The Nested Worlds

"I saw the Cavalier Queen fighting over Dunstream. Winter's tits, her captain is something else! It's like he knew what th' Guild ships were 'bout to do afore they even started! Two on one, an' he had 'em both down in flames wi'out a scratch. No, I'm tellin' you, no word of a lie—" —Overheard in the barracks of the Wickmarsh Pike & Rifle.

Hunting

Bryndell, Enerlend, Garanhir Earthmote 09.06.03.15.12

Night fell, and Adrey moved.

Over the last two months, since the liberation of Lendwick, she and her Particulars had changed quite a bit in how they went about business. The basic principles were still the same of course—a small team of hand-picked men armed with the best weapons and benefiting from both magical aid and the power of Adrey's Word…but they'd learned lessons from Lendwick, and from other missions since.

Gone, for a start, was Adrey's fetching brown tweed riding outfit. It had been practical, outdoorsy and athletic for a noblewoman, but still…very much the clothing of a rich woman playing at war.

Now, she and her particulars were dressed in drab green breeches and sweaters, and they'd procured matte greasepaint in shades of green, brown and charcoal. Applied correctly, the features planes and outlines of the face vanished completely. In the dark, it all translated to being able to lurk in a bush and watch an alert patrol pass not ten feet away without noticing them. One of them, she was quite sure, looked right into the brush where Blaster was lurking and failed to see anything out of the ordinary. He just turned away and walked onwards.

She missed her hatpins, a little. Those had been dainty, ladylike weapons suitable for hiding under fancy clothing, as a last resort if she was discovered or betrayed.

But that wasn't Adrey's role any more.

She glanced to her right at Wullem. He met her eye, nodded, and she gestured forward.

As one, the Particulars broke from cover and covered the open ground in a low, crouching, ground-eating run.

Their weapons had changed, too. Most were smaller, though Takes still had his long rifle, wrapped in drab brown cloth and accessorized with twigs and leaves. Their knives were blued to reduce shine, and everything was tied down to minimize noise. Their boots were soft-soled, without hobnails or cleats.

Everything about them had been focused into being quick, quiet and utterly lethal. Because that was their job: kill.

Tonight's target was a trio of Encircled in place to "advise" the officers of the Third Bryndell Moorlanders and keep the regiment in line and on Civorage's side. Far from being advisors, they were conduits for Civorage's own powers of domination, and in every case so far where the Encircled had been eliminated, the regiments quickly came over to the side of the Banmor Uprising.

Civorage knew it, of course. That was why Adrey was along: only Wordspeakers were properly protected from his power. And of the four Wordspeakers on their side, only she was available. Mouse and Jerl would have been able to do this too, but they were needed on the Cavalier Queen. After all, when the uprising's navy consisted of just one ship, that ship became incredibly important.

That was a problem Adrey was working on. But here and now…

Their target tonight was the Bryndell Lodge Hotel. It was a nice place, with a view of the high heather-haunted moorlands. Rich guests came from all over Enerlend to go hunting red deer up on those moors in the season, and the Bryndell Lodge was the fashionable place to stay for that. Or…had been. Right now, it was a regimental headquarters, and Civorage was in lockdown trying to keep any more of his commandeered regiments from defecting.

Adrey threw up five fingers then gestured left. Wullem nodded and led four men off in the direction she'd indicated. They vanished into the shadows so completely that even with her Word, Adrey was hard-pressed to guess where they were. But she did know that in fifty seconds, a patrol would blunder into them and be taken down quietly and effectively.

By which time, she and her men would be…yes.

Jenks set up under the window she wanted. His face had, for lack of a better word, healed, but he'd never be the same again. Supposedly there were painted prosthetic faces a man could get to try and pass for normal with such disfigurement, but for now Jenks just wore an eyepatch and pulled his scarf up to cover the ugly hole where his nose had been.

As far as Adrey was concerned, he'd earned the right to go home and say he'd fought hard and well. But Jenks was the sort of man who'd be ashamed and restless sitting at home when his body was still strong and his trigger finger still worked. He set up under the window, braced himself, and cupped his hands to give her a boost up.

Seconds later, Adrey was through the window into the room beyond. She'd guessed it would be empty, and thanks to the Word, her guesses were always right. She quickly lashed a climbing rope to the balconette and the men came up after her, but their job was to secure her exit route. The actual kill…that was hers alone. None of the rest of them could withstand Civorage's direct scrutiny, even with the aid of Ellaenie's protective potion.

She nodded to them, paused at the door until walking feet had gone past, and slipped out into the deep carpeted hallways. The walking feet belonged to two men: she matched pace and stride with them, slipping along unnoticed in their wake with her own footfalls inaudible under their own. When they turned right at the hall's end, she ducked into a side alcove, then ghosted to the left up some stairs.

Running on Word-guided guesswork and probability, she didn't go all the way up to the top floor, but got off the stairs one floor down. She went right, along a hallway identical to the one she'd followed the men down, then found…yes, the room she wanted. The hotel had invested in expensive locks, but there wasn't lock on the market that Adrey couldn't get open in seconds. She vanished inside, darted to the window, leaned out and looked up, then climbed.

There would have been guards on the room's door. They would have gunned her down if she'd tried to approach that way. Instead, she lurked outside the room for a slow ten-count, waiting until the Word told her…

Now!

The window had no lock or bars. She barged through it, throwing two knives as she flung herself into a diving roll. Two wet gurgles told her she'd aimed true, and she came up with a third knife in hand, already thrusting while the one in her left hand parried the blow she anticipated rather than saw…

Her guesses were always right.

The whole assault had taken less than two seconds. The third Encircled collapsed, and Adrey straightened up. There was a man with neatly pomaded hair and a beautifully waxed mustache sitting at a table in the room, and he gawped at her in dumbfounded amazement: she treated him to a sweet smile.

"The rightful duchess sends her compliments, colonel," she said, and dropped the letter and potion onto his desk. Then she left through the window, just as the sentries slammed the door open and burst through.

All told, it had gone off without a hitch.

Interlude: Sympathetic feedback

Clear Skies Manor, Long Drop City, Alakbir Earthmote 09.06.03.15.12

Nils flinched, and involuntarily touched his neck even though it wasn't his throat that had just been stabbed. The pain of his Encircled pawns' last moments still shot back along the link with unpleasant immediacy. He must be the only person in the world to know exactly what having a knife shoved into one's brain felt like.

He reached out for any other Encircled in the building, but…no. Once again, the Countess had chosen her target with fiendish accuracy.

How the fuck was she doing it? He'd had a glimpse of her powers during their brief duel in Lendwick, and each of her strikes against the regiments was a repeat of that moment. She was always several steps ahead of him!

Was it Time? It seemed unlikely. Jerl Holten had put that particular Word out of reach forever, along with Mind. What else was there? The one that made the Banmor bitch bulletproof? That too seemed unlikely.

No, there was a fourth Word in play. But what?

He sighed, and stepped away from his map table. he'd been staring at it for hours anyway, when there was no point. It was the dead of night, nothing was moving openly. As he stepped away, the Encircled girl who tended the map for him removed a token and tipped the piece representing the Third Bryndell Moorlanders on its side. Not all the regiments the so-called Uprising approached were convinced by her letter, so there was still a chance that Colonel Ramney would remain loyal, but without any Encircled available to persuade the colonel on Nils' behalf, or be the vessel for his dominant will, it was out of his hands.

"…Fuck." How long had it been since he'd last relaxed? It seemed that every day was an endless run of managing, plotting, planning, anticipating, preparing, or reacting to new setbacks. He hadn't slept properly since the battle of Auldenheigh. He just grabbed five hours at most, then it was back to the map table.

He thought for a second, then decided. The Encircled here in his mansion didn't need more than his decision in order to act: immediately the kitchens started preparing to treat him, his bathmaids started preparing to pamper him, his chamber servants started preparing his bed for a long and restful sleep…

The map girl stepped away from the table and poured herself against him, stretching up to give him a kiss. He looked into her brown eyes, and saw her mind was a happy fog of pure submissive bliss, without any agency or design of her own. No stress, no anxiety, no fear, no doubts, no shame. She was happy in a way so-called 'free' people never could be. Simple, easy, and untroubled, unburdened by the complications of free will. Her master had a task for her, so she obeyed. It was that simple: her life was idyllic so long as she obeyed, and to disobey was impossible.

Why were people so hell-bent on fighting this heaven he could give them? Didn't they know what he was sacrificing for them? When all this was over and the work was complete, he'd be the one left carrying the weight of humanity on his shoulders, for their own good.

A man taking such a heavy burden was due an occasional reward.

He flopped back down on his couch and spread his legs. The girl obediently knelt between them, and did his bidding. It was, Nils realised, the first time he'd done this in weeks.

