they were ancient. Immortal. They could raise the dead, spotty one."

“Rumors. Myth."

“Lord Corywck died on account of that myth. Dr. Carregan clearly believed them, and she went on to bankroll this expedition."

The very idea made Kio's blood run cold — to say nothing of how nonchalantly the badger hinted at it. Was it true, then? He was after the secret of death itself? “Dr. Toth, you don't think that… you would…"

She found herself grateful for the way he shuddered. “Gods no. There are limits to even my madness. But who knows what the limitations are? Who knows what we could do? I want to be the one to find out. And although I was able to barter with Aureli for access to most of the expedition's report, there are things that were sealed even to me. I want to figure out why!"

The problem with the Aernians, Kio felt, was that they were overly focused on power and conquest. Nothing was ever good enough for the Iron Kingdom; no border was ever too expansive.

In this they rivaled Angbasa, the Dead City that floated somewhere in the wastes of the continent's inland, well to the south. Its inhabitants were the ultimate magic-users; it was rumored that they wore no clothes, even, simply cloaks of air drawn to condensation about them.

They had a strange belief in the unique purity of the charmed realm; it was known that they occasionally raided outlying towns and it was said that they sacrificed their captives to draw the very essence of life from them. Toth had never mentioned the Dead City, and the threat was far indeed from the Iron Kingdom… but it must've been on his mind.

It must, though he had never mentioned it either, consumed the thoughts of Rassulf Röhaner. His people were the closest to Angbasa, and sacrificed the most to keep them at bay. So was that his goal as well? Did he, too, want to find some ultimate power to protect his homeland?

“What makes you think that you could be trusted with it?"

Dr. Toth looked at her sideways. “With what?"

“That kind of power."

“Do you ask me rhetorically?"

“'Rhetorically'?"

“Kobah zhung nishekido."

“A question that answers itself," she echoed in his own tongue, “or one that does not wish to be answered?" 

“Either. Did you want one?"

She nodded to him.

“I don't care about power, spotty one. Not in the way of kings and princes, at least. With what I knew of that eyestone, I could've done far more interesting things. I could've sold that knowledge to Carregan for ten times the price of this ship. I could've found a way to reverse the Dobtan process, and turned the eyestone into the most powerful bomb in our history. I could've charmed a rifle bullet and taken out the King himself. But power…"

Kio rarely saw the badger at a loss for words. “Is not for you?"

“A confession, spotty one, before we go back to fighting. When I think of my legacy, I do not want to be known as the emperor who seized the Iron Throne. Nor do I want to be known for a statue in the central square of Tabisthalia, as much as they do love their statues. I want my legacy to be a field of golden wheat growing in the middle of the Menapset, in the desert where generations of men said nothing would ever grow again. When I see Kessea, I do not think of what mistakes we have made. I look at the wind wearing down those buildings and I think… I think it is time we took our world back."

The snow leopard listened carefully, her tail slowly curling and twisting. “You think we can."

“But not by shying from either darkness or light. New trails are rarely safe for the ones who first tread them."

It's strange, how his madness is so… reassuring. Noga Pishderu would not understand this one. But then, did she? “A confession," she offered. “Before we go back to fighting." 

“Oh?"

“My talents aren't working. I can't… I can't make anything of this place. Even my most basic spells — they're…" She gritted her teeth. “Dr. Röhaner trusts me to help him, but it takes all my strength even to know where I am — who I am — what day it is…"

“Of course." 

Kio twitched. “Of course?"

“You're in a new world, spotty one. How do you find your way underground, without the stars to guide you? How do you tell which way is north when you're in a forest and can't see the sun? You have to find a new way to orient yourself."

“I don't know how."

“But you will." When she looked at him, questioning his faith in her abilities, the badger grinned. “Otherwise, they'll have to trust me instead. Fortunately I'm sure it won't come to that."

---

Your Excellency —

The Expedition has reached the End of the World, as planned, and it is everything that we might have feared. There does not appear to be a way of surmounting this obstacle, although the other members of the Expedition persist in the attempt. 

At sea, and divorced of any mediating influence such as Tabisthalia provided, they become more rash and irrational still. I believe that they will insist on a closer survey of the storm that we have found, although it defies any explanation or description — far worse than the clinical terms that Dr. Röhaner employs in his official journals.

Were prudence in their vocabulary, we should retire to digest the information we have so far gathered. In Your Majesty's wise name, I shall counsel them to such a rational decision, but fear they will accept nothing less than the risk of life itself.
— Dispatch of Haralt Berdanish, 15th Earl Erdurin, Royal Liaison to the Tannadorean Expedition, 12 Deyrnsev, 913

Not for the first time, Haralt found himself pacing the deck and thoroughly ignored. Against all good judgment the Expedition was staffed near-entirely with foreigners, none of whom had any respect for the Lodestone Sovereign. And of the Aernians, most of them were ignorant sailors or iconoclasts like Aureli Calchott.

There was, of course, something to be said for the Railroad, which had done much to extend the Iron Kingdom's reach. And King Enthar's father, Chatherral, had been quite close to Tokeli Carregan in his day — not that Haralt would have countenanced any of the less-than-seemly rumors that surrounded the relationship.

But Aureli simply failed to understand that the Expedition was a joint project, and that King Enthar VII had just as much a say in what transpired as any capitalist. She'd been dismissing Haralt since the very beginning, brushing aside his objections on the widening scope of their mission and the worrying number of outsiders who had been brought aboard.

They were a motley crew of rebels and ruffians, as far as he was concerned. Dr. Röhaner seemed to be a decent fellow, for an Ellagdran, and the best of them despite knowing precious few Aernian graces. Easterners like Aureli and Jan Keering had so little decorum he doubted if they had ever been to finishing school. Sessla-Daarian Toth was never without his horrid redleaf and most of the sailors had even worse habits.

And that was to say nothing of Marray Medastrian, the disgraced drunk who had somehow found himself captain of their steamship. Dr. Rassulf Röhaner explained that the stag had acquitted himself well since taking over the command... but Haralt had seen the records, and he knew what the man had done.

Once again he was being ignored. The Otiric was drawing closer and closer to the terrifying storm at the horizon; by now there was no way to avoid looking at it, for it stretched miles above them and dominated the view before the ship's prow.

“Do you really think this is wise?" he prodded Dr. Röhaner.

The wolf was overseeing some additional preparations, the nature of which escaped Haralt. “So far the effects seem quite manageable, Lord Erdurin."

Manageable! At least he called Haralt by his proper name; most of them couldn't even be bothered to do that much. “Originally you said that we would maintain a safe distance. I should remind you, Dr. Röhaner, that the original mandate of the Tannadorean Expedition was to collect information about this... ghastly thing. Now I hear talk about crossing it!"

“What better way would there be to collect information, Mr. Berdanish?" Sessla-Daarian Toth, the awful badger scientist, always seemed to wear a smirking grin when around Lord Erdurin. “I'm sure the king will understand that — or that you can explain it to him. That's your job, right?"

He would not be able to explain anything, however, if they all wound up dead, consumed in a furious maelstrom. Haralt did not, exactly, know why this was such a difficult concept to convey. Perhaps they were all insane. 

If so, it fell to him to be the voice of reason. Was not his father, Duke of Cirth-Arren, one of the oldest friends of Arkenprince Tullen? Was not Tullen widely considered to be, among all of the Old Council, the closest to the king himself? Surely King Enthar had entrusted the expedition to such a loyal servant for a reason — and surely such reason was not merely bearing the insults of an unlanded commoner like Toth.

“Careful who you insult," Haralt warned, putting on the calmest air he could manage. “I serve as the king's liaison. My voice is the royal prerogative." 

“Equal to the Railroad's prerogative," Aureli Calchott reminded him. “With the final decisions to be made by Dr. Röhaner. This was all stipulated, Mr. Berdanish."

They forgot his title and the honor he was due deliberately, he was sure of it — and it was just the kind of thing they would do to the bear. “Miss Calchott, I'm not disputing the organization of the expedition. I would not wish to impugn the capabilities or the honor of your employer in such a fashion. However, pragmatism must dictate that if we cannot achieve our goals using the methods available to us, we must re-evaluate either the methods or the goals."

“Who says we can't achieve it, eh?" Dr. Toth stepped back from the machine they had been working on to ask the question. It was a strange machine, a fish-shaped automaton packed with clockwork, and utterly incomprehensible. Sessla-Daarian and Kio Tengaru — yet another foreigner, and even ignoring the badger's madness 'Sessla-Daarian' was hardly a good Aernian name, either — were its creators.

“With this?" 

“Kio and I have figured out a way to extend the range far beyond what we originally intended. We'll be able to maintain a comfortable safe distance, courtesy of the magic of Otonichi spark."

Haralt failed to find this convincing. “Unpredictable magic from an unpredictable authority. Dr. Toth — and I use that title extremely loosely — you have no reason to believe this will work at all."

“Miss Tengaru is our authority, Lord Erdurin. Even if all the details of the subtle arts are beyond you and I..."

But hadn't they been waiting more than two full days for the outlander to come up with something from all her vaunted talents? “According to you, Dr. Röhaner, but I've not seen anything to suggest even she knows much of the... subtle arts."

“Spotty one," Toth interjected, and pulled a cigar from his breast pocket. The snow leopardess looked at him oddly for a moment — so briefly that Haralt thought he might've missed something. Then she turned her paw upwards, and a bit of flame sprung to life between her spread fingers. The badger lit his cigar, took a puff, and just as nonchalantly turned back to the machine. “She knows them, your highness."

“Fine. But..."

