Architects of Ether

by Ryan Muree

  “But even Emeryss and Grier?”

  “Hey…” Emeryss yelled at him from her seat.

  “You think Grier is gonna go anywhere without her?” Adalai asked. “The boy needs a leash—”

  “I’m right here, and I will not hesitate to stab you in the arm again,” he said.

  She smirked at him and turned back to Vaughn. “Honestly, Grier is just the muscle.”

  Vaughn narrowed his stare even more. “That’s even worse.”

  The airship shifted.

  “I’m landing,” Clove announced, emotionless. “Remember, we don’t go into the actual mines—”

  “Unless we have to,” Adalai finished for her. “And we will if we have to. Get over it.”

  Clove rolled her eyes and set the airship down quietly and without issue. She cut the engines and flipped the lights as the crew clamored out of their seats and into the knee-high, yellow grass.

  Mykel handed over some clothes that looked like a mechanic’s suit. They were gray and pressed neatly. “This is what Clove said they look like.”

  “They’re a little too clean, though,” Clove said.

  “Are they?” Adalai grinned smugly. Of course, they were too clean.

  As they changed, Vaughn pulled out a camouflage tarp no larger than his palm and enlarged it. Mykel went to work creating fake grasses, soil, and rocks to fill in the gaps the tarp wouldn’t cover. They stood back and admired their work.

  The airship actually looked well hidden.

  Adalai nodded. “That’ll work. Stay put until we call for you. Got it?”

  Mykel nodded, but Vaughn didn’t.

  “Got it? I’m the leader, remember—”

  “Yeah, I got it.” Vaughn and Mykel made their way back into hiding inside the ship, while the others made for the hill just behind it.

  Ingini was… empty. Mostly. Hills went on as far as the horizon with stretches of grasses and weeds. The few rocks they’d parked the airship in were left over from the coastline and went no farther into the interior of the country. Behind them, the gray border wall was a thin line on the horizon.

  The hills were not even green, rolling, lively hills, but dried, dead, burnt hills. Burnt grass and tiny, stringy flowers. The scorched earth ahead of them, which she presumed was the mine, looked nondescript. Dark with several machines around it for clearing out rocks and dirt. It looked like there might be a small forest behind the mine, but it was fuzzy. Small buildings dotted the land around it, as well, and they were green and silver, like molding metal.

  “Why are the buildings that color?” Sonora asked.

  Clove looked at her confused. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s weird. It’s dark. It’s like the whole place has a yellow-green filter over it,” Emeryss said.

  Clove stuffed her hands in her pockets. “Ether-smog.”

  Figured. “Let’s go.” Adalai walked ahead.

  As they got closer, wooden crates became visible around the mouth of the mine, as well as landing spots for airships, and a few maintenance crews. The cave itself seemed deserted, save for a few crews moving crates around. They were shaped differently from the ones found on Clove’s ship.

  “They’ve got tools in them. They’re not the books,” Clove said.

  The few people outside of the cave were gritty and grimy with black dust settled in every corner of their skin. It looked like it had permanently stained their clothes, their nails, their hair. Their own uniforms were definitely too clean.

  The crew ahead of them continued moving crates from the landing zone to inside the cave.

  “We’ve already missed the first few shipment drop-offs,” Clove said.

  “But none of these are grimoire boxes?” Grier asked.

  Clove shook her head.

  She knew the others weren’t thrilled about going inside, but they’d go into that mine if they had to.

  They crouched behind stacked crates.

  “If we get caught, we’ve just arrived from Ethrecity, right?” She looked to Clove to check the story they’d come up with earlier.

  Clove was literally shaking. Her fingernails gripped the grain of the crate. Her eyes widened as she watched the miners move in and out of the hole.

  Adalai knocked her on the shoulder. “Hey, did you hear me?”

  Clove blinked back at her and nodded. “Yeah, right.”

  She better not run. She didn’t care if the other Ingini shot her down mid-punch, she’d pummel this chick if she tried to run.

  “Those are tracks for the carts of ether, right?” Grier was pointing out near the pit’s gaping mouth.

  Clove nodded. “But it’s early enough that we should see the cargo airship arrive for the—”

  “A ship is coming into range right now,” Sonora whispered.

  Adalai checked again. All of the crew were dressed in the same ruddy, worn-out mining clothes. No one was official-looking.

  “Where are the bosses?” she asked. “The leaders or chiefs or whatever?”

  “Inside,” Clove said. “They’re deeper in the mines in little wooden offices. They’re addicted to the ether. They don’t come up for anything unless—”

  Just as Sonora had said, a dark-colored airship with gold metal trim and a sleek shape arrived from the east. It was like a darker, smaller version of the Zephyr, and nothing like Clove’s.

  It settled down into one of the parking spaces on the landing zone just as three men wearing slightly cleaner, brighter mining uniforms walked out of the mouth to greet it.

  “The one in the center is the mining foreman,” Clove whispered. “He runs the whole thing. I think his name is Hall. But that’s not a shipping vessel.”

  The engines on the airship turned off, and the cargo hold opened.