Even so…

He spent the next three hours trying to relax and forget, to set his troubles aside, but they just wouldn't go. Even after a gourmet meal, a hot bath, a massage, and two more women, his mind was stuck on the Uprising. The vexing insistence these cretins had on making their own lives more difficult, their unthinking, reflexive insistence on freedom as though freedom was some kind of gift.

Idiocy. Maddening idiocy, that made it quite impossible for him to relax, despite every best effort. Even lying in bed, sprawled among perfumed silk and perfumed flesh, he couldn't let it go.

But…okay. So it was four Wordspeakers against one. That was still winnable, if he only played his opponents right. If he could only engineer the right circumstances, where their powers did nothing more than let them choose how they lost…

…Hmm.

it was the germ of an idea, but it was, at last, enough to soothe his racing head. he didn't need to put it into action this very second, either. He could do it after thinking on it properly, after a good night's sleep.

He smiled to himself, closed his eyes, and slept properly for the first time in weeks.

Beware, you who would overturn the world: tomorrow, your sons will do likewise. —Epitaph on the grave of Dubhgall Keeghan, the inventor of lift gas

Hunted

Airship Cavalier Queen, the Cottageweald, Enerlend 09.06.03.15.15

Two ships. Only two. That was a bad sign, and meant Jerl was probably about to die, because since Lendwick and Dunstream, Civorage had started moving his ships in groups of at least three.

A lone ship could defeat two if she had the wind in her favor, the element of surprise and a skilled skipper. It all depended on taking the first one down quickly so that the fight became a one-on-one where those advantages counted for everything.

Three-on-one was a different story entirely. Especially when, as in this case, Jerl didn't know where the third one was.

In this case, Jerl had nothing in his favor. The three ships were a hunting pack, and they were warships: faster than the Queen, smaller than her, armored, more agile, and better armed. And they were coming specifically for the kill. It looked like they were going to get it, Jerl thought.

Gebby certainly thought so. "Pretty sure I can't beat them down the wind, skipper."

Jerl closed his telescope. "Don't bother trying. I'd bet a silver mark their third is waiting for us to do exactly that."

"…We're fucked, then."

"Pretty much."

"Strike our colors, sir?"

Mouse put his own binoculars away. "This is Civorage, Gebby. He doesn't give quarter. We either win, or we're dead, or Encircled." He looked up at Jerl. "And he's in direct control this time. I can feel his attention. He REALLY wants us dead."

"Why?" Gebby asked. "I thought you had that whole 'go back in time and try again' thing? Why's he even bother?"

Jerl shrugged. "I can think of reasons. None of them matter here and now, though…" he tapped his telescope into his gloved palm a few times as he thought. "…You think we stand a chance if we jettison cargo?"

Gebby shrugged. "Might buy us one tighter turn he won't expect, but that's about it," he said. "I—"

"Contact! Contact high off the port bow!"

Jerl swore under his breath. Yup. There was the third ship. "Hard a port, drop ballast."

Gebby's hands were already a blur.

"Feymarer! Martemlir!

The elves were already moving, too. Jerl shus his eyes and scowled, focusing on the immediate future. Bewildering possibilities played out before him, and in a lot of them the future was short and consisted of fire, wood splinters and death. But…

"Gebby! Hard down and starboard on my mark….now!"

The deck swayed drunkenly as the abrupt change in direction did what ship captains generally avoided and caused the gondola to pendulum. The crew yelled in alarm and clung on for dear life, but the timing had been perfect: up ahead, the Guild ship fired its guns, only for the whole broadside to miss the Queen's wildly swinging hull by scant inches.

"Hard up, meet her! Kwe fey! Mara!"

With a roar, a group of four Rüwyrdan sprinted up the pitching deck and leapt into open sky with the blurring speed and incredible bounds that only elves could manage. They shot out across the gap in a move that would have been suicidally stupid in a human.

One of them misjudged it. His grasping hand missed the other ship's rigging and he fell away on the wind with a cry of frustration rather than fear. Elves could land on their feet from any height, and they were flying safely over land right now. He'd be back

The other three blurred over the rigging, cutting down the Guild topsmen with thrown knives or howling sword-strokes. As soon as they had a second's breathing room, they started to light their firebombs.

"Stay with them Gebby, give them a chance to come back." Jerl said

"The other two are coming up fast, Jerl…" Mouse cautioned.

Jerl concentrated on the near future again, then grunted. "Hard to port, full down," he commanded. The elves would just have to jump from the burning ship.

It wasn't an ideal maneuver, either. Diving bought speed, but sacrificed options and exposed their top. And he could see the two Guild captains were canny enough warriors to exploit it.

Ahead of him, the thread of time frayed and searched. Somewhere there might be a shining silver thread where they got out of this, but—

"Shit."

There was a fourth ship. He saw its presence in the weight of future events just before its shadow swept across the deck. It was diving at them out of the sun, and there was no room to—

Something terribly violent happened.

Jerl blinked down at…well, that was where his legs should be, but…there didn't seem to be anything there. Just…red stuff.

Muzzily, he turned to ask Mouse about it, but Mouse wasn't there any more. Nor was Gebby. There was…an awful lot of red stuff, strewn around in ropy drizzles. And the wheel was gone. Lot of holes in the deck, too. And fire. Fire was…bad. Right?

Well. Okay. He probably wouldn't have heard anything over the ringing in his ears, anyway. And he was getting very cold, all of a sudden…but…also quite peaceful. Everything was alright. Everything…

…

He sat up in bed with a yell. "Shit!"

Mouse, who had been comfortably and happily asleep in his arms a moment before, gave him an alarmed look. "…What?!"

"Sorry…sorry. Just…I just…I just fucking died! Fuck."

He settled back on the mattress, orienting himself. Right. Yes. this was…two days earlier. He remembered making a note of the peaceful night-time moment as a good spot to pull back to, if he must.

The door opened and Sin poked her head in, a knife in hand. "Jerl? You shouted."

"Just…I'm fine. It's okay."

She gave him an assessing look, then nodded and closed the door behind her. Mouse, who had clutched the blankets to his chest when she entered, let them drop again and raised a hand to touch Jerl's face.

"…It was bad, wasn't it?"

Jerl sat back, willing his pounding heart to slow. Adrenaline was making his skin tingle. "An ambush over the Cottageweald. Four ships. The fourth one came out of the sun and…" He shuddered. He couldn't quite remember how it had felt to be cut in half by chainshot. He was glad he couldn't remember.

Mouse made a sympathetic noise and tried to massage some of the tension out of his neck. It helped, a little, but Jerl knew he wasn't going to relax now no matter what he did. His body was still singing with fight-or-flight energy, and he needed to get up and move.

Mouse clearly read it in his thoughts too, because he sighed and laid back. "I'd come with you, but I really need to sleep…" he said.

"It's okay. I'll be back in a bit." Jerl kissed him for reassurance, then got up and wriggled into his boots and long breeches, threw on his shirt and wandered out into the corridor.

Banmor Manor had changed in the couple of weeks since they'd liberated Lendwick. For a start, it had become a regional headquarters for the war effort, and there was a constant low-volume bustle and activity from downstairs even in the dead of night. When Jerl wandered through, the junior officers and enlisted men working the night shift reacted as though he was a general. He vaguely flapped his hand in what he hoped was a satisfactory salute, and wandered out onto the garden patio, following the scent of…

Wullem de Tredleck toasted him with a lit pipe from where he was reclining in a wicker lounge. "Captain."

"Lord Wullem."

"Care to join me, old thing? It's Benley's Black Label."

"Crowns! Don't mind if I do." Jerl accepted the proferred tobacco and started filling his own pipe. "Can't be much of this stuff left, can there?"

"Oh, I bought ten kegs. We're about halfway through the seventh one." De Tredleck shrugged. "I see no sense in hanging on to it. Far better to smoke it and share it than die with a full larder, hey?"

Jerl settled on the wall next to him and considered the two notebooks, the pen, pencil, and various writing accoutrements spread around him. "How's the book coming?"

The author grinned. "Exciting, daring, adventurous, magical…and just the right amount of steam and scandal. It's going to sell like beer on payday at the mills."

Jerl chuckled and lit up. The expensive smell of the sort of tobacco only the gentry could afford put a brief smile on his face.

"I hope I look good in it," he said.

"Effortlessly, I assure you. You cut a dashing enough figure anyway that I don't have to exaggerate…much. Though…" he frowned at his notes. "…Funny thing, I've written here to ask you if you don't mind me inventing a romance for you, but now I come to ask you I could swear there's…someone…isn't there?"

"Mouse," Jerl chuckled.

"Oh, shit. Yes. of course. The other Wordspeaker. The one whose whole power is making people forget him."

"He probably doesn't want to be in it," Jerl said. "And…I'd rather keep my love life out of the public eye too, thanks."

"Fair enough, fair enough. You'll be a romantic bachelor." Wullem scratched a couple of notes, then sat back and gave Jerl the first proper scrutiny of their conversation. "…Is everything alright? You really ought to be in bed, shouldn't you?"