“Dr. Röhaner, we're ready," Kio spoke before he could finish his thoughts. “It should travel for six miles, and then return."

Rassulf nodded, and without any further ceremony Toth and the snow leopardess carried the automaton to the railing and tossed it overboard. Haralt followed, long enough to watch the thing's wake begin to spread behind it as it raced for the horizon. “Return with what? The information you need?"

Kio nodded. “The interior has some... mm. Docho? Yadocho hika..."

“Precision," Toth muttered around his cigar.

“Ah yes. Yes. Some precisionly tuned objects. How they are affected will tell us much about how the storm behaves."

Haralt didn't dislike the snow leopardess; at least, she was better than most of them. Like all proper Aernians he had no taste for thaumaturgy and felt that her own proclivity was a bit unfortunate, but she tried to be decent. “We can learn enough to make some proper conclusions, then?"

“Yes. I hope so," she amended, smiling apologetically. “It will take some time to read the instruments, of course."

Of course. And why do I have the feeling that only you will be able to read them properly? Haralt bit his tongue, and with the rest of them he watched the horizon, long after the machine's wake had disappeared.

According to Dr. Toth, the whole process was intended to take around forty-five minutes. For once, the badger was right; the ship's lookout spotted the contraption's flag bobbing at the surface, and a boat was sent to bring it back.

Toth and Kio met the boat when it pulled alongside, and Haralt perceived an immediate change in their mood. He didn't understand what the snow leopardess said — only that it was gasped between wide, startled lips, and that her badger companion frowned darkly when she said it.

Wise in the subtle arts or not, even Haralt could tell at once that something was wrong. The machine was twisted, bent as though the wood of its skeleton had somehow melted, and the mechanical fin that served for a keel was pockmarked and cratered.

“What happened?" Dr. Röhaner asked, as the two scientists set their device down on a table indoors — away from the eerie light of the storm, thankfully. “Did it... was it... did the storm get it?"

“It shouldn't have." Toth chewed and worried his cigar, staring at the wreck. “We purified it — cleansed it of everything. That's why we chose to use clockwork instead of anything charmed. If it had any sort of thaumaturgic character left, it was too little to register."

“For us," Kio corrected. “But perhaps the chaos is great enough to turn even such a whisper into shouting. Dr. Toth, the experimental chamber..." 

Haralt had never seen Toth so careful. The badger gingerly pulled from the thing a small silver cylinder, touching it as though he expected it might bite him. When it did not, he uncapped it, and tapped the container against the table until it gave up its contents.

What in the name of the gods am I looking at? All he could discern was a limp, black thing the shape of a postage stamp, a short length of gold wire, a tiny pebble, and a glass disk. These were supposed to be measuring devices?

Whatever they were, though, Kio looked concerned. “The kisari leaf has rotted completely. I can't even tell the first thing about it."

“We had a small glass capsule filled with some kind of... incense-heavy air, damned if I know why, but Kio said it was important. It's that now," Toth pointed to the disk. “I guess..."

“So it melted? It got very hot, near the storm?" Aureli Calchott suggested.

“No. If it was hot enough to melt glass, it would've done more than decompose the kisari leaf." Kio shook her head, obviously unsettled to such a degree that Haralt thought he might finally be finding an ally. “I did not expect the gold coil to unwind itself, either — heat alone would not do that."

“And the rock?"

Words looked to be failing her. “A... an... I don't — Dr. Toth?"

“Some charmed stone from her mountain, Aureli. We cleansed that, too. It's a sort of... a dampener. Supposed to absorb any stray or unexpected magic inside the probe. That was the theory."

“It didn't, is what you're saying."

Neither of the two answered. Dr. Röhaner looked across the table at the ermine, catching her eye. “Is Miss Calchott correct, Dr. Toth? You can't actually insulate anything from the chaos?"

“The silver chamber was supposed to do that. The truth is that... I don't know that we understand what we're up against. For some reason, the dampener didn't absorb anything. Apparently. Kio?"

The snow leopard's tail twirled and waved, accenting her distraught agitation. “I can't hear it anymore. I..." She took a deep breath and reached across the table for the stone.

All at the same moment Haralt heard her scream, felt a tingling heat wash over the room, and saw a flash of light. Violet sparks raced up the mountain-dweller's arm before she could pull it away.

“Kio!" Dr. Röhaner and Dr. Toth shouted it at the same time.

The snow leopard was in a heap on the floor. She twitched, groaned, and slowly got back to her feet. “I..." 

Sessla-Daarian grasped her wrist, helping her up. “Are you..." 

“Fine. The... the stone..." It was gone, replaced by a pile of fine ash. “I've never seen that happen before."

There was a knock at the hatch, and when it opened Marray Medastrian stepped inside. “We heard a scream. Is anyone hurt?" 

Aureli settled on understatement: “Startled."

“Did your experiment work?"

“No, captain." Rassulf Röhaner couldn't seem to take his eyes from Kio, who was brushing her fur back into place nervously. “We had some unexpected problems."

“Would you welcome some company at that?" The stag closed the door behind him, and pulled a compass from inside his overcoat. The needle jerked and spun erratically. “Mine, and the ship's own. They've gotten worse and worse the closer we get."

“Can you still keep our position?"

“Yes, doctor. And our rough heading, based on the position of the sun. But the quartermaster reports that our barometer is the same way, and the temperature gauge — they read however they please." 

“We have to turn back."

The others in the room turned to look at Haralt. The bear hadn't felt that his suggestion was in any way controversial — not with their instruments unreliable and even their best expert at thaumatology incapacitated.

“This is madness," he said. “How do you intend to perform any research if nothing works? We should return — at best, to divine a new strategy."

“But we're here now," Dr. Röhaner countered. “We might as well make the best of it."

“The best of what, sir?"

“Ambition, Mr. Berdanish." Aureli took some pleasure in baiting him, he was certain of it. “Now we have a sense of what we're facing. All that remains is to overcome it." As though it was just that simple. They would not be satisfied until blood had been shed on account of such ambition.

Gods willing, Your Majesty, it does not come to that…

---

“Two steps forward, one step back." Out here it's more like two steps forward, one to the side, another two steps straight up in the air — I should be worried, but this is a fascinating problem to solve! I think even Kio is getting into it. How can you tell?
— Journal of Sessla-Daarian Toth, 14 Deynrsev, 913

Sessla-Daarian Toth's father was a major in the King's Own Army. His grandfather had been a general. His great-grandfather was a sergeant-major, decorated with the Iron Crown medal for his valor in the Battle of Mallor Plain.

They were immigrants from one of the states of the Ellagdran Confederacy, Rassulf's homeland, and brought the Confederacy's famous passion for all that had to do with battles and drills. Great-grandfather Balach Toth had viewed his medal as a sort of vindication on the part of his new home.

That was how things worked, as Sessla-Daarian understood it, in Ellagdra as well. Anyone who was willing to serve could become a citizen of the Confederacy; anyone born in the Confederacy who was not willing to serve was also not worthy of being a citizen. The younger badger did not care one way or the other.

Fortunately his older brother was willing to carry on the legacy, and as a boy Sessla-Daarian had been left in peace to stalk the museums and academies of his hometown. This was just as well: martial glory did not inspire him.

But the museums did. Artifacts from the World Before, and old steam engines, and chemistry experiments all pointed towards the same inescapable, fantastic conclusion: the most incomprehensible thing about the world was that it was, in fact, comprehensible.

Not to say that there weren't obstacles to be overcome. People were fearful of the unknown. They wanted to hide behind safe walls and shade their eyes rather than face the sunlight. Daari — for he was “Daari" to his close acquaintances; no-one else ever asked — had never understood that sort of cowardice.

According to legend, the use of engineered technology and magic had once gone hand in hand. According to legend, men had once infused every machine with a charmed heart. According to legend, this symbiosis had created such terrible weapons that the world itself was rent…

And now the very notion itself was grounds for reprisal. Toth had received his very first patent at the age of eight, for a new gearing arrangement to be used in the conveyors that transported ore inside furnaces. Once, he had been seen as a genius with limitless potential.

But the idea that his inventions might be enhanced with thaumaturgy had branded him immediately as a heretic and a madman, so iconoclastic that when Dr. Röhaner began assembling his expedition he knew at once. Half a dozen scientists had mentioned it to him within the same week, hoping to be rid of him.

For now, they'd succeeded. Blind, closed-minded fools. How was the Continent to regain its former glory if they fought with one hand behind their back at all times? How could you even call yourself a scholar if you refused to consider the possibility that, just perhaps, the ancient legends were not to be trusted?

That having been said, it was hard to say that he was making progress. The Otiric steamed in a slow circle, keeping the chaos storm at a respectable distance, and aboard the cruiser the Expedition was circling, too.

None of their probes worked. None of his ideas held up to the skepticism of the other members of the Expedition. Now, notebook open to a blank page, he sat at a table across from Kio Tengaru and tried to distract himself. His best thoughts came to him when he was distracted.

On his last day in Stanlira, waiting for the train to take him to Tabisthalia, he'd purchased a toy from an Ellagdran merchant. The toy itself was a simple iron cube, with a heavy disc inside it mounted on an axle. Pushing a button imparted some force to the axle, and as one kept pushing the disc spun faster and faster.

Fast enough, and the box took on a curious character. It resisted being tilted, as though a magical force was acting upon it to keep it in the same position. It was possible indeed to rest it on one of its corners, where it would remain strangely aloft until the disc had slowed sufficiently.

Most of the sailors scoffed at the contraption as magical itself, which to the badger's thinking was itself a problem. They did not understand that every single part of its behavior was quite predictable, entirely within the realm of physics.