  “What is it, then?” Grier asked.

  “Shit,” Clove mumbled. “Shit.”

  Adalai peered around her. “What is it?”

  Out of the airship walked a woman in a bright-blue business suit. Her dark hair was coifed high on her head, golden jewelry glinted off her neck and hands. She was followed by two bodyguards in black suits.

  “She seems powerful,” Sonora whispered.

  “She is,” Clove said.

  “Who is she?” Adalai asked.

  The three men greeted the woman.

  “She’s a terrible woman who only cares about money and getting rich from screwing other people over.” Clove’s stare intensified. “She’s evil. She’s the reason I had to take the new shipping job that got me stuck in Revel.”

  “What’s her name?” Adalai asked.

  “Kimpert,” Sonora answered. “They just greeted her as Kimpert.”

  “Shalaine Kimpert,” Clove said. “One of the richest, self-made women in Ingini and my previous boss.”

  “Before she fired you?” Adalai smirked.

  “Before I quit.”

  “Sure you did. People who quit don’t stay angry about it.” Adalai peeked around the crate again. “What now? It doesn’t seem like she has grimoires with her.”

  “She doesn’t,” Sonora said. “They’re asking her about shipping routes and locations, but they’re being vague.”

  “She wouldn’t be transporting your books in,” Clove said. “That’s too low for her.”

  “And yet she’s here,” Emeryss said. “If she’s so rich and powerful, she has to be here for a reason, right?”

  Clove nodded. “She’s here to discuss payments or to make new demands that she doesn’t want transmitted through Messengers.”

  Sonora’s gaze was focused and trained on the group’s conversation. “She’s mentioning they’re almost ready. That there isn’t enough. They need more.”

  “More what?” Adalai asked.

  Sonora shook her head.

  “Ether, probably,” Clove said.

  “No,” Sonora said. “It’s something—they ran out of it in Fort Damned? They need more. And she’s adamant about needing it now.”

  Clove swal
lowed and looked back at Kimpert. “She’s talking about the ether-fuel used to power the laser.”

  “But I destroyed it,” Emeryss said.

  “So, what would they need the ether-fuel for?” Grier asked. “And why at Fort Damned again?”

  Sonora held up her finger. “They don’t need it at Fort Damned. They need it for something else somewhere else. Kimpert’s talking about Fort Damned as if it’s a reference for an amount—”

  Adalai grabbed Clove by the shoulder. “Out with it. Why would they need that much ether-fuel again? Do they have another laser? At another base on the wall?”

  “I don’t know,” Clove said. “I’ve told you a million times I’m not in the UA.”

  “You had a miniature laser on your ship.”

  “I bought it off the underground market. I got lucky finding it.”

  Adalai could have slapped her for that. Lucky to have found the tech for her ship. Lucky to have been at Fort Damned before they used the laser to destroy an entire city instantly. Lucky was what she was going to be if she let her live through this trip.

  “Why would Kimpert being referencing the amount?” Grier asked.

  “Because it took a lot,” Clove said.

  “How much?”

  “A lot. It had three fuel lines, massive fuel lines, pumped in from underground. It took all three Ingineers to connect it—”

  Adalai grimaced at her. “Oh, but you’re not in the UA or know anything about all that, right?”

  Clove visibly swallowed. “One of the soldiers told me when I had stopped to drop off the crates of bombs. I saw it…”

  “So, they need more fuel, and probably for another laser?” Grier asked.

  Sounded like it.

  “That’s already good intelligence,” he whispered.

  “But that’s not anything about the grimoires or how grimoires fit into all this,” Emeryss said. “Are you sure this Kimpert woman has nothing to do with the grimoires?”

  Clove shook her head. “She might, but not enough to come down here for it. Definitely not bringing any herself. She wouldn’t bother. Does your king conveniently carry around supplies for his people? Neither would she.”

  “So…” Sonora started.

  They had to go into the mines to find a crate.

  Shit. She knew she’d talked tough, and she wasn’t afraid of going through the mines per se, but Clove’s behavior now and warnings before had definitely made it less appealing.

  “Should we return to Mykel?” Grier asked. “Have him make masks or something?”

  “It won’t matter,” Clove said. “It’s ether—raw ether. It seeps in through your skin and eyes and everything. Rots your brain, destroys—”

  “We got it.” Adalai shifted her weight and peered out again. The woman and the men were still talking. “When do we go in?”

  Clove adjusted her weight. “After Kimpert gets back on her ship.”

  But the woman wasn’t leaving. Instead, she and her bodyguards followed the three mining foreman into the pit.

  “Where is she going?” Emeryss asked.

  “They’re drawing up some sort of contract,” Sonora said. “I can’t hear everything, but he wants to show her some things.”

  With the coast clear, she could be sure Clove wasn’t full of shit. “New plan,” Adalai said. “I’m going to inspect her airship.”

  Sonora shook her head as Grier and Emeryss told her no. “That’s way too dangerous.”