"I just came back from two days in the future," Jerl explained. Wullem blinked, but took the strange declaration in stride.

"Oh dear. Nothing too bad I hope."

"I now know what chainshot feels like from the wrong end," Jerl said drily. He puffed the pipe, let the taste of it settle in and relax him, then blew out a long stream. "It was…rather bad. Actually, I was hoping to pick Adrey's brains over it."

"Afraid she's dead asleep, old thing." Wullem had never been so crass as to actually mention his ongoing dalliance with the countess, but everybody knew about it anyway. Gossip got around. So he didn't bother pretending it wasn't happening, either.

"Hm. Shouldn't you be as well? It's a bit late to be writing, isn't it?"

Wullem shrugged. "I'm between sleeps."

Jerl nodded fair enough, and they sat for a time in the comfortable silence of men who got along well but didn't have anything in particular to say to each other. Besides, the tobacco and the gentle scretching of Wullem's pen at work was doing a lot to take the sting out of having violently died a few minutes ago.

"Four ships, though," he said aloud after a few minutes.

"Hmm?"

"Four ships. To take down the Queen. I'm not sure even my Word can pull out a victory against a force like that. Maybe if we had Ellaenie on board to shield us…"

"Trying to figure out if you could have won and whether you're going to go and try, is it?"

Jerl shrugged. "The city needs the supplies we were carrying—or, uh, are going to carry. But if I can't get through, there's no sense in trying, even if I can just come back here and smoke some more of this with you if we fail."

"I imagine it might get a bit dull, living through the same forty hours over and over."

"Dull and unpleasant. Especially if I die at the end of those forty hours, every time…" Jerl blew a smoke ring. "Four ships, though…That's a lot to send at me. It as good as guarantees the Queen's destruction and my death if I follow that particular path."

Wullem nodded thoughtfully. "Civorage does know about your Word, doesn't he? He knows any victory he earns over you won't count because you'll just do it over again until you win?"

Jerl shook his head. "It isn't quite that simple."

"No?"

"No. Time isn't…" He sighed and tried to put into words an idea he'd been struggling to find the language for ever since he'd met with The Shishah back in Crae Varthen. "It's easy to think of time as being like a road that keeps branching off in different directions and all I have to do is explore down each branch until I find the one that works. Right?"

"Sure…"

"It's not like that at all. Because people…events that are already in motion tend to play out in the short term, but after the first couple of hours, we completely abandon the script, and that'll happen even if I do everything exactly the same. I'm not the only one who gets a say in how the future turns out, you see. Everyone gets a say. Everyone gets to choose. And all those choices, moment to moment, mean that when I pull back to a remembered point in time and then try to follow the branch I just took…there'll be paths I could have taken that never become available again, because the people whose decisions opened those branches make different decisions the next time around."

"So…if you pulled right back to the earliest moment you could?"

"Long Drop City, six-three-six-three."

"Okay. If you did that…?"

"Then by the time I'd finished getting back to today's date, things could be completely different. Maybe Mouse never learned Mind. Maybe Ellaenie died in that cave rather than open her box. Maybe Adrey evaded capture and so never learned her Word. Maybe you got Encircled. A completely different series of events would play out and we'd never get back to exactly here. Same date, completely different situation."

Wullem pursed his lips under his beard, and puffed thoughtfully on his pipe for a beat or two. "…So…if Civorage can…somehow identify the courses that are good for us and bad for him, and then close them off to you…?"

"For all I know, he managed to do exactly that." Jerl sighed. "Though I don't know how he could. Maybe I'm just shaken and paranoid and it was a case of bad luck, wrong place and wrong time. I don't know. All I can do is muddle forward as best I can."

Wullem nodded, then, on a whim, tossed him the tobacco pouch before rising and stretching.

"Well…this all a bit beyond my ability to help with, I think," he said. "So please, keep the baccy, I have plenty more. I think it's time for my second sleep anyway...ad yours, what?"

Jerl nodded slowly. Now that he'd had the chance to unwind, talk, and generally take his mind off things, his body was telling him that in fact he'd only had a couple hours' sleep even if his mind was a few days out of alignment.

"You helped anyway," he promised, and pocketed the pouch. He wasn't about to turn down an expensive gift, after all.

Mouse was dead asleep when he got back to the room. Jerl undressed, crawled gently into bed so as not to wake him, and lay back to look up at the ceiling. Part of him wanted to mull and fret over the possibility Wullem had mentioned, about Civorage somehow seeing things coming and blocking them off. A rather larger part of him was certain that was impossible, but its certainty didn't match his anxiety's stridency.

The largest part of him fell into troubled sleep without waiting for the rest to cast its vote.

Interlude: waiting for the right moment

Sayf's Palace, the Oasis. 09.06.03.15.12

Restraint was a Crown's lot in life.

The sentence crossed Sayf's mind as he sat in his favorite bench overlooking the edge of the Oasis and the sky beyond. On a clear day, he could see everything, and today was exceptionally clear. But despite the stunning view, his thoughts were behind him, focused on events inside the palace where people were getting increasingly frantic as they searched high and low for little Saoirse.

He knew exactly where she was. She was safe, and she wanted to be alone. In a few minutes, somebody would come and ask him to go be a father, and then he'd agree and step in. But right now…

Let a little girl be miserable in solitude. She needed it. She had every reason to be sad right now, and Sayf had been a father to enough people over the endless years to know that actually, sometimes the healthiest way to raise a kid was to let them feel their emotions.

He smiled to himself as the door behind him opened and the purposeful click-click-click of Palasarli's heels told him he'd loafed around enjoying the view for long enough.

"Okay, okay. I'll go cheer her up," he said, without turning his head.

The impatient stomp in Pal's step faltered, then she laughed and draped herself over his shoulder. "I should know you better by now," she said, and kissed his cheek. "You've been keeping an eye on her yourself."

"So to speak."

"Where is she?"

"Come on, a kid needs her safe places to go. I'm not about to spoil a hiding place this good."

Pal scoffed slightly, and swatted his arm. "Fine, fine. But she'll be grumpy and tired if she doesn't eat soon, and then we'll all suffer."

Sayf chuckled, and sprang to his feet. "I'll take care of her," he promised, kissed her, and launched himself halfway across the earthmote with a single casual hop.

Of course, part of the problem was that Pal and the others still treated Saoirse like she was a normal five-year-old. Hide and seek with a child that age was normally a very simple game, where the greatest challenge for the adult was usually in ignoring the giggling pile of pillows, or a pair of feet visible below the squirming curtain. But this was no game, and Saoirse was no normal child; she was the daughter of a witch and a Crown. When she didn't want to be found, an unprepared mind might look right at her and not see. When she went to an actually half-decent hiding spot as well…

Sayf of course brushed past the obscuring magics like an ordinary dad might flick aside the entrance to a blanket fort. The girl had near-infinite potential and a surprising degree of talent, but almost no actual experience…though "experience" was a tricky concept when dealing with somebody who had already exhibited retrocausal powers. The ability to reach back in time from futures that may never even come to pass in order to act through her past self was…

Well, it was trick he himself had certainly never mastered, and apparently never would if the lack of contact from his future possible selves was any indication.

Saoirse's hiding spot was in the clock garden, in the little nook where a sculpture of two figures in swooping robes—sculpted by a long-departed and fondly missed harem husband named Anver—stood back to back in an alcove in the clock tower's wall. An adult couldn't possibly squeeze into the gap, but a child could, and the back of the sculpture was a dished hollow of just the right size.

He sat down on the bench below their feet, stretched out his own feet, and leaned back with a sigh, listening. He heard little breaths and the soft sounds of movemt, and smiled to himself before settling in to wait in silence.

After a minute or so, a small sad voice spoke up from behind the statue. "Do I have to come out now?"

Sayf's smile widened. "You don't have to. But I thought you might like a cuddle."

There was another long pause. Then his daughter squirmed out from behind the stone skirts, climbed into his lap, and held tight. Sayf put his arms around her and kissed the top of her head.

"I miss her too," he murmured softly, rubbing a back not much larger than his own hand. "And I worry about her." Saoirse's little nod against his chest said everything.

"You don't have to worry, Daddy. She'll be okay."

"Yeah? Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

"Did Grownup-You tell you that?"

"Yeah."

Incredible. He'd discuss that with the others, later. But for now, he just held his little girl, for as long as she wanted.

Sayf was old. There was, to his thinking, no particular point to putting a precise integer on his age, even if there hadn't been an interstice between the World Before and this one where "time" and "duration" were meaningless concepts. If he'd ever bothered to try, the result would have been a number on which even the largest human-comprehensible scale was invisible. Heck, a human-like psyche couldn't contain an understanding of a number that large no mater how powerful it was.