He set the box on its corner, and watched it from his peripheral vision. The empty notebook leered at him, mocking. You think you're so smart, it said: well, then figure out how to solve this.

Kio was meditating in her own way. Her eyes were closed; in her paws she held what looked like a tangle of straw. The short, straight rods were attracted to each other, by magic or magnetism; when she pressed them with her fingers the tangle retained its structure. 

According to Kio, the movements of her fingers were unconscious and when she felt like she was finished the sculpture could be 'read' to divine some hidden meaning. It always looked random to Daari.

The snow leopardess opened her eyes. “Your toy, Dr. Toth. It is hard to concentrate when you are playing with that thing."

“Why?"

“The noise. Listen to it."

It did hum a bit, when set upon the table; Toth thought of it as a soothing, constant sound like running water or falling rain. “So?"

“It agitates."

“Oh, calm down, spotty one." He liked Kio, more than he liked most of them, but the feline was far too sensitive to such 'disturbances.' “You can block it out."

“I cannot."

“Try."

Instead she set her sculpture down on the table, a jumble of tiny sticks in completely chaotic assortment. “Look. Look at her."

“It's a pile of sticks."

“Otofong kengzo," she corrected him sharply. “See how she is agitateful. Can you not? Your little toy makes her agitateful."

Generally her grasp of the Iron Tongue was passable; it did not surprise him that agitated was one of the words she used so freely. Kio was often agitated. “You can't ignore it?"

Eyes, grey like her fur, narrowed. “No. If it was always same-like, I could — maybe. But it changes sound when it gets tired. It makes the table sing. That makes the kengzo sing."

“You're six feet away! You can manage, I'm sure."

“It doesn't matter. It…" Her eyes were still narrowed, but now they blinked a few times. He caught her tail twitching, the way it sometimes did when she was thinking.

“Kio?"

“Give that to me. Your toy. Give it."

The Otonichi girl could be nearly as stubborn as Toth himself; he knew there was no point in arguing. Lifting it from the table, he gave it to her for inspection. “Don't break it, spotty one."

She felt the Ellagdran toy with her fingers; turned it over in her paw. “It makes the table sing… which makes the kengzo sing…"

“Which agitates. Yes. I know."

“But…"

But she was calming down? But she was interested in the toy? “Yes?"

“Intizohen rachuzani." 

Toth grunted. “'Listen carefully,' yes. Fine. To what?"

“Saying. Proverb. Intizohen rachuzani, bohu rangzo tu chita gi te kesh songakira. They say it to the young ones, when they go exploring."

“Listen carefully, because the mountain and pond is full of echoes?" Toth's analytical mind had given him an affinity for picking up languages, but he had no concern for proverbs and no respect for their origins. Most of the time they amounted to tedious nonsense.

“Yes. You could become lost."

“Cute, I suppose," he said; such little quips often were. They were the same kind of sayings that kept his people from being able to conceive of a universe where they were not bound by their idiotic superstitions. “But not accurate. Ponds don't echo. Something might echo across a pond."

“But they do echo, Dr. Toth. When the ripple hits the far shore, then it echoes back to you, doesn't it? Isn't it not so?"

“Cargal'th," he swore under his breath. “The pond is a medium that carries a ripple. Like the table is a medium that carries the vibration of the toy... and agitates your little... your sticks. If I dropped some kind of stone in the... in the aether, then you could listen to the ripples."

“No — well — yes. But not — ah. The toka is too..." She wiggled her paws together erratically. “Too much noise. Like the sea. Yes? Someone has dropped a stone in this sea once, but you can't see any ripples can you? No."

“Then..."

“But. We could connect two objects by means of a charmed tie..."

“Like a Weird Cantilever? A Franklyn Device? They used them in the southern railroad. It's a bridge supported at one end with a thaumaturgic connection to the bedrock that anchors it." Only the Carregan Railroad was reckless enough to try such experiments and get away with it. “Like that?"

Kio nodded quickly. It was why he put up with the Otonichi girl's quirks — when she became excited about something, she was as unstoppable as he was. “We could send something into the chaos and listen to it even until it is, ah... consumed by the storm."

“You could presumably even use that to communicate. Charm a window so that what it showed on the other side was something far away." He had heard rumors of such a device, invented by Dhamishi mages, but had never been able to track one down himself.

The frustration made him bristle momentarily. Dhamishaya was a colony of the Aernian Empire now — Aernian scientists should've been scrambling to devour every last one of the old country's secrets. But no. No, it's all 'those fucking savages' and 'primitive magic.' The 'sympathetic aetherscope,' as he'd heard it called, might stay lost forever.

Kio, at least, knew what he was talking about, although she said that it used different principles — more conventional magic that would break down so close to the End of the World. Using a magical bond to chain two things together was too simplistic for most mages. Too inelegant; too much like something that could be done physically.

“How close to the chaos storm would you still be able to connect them?"

“I don't know. I might be able to separate them from the... from what you call the aether. If we did that, then perhaps they would only affect each other, not the chaos. I think... I'd have to try." 

“You should, then."

His own thoughts were racing, faster still after Kio retired to her quarters. It was something the snow leopardess had said, about ponds — but they do echo, Dr. Toth! Why did that seem interesting to him? She was right; in the Caelish, any ripples from Aernia's shore had long since dissipated.

But then again...

The table isn't anything like the pond at all. The table is rigid — more like connecting things with a wire. Like the way we used to tie two cups together with a piece of string. If the string was pulled taut you could speak into one end, and be heard at the other, even a few dozen feet away.

The pond wasn't rigid. The ripples were a completely different artifact altogether. They were simply carrying a vibration — the way water rippled when you stuck a tuning fork into it. But actually, if you think about it like —

“Dr. Toth?"

“Dr. Röhaner?"

The wolf looked at the still-empty notebook and shook his head. “We're not making as much progress as we thought, are we?"

“Do you want my real opinion?"

Rassulf chuckled, his voice weary. “You will provide it anyway, won't you?"

“The plans were always aggressive, even unreasonable. I'm mad, remember, and I know that much. There were going to be setbacks."

“Lord Erdurin believes we should abandon the attempt entirely."

Daari snorted, and in case the wolf did not pick up on the derision involved he went further: “Lord Erdurin is an idiot. Worse, a coward. I can't abide them. Those inbred western lords with their bloody aristocracy? Gods, they're worse than braying pack mules. You can at least eat a pack mule."

“He is your superior, though, is he not?"

“He weighs more, if that's what you mean. The Aultlands are tired and weak, Rassulf. All they have is their history now — everything new and strong is in the east. Why do you think there are so many outlanders here? Why d'you think they had to find you and Kio? That damn bear with his damned royal mandate has never seen anything like us. He doesn't understand it."

Sessla-Daarian Toth was not a 'people person'; he did not take it upon himself to put up with them. But even he could see that Rassulf knew the truth about Lord Erdurin, and that only politeness kept him from agreeing. “All the same, if we're to stay out here we need to have something to show for it."

“We might."

“Yourself and miss Tengaru?"

“Aye. She's working now."

The wolf nodded slowly. “I look forward to seeing the result."

So did Sessla-Daarian. Rather than going to his cabin to work on a proposal for a new experiment, he stayed in the Expedition's commons area where Kio would know where to find him.

Three pages of conjecture and experimental design later, he was fetching a fresh cigar from the case in his jacket pocket when the door opened. The mountain girl perked up at his presence, and quickly hopped inside.

“Hello, Dr. Toth."

“Hello, spotty one." He hesitated before lighting the cigar, expectantly. The answer took prompting. “Good news?"

“Yes. It works as we hoped it would." She held up two thin silver rings, placing one on the table before him and holding the other in her paw, where it dangled from a thin chain. When she snapped her finger against it, the ring hummed — and its partner rattled excitedly against the table.

He finally struck the match, waiting until the cigar caught and inhaling the taste of rich smoke. “Impressive."

“We will need to experiment more, of course. But... that's not all. I realized when I was connecting them. Dr. Toth... why do a sailor use a compass? What does she do?" Kio was obviously pleased with herself, from the way her eyes danced and her grammar faltered.

“The needle of a compass points north. By comparing which way that is to which way you're facing, you can determine your direction."

“But not here. Here she goes everywhere." Her finger twirled around and around, and as it jostled the ring she still held its partner wobbled on the tabletop. “Why?"

“The storm, I suppose. But aside from chaos, normally, a compass points to the north. And most sailors aren't near chaos storms, so it works the rest of the time."

“But it doesn't. What happen when you put a piece of lodestone near the compass. The needle turns. Has the stone moved suddenlike the direction of north?"

Toth took a contemplative puff, and tried to guess where she might be going. “What are you getting at, spotty one?"

“The compass is designed for the world. It listens to the conditions of the world. When what is around you change, then it doesn't work anymore."

“Yes... I suppose..."

“But that is also for magic."

The badger furrowed his brow, for despite his interest in thaumaturgy he had no actual talent for the craft. “You mean you need a basic reference. A magnetic pole, of sorts."

“Think. I want to make something... lift up! Dr. Toth, which way is up? This, to him I must listen."

“So if the local conditions change, you would need to recalibrate. Like adjusting for magnetic declination. Captain Medastria's navigator has a map that shows how the compass has to be adjusted..."

She nodded eagerly. “For me it's more... ah... ah, complication. There are many currents you have to feel for. But! I can build a compass!"

“So even if you don't know where absolute 'north' is..." He attempted to convey his understanding that 'north' was a metaphor by quoting it with his fingers. “You could find a way to center yourself... here. Against a different reference."