But he was very, very old. And in his inestimably long experience, he had met uncountable people and had every conceivable reaction to them, from instant love to instant hate and all points between and orthogonal, and there was only one group of people in all the infinite mortal spectrum that he would never understand: the ones who hated children.

To a mind that had contemplated the collision of galaxies, who had journeyed inside black holes, lived on the surface of stars, seen the end of entropy and helped engineer a whole new universe from its cold ashes, the greatest mystery in all creation were people who used terms like "crotch goblin," "fuck trophy," "cunt turd" or worse with real spiteful feeling.

Children were the very best thing in all worlds. And his own children, doubly so. Even (or, perhaps, especially) when they were crying and needy and unreasonable and immature.

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Of course, having effectively unlimited energy and strength might be a help in that regard, he conceded.

He kissed the top of Saoirse's head again. "Hungry?"

"…Yeah."

"What are you hungry for?"

Hopeful green eyes turned up to look at him. "Can I have Eggy Cup?"

Sayf chuckled fondly and stood with her tucked in his elbow. Eggy cup had been the go-to Saoirse Snack since she'd been 2 years old, and it was a recipe dating back to his own childhood: one soft-boiled egg, one liberally buttered slice of freshly baked white bread, a pinch of salt and pepper. Mash them together in a mug, serve warm. "Yes, little miracle. You can have Eggy Cup."

With her mood instantly and much improved, she chattered to him about a new book Lisze was reading her as they wandered back to the palace. He listened attentively, with part of his mind. But the larger part was lingering on the knowledge that this little girl received insights from her own potential futures. None of his other kids had ever exhibited talent like that. It made him proud beyond words…and also a little worried.

Eärrach had once likened being able to see the future to walking a road on the back of an immensely long flying dragon as it looped and coiled through the clouds. The winding path wasn't easy to see down, and you might look ahead and see part of it emerging from the fog some distance ahead of you, but by the time you got there the dragon had moved so you could never be sure, either whether you'd reached the spot you saw, or whether the road behind that you could see was really where you'd stood when you first saw your new position.

It was a maddening ability, even for the four of them, and so dangerous that Jerl had quite rightly partitioned off parts of his memory to avoid remembering the full confusing detail. How might such foresight affect the growth and development of a child?

He needed to speak with them about it soon, he decided. But for now…well, one sure way to harm a child's young psyche was neglect. so the least he could do for his little girl was make her Eggy Cup. Then read to her in the bath and put her to bed. Maybe sing a bit.

After all, there was nothing in all his long life that brought him quite as much joy as being a dad.

New in production at time of printing: The Mk.41 "Florence" ethanol-burning airship engine. Our latest and most refined innovation in aerial motive force. The Mk.41 boasts an improved throated carburetor for superior vaporization and burn efficiency, alongside our patented high-lift piston train—a marvel of balanced reciprocation delivering superior thrust at minimal weight. Built for captains who demand ascendancy in both speed and stability, the Florence achieves an unrivalled power-to-weight ratio and peerless fuel efficiency, making her perfect for all classes of free-flying ship. Every unit is bench-tested and guaranteed under air for 500 hours. Accept no imitation.

—Keeghan & Sons Engineering Works catalogue, 09.06.03.

Hunted, again

Airship Cavalier Queen, the Cottagewealds, Enerlend 09.06.03.15.15

So. Four ships. Two flying in the clear where they could be seen, one lurking in the cloud banks, and a fourth staying high, using the sun's glare. All four had Encircled on board, meaning instant communication…and the patrol was covering the direct route between Lendwick and Auldenheigh, whi the Queen needed to take as her hold was full and heavy with perishable food supplies to relieve the hungry masses in the big city.

Jerl didn't doubt those ships would still be there. Orders like that took time to be issued and to be acted on, even with Civorage's advantage of telepathic messaging. The question wasn't whether they were present: the question was how to get past them.

Or through them.

Fighting them four on one was simply out of the question. Stretching his power to the point it gave him a migraine and a nosebleed let him see several seconds, maybe even a minute into the future, and against ordinary ships that might be enough advantage. But the Encircled were one mind, one will. They would fight with coordination ordinary crews never could, without mistakes or delays he could exploit. They would surround the Queen, harass her and force her to maneuver until there was nowhere left to go and there were no tricks left to pull.

The only option therefore was to sneak by unseen.

Hugging the ground and staying below the hilltops might work if not for the high-altitude overwatch. Going wide enough to evade the four altogether was an option…but Jerl didn' like how long that would take.

That just left the weather. The weather was…not ideal.

To anyone who didn't know clouds like Jerl did, those long, thick white banks stretching in parallel curves away into the distance might have looked perfect to plunge into and then follow to their destination. But any experienced airman knew that clouds like that formed because of rolling convection currents. A ship trying to fly into them would be forced upward on one side, pushed downards on the other, and subject to twisting forces within. If they got bad enough, they could roll the ship up in its own bag and rigging and either pitch everyone overboard or crush them in a tightening tangle of ropes.

So those were the options: an unwinnable fight, a massive detour, or an insane risk.

The detour was the only sensible move, and Jerl knew it. But for some reason, he had a terrible suspicion it was the wrong move.

He said as much to Amir, who was carefully taking landmark readings.

"Is that your Word telling you so?" he asked.

"No," Jerl admitted, carefully surveying the sky ahead of them. They were still a couple of hours out from the site of his last fatal encounter with Civorage's ships, but he kept an eye open anyway. Things could be different this time, even if they probably weren't.

"So what is it, then? A hunch? Paranoia?"

"Both?" Sin suggested.

"Bit of both, yeah." Jerl took a deep breath. "But I've been thinking about this all the last couple of days, and I can't think why those ships are there, except to catch us or delay us."

"So they're there to delay us," Amir said.

Jerl nodded at him. "Right. Catching us does nothing. I just pull back time and try again. But delaying us…"

Sin nodded, seeing his point. She looked up at Derghan, who was standing next to her with an arm around her waist, taking the air on deck. His hard, callused fingers were rubbing thoughtfully at his chin. "Don't think too hard, you'll pull your beard out, nay?"

He snorted. "Ship's fuckin' engineer, still get treated like a dumb fuck…"

The four of them shared a laugh, which was a sound and experience Jerl hadn't enjoyed in a little while. It couldn't last long, of course; Sin poked Derghan in the ribs and said. "Fine, fine, I apologize. Steel for your thoughts, then?"

Derghan twisted one of his beard braids a moment longer, then knocked his knuckles on the rail with a thoughtful frown. "He's got a Herald in his corner, right? Fallen one, anyway. So…he knows some shit about Time and deep magic and all that. Maybe he knows all about the things you said about how you can't guarantee the same result every time."

"So?" Jerl asked.

"Well…what if he's realized he's gettin' backed into a corner here in this time path, so he's trying to force you to step back 'cuz he figures a different path might go better for him? So he's set up a situation that'll fuck us either way, and the only way around it is to go back and try again from further back, and that permanently undoes somethin' he really didn't like."

"…Adrey and her Particulars did just bring the Bryndell Moorlanders over," Sin noted.

"Is that enough?" Amir asked. "Is one regiment enough to tip the balance?"

Jerl sucked thoughtfully at his teeth. "It might well be. That's what our strategy has rested on so far, after all. One regiment at a time…"

"Hmm." It was Amir's turn to curl the point of his beard around his finger in thought. "So the question is, what is the least bad play here?"

Deng-Nah finally spoke up. "My father teached me—taught me? Taught me, when we play the palace game. When your opponent has your pieces on the bull's horns—what do you call that in your version? When one piece attacks two and only one can be saved?"

"Forked," Amir said.

"Forked? Hmm. Yes. My father's advice was, when your pieces are forked, stop looking at them."

Jerl realized that he and the others had all tilted their heads curiously at him in exactly the same way, and almost laughed. He brought his hand up and massaged his cheeks to conceal the smile, and gave the advice some consideration. "So…what? Write them off as damage done and go looking for what damage you can do instead?"

Deng-Nah nodded. "Yes, exactly."

"We should play against each other sometime," Amir said to him. "None of these brutes can ever remember which pieces are which."

Sin cleared her throat.

"—Or if they can, they lack the patience," Amir added.

Sin aimed a disrespectful Elvish gesture at him, but she was smiling. Jerl enjoyed the exchange, but his mind was turning over the thought.

"I need more information," he decided. "All very good talking about forked pieces, but in the game you can always see the whole board. Right now, I can barely see what's right in front of us."

"Those four airships had to come from somewhere," Derghan said. "What did you say they were, mid-rigs?"

"The big one was. The rest were acre-bags," Jerl nodded.

"Single engine?"

"Yeah."

"Hmm…" Derghan pulled on his beard once more and then looked sharply to Amir. "Six or seven clear knots abeam at most, maybe?"

Amir considered that. "I doubt Civorage skimps on engine expense," he pointed out.