“Yes. I try already." She flicked her finger in his direction, and the tip of his cigar blossomed into momentarily brilliant flame. Another wave of her paw twisted the smoke into a tight circle, then banished it altogether. “Right now simple! But do you see?"

“You have your talent back. It's good news, for sure. I've been doing some thinking, myself — and I have an idea."

Kio's tail curled like the smoke from his cigar. She was in far too good of a mood: “That's dangerous. You are mad, you know."

“I know. Have you done any more investigating of what you said yesterday? That the chaos seems to amplify and distort charmed energy?"

“I have! And it's true! Was your idea that we could use weaker charm and — oh! And if we could measure the amplification, we could… hmm…"

“No. Not quite. Hear me out. You said that it would be possible to listen to the aether directly. Correct? It might be difficult, or confusing, but you could. You could 'hear' something taking place back in Tabisthalia." 

“Well... yes. Faintly..."

He waved his free paw briskly to halt her. “Fine. It's possible; that's all I need to know. How?"

“'How' what?"

“How do you hear it? How is it transmitted?"

Now it was her turn to look at him curiously; to wonder what he was proposing. “I... don't know, Dr. Toth."

“Through the aether?"

“I suppose it must be, in some way, yes."

“Retiz tells us there's an equivalency between charm and non-charm. You may not agree with all of it, but the aether has to interact with normal matter in some fashion, so there must be some equivalency. Correct?"

Scientific thaumatology was almost entirely the province of Tiurishkans like Retiz; most magic-users were too concerned with mnemonics and spells to care about equations, and most academics too dismissive of magic to think about studying it so rationally. Kio had to be brought around with difficulty. “Some. Perhaps. Yes."

Daari allowed himself a dramatic puff on his cigar. “So what happens when the density of matter increases? If charm is linked to normal matter, what happens when there's less of it?"

Slowly, slowly, the badger watched her puzzle it through in her own mind. “The chaotic effect might be less, too… we built the automaton for the water, but if… if we go up…"

“Then just perhaps we could get close enough to find something out about this damned thing."

It was the sort of solution the badger was always coming up with; the sort he'd frustrated her with before. Too reckless, and too rational, and too speculative. Kio looked from his striped face to his cigar, and snapped her paw sharply. The cigar went out.

“Hey!"

She grinned and, safe from the risk of being burned, threw her arms around him in a hug. “Yes! You're right!"

“I am?"

“I think." Her grey eyes shone happily, even after she stepped back from him again. “Except now… now we have to test it."

---

Day 33: We have gathered numerous records on water temperature and air pressure, but every path to more direct observation has been frustrated. Now, Dr. Toth and Miss Tengaru have proposed a way forward.

It is their belief that to approach more closely, we must do so from a great altitude. The best means of doing this remain open to discussion, yet all involved in the Expedition feel that this is a problem that can be solved. Spirits are lifting once more.
— Tannadorean Expedition Record, 15 Deyrnsev, 913

Now, at last, Rassulf felt that they had a possible solution. Dr. Toth presented it, standing in for Kio Tengaru — who had taken the opportunity to catch up on the sleep she clearly needed. According to Toth, the connection between the magical realm and the physical one offered them a way to investigate the chaos storm up close.

After taking a few hours to meditate, and to review his previous research on the nature of chaos, he decided that the conclusion was sound. This was his summary to Aureli Calchott; he attempted to convey, as well, Sessla-Daarian Toth's certainty on the matter.

“And do you trust him?" The way Aureli asked the question spoke volumes. It said both that she knew the expected answer was “no," and that she suspected he might just trust the badger anyway. She was grinning, too: “We have found ourselves in a world with very few choices, Dr. Röhaner."

“Besides trusting men like that, you mean. I wish only that I understood them more — either of the two."

“You're supposed to be the foremost scholar of this phenomenon," the ermine reminded him.

It was an irony not lost on Rassulf, who studied chaos with no magical talent of his own. “What they're saying seems plausible. It would also explain certain things that we already know… or that I have come to suspect."

“You're not surprised, then."

“Surprised? No. It's something that comes out in all the stories, too — chaos is always associated with strong natural phenomena. Storms, skyfire, winds, rain... in the legends, it's all because the gods chose to visit their wrath upon us for dabbling in the mystic arts. And..."

Aureli canted her head when he stopped to gather his thoughts. “'And' you don't believe that?"

“Perhaps I do. It wasn't what I was going to say, though. I have been considering something they say about Angbasa."

“The Dead City?"

The wolf nodded. Angbasa's precise location was not known; nobody dared explore closer, and nobody returned from it anyway. The city was said to float silently, above the desert, drifting glacially. “I choose not to call it that. It suggests a certain mythologizing. Angbasa is real enough without the stories." 

“There are plenty of those, though."

Indeed there were. Angbasa's inhabitants, the Hakasi, had been chased from the north centuries before. They were said to be the ultimate users of magic — that was how the city levitated, how its spires were built, and how its inhabitants communicated. “One myth in particular comes to mind. It's said that once upon a time that desert was fertile. Abundant rivers, wild forests — much like your country."

“It certainly isn't now."

“No. According to our historians, the Hakasi used that to build their city. Now there's nothing — not even weather. A steady wind, like our Kaltethner, is the only thing at all. The rivers turn to miasma and marsh; the clouds evaporate. It seems to me that they have used the magic energy of the world so thoroughly that there is nothing left."

Aureli understood what he was getting at. “Which means that we also could seek out some path that would take us to an area of low energy. Altitude, in other words."

“In other words."

At the next morning's staff meeting, he ended his summary with that quandary. “We'd need some way to get a probe up above the clouds. That's well over ten thousand feet — at least, for we have no good understanding of the cloud tops. It looks like it goes higher still. It doesn't behave like it would back on the continent."

“We have the observation balloon," Aureli suggested. “That might be a suitable launching platform."

“There's no way to make a balloon maneuverable enough. We need something nimbler. And, ideally, one we could control to avoid any disturbances," he added, as though the difficulties were not already great enough.

Lieutenant Caparthish stepped forward. “Which I can do. You doubt me?"

“I didn't mean it as an insult, lieutenant. Merely as a clear statement of the facts we have before us."

“With which I absolutely must disagree. I've ridden out storms before. You don't understand how flexible we can be."

“You saw what it does to the instruments, lieutenant," Rassulf said. “I don't doubt that you've gone aloft in ill weather before, but... that, out there, is hardly ordinary weather."

A shrug of her shoulders and a wave of her hand served to introduce the vixen's dismissiveness. “Dr. Toth says it's a question of altitude. I've acclimated before, and with an air supply I can endure that — at least long enough for some observations."

“How high?" the badger asked. “Can't do much observing from above the clouds, after all. And that's the goal."

The King's Own Army primarily used its balloon corps to direct the aim of its artillery pieces, but Telmer explained that they had also conducted a number of experiments to determine the endurance of their crew. “Two miles at a minimum. Believe me, the world is a very different place from two miles aloft. We could do more, I firmly believe, but we never had the chance."

Rassulf's familiarity with the Aernian army was limited; his people had, fortunately, never really come to blows with the Iron Kingdom, separated as they were by leagues and leagues of empty wasteland. “You think we could do that with the balloons we have on hand?"

“With certain modifications, of course! I don't want to brag, Dr. Runer, but you southerners just don't understand the air like we do. In the experimental company we believed that a Marrithic-type balloon could easily get to an altitude of five or six miles — limited by our supply of air, naturally."

The vixen was offering more than an idle boast, to be sure; she might have mispronounced his name, but the King's Own Army was the only one to have experimented with balloon flight. “Dr. Toth, could we provide a small crew with oxygen for long enough to collect some readings?"

“Yes. Sure. That doesn't solve the problem of movement, does it? What happens if the currents change?"

“We'll rise above them. Find more favorable ones. I'm not saying it isn't dangerous, lads, but — well. Better to die on the post of a new frontier than to live at home wondering what you might have been able to do."

Rassulf stroked his muzzle slowly, weighing options he did not truly have: if the balloons didn't work, they'd be left back where they started. They would, indeed, be left very nearly all the way back in Tabisthalia. “Dr. Toth, do you have another suggestion?"

“I do." 

The wolf turned, ears pricked in surprise. “Kio?" She had spoken up, leaving Toth chewing in silent agitation on his cigar. “What is it?"

“Some of your people have experimented with flying. On the wind."

“Valley kites, yes." Most of the direct translations were more obscene, and referred to the kites' unfortunate tendency to kill their users. The kites, made of fabric and wooden spars, would be launched from the edge of a cliff onto the updrafts of the Kaltethner that howled incessantly through the Confederacy's valleys. “Foolish pups fly them to show how brave they are."

“Have you heard of Simrabi Kaszul? You, Dr. Röhaner, or you, lieutenant? Kaszul is from Kamir. I spoke with a few Kamiri on my journeys before I joined your expedition, Dr. Röhaner. Among other things, they're working on a similar idea..."

Rassulf and Sessla-Daarian Toth realized the implication at the same time, but the badger was first to voice it: “Only using magic, naturally."

“Yes." The snow leopard fidgeted, aware that for once she was the one proposing something radical. “I see it working there. In Kaszul's laboratory, it flew as quick and sharp as a swallow."

“How big was it, though?"

“The size of this table. But from their explanation, I think it could be made much larger. Large enough."

Lieutenant Carpathish pointed out the obvious. “You think it could. Balloons are proven technology, and we know they'd work here. The problem, according to Dr. Toth — and you — was just the altitude. I'm telling you how to get around that. I can explain the modifications to the gas envelope — breathing is another matter, but…"

“You have compressed air, if I'm not mistaken, right?" Aureli asked.

“Indeed, ma'am. It's only as a supplement, good for fifteen minutes or so — but that's enough, if you're acclimated. I am."

Dr. Röhaner focused on the problem, rather than the boast. “Dr. Toth, is that something you could work on improving? I know the workshop has some limitations, but if anyone can manage…"

“Sure, Rassulf. I'll take a look."

It didn't settle the issue absolutely, but at least it would keep them busy. He ended the staff meeting without a final decision, and asked Aureli to stay behind. “What do you know of the Kamiri?"

“They're a puppet state, notionally aligned to the Iron Kingdom. The Kamir War was fought with the Railroad, though — don't forget that."

For various reasons, earned and unearned, Railroad employees tended in Rassulf's experience to assume that everyone knew everything about the company. “I didn't know it in the first place."

“Before the Kamir War, they were an independent city-state, mostly faithful to the Dominion even though they're on the western side of the great river. They tried to hold a train hostage and the Iron Corps was brought in." 

This was the name of Carregan Transcontinental's mercenary army, held by some to be one of the strongest militaries on the continent. As an Ellagdran, Rassulf would only smile at that suggestion — but no doubt they'd been more than enough for a minor principality. “They know charmcraft?"

“Some. They're influenced by the Sujetai and the other inland barbarians — howling magic-drunk fools that they are." Aureli shrugged. “I haven't heard of this Simrabi Kaszul, but it's certainly possible that Miss Tengaru has an accurate recall." 

“But another delay... another untested, unproven technology... why are you smiling, miss Calchott?"

“Everything here started unproven. Why do you think Carregan Transcontinental approved the financing for this expedition in the first place? You really should meet Dr. Rescat Carregan; she's a very interesting woman. If we fail, but learn by failing, then we're that much closer to success. Rescat taught me that." 

There was something to be said for such pragmatism, but Rassulf was not inclined to settle for a litany of failures. The wolf had a simple goal — crossing the End of the World — and producing curiosities for Railroad engineers did not accomplish that. “That's your recommendation, then?"

“Indeed. I'll have the Kamiri sent for."

“In which case, we'll see. But we should stick with what we know until we can't any longer…"

---

Lieutenant Carpathish's report. Deyrnsev 18, 913AF. Morning.

Finally I will have an opportunity to really show the Expedition what the Royal Flying Corps can do! To show Aureli what the Railroad could accomplish with one of these balloons… This may be a simple test, but beyond its scientific value I fully intend to make them proud of what we've done.

The challenge is not minor. I will be sailing into the heart of a chaos storm, which they claim is quite dangerous — and I certainly trust them. But what better way than to prove those doubters wrong?

Winds from the west at 4 knots.
Temperature 61 degrees.
Barometric pressure: 28 inches.
Balloon condition: Superlative.

Telmer Carpathish checked her gauges over and over again. The obsessiveness bordered on religious ritual, but every last part of it had a purely rational explanation in the vixen's mind.

She was alone. Not merely alone in the balloon's gondola, but without the support of the Flying Corps. There was no one to check her work; to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything… and to describe the territory as 'uncharted' was understatement beyond compare.

When her commander asked for volunteers, Lieutenant Carpathish had volunteered immediately. The End of the World — who couldn't be excited by an opportunity like that?

Her first glimpse of the chaos storm had thrilled her. She heard the whispers from the sailors, and even some of the civilians — the constantly fretting bear, for example. They didn't see the excitement. They didn't see the adventure. They were terrified of it, and she was not. 

Mostly.

Whatever trepidation she felt, Telmer hid it until she was already aloft, ascending steadily and watching the pressure gauge that monitored her altitude. The End of the World!

Not bad, for the daughter of an ironmonger who had tried to tell her that she would be happiest as a farmer's wife in Perashire. They'll ruin you in the Army, he'd warned. It had escalated, then, to when they cast you out, you'll find nobody wants a mule-driving bitch and finally if you leave, Telmer, you're not coming back.

The altimeter put her at just over a thousand feet. If she leaned over the edge of the gondola, she could still see the Otiric, and the taut tether that bound them together. Nor, the lieutenant had been told, was it the only connection.

Kio, the spotted Otonichi thaumaturgist, had explained the silver mirror now fixed inside the balloon. It was bound in some charmed fashion to its counterpart on the steamship. The contraption worked perfectly — before. Now it was time to test how well it performed in the real world. Telmer ran her finger over the mirror's rim; it darkened and rippled to her touch. 

“Ahoy, Otiric." 

“Hello, lieutenant." The voice on the other end was the expedition's leader, Rassulf Röhaner — it sounded as though the wolf was right next to her in the gondola. “Everything is well?"

“Everything is well," she confirmed to him. “I am at roughly one thousand, five hundred feet. The wind currents are steady and predictable."

“The linemaster reports three hundred feet remain, lieutenant."

Telmer took a deep breath and reached out for the iron handle at the balloon's end of the rope. “Standing by to cut the tether."

“Rudder amidships!" The voice, more distant, sounded like Captain Medastria; he settled any doubts a second later, speaking directly to her. “Lieutenant, away tether on our mark. Five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One. Mark."

The vixen pulled on the handle as hard as she could, and it slipped its sturdy hook free of the line, which fell immediately back towards the ocean. The linemaster had used the final seconds to pay out additional slack — it was dangerous to release a taut rope — but the separation was clean and gentle.

“Lieutenant," Dr. Röhaner still sounded perfectly clear. “Can you hear us?"

“Aye, doctor."

“Wonderful. Very well — proceed."

Six hours earlier, while she was preparing for the mission, Lord Erdurin had pulled her aside to express his 'sincere, grave concerns.' Telmer had little respect for the bear, a professional worrier whose first response to every situation was to remind people of his authority, speaking as a representative of the king.

“What do you want, Lord Erdurin?"

He looked up at the balloon, which was still being inflated. “Are you quite certain that this is a wise idea, lieutenant?"

The vixen turned to him, hoping her stare implied sufficient dismissiveness. “You don't think so? Which part do you dislike, my lord? What expertise in ballooning has led you to this conclusion?"

Haralt puffed himself up, looking rather less like a bear than some frightened animal trying to discourage a predator. “I don't need to be an expert balloonist to know that trying to fly into that thing" — here he wheeled, and pointed to the roiling storm on the horizon — “is unwise!" 

“And yet the leaders of this project disagree. As do I. Lord Erdurin, you worry too much."

The bear stayed puffed, trying to straighten up enough to add an inch or so to his height. “It's more than that."

It was, of course. Beyond the bear's timidity one had also to contend with his insecurity, and with his arrogance. That was almost certainly not what he meant. “What is it, then?"

“Well, as you know, this expedition is a shared project between King Enthar and the Carregan Transcontinental Railroad. And you, lieutenant, are like me."

Crossing her arms over her chest, she intensified her glare. “I am not 'like you,' Lord Erdurin."

“I mean that you're not like those outlanders, and you're not like the Railroad's people. You serve the king. You are a soldier in the Royal Army — the King's Own Army. If something were to happen to you…"

He was, she realized, worried about how it would look if a royal official, rather than a foreigner or a company employee, were to suffer harm. It might reflect poorly on King Enthar — to say nothing of his representative. “There's an alternative, I suppose."

Haralt tilted his head, looking at her hopefully. “Yes? There is?"

“It succeeds wildly, and the king is able to take credit for it — rather than… how did you put it? Outlanders and Railroad people?"

The hopeful look faded. “But that's such a risk…"

“Which is mine to take, Lord Erdurin. Not yours."

Telmer Carpathish did not need chaperones. She knew that she could do her job, and even if she was going where no balloonist ever had before, there was no reason to think that she could not succeed.

At the water's surface, the winds blew mostly away from the chaos storm, and this proved to be true all the way up to five thousand feet. By six thousand, she had found a current that carried her in the direction of the clouds. She surveyed the instruments and recorded the information dutifully in her log before calling it back down to the Otiric.

Nobody expected that they would be able to cross the End of the World on the first attempt; her goal was to get as close to it as she dared, and to glean as much as possible from what she saw. 

'Observation' was intended to be the mission of the Royal Flying Corps, although no Aernian military expedition had yet put it to the test in a combat. In theory, though…

In theory, a balloon could stay high above a battlefield, watching the army's cannon fire and seeing where it landed. It would permit an artilleryman to shoot well beyond his own line of sight — and to shoot accurately, which had never truly been the province of the King's Own Army.

Her practical experience was limited to drills and surveying — hardly the excitement she'd craved at her enlistment. Looking west, to the chaos storm, Telmer started to feel adrenaline prickling her veins. It took some effort to look away and make her regular check-in.

“Ahoy, Otiric."

“It is two thirty PM by the ship's chronometer. You are at forty-one degrees of altitude, two hundred ninety of bearing."

She flipped open her notebook and did some quick calculations. If the Otiric measured her at forty-one degrees above the horizon, then she was a little over 9500 feet of surface distance from the ship. Based on her previous checkin, she could estimate her velocity over the ground. “I am ready to report."

“Go ahead."

“I have six thousand, two hundred feet of altitude. My course is west northwest at six knots. Sixty degrees of temperature. All instruments are functioning. The balloon is performing optimally. End."

“Thank you, lieutenant. Continue."

Her paw brushed the mirror to silence it and return her to her own thoughts. By her reckoning the storm was now under ten miles away. She would be the first person to see one up close and live. Not bad, for a mule-driving bitch.