"Hm, yeah. An' he's definitely got someone in his pocket at Keeghan & Sons. I took a look at the one we took down over Banmor Manor, and they had the new throated carburetors and high-lift cam assemblies…Call it eight, then."

Amir pursed his lips. "If we assume he dispatched them after the Moorlanders were recruited, that's about nine hundred miles."

"Only if you screamed the engines the whole way. Which'd wear 'em down to swarf."

"And you're neglecting loading and embarkation time" Sin said. "Halve it, I'd say"

"Yeah, easily half." Derghan nodded.

"That….does narrow things down," Amir conceded. "I'll check the charts and see if anything leaps out at me."

"Sounds good," Jerl said. "In the meantime….Gebby?"

The helmsman looked up at him from the wheel. "Skipper!"

"Gently to eight zero, maintain speed"

"Gently to eight zero, as I was going, aye aye!"

They all leaned easily and comfortably into the faint swaying feeling as Gebby brought the wheel over a few degrees and put them in a slow, easy turn.

"Going around, then," Sin concluded.

"I didn't enjoy dying the last time," Jerl said. "And I don't enjoy watching you all get killed, either. I'd rather play it cautious today."

"Works for me, nay? Okay. Let's see what happens…"

Jerl nodded, and followed Amir toward the officer's cabin and planning table. He had an interest to see where these airships had come from and what they were no longer protecting, too. Just in case.

Because unfortunately, he was pretty sure he was going to wind up having to go back again.

It has long been the position of this publication—and remains so—that the principles of the Craft, particularly in its manipulation of thought, sentiment and perception, are antithetical to the rigorous, scrupulous disciplines which define the true Art of magic. That said, we are not unaware of the changing realities in our fair city and beyond. Her Grace the Duchess Ellaenie has reclaimed the seat that was once hers with decisive resolve, and by every lawful standard is again the rightful sovereign of Enerlend. While we cannot endorse her embrace of the esoteric and confounding traditions of the Craft, we affirm our respect for her station, and trust that her reign shall bring stability, order, and—if it please her—enlighted patronage of magical scholarship in all its higher forms. Crowns save the Duchess. —Editorial Statement, The Art magazine, published in Auldenheigh 09.06.03.14

Preparing to make a visit

Clear Skies Manor, Long Drop City, Alakbir 09.06.03.15.16

Nils reclined on the chaise lounge next to the window in his study, and made himself comfortable. He'd made the mistake of doing this sitting up or seated awkwardly once or twice, and the result had been considerable pain and stiffness, so now he had a whole ritual. Easy comfortable clothes, a sip of tea to relax him, soft furniture, and the attentions of a couple of Encircled nurses to move and massage him if he was gone for long enough to warrant it.

With those steps all in place, he closed his eyes and aimed his will toward a specific recipient.

This one, he found easily. Some of the Encircled, especially the newer ones unfamiliar to him, could be a little tricky to find, like trying to securely grab a bar of soap in a hot bathtub. But this one he had used as his proxy many times. Even so, the moment when he stepped out of one body and into another was, as it always was, terrifying.

To Nils, it felt like deliberately vaulting over an airship's rail in flight. There was a terrifying edge to the mind, and leaning out past it seemed to yield the feeling of a terrible emptiness waiting for him to fall into it. But if he could will himself to fall anyway, then he could fall toward the mind of his choice, and land there, firm and safe.

He opened borrowed eyes, then did what he always did in the first moments of using a proxy. He blinked, wiggled his head around on his shoulders, flexed his fingers and toes…grounded himself. This was a different body, no longer the aging, slightly aching one he'd been born in, but a young man, strong and exercised to perfection. Normally he'd have been dressed in the plain dove grey robes of the Circle, but the ned to remain unnoticed had put him in hard-wearing trousers and shirtsleeves instead.

There was a besom in his proxy's hands. Apparently he'd been sweeping up in a stone-tiled, homey sort of kitchen. Several baskets and boxes full of the kitchen's contents—cookware, crockery, cutlery, books, tchotchkes—were stacked and methodically labeled on the scuffed, well-used table. Good.

There was a noise, and a woman backed into the room with a bundle of linens in her arms. She was, Nils knew, about fifty years old, and had the rounded strength of a lifelong housewife. Less round now, though: the food rationing in Auldenheigh had bitten even her.

"'Ere, what you stopped sweepin' for?" she demanded as she bustled over to the boxes. "I can see you ain't finished yet."

Nils chuckled. "It's me, Mrs. Mab."

She bundled the linen hurriedly into the box and turned to bob a curtsey, smoothing her apron. "Oh, bless me, Mister Civorage sir! I weren't expectin' you!"

"Just a short visit, Mrs. Mab. You seem to be nearly ready to go."

"Oh yes. Unlike Himself." She shot an impatient look at the door.

"Dragging his heels, is he?" Nils asked.

"Oh…" Mrs. Mab smoothed an already smooth apron again. "Well, no, in fairness, no. 'E's workin' as fast as I ever did see 'im. But you know what 'is 'ead is like, Mister Civorage. Soon as 'e takes a bit apart for storage, 'e 'as an idea or 'hinspiration' about it an' then 'e stops to take notes or tinker a bit an' I 'as to remind 'im to get movin' again."

She sighed, shook her head, and gestured toward the door with her head. "I'll tell 'im as you're 'ere, shall I? See if 'e's alright for you to come in the workshop."

"Thank you."

Nils followed her out of the kitchen into a corridor that, he knew, ran the length of the building. It was a simple building, all told, consisting as it did of this one hallway, with three small rooms on one side which Maggie Mab had commandeered as kitchen, drawing room and bedroom.

The other side of the corridor had two doors which both opened into the workshop. She vanished through the nearest, and Nils listened with a degree of fond amusement to the ensuing exchange, which began with a few shrewish insults and escalated from there.

At first glance, one might guess that Maggie and her husband did not like one another, but the reality was considerably more complex than that. They'd been married for about thirty years at this point, so the flame of love (never very hot in the first place) had long since burned down, but there was still the occasional hot coal or ember to be found if one kicked at the ashes a bit. They'd settled into that long-term state of a married couple who were not and had never been very good friends, but knew they could tolerate each other indefinitely and both rather suspected that nobody else could, or would want to even try.

What Maggie got out of it was a house to be proud of, an income to support her, five grown children to write to, and a collection of nattering friends to meet and trade gossip with. She was a small, uninteresting creature to Nils' way of thinking, but she did at least keep Jared fed, clothed and healthy.

And Jared was an investment so valuable that his wife became valuable by association.

Maggie emerged, bobbed a little curtsey, and smiled at Nils. "Go on in, sir," she said, and returned to her packing. Nils murmured a thank-you and entered the workshop.

Once upon a time, this place had been the sort of enterprise that made plant for other factories. One long wall was a huge door leading out into the rail yard outside, while a phalanx of drills, lathes, saws and presses marched along the one long wall. The two short walls were workbenches festooned with shelving, in which assorted jars of screws, coils of wire, boxes of hardware, oils, glues, tools, chisels, clamps, solder, washers, cotter pins, pegs, plugs, pins, gaskets, nozzles, belts, pulleys, brushes, spare fuses, sandpaper in every grit, grease-stained manuals in three languages, broken callipers and clamps, lengths of chain, springs of unknown provenance, mysterious key-like objects that fit no visible lock, little tins of powdered graphite, stubby pencils, threadbare greasy rags, and rolls upon rolls of tape: duct tape, electrical tape, masking tape, and one whose adhesive properties seemed to change depending on how loudly it was cussed at.

And that was just the shelves. Under the benches lurked dented tool chests, buckets full of unidentifiable tangles, crates of mismatched bearings, shims, blunt drill bits, chains and hooks. The walls were hung with old, bald bicycle wheels, rolls of stained canvas and huge spools of thick wire. Every horizontal surface was invisible beneath strata of metal shavings, nuts, bolts, washers, parts catalogues from extinct companies, stained mugs and every conceivable size of hammer, wrench and screwdriver.

Nils had once offered to instruct his proxy—who would work tirelessly, uncomplainingly and without any notion of boredom—to sort and file the whole dusty mess, but Jared Mab Keeghan had been almost insulted. He claimed to know where everything was.

Nils believed him.

He had no idea how the man was going to get everything packed and ready to go in time, though. Maybe he wasn't planning to. After all, most of those supplies could be replaced. The important thing was the Project.

"Jared?"

"Under here, Mister C!"

Nils followed a flash of movement under the Project, and bent down for a better look.

Jared Mab Keeghan didn't turn to look at him, but he did wave a spanner by way of acknowledgment. He was flat on his back on a wheeled board with a magestone light clamped to the nose bridge of his goggles. Crooked yellow teeth still contrived to shine brilliantly in a face which was otherwise an oil slick with a scruffy salt-and-pepper beard.

"I take it you're busy," Nils said, drily.