From altitude, the chaos storm was no less imposing. At its base, heavy fog shrouded most of it, but even still she could see the water lashed to white froth so intense it seemed to glow. From the fog, a solid wall of clouds rose fifteen thousand feet above the waves — billowing and churning, hiding bursts of eerie lightning. A second wall, layered atop the first a few miles out, formed an ominous dark cliff upon which the sky itself appeared to rest.

Telmer let off some of her water ballast, climbing to eight thousand feet, and then nine — high enough that she began to feel the chill through her fur, and when she slipped on her heavy coat it took more concentration than she wanted. The oxygen was thinning.

Ten thousand feet up, she could begin to glean hints of the cloud tops surmounting the storm's lower layer. They seemed disconcertingly alive — writhing and twisting in dark grey tendrils that reached out for… 

For what, she was not certain. “Ahoy, Otiric."

“It is three PM by the ship's chronometer. You are at fifteen degrees of altitude, two hundred and ninety-five of bearing."

She had to run the numbers three times. “I am ready to report."

“Go ahead."

“I have ten thousand feet of altitude. My course is west northwest at I believe over nine knots. Forty degrees of temperature. All instruments are functioning. The balloon is performing optimally. End."

“Thank you, lieutenant. Continue."

The increase in speed was probably to be expected, from the gain in altitude. It was, she decided, probably wise to ascend no further — besides, she was cold. The chaos was only five miles away.

Telmer knew of lightning; the open plains of Perashire certainly had their thunderstorms from time to time. This, though… this was different. The bolts lasted too long, and they were too fluid. She watched a glowing, twisting purple ribbon glide beneath the surface of the clouds until it splintered into a thousand pieces.

Lightning was not the only thing giving the End of the World its luminescence. Rippling orange-white flames raced from somewhere deep within the storm out to its edges, where they ripped free, taking sheets of hissing water vapor with them.

Her coat was not helping the cold. The vixen glanced towards her altimeter, started to dismiss it, and then looked again. She had gained another five hundred feet.

Slowly, she reached out for the release valve on the hydrogen envelope. By rote she knew how long it needed to be left open; rote was the only thing that let her fogged mind complete the task.

The gauge continued to turn. She was climbing. Telmer felt for the mirror. “Ahoy, Otiric."

“Lieutenant?"

“I…" Eleven and a half thousand feet. “There is…" 

“There's what?"

What is he asking about? Who am I talking to, some pr… p… some pastry chef? The vixen shook her head, trying to clear it — uncertain where the bizarre thought had even come from. “I'm ready… I report… uh…" 

She heard a buzz of voices that all ran together. Rassulf couldn't be all of them. One of them was a woman. Many women. A chorus of shouting women. They were singing very off-key.

There was a male soloist. Not Rassulf. A baritone. Opera. He kept chanting about silly things. Breezes. Wind. Air. 

Wait, I…

Clamped to the wall of the gondola were a few canisters of compressed oxygen. That was what they were singing about. She needed to get one. She needed to take a step towards the wall, bend over. Reach out. Keep reaching until she felt the cold metal in her fingers. Remove the canister.

Turn the gauge. Put the nozzle to her mouth. Inhale against the safety valve. The hiss was very loud, and seemed to go on forever.

But it quieted, and shortened. Telmer waited until she felt relatively sure of herself to take stock. Eleven thousand feet should not have affected her so; balloonists trained themselves to cope such things.

“Ahoy, Otiric."

“Thank the gods! Lieutenant — are you alright?"

“The air is thinner than I thought. I'm at…" Now the altimeter read even higher. “I'm at thirteen thousand feet. I am going to descend below ten thousand."

“Good idea, lieutenant."

“Lieutenant." That was Dr. Toth; he was the one who had provided the oxygen, and also the one who had been singing about it. Although, now that she thought about it, the song itself had probably been a figment of her imagination. “Keep talking to us, please."

“Yes, doctor." The balloon's release valve was wide open, now. Telmer watched the gauge carefully, waiting for it to slow and begin turning in the proper direction. “Ah… I seem to still be climbing."

“Do you know why? Is your gas valve working?"

“Yes." There was no immediate cause for panic — she had the oxygen, after all, and everyone in the Flying Corps had long assumed that the balloons were safe at far greater altitudes than they had been tested. “I don't know."

Dr. Röhaner's voice was replaced by the strange accent of Kio Tengaru. “Can you examine the probe I gave you?"

It was with the rest of her balloon's instruments, attached by a piece of string. Only: “It's... floating. It doesn't seem to weigh anything now." And, while she was at it, the vixen couldn't help but notice she was crossing fifteen thousand feet. “What does that mean? I have... other problems right now."

“It shouldn't be. It's... mm. Quiet? Er — inert. It shouldn't react to..."

Telmer knew nothing of magic, of course. She was not that disreputable. “Well, it is. And I'm still climbing."

Somehow. Telmer was not worried, precisely: there were explanations for such behavior. An updraft, perhaps; perhaps the gas was warmer than she anticipated, and the balloon required less of it to stay aloft.

But that created problems of its own. If she vented too much hydrogen, then when the balloon cooled down she would not have enough ballast to arrest its descent. The thought of falling three miles back to earth was less than comforting.

Particularly because the winds were carrying her towards the —

The vixen froze, and glanced up. The balloon's lines were all taut, and leaning westward. She had to be accelerating. Steeling herself, she turned to look.

Shock alone kept her from screaming. The chaos was less than a mile away; it was all she could see before her. The balloon was above the clouds, in clear air. She could see down into it, and immediately wished she had not.

At the top of the storm, the clouds whipped and seethed. They danced in whirling, twisting columns that rose from a roiling, glowing-red cauldron of fog. Here and there one of the tendrils was sucked back down, into the thick mess, and in its wake a monstrous nothingness left a pit blacker than the night — an impossible void of being that held for a dreadful second and then imploded in a flash of the orange fire that gave the chaos storm its color.

And now the taller cloud wall seemed somehow to have receded; she could see beyond it — only there was no beyond, only a shifting, smeared expanse of blue and grey and black, forming eerie shapes as the colors blended.

“A-ahoy. Otiric."

“Lieutenant. What's happening?"

“I — doctor, this is not — the — the storm is bigger than you think. I need to descend. I'm pulling the emergency release. I — I hope I have enough ballast to recover but —"

But the alternative was unspeakable. She opened the emergency valve; waited. At last she felt the balloon beginning to drop —

Except that it was still tearing west, towards the End of the World. The End of Everything, she decided. Time. Existence. They were not meant to be there. Men had not been meant to approach such things. They had limits. There were limits. She had found them.

Her balloon was falling into the storm, into the twisting funnel clouds that now she saw all too clearly. Her eyes could not be drawn away. The longer she stared, the more she saw — looking deeper and deeper, until the swirling fuzzy edges of the vortex sharpened into jagged lines, and the grey mist fractured into a rainbow of colors.

Until she was among them, and she heard a moaning, beckoning howl from all around. It has a voice. It's singing. But the words were indistinct — tongues that had died eons before. Oaths. Prayers. Only one familiar sound — Rassulf's voice, calling out, asking if she could hear him. She opened her muzzle to answer and the words spilled into the blank timelessness of the universe's final decease.

A drop of water, tiny as a grain of sand, hung before her. Staring into it, the drop was a lens that peered in infinite directions. She saw the planet a billion years before; she saw the planet billion years older. She saw the color of sound and heat and fear. 

She saw a young girl and an older one and then one older still and in an instant thinner than a razor's edge knew with glorious and grisly lucidity the detail of every moment in her life from its beginning to its abrupt, ghastly —

---

Day 36: It is with — 
the experiment — 
we have lost — 
[all lines struck through. Remainder of entry blank]
— Tannadorean Expedition Record, 18 Deyrnsev, 913

They said nothing; Rassulf did not even know what he could say. Kio Tengaru's eyes were wide; her face was blank. Aureli Calchott looked as though she was going to be ill. Even Sessla-Daarian Toth, who could normally be counted on to be unflappably surly, was silent.

Yet they needed their leader. The wolf did not have the luxury of joining their shock — not yet; not publicly. He allowed himself two full seconds, then set his jaw. “Miss Tengaru — make sure that link is sealed. Mr. Cavell, inform Captain Medastria that the test was a failure. Tell him to come about and make for Port Tarmett. Dr. Toth —"

“Gods, Rassulf," Aureli breathed. “We can't —"

For once, he cut her off. “Dr. Toth, when Kio is done, prepare a full report. You'll read it before the council as soon as we're back at port. Make sure it's more than conjecture — we need testable hypotheses and a clear way forward. Miss Calchott, we can reconvene after I've had a chance to speak to Lord Erdurin."

“Haralt," the stoat muttered. “Cargal'th…"

The walk to Lord Erdurin's cabin allowed him a little more time to steel himself. He did not know what had happened, of course; probably none of them did.

The last thing they had heard was Telmer announcing her intention to descend. A minute or so of silence had followed, as the balloon disappeared from view into the clouds — a tiny dot in his telescope, vanishing.

And then the scream — the howl of a tortured beast, mortally wounded, damning its killer. Halfway through it twisted and warped — and then it was joined by others. Thousands? Millions?

A burst of flame had gouted up, briefly illuminating the clouds; the screams lasted a few seconds longer, echoing against each other until they faded finally into an eerie silence. Rassulf felt certain that Lieutenant Carpathish was dead, but he did not know how and he was not entirely certain he truly wished to.

Haralt opened the door to his stateroom only a few seconds after the knock; Rassulf was not terribly surprised that the bear was still clothed in the full attire of his royal appointment. “Dr. Röhaner?"

“Lord Erdurin, we should talk."

“Lieutenant Carpathish has been killed."

Rassulf nodded. “Yes, Lord Erdurin. I'm afraid so." 

Haralt stepped back, allowing Rassulf to enter his cabin. The room was not especially large, but it had been furnished sumptuously — as befitted, no doubt, a senior advisor to the royal court. The inner wall, facing the porthole, was covered by a tapestry showing the lineage of the Berdanish family all the way back to the first Castle Erdurin.

Neither Rassulf nor Aureli Calchott had questioned anything that Haralt asked to be brought aboard: Aureli suggested that it would keep him out of the way and out of their hair. Indeed, he had been playing a game of Reid's Keep against himself on the desk. The pieces were carved of Serbin snakestone, with rich golden veins twisting through the clear crystal.

Haralt pointed to a velvet-cushioned chair, allowing Rassulf to take a seat before the bear himself settled into an identical chair that had faced the desk. “It does not surprise me, Dr. Röhaner. I am saddened, yes, but not surprised."

“We don't yet entirely know what happened."

“Nor does that surprise me. You charge headlong into the mouths of some hell never dreamt of by anyone in the Coral Valley, and you ask me to trust your abilities to return from it — clearly we were not meant to be there."

“It was always our understanding that it would be an attempt. This has never been done before, after all."

Haralt picked one of the pieces from the gameboard — a pikeman, whose ursine form had doubtless been meant in homage to its owner's family. “Yet you just keep going forward, Dr. Röhaner, like this pikeman. The only thing you know how to do is move your three paces forward."

“Exploring the End of the World is our mission, Lord Erdurin."

“I know."

“It is the charter of the Tannadorean Expedition."

“I know."

“It was also our understanding that there might be unforeseen setbacks."

“I know."

Rassulf tilted his head. “Then…"

Haralt set the piece down heavily. “What do you want me to say, Dr. Röhaner? That I will not report this tragedy to King Enthar? That I will not, as I have with every dispatch, urge him to reconsider his support for this foolish enterprise? That I will not make it explicitly clear that someone has now died for this madness?"

The wolf lowered his ears by a few degrees. “You are not the only person to which it is explicitly clear, Lord Erdurin. I shall be sending my own report back to the Academy." He paused, for he knew what Haralt would ask next. “I will advise that we continue, although not in this fashion."

“No matter what transpires, I suppose. And Miss Calchott will do the same — and the Railroad will pressure the King's Court to persist in their approval of this nonsense."

“I suspect that is correct, yes."

Haralt shook his head. “You will never be satisfied."

“Not by capitulation, no. May… might I ask of you a question, Lord Erdurin? There are others in your country who are captivated by adventure and expansion, I know. The Railroad, for example — in the Shrouded Rocks, and the forests of Telreth, and so on."

“Lieutenant Carpathish."

“Yes?"

“Before her flight, I attempted to dissuade her. I pointed out the risk of death. She told me that it was her risk to take, not mine; she said that even if she were to perish, it would be in service of a worthy end. Yes, Dr. Röhaner, I know that there are those of my kin who say such things."

“But not you, clearly. Why did you accept this appointment if you had no stomach for it?"

The bear did not seem offended by the question. “At the time, I did not know that the royal prerogative would be dismissed so regularly. Or that prudent caution would be slandered as cowardice. I felt that such caution would have been needed."

Perhaps, Rassulf supposed, there was some subtext beneath that statement. Since arriving in Aernia, he had been repeatedly told that the aristocracy represented an old, tired point of view that was no longer of any currency — that, in some fashion, the rest of the Iron Kingdom was leaving them behind. “Did you volunteer?"

“The position was recommended to me by my father, the Duke of Cirth-Arren. We are old allies of the Arkenprinces of Arren, and Arren herself is an old ally of Tabis-Kitta."

“I don't really understand your politics, I'm afraid."

“According to the First Concord, the Old Council is composed of the rulers of Tabis-Kitta, Arren, Hutwick, Barland, and Ailaragh. King Enthar is also the Arkenprince of Tabis-Kitta. Tabis-Kitta and Arren are the closest of the five old lands."

And so, Rassulf suggested, his father was a loyal servant of the king as well. “It would be an opportunity to acquit yourself well in the king's eyes?" Also, though the wolf did not go so far as to suggest it, it would be an opportunity to raise the bear's own esteem.

Haralt gestured to his game. “It was a gift from King Chatherral to my father, before I was born. He has the right to expect we serve him faithfully. Not to seek glory, like Dr. Toth, or gold like miss Calchott. Service. My father led a division of the King's Own Army in the Harvest Rising — he was responsible for the only defeat of those ungrateful children."

“Was that when the gift was made?"

The bear nodded, and rested his paw lightly on the pieces.

“I am not familiar with your politics or your customs, Lord Erdurin. But might it be imprudent to ask: it is the pikemen that are carved in your family's likeness, is it not? The Sovereign is a stag."

“Yes."

“In Reid's Keep, as you said, the pikemen can only move forward. They are the first to be sacrificed; the only piece whose loss counts for no points. Do I understand the rules correctly?"

Haralt stared at him coldly. “It would not be imprudent to ask."

“In that case…"

“I will be making my report to the king. I will remind him of the cost, and note that to this cost has been added the weight of one valiant soldier in his army. Gods willing, I shall never have to send another."

It was not the worst discussion that Rassulf might have imagined with the man, the wolf decided once he was back in his own cabin. Doubtless it was no small help that Rassulf Röhaner was willing to address him by his formal title; for whatever reason, Haralt placed special importance on it, and for whatever reason many of the others placed special importance on ignoring that.

All the same it wouldn't do to lose the king's support, particularly not after what had happened. In his discussions with King Enthar's representatives, Rassulf had occasionally mentioned the danger of attempting to seek out knowledge of the chaos storms. 

At the time they had accepted such a possibility, and so had he. Now that it had a definite toll, he was no longer so certain everyone would be in agreement. He had returned to his room, and was attempting to draft up the most political summary of the situation that he could, when Aureli Calchott knocked at the door and invited herself in.

“How are you faring, Dr. Röhaner?" 

“Well enough. Yourself, miss Calchott?"

She smiled weakly. “A glass of wine settled my nerves, but not my ears. I can't stop hearing those… well." The ermine's voice quieted. “What we heard."

“We were lucky, in a sense."

“Lucky?"

He pushed his papers away, to clear a space on the table, and when Aureli sat he poured two more glasses of wine. “That we were the ones to hear it," he finally answered.

She took the glass with a nod of thanks. “I don't feel lucky."

“No… nor I. But if more of the sailors had heard it, there'd be a mutiny. As it was, we're rational people. We can discuss it reasonably, and find a way to proceed." 

“You want to proceed?"

“You don't?"

Aureli lowered her eyes, hesitating, and took a long drink. “I'm not certain now, Dr. Röhaner. When the clockwork came back twisted, I thought we could learn from it. When Kio Tengaru was injured, I thought it was a calculated risk. But this…"

“We knew that, miss Calchott."

“Maybe," she murmured. “I knew that there would be challenges. I think I knew that we would be pushed to our limits to overcome them. But I didn't know I'd be hearing someone's life end miles away and helpless to do anything about it. And…"

She had squeezed her eyes shut; Rassulf saw the shudder that ran through her body and ruffled out the stoat's brilliant white fur. “Miss Calchott?"

“It was my fault." Her voice had lowered to a haunted whisper. “She was only here because I asked. I knew she'd come."

That was curious; neither Telmer nor Aureli had mentioned anything before. “You were acquainted?"

“Not directly. Our department worked with the Flying Corps briefly; I heard mention of a particularly daring aeronaut — a farmgirl from Perashire who decided to become a soldier." Her eyes finally opened — damp. “I'm not saying I saw myself in her! Not exactly! But… what happened up there…"

“Was her choice. She understood that risk. Lord Erdurin told me she said as much to him. Our task should be to find a way to ensure it doesn't happen again."

“It can't. She can only die once." Aureli swallowed thickly, then seized her glass and downed the rest of it at once. “I'm sorry. I'm beginning to think that perhaps Mr. Berdanish was right about saying that we're not supposed to be here. Not if it can do things like that."

The wolf nodded. “I understand your concerns. You have to be comfortable with what we're doing. I'll call a meeting tomorrow morning, and we'll vote. If we can't agree to continue, then we shouldn't — not if your heart isn't in it."

He had not asked for her permission to call the meeting because he knew that she would not have wanted to give it. It was at odds with everything she had said and done before, and the common bluster she shared with the other Railroad employees about how easily the world could be conquered with enough spirit and dedication.

Once the suggestion had been made, the ermine did not even answer it in words. She inclined her head to show that she had heard him. And then she reached over, took his paw, and squeezed it gently.

“Thank you, Rassulf."

Alone after her departure, he found himself unable to continue working on his report. That it might not matter after the vote formed a useful excuse that the wolf was happy enough to accept. Unlike Aureli Calchott, Rassulf had heard worse before.

All Ellagdrans were expected to serve a term in the militia; Rassulf was no exception, and no reservation would've overcome the demands of his father. Even his decision not to become a rifleman had been grounds for disappointment.

As a pragmatist, though, Colonel Röhaner knew that his son's talents were put to better use in the engineering company of an artillery battalion. They maintained the iron cannons and the other equipment; prepared roads and bridges for the wagons and designed the fixed shelters that the guns fired from.

He had been in the company when the shah of Kechet Marl declared war and seized the towns of Vostan and Tyrskal; that meant he'd been present for the Battle of Ulum-ät-Marl. When he saw the flickering lights of the chaos storm at the End of the World he thought of nothing so much as how the cannons had looked, firing in the haze of their own smoke.