"As always." Jared stuck the spanner into the Project's innards, fit it around something, then banged it with the heel of his palm a few times. The whatever-it-was came loose, and he turned the spanner around to use the ratchet end with a satisfied grunt. "As I said before, there's no way I'll have the big girl ready to go before the deadline you gave, though."

"You could if you would let Encircled work on her," Nils pointed out, again. He knew Jared would refuse again.

"Ten of your Encircled don't have half a man's brains between 'em," the engineer said, dismissively. "That's the whole point of 'em, isn't it?"

"No, the whole point is that they're untroubled by—"

"Yeah, yeah, you've given me the pitch before…oop!" Jared hastily grabbed a bucket and got it in place just in time: a laminar column of transparent yellow oil dropped into it half a second after he let go. He scooted with his legs and rolled his little board out from under the Project, wiping his hands on a rag that couldn't possibly be making them cleaner. "I've tried lettin' 'em help. They're too slow, too dumb, too…"

"Thorough," Nils suggested, archly.

"Too feckin' plodding." Jared stood up. "They always want everything lined up all perfect. There's no genius in 'em, no inspiration. No, they're no use on a project like this, Mister C. That's why you need folks like me."

"But you can't get the project packed and ready for transport quickly by yourself," Nils pointed out. "Luckily, I've managed to buy you time. But it's a matter of a few days at most. If you can't get this thing safely out of the city by the time the Cavalier Queen arrives…"

"And why exactly can't I keep workin' on her under one airship's nose when I've been keepin' it hidden from the Blackdrakes for years?"

"Things have changed. These people have powers like mine. They've spoken Words of Creation. One of them even spoke the same Word."

Jared paused, then lifted his goggles up to his forehead. Where they had covered, the skin around his eyes was startlingly pink-pale. "…Yeah. Alright."

"And even without the power of a Word, Adrey Mossjoy killed the Peltons. They were idiots, no great loss. But you're far too valuable and important to take risks with."

Jared's stubby, hard-skinned fingers rasped through his whiskers as he rubbed his chin and considered the Project. "…Aye. And you know what? I think I've learned enough from this prototype. She was never really gonna work anyway, not on the scale you asked for."

"So…?" Nils asked. He could have plucked the thought's conclusion right from Jared's mind of course, but it was a sort of unspoken courtesy between him and his collaborators that he didn't. Jared was right, his creative genius would have been snuffed out by Encircling him: treating him with a little politeness was a tiny price to pay for his services.

"So to the Shades with it. Get your Encircled to bring me some blasting powder, I'll take Maggie and get out without having to figure out how to lug this with us." he tapped the Project with his wrench. "And I'll make sure all the Blackdrakes ever find is scrap and shrapnel."

"Are you sure?" Nils asked, shocked. He would have sworn Jared was more attached to it than that.

"Everything I need to make her again new and better is right here," Jared tapped his temple with the wrench. "You just get Maggy and me out of the city and find me a decent workshop, I'll deliver you one of these that actually works. Deal?"

He stuck out a filthy hand. Nils shook it without hesitation.

"Deal," he said.

Was on railyard patrol about 5th hour when a big ball of fire went up a few streets ahead, folowed by a great boom. Proceded to run toward the sight of the blast. Found the workshop of Mr Jared Mab Keeghan all gone to matchsticks, blowed out all ways. Looked like it come from inside cause the walls is all fallen out not in. Small fires, which we put out. Other buildings nearby all empty, so nobody hurt there, but lots of damage, blown out windows and such. Cant tell if Mr Keeghan and his Mrs was in at the time, as after such a big bang theres not much left of folks. Tied off the scene proper and left marker for the Inspector, sent curious people back to their beds, continued patrol. No further incidents. —Report of constable E. Tully, Auldenheigh Constabulary

Safely back to port

Airship Cavalier Queen, Auldenheigh, Enerlend 09.06.03.15.19

Detouring around the Clear Skies patrol wasn't a matter of going just a few miles out of their way. A ship's bag was so huge and obviously not a cloud that a good lookout could reliably see them from a tremendous distance. Jerl had once met a man who boasted of being able to pick out ships two hundred miles away with the naked eye.

It wasn't an implausible claim, even though Jerl suspected he'd just been drunk-bragging. And a good telescope could add a lot more than that. So to be safe, he'd taken the Queen more than three hundred miles out of the direct path. And of course, that meant three hundred miles to come back, too. And all of it while alert for other airship patrols or the danger of passing over enemy territory.

All told, the detour took four and a half long, tense days. They never saw anything, no sign of any ships hunting them, but still the moment when the distant flat grey smear of Auldenheigh began to gain some shape and definition and the picket line of short-range boats flashed signals at them was a thoroughly welcome one.

Welcome…but not happy. Jerl couldn't shake the uncomfortable feeling that Civorage might have outmanoeuvred him and achieved…something…by the detour.

There weren't a lot of places a ship could moor in Auldenheigh right now. Adrey Mossjoy's Wordspeaking rampage had devastated every Oneist ship in the city, and taken most of the masts and cradles with them. Still, there was a free mast waiting for them, which gave a green flag and invited them in. They'd have to let the cargo down by winch and net, but so be it.

Captain Bothroyd met Jerl at the bottom of the mast's ladder: he recognized him from Adrey's description, and from Mouse sneaking him a little telepathic insight. The man was old to be a captain of the constabulary, Jerl thought: knocking on the door of retirement age, in fact. The loose skin around his jowls hinted at a formerly well-padded man who was feeling the pinch of rationing, but it hadn't done any damage to his rather splendid mustache.

"Captain Holten, I presume?"

Jerl shook his hand. "Captain Bothroyd."

A complex emotion crossed Bothroyd's face, suggesting he might have been inclined to self-effacing humor on the subject if not for the fact that he'd been promoted into a dead man's shoes. "Feels weird, that. Been a serjant my whole life, but all of a sudden…" he shook hands with the others while Jerl made introductions. Sin and Derghan were staying with the ship to oversee unloading and maintenance of course, so Sin's duty of bodyguarding him had fallen to Harad. Deng-Nah and the Queen's gunnery chief Padrig ad Sulidhan were tagging along too: the same message flags coming off the mast that had summoned Jerl to the palace had also asked for Deng-Nah by name and Padrig by rank.

Mouse was quietly at Jerl's side too, as always, but clearly in no mood to be seen: Bothroyd's unseeing eyes skipped right over him, as he politely shook everyone else's hands.

"We'd expected you four days ago," Bothroyd said. "Worried you'd run afoul o' some mischief on your way."

"We did, I'm afraid," Jerl said. "Had to take a wide detour. But…we're here, and the cargo should still be good."

Bothroyd nodded his understanding, and gestured toward a waiting coach. "You're wanted up at palace."

"Any particular reason, or just debriefing?" Jerl asked, falling in alongside him.

"Both, I think. Things're more of a mess about now than any bugger's got a real 'andle on…" Bothroyd massaged his mustache. "There's millions o' people in this city, all livin' on iron rations. Most're abidin' by it. But there's 'yer hoarders, 'yer profiteers, 'yer black market bastards, th' thieves an' gangsters…Jus' last week, the Coach House Lads tried to rustle twenny 'ead o' beef from th' slaughterhouse. I'm buggered if I know where they thought they'd keep 'em, but it don't bloody matter anyway 'cuz they all died when General Liung sent in his…what're they called? Shinjis?"

"Shin Yi," Deng-Nah corrected him quietly. He looked faintly disturbed by the mention of them. "Means 'Deadly Silence'."

"Aye, well. The Coachers'd been 'oled up in stockyard 'fer 'alf a day shootin' any bugger who showed 'is face an' then…dead. No-one ever 'eard aught, or saw anyone go in or out."

Deng-Nah nodded grimly. "Yes. That is Shin Yi," he agreed.

Bothroyd nodded and continued to chatter. "Pity th' example din't do much to simmer th' other gangs down," he grumbled. "We've 'ad shootouts between them an' the constables, between each other, between them an' the Yunei, the Militia…and then there's th'other shite. Bombings an' sabotage. You know jus' last night a workshop out on the rail yards went sky-high? One minute there's a buildin', next minute there's walls knocked down two 'undred yards away, an' I 'eard they found bits o' 'ardware stuck in walls miles off!"

Padrig whistled appreciatively. "The fuck did they light off, a whole powder store's worth?"

"Aye. Of our own bloody powder, no less. We found the Bellfounders Road store empty this morning. Bloody mess all over, that one." Bothroyd sighed and shook his head. "I could piss an' moan about things all day. No point in it…"

Despite his words, he continued to gripe and grumble about all the things going wrong in the city all the way to the palace. Normally Jerl would have found this sort of thing tiresome, but the captain had an affable, fatherly manner to him that somehow made his complaints entertaining. He was also, Jerl knew, a longstanding member of the Blackdrakes and one of Adrey's compatriots, so there was always the possibility that the 'slightly distracted curmudgeon' thing was a mask.