Halfway through the battle, before General Borg's charge and before the skirmish at Varnes Top, a Kechetal ballista had landed a lucky hit on one of the wagons, full of powder and shot. The explosion was unworthy even of mentioning in the ballads and stories of the battle.

But Rassulf, sheltered by fortune behind an earthen berm, remembered the aftermath all too well. Half-deafened, it was the shrieks and cries that first pierced his stunned confusion. Then, it had not been on the other side of some charmed mirror. Then, it had not been at fifteen miles' distance.

Then, it had joined with the sight of the churned earth; of panicked horses tearing at the harnesses of their burning caissons until the flames reached them, and of men beyond the use of even screaming. And there was no point in telling Aureli that beyond nearly anything, they were fortunate because Kio's mirror transmitted no smell.

Ulum-ät-Marl was the reason why he had declined to re-enlist, and he remembered also the way his father had listened to his explanation. They were out foraging for mushrooms, and paused at the summit of one of the hills near their home of Kalzlanvast.

He told his father that he had been accepted to the university at Scheuerrem. That he would embark on the study of mechanical engineering. That when he had mastered his craft, he would turn his eye on how to counter weapons like the Kechetal ballistas — their points charmed to burst into flame when they found a target.

Ellagdrans had no tradition of thaumaturgy, no ancient knowledge of the charmed arts, and unlike some other races no natural talent. They shared with Aernia, and most of the Western Lands, a corresponding lack of interest. “But," Colonel Röhaner had pointed out. “We won that battle anyway, corporal."

“That one, yes, father," his son had answered. “There will be others. Not always against untrained jackals." Then he'd turned, looking to the southeast, where trees blocked the horizon.

Kagnasch Röhaner had known that the younger wolf was looking beyond the trees. He saw the great, baking deserts, whipped by scouring winds. He saw the emptied beds of dry rivers. He saw cracked and desolate ruins.

He saw the Dead City, Angbasa, floating somewhere beyond, in a sea of ominous calm. And its great pyramid, shining black under a cloudless sun. And its quiet streets and silent people — for the Hakasi were wordless, even when their hordes fell with warped mounts upon one of the little towns at the edge of the desert.

And though Kagnasch was a soldier, and wished for all his children steady hands and the love of a rifle, he had gripped his eldest son's shoulder and squeezed. “Do honor to our line, Rassulf."

The pursuit took him from Scheuerrem to the Tiurishkan fortress-city of Korlyda, and to the fragmentary archives of New Jarankyld on the Aernian frontier, and at last to Tabisthalia itself. In twenty-five years he had not seen his father, but he heard his pride in the letters he received — sometimes six months old by the time they finally caught up to Rassulf.

What would you do, father? He found himself asking it, looking the following morning at the others across the table where they worked. Marray Medastrian had joined them; he'd requested the captain's presence so that, if a change of course became necessary, he would know the reason why.

Rassulf hoped the captain would not be needed, but the decision now was beyond his control. “I know that we don't yet have answers about what happened," the wolf began. “And I know that for every answer we find, a dozen questions will remain. The most important one becomes what we do now. Like a team of horses, a team of men must all pull in one direction."

Haralt Berdanish spoke up when he finished. “What are you asking?"

Rassulf took the opportunity to survey the others: the team, and Haralt, and Marray Medastrian. He had requested the captain's presence so that, if a change of course became necessary, he would know the reason why. 

“I'm asking whether we continue with the Tannadorean Expedition, or whether we turn back for Tabisthalia. Each of you has a vote. And as the appointed leader of this expedition, I will respect it."

“We know yours."

He felt, and expressed, no shame in this. “You do. I say that we must continue — knowing as we do the costs, and accepting as we have the risks inherent to it. Charting this storm is one of the most important tasks the continent has ever faced. Learning how it works would do more than tell us about what lies on the other side — it would be crucial to understanding the relationship between matter and magic. Such knowledge would be priceless. That is my vote."

Haralt straightened himself up. “The World Before destroyed itself with that knowledge, Dr. Röhaner, I'll remind you."

“This isn't about the World Before. It's about our world now, Lord Erdurin, and learning all we can of it."

“And if that were true, I'd support you. Your expedition was folly to begin with — but at least it was harmless at the start. Now it has victims. It doesn't need any more. As Royal Liaison, appointed by King Enthar himself, I insist that we must return. Though it won't matter — I'm sure miss Calchott is ready to overrule me."

“I abstain," the ermine said, her voice soft. “Now that we've seen what we're really facing, I think we should be… honest. With what we can do."

Kio Tengaru glanced around, and curled her thick tail about her legs protectively. “I do also. I think before, when I come down from the mountains to here, that I know the charmed arts. Even, I think, that I know of chaos. But that is... it is not just a storm. I told myself I could adapt to it. And I don't trust that I can." 

Her eyes were averted from all of them, and Rassulf wondered how much guilt she felt for having brought them so far. “Kio, you've been able to do more than any of us could've imagined. It's nothing to dismiss."

Still, she kept her eyes cast downwards. “Then I mean, Dr. Röhaner, that I don't trust it enough to carry the weight of someone's life. I say that we regroup in Tabisthalia, until we know more."

Rassulf was disappointed, although the mountain-dweller had probably suffered more than any of them. He remained impassive. “Very well. Dr. Toth?"

The badger had been looking at Kio; he turned, with his fuzzy eyebrows furrowed, and tapped his foot a few times before answering. “Rassulf, you're wrong."

“Gods — even the mad scientist thinks so." Haralt seemed pleasantly surprised.

Toth snapped his attention over to the bear. “Shut up. Rassulf, this is about the World Before. How long ago was that? When did it end? We don't even know. A thousand years? Two? It's been centuries since the rebirth, and we're still repeating stories about our ancestors' arrogance. Well, when do we grow up? When, Rassulf?"

“I don't know what you mean."

“We're children — living in the shadow of parents we never even met. You've been to Kessea. There are machines in the desert whose purpose we can't even understand, let alone replicate. There are ruins of stone works along the Sheyib. They dammed that river — we can't even bridge the bloody thing!"

“And they're dead. They destroyed themselves."

Sessla-Daarian bared his teeth at Haralt. “I told you to be quiet. People like you, you feel a worn path under your feet and you ask why anyone would walk anywhere else. And then you try to pull us back when we do. Well, damn you, someone has to be the first on any road. Don't you dare tell me it can't be us because you're afraid."

“Dr. Toth," Rassulf said, trying to temper him — the outburst had caught Haralt by nervous surprise. “Calm down."

“I'm calm, Rassulf. I'm just tired of worrying what the past thinks. Haralt said they destroyed themselves. If that's true, then I say it's up to us to do better. We should be done acting like wild animals, terrified by a campfire. It's time to take our world back. Kio's right — it's not just a storm. But it's not just a scientific curiosity, either, Rassulf. It's an insult to us and everyone who comes after us. I vote we keep going, and we don't stop until we beat that fucking thing."

The badger's speech left the tally at two against two. Rassulf hadn't expected Aureli's abstention, and when he looked at her, her expression betrayed her lack of willingness to cast a deciding vote.

“The count being tied, I suppose I will use my role as leader of the Tannadorean Expedition to settle the discussion."

“The captain," Aureli said. The stag had been silent throughout the discussion. “Perhaps he should get a vote."

“Captain Medastria is not a member of the team," Rassulf corrected. “We consult you, captain, as you know, about matters relating to the ship — yet not, until now, the Expedition itself."

“His ship," Haralt countered. “His risk. He knows what that really means, twice over. Lest it become a third, I should ask: do you not know, Mr. Medastria?"

Marray looked from Haralt to Rassulf, as if surprised that his name had even been mentioned. “Yes, my lord. Truly, I do. But I believe Dr. Röhaner is right, about my responsibilities. His decision should be respected."

“Then I'll vote as you would, if it were up to you," Aureli insisted. “What do you say?"

Rassulf thought of the first impression Marray had made, drunk and broken at the Rotting Tinfish in Ketta Bay. Now the stag showed none of it. Even put on the spot, he kept his bearing about him, and for that reason Rassulf accepted his fate. “Please, captain. Speak your mind."

Marray folded his hands together, then nodded slowly. “Lord Erdurin is, of course, correct. I have lost two ships to chaos storms — the Raven and the Nærla Dorn. Seventy men died on the Raven. I know every last one of their names. I agreed to join because Dr. Röhaner believed in my experience... but this storm is not like one I've ever seen. And I know that I will not lose another ship."

He seemed to be trying to continue, and Aureli waited several seconds for him before at last speaking up. “In that case, it's clear. We'll set a course for Tabisthalia."

“That is not what I said. I won't lose another ship because this one, and her crew, are better than what we face. Lord Erdurin, with due respect, you never trusted me. I know that the man who lost the Raven became a drunkard and a failure. You brought up the past in the hopes my shame would make an ally of your fear. But it isn't my shame; it's that man's. What would shame this Marray Medastria, captain of the Otiric, is the notion that Dr. Röhaner's trust was misplaced. And if he trusted me, then I must extend the same to him."

Rassulf tried not to show his surprise. “Then we carry on?"

“We carry on. If you'll have my vote, miss Calchott, then we'll not be sailing to Tabisthalia. We'll be sailing to Port Tarmett, and then we'll be sailing right back to the sunset. If Dr. Röhaner believes we can do it, then I believe him — and Lord Erdurin, kindly, you'll insult neither me nor my crew by implying us unworthy."

“Well. Well then," Haralt muttered.

Aureli echoed it, more gently. “Well then. How do you say it? Steady as she goes."