Whatever the truth, he escorted them through the palace into the old ballroom which had become the headquarters for the war effort, and made introductions. At some point in the last couple of weeks, Lord General Liung had moved in from his former command post out in the Heighlands, and he and Deng-Nah immediately went off together for a long and highly formal conversation, with much bowing and what sounded like at least three brief poems.

It seemed to be good news for Deng-Nah, anyway. He was fighting not to smile (or if Jerl was any judge, leap and punch the air for joy) so…that was good.

Mister Skinner gestured Jerl over to the map table.

Jerl had to admit, Skinner seemed an unlikely sort to have wound up in his present position. The man was clearly a down-and-dirty street fighter who'd spent time in some gang or another, and he'd been wiry at best even before the rationing. Now, he was downright skinny…and yet Jerl still suspected he'd rather try and box with a sawmill than take Skinner on. He was, as the old saw had it, an old man in a profession where most died young.

To somehow come up from that to being the chief of Ellaenie's intelligence network was quite a journey. He might look like nothing more than a heavily tattooed and scrawny bag of dirty tricks, but there was a mind there as fearsome as any Jerl had ever met. Mouse certainly seemed to think so: when Jerl glanced down at him, he gave a complicated little eyebrow-shrug which said 'I'm impressed.'

As Jerl and crew approached, Skinner finished conversing with one of the regimental officers, who nodded sharply and bustled away. Jerl took the newly vacated place at the map table and gratefully accepted a cup of tea from a quiet young lady who, neat though she was, smelled faintly of pigeons.

"Glad you could make it," Skinner said without preamble.

"Had to detour around a Clear Skies ambush," Jerl explained. Skinner nodded grimly.

"Yeah, Civorage 'as th' skies to 'imself, pretty much. Our navy is…well, you're our navy. End o' list."

Jerl nodded grimly. "I take it that's what you wanted to discuss."

"Damn right. So long as Civorage 'as all the ships, 'e can outmaneuver us, bring in troops an' supplies from further afield. We've got the Duchess an' 'er forest-walkin' thing, but she can't be everywhere at once…"

"In the end, superior logistics will win out," Jerl said, nodding "I can't be everywhere at once to prevent it either."

"Aye. An' the regimental fellas all know it. So the plan they've put together is to liberate Antage."

Jerl frowned. "Do we have the men?"

"The men? Oh aye, we've got the men. An' it bein' on the far side o' enemy lines is no problem if the Duchess sends 'em. It's just the little things we don't 'ave, like lines o' communication, supplies, transportation… a properly secure 'ome front…" He irritably moved a pieced of paper that was brushing against his hand.

Jerl nodded. "I heard there was a bombing last night, yes."

"Aye. Jared Mab Keeghan's place, down by the railyards." Skinner rubbed his jaw in a way which suggested he hadn't got enough sleep last night. "Fucked if I know why they bombed it, though."

"Keeghan?" Jerl asked, tilting his head.

"Mab Keeghan, skipper," Padrig chimed in. "You're forgettin' 'yer Craenen."

Skinner looked at him curiously. "Dunno if I ever learned it. What's the 'mab' mean?"

"Means 'son of.' But we only use it when someone's sorta…on the out wi' the family, so to speak." Padrig explained. "See, Craenen never actually disown a kinsman in the way you Garanese types do. But we've got, like…an inner circle, an' outer circles, if ye like. If you're really in the thick of it, you just use the clan name. But if you're a bit on th' outside, then you use ad or mab dependin' on whether it's your choice or the family's."

Jerl nodded, remembering at last. "Ad means the door's open to coming back in from the cold, if I remember…"

"Aye, exactly. So someday I'll just be plain ol' Padrig Sulidhan again, when I go back home. But this Jared fella? He musta done somethin' to piss of the family ardkin. He's still a Keeghan when the shootin' starts, like, 'cuz at th' end o' the day it's Clan against the World, right? But…"

"I think I get it," Skinner said. "Ardkin?"

"You'd say…patriarch, I guess? Or matriarch. Can be either. I think the Keeghan ardkin is ol' Maeve Keeghan."

"She's the one who built her father and uncles' inventions into an actual guild, certainly," Jerl agreed.

Skinner nodded. "So…this Jared bloke would be the black sheep of the family? Funny. All I ever 'eard of him was 'e owned a business making machines for factories. Cotton gins and looms and suchlike." He shrugged. "Anyway, it's not important—"

"No, it is." The words leapt out of Jerl's mouth before his brain even caught up. Time had just jumped out from the back of his mind like a mugger and beaten him across the head with a cudgel made of intuition, precognition, and sideways-time. This was important, very important. This was a moment he'd foreseen on the day he first spoke the Word. His past self, from the nigh-omniscient perspective Time had first granted him, had left a very clear marker and warning here, in this spot.

Pity he'd not been able to provide details. The Word didn't work that way. A marker was all he got: it was up to him to sort out the specifics.

"…I don't see 'ow," Skinner said, frowning at him.

"It's…look, just trust me on this. That bombing is significant in some way. It's…oh, Winter's tits. I bet that's why we got delayed by the ambush, too. To create a no-win scenario. An unwinnable fight blocking the direct way here, but if we avoid it Civorage gains the time he needs to do something with this Mab Keeghan fellow…"

Skinner gave him a long, thoughtful stare. "…You're certain?"

"Convinced, let's say."

Skinner sniffed thoughtfully, and nodded. "Fair 'nuff. Wordspeakers know shit."

"Not enough." Jerl turned to the others. "Whatever we'd planned to do next just got put aside. Padrig, get back to the ship, tell Derghan and Amir I'm heading down to take a look at that bombed-out workshop."

"I need to talk wi' the armory master here first, skipper. That's what I was summoned for."

"Ah, yeah. Harad?"

"My place is guarding you," the elf said.

"Considering I can't die, I do wonder why you're bothering," Jerl said. Harad paused to consider this, then nodded. Something that might almost have been self-effacing amusement tried to drag on the corners of his lips and eyes.

"…Back to the ship, tell the engineer and navigator to meet you at what remains of Jared Mab Keeghan's workshop," he said. "Aye aye."

"Thank you." Jerl looked to Skinner as the elf darted away across the room in a blur of magically enhanced speed that tossed loose papers in his wake. "I hope the regiments can make do without their navy a little longer?"

"They coped this long, they'll cope a while yet. If'n you think this matters so much, take th' time you need," Skinner confirmed. "But you owe me a bottle o' somethin' good for all the shoutin' I'm about to intercept on your be'alf."

Jerl chuckled. "Deal."

"It'd 'elp if you could let me know when you find aught."

"Will do."

They nodded at each other, and Jerl stepped away. Padrig vanished to go take care of his own errand, and they swung by the corner claimed by Lord General Liung and his staff.

Jerl had done his best to practice Yunei manners and even learn a bit of the language with Deng-Nah's help, but it was in moments like these that Mouse's power really came into its own. Standing unnoticed at Jerl's side, he could, among other things, help Jerl with the language. The telepathy involved felt decidedly odd, but…

Well, it was enough to muddle through a conversation without embarrassing himself. and General Liung, for all the man dressed like the fancy cushion he sat on, didn't seem to have any unrealistic expectations about Garanese civilians knowing his people's etiquette. They traded a few pleasantries, and Deng-Nah deftly did all the politeness.

"Good news, I take it," Jerl asked as they walked away.

"I am free to go home." Deng-Nah smiled as he said it, but it turned into pain somewhere between his cheekbones and his eyebrows. "No brand of the exile, no shame. The Emperor himself decreed I will be honored for doing my duty, even though it would cost me."

"…But you're not leaving yet," Mouse observed. Deng-Nah inhaled slowly, and shook his head.

"I left home to protect my family," he said. "Are they safe yet?"

"Safer than most, for now. But…nobody's safe, really. Not in the long term. Not if Civorage wins."

"As you say. So, I stay. I fight…I speak this Word of mine, or maybe my role is bring it to someone else. Either way, my part in this theatre is not done."

Jerl clapped him companionably on the shoulder. "Well…you might find this next bit interesting," he said.

"Yes? How? Where are we going?"

Jerl couldn't help but smile a little. "We're going to look at a hole in the ground," he said.

Travellers proceeding dexterward by road from Auldenheigh will end their first day of travel within easy reach of two inns of note before the road turns trailward toward Urstoin. The first (and far superior) is the Shelford Coach House, a respectable and well-appointed establishment in the busy village of Shelford. Four miles further along stands—according to the hand-painted sign above its door—the "Dog + Duk Inn." This establishment has the undeniable virtue of being markedly cheaper. As ever in such matters, the traveller will find they get precisely what they pay for. —By Road in Enerlend, a traveller's guide.

Heading Out of Town

The Dog + Duk Inn, Enerlend 09.06.03.15.19

The coach inn thirty miles to dexter of Auldenheigh had a sign hung over the road which depicted a retriever with a duck in its mouth in gorgeous detail. Frankly, the sign looked more like it belonged in an old family's long gallery or something. The creator of that sign should be earning Ducal commissions, not painting pub signs, Nils thought.

It contrasted strangely with the written sign over the door, which read "DOG + DUK INN" in the bold amateurish capital letters of somebody who'd never really got the hang of reading, and who hadn't had the money, time or inclination to do more than slap the letters down on a spare board in leftover white paint.

Perhaps it had been the only option. Most travelers leaving the city would stop four miles earlier, in the village of Shelford, there were no travelers headed into Auldenheigh, these days, and even before that, the wealthier class of traveller would have gone the extra four miles to reach the more salubrious establishment. The place was probably only kept solvent by local farmers coming in for a few pints and a sup at the end of the day.

Nils had chosen to press on and stay at the "Dog and Duk" precisely because he knew it would be quiet, and there would be rooms. Sure enough, the landlord was delighted to have three paying guests, and bustled about making Maggie in particular comfortable.

Jared had other things on his mind.

Nils had kept half an eye on the mechanic while they rode out from the city. At first, Jared had tried to sketch something on the large rolls of grid-lined paper he'd brought with him, but quickly given up and resorted instead to carefully jotting notes and equations in a small black journal instead.

Now the paper rolls came out again, along with pencils, rulers, protractors and the other stationery of his trade. Whatever had been rolling around in Jared's head since they left the city wanted out, and would be contained no longer.

Nils, through his proxy, ordered two ales and sat down to watch the man work. It was a fascinating process, really: Jared's blunt, callussed, age-spotted hands moved with all the same speed and precision as the looms he'd built before Nils found him. There was no dithering, no spare motion: a measuring tool would swing into place just so, he'd make a mark, a separate tool placed, marked, turned, marked again, out came the ruler, line.

Every so often the pencil would dart away from the chart paper to search through the columns and boxes of the notebook, then back, and in this way the Project took new form in paper and graphite.

"It looks different to the last one," Nils said, after a few fascinated minutes.

"That it will," Jared said, mildly. The pencil shot across the page in a straight line from mark to mark, along the edge of a metal ruler. "The old one never worked, after all."

Nils shrugged, acknowledging the point, and sipped his beer. "This one will?"

"Should do. You've done me a favour by blowin' the ol' one up, really. Forced me to think about things from a new angle…" Jared lapsed into silence, tapping his pencil thoughtfully against his lips. He doodled some calculations in the margines, tilted his head, tapped two points on the diagram and did something with his slide rule. Apparently satisfied, he nodded and drew a carefully labelled straight line. "Yeah. This'll show 'em."

Nils asked a question with his eyebrows over the beer mug.

"…Th' family, right?" Jared clarified. "'Specially Maeve."

"I never did quite understand why this was what put you outside her good graces…" Nils admitted. Jared didn't reply for a couple of minutes, but Nils could tell he would, if given a moment to finish what he was doing. They sat in silence while a few more lines, curves and calculations took shape.

Finally, Jared finished whatever tricky bit had demanded his focus, and moved on to apparently easier lines. "D'you happen to know what's written on my grandfather's headstone, Mister C?"

Nils shrugged. One of his Encircled thralls probably would, if he bothered to check, but Jared wanted to tell him. "I can't say I do."

"'Beware, you who would overturn the world: tomorrow, your sons will do likewise.'"

Nils considered this. "…Interesting sentiment," he conceded.

"How d'you interpret it, Mister C?"

"Power is ephemeral unless firmly held. Those who come out on top after a revolution will be thrown down in turn unless they use their power correctly."

Jared's snort ruffled his mustache. "Yeah, that's about what I thought you'd say."

"You interpret it different, I presume," Nils said, coolly.

"…Did you ever travel by wandering mote?" Jared asked.

"Do you always answer questions with unrelated questions?"

"Not unrelated, I promise. But I'd be surprised if you had, right?"

"I haven't." Nils allowed.

"O' course not! Why would you? Payin' a family to put you up for fuck-knows-how long while the rock you're on bobs off to fuck-knows-where and the only thing you can do is wait for it to go somewhere useful? Stupid bloody way to travel." The pencil danced in the notebook for a second, driven by some more arcane work on the slide rule. "But it was the only way to travel for thousands o' years, an' the Motemen made a good life of it. Then along comes this genius alchemist by the name o' Dubhgall Kheegan, who invented lift gas an' airships, an' within one generation…"

He stuck his finger in his mouth and popped it outward. "A whole way o' life, gone in the span o' twenty years. Now the Motemen are a dyin' breed. The smart ones already quit and joined some Guild or another, or became freelance airmen. The stubborn ones still try and scratch out a living, but they're a tourist curiosity at most. They'll be extinct in another twenty years. But the Keeghan family, now, we're incredibly feckin' rich, ridin' high on airships, lift gas an' engines."

He looked Nils in the eye and grinned. "And then, along comes one Jared Keeghan, with his new-fangled ideas about heavier-than-air flight." he waved a hand at the schematic he was working on. The device already taking shape on the paper looked to Nils' eyes like a cross between a fish and a bird: sleek lines, wide wings, and a powerful engine at the nose to propel it through the air.

"…You think you're going to tip the whole family on its head, like the family did to the Motemen?" Nils said. Jared sighed and sat back to take up his neglected beer.

"Our Aldkin, Maeve, she's…." he snapped his fingers and scowled, hunting for the right word. Nils saw the shape of his thought in the front of his mind and offered a suggestion.

"Conservative?"

Jared scoffed. "Hah! Aye, if you want to be kind. They'll put the words 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' on her grave when she goes." He pulled a disapproving face that had nothing to do with the quality of the beer. "Now those're words that should never cross a true Keeghan's lips. 'If it ain't broke, make it better,' that should be our motto. But Maeve…ach. She's a short-sighted hag who can't see past the heap o' coins she's countin'. And guess where most of those coins come from?"

Nils nodded. "Lift gas."

"Exactly. It's still th' foundation o' th' family's wealth to this day, 'cuz every airship in the sky needs it, engines or no'. But this—!" he tapped the schematic, hard. "This'll make airships obsolete. It'll be faster, cheaper, need fewer men an' fewer supplies…an' forget tryin' to fight one in an airship! This right here? This is the death o' airships an' the lift gas industry, mark my words."

He sighed heavily. "I tried to tell Maeve. I tried to say to her, 'this is an idea that will come, when the time is ripe,' I said. 'If I can't make it work, some other bastard will,' I said." **He drained most of his beer in a long pull and set it down with a grumble on his face. "Blazin' row, it was. But at th' end of it, she was still Aldkin, and I was Mab Keeghan. So thanks to her inspired an' foresighted leadership, my family'll go th' same way as th' Motemen. 'Beware, you who would overturn the world: tomorrow, your sons will do likewise.' Gran'pa had it right."

Nils looked down and considered the schematic again. "You really think it'll do all that?"

"And more. You mark my words Mister C., airships might be the big thing here an' now, but in twenty years, they'll be museum pieces jus' like the wandering mote caravanserai. I mean, imagine tryin' to fight one of these in an airship!" He tapped the paper again.

"Paint me a picture," Nils said.

Jared thought for a second. "Imagine…you fucked up both your arms so now they're stuck rigid in plaster casts. But you got a pistol in each hand at least. But there's this crow that's piss-drunk mad at you and it keeps swoopin' to peck you in the skull. D'you think you could shoot that crow?"

"…Good picture."

"Aye. This here's the weapon that'll win this war for you, Nils. No prat with a gas bag an' some timey-wimey powers'll be able to do a thing about it once we've a brace of these in the air."

"Don't underestimate Jerl Holten," Nils cautioned him. "Once he realizes that, he might go back and un-do it."

"No point," Jared said, shaking his head. "It's like I said: this is an idea whose time is ripe. If I can't make it work, some other bastard will."

Nils chuckled. "Are those the words to go on your headstone?"

"If you hold up your end of our bargain, I'll never bloody need one, will I?" Jared pointed out. The unspoken thought that flashed through his mind, briefly unguarded, was and you can't Encircle me without snuffin' out the spark that makes me useful either.

He was maddeningly right, there. Rubes like the Peltons and some of the other free collaborators were always going to join the Encircled in the end. But talents like Jared…they had some power over Nils in turn. Nils didn't much care for that. But, there was nothing he could do, yet, so outwardly he made his proxy smile and raise his tankard.

"To a long and productive partnership, then," he said.

"To overturnin' the world," Jared replied with a grin, and joined him in a toast.

As their glasses clinked together, a droplet flew over the edge and dropped onto the paper. Jared wiped it away, but it hadn't done any real harm. The only smudging was at the very top of the paper, where the name of the device and its inventor had been inked in:

Jared Mab Keeghan Mk.2 Aeroplane.