  “Do you have a better plan?” she asked. “We made it all the way here. You want to turn around without any answers? And Debbie-doomsayer over here keeps going on and on about how terrible the mines are. We either go in after them and see what’s up, or I go check this woman’s airship.”

  Clove licked her lips. “It’s considerably better than going into the mines, but I swear she won’t have any on her ship.”

  She’d see about that.

  Using the crates as cover, she Blinked behind them one after the other.

  A maintenance man came around the side of some other crates, forcing her to crouch lower.

  She checked her wrist. She had plenty of Blinks and Glamours. She could Disperse, but she’d still be a visible pink cloud. A quick glance over her shoulder behind her told her she was clear to go on. She turned toward the woman’s airship again and nearly tumbled right into the man from before.

  “Excuse me,” he said with the irises of his eyes seared white. They barely held the gray at their edges.

  She froze and held her breath.

  “Hiding out here for a smoke break? I won’t tell as long as you share.” He looked to the sky just above her head. He couldn’t see her.

  “S-sorry. I’m all out,” she lied.

  He sighed. “Better still. Trying to stop, you know. Stuff will make you go blind.” He laughed at himself and turned back for another section of the landing zone.

  She exhaled and looked over a shoulder at the others still hiding behind the crates. Their wide eyes and dropped jaws mirrored the thudding in her chest.

  Too freaking close.

  She Blinked again and again, careful to leave her pink ether dust behind crates and not in view of any miners.

  Finally positioned behind the woman’s airship, she ran her hands along the smooth metal. She checked around her one more time and slipped under the belly of the airship toward the back tail fin. It had bothered her before that it looked eerily similar to a smaller version of the Zephyr, but there was only one way to be sure.

  Skimming her fingertips along its underside, there should have been a silver plate for identification near the rear fin—

  It was there, but it had been painted black. Etched with numbers and letters, she had to angle her head to read them in the light.

  AU-1567...

  Aurelis. It was a capital ship. Not military. Not refitted or altered. They’d somehow stolen a royal airship and hadn’t even bothered to make it look like something from Ingini. It wasn’t new and could have been sold to an advisor or something. It clearly had been smuggled over, just like the grimoires.

  Hurry, Adalai. Clove isn’t sure they’ll be gone for much longer.

  She Dispersed into a cloud, letting her molecules expand until she took up the space between air and water vapor, and slipped between the cracks of the maintenance panel underneath.

  Routing through the ship’s vents and fans, she passed through another crack until she was in the cargo hold.

  Miss Tiddlybottom flourished to life beside her. “You know the routine. Start looking, Tidbits.”

  She poured over files and pages, but most were boring letters about business deals or shipping routes. She stuffed a few of them into the front of her Ingini shipping pilot romper.

  “Nothing, Tidbits?”

  Her pink masked tulisan chirped at her.

  Nothing worth a damn. No crates. No boxes. No grimoires.

  She was clean, just like Clove had said.

  She turned over a few folders and found a map, or it was something like a map. Lines crisscrossed and encircled one another over the page, but it was somehow layered several lines deep. It was like looking at an illusion on paper, and it made her head hurt to stare at too long. At one point, she thought she had read the lines connecting from the mines to Ethrecity, but as soon as she saw it, it disappeared.

  Frustrated, she folded the map and stuffed it in the front of her suit, too. She hated relying on Clove for damn near everything.

  Adalai, time’s up.

  “She’s back?”

  No, but we’ll be found if we stay here any longer. One of the maintenance crews is making their way to the crates we’re behind.

  She let Tidbits dissolve and Dispersed back into a magenta cloud, seeping in through the vents and fans again until she was back out of the airship.

  Grier, Emeryss, Sonora, and Clove had moved behind a couple of crates farther down, but that was the end of the line. If the maintenance crew had come any closer, they’d be e
xposed, and there was no joining them.

  “Head inside. The ship was empty. I’ll head in, too.”

  Clove is pretty adamant we don’t.

  “I have something I need her to look at,” Adalai said. “We’ll just go in for cover. Right at the mouth.”

  She Blinked her way in while the rest of them slipped past more crates and entered the dark cave.

  It was empty, but not silent. Clanking and grinding machines echoed up the chamber. Clove urged them into one of the alcoves.

  “What did you find?” Sonora asked.

  “Clove was right,” Adalai said. “There’s nothing on that ship except some documents and a map.” She dug inside her suit and pulled out the map illusion. Holding it out, she demonstrated how the lines shifted depending on how she held the paper. “It looks like lines are connected, but I can’t read it—”

  “That’s giving me a headache.” Grier squinted at it. “What is that?”

  “It’s a multi-layered map,” Clove said. “It requires a prism to divide the layers, but you can still read it if you’re good enough.”

  “Then read it.” She shoved it toward Clove. “I thought I read Ethrecity on it somewhere and these mines, too.”

  Clove took it and spun the paper in several directions, viewing it from different angles. “It’s a map of the tracks in this mine. It goes from here to Ethrecity and Sufford.” Clove squinted. “It’s the usual stuff she ships, as well as ether…”

  “You picked up your shipments from here?”

  Clove shook her head. “No. I mean, it’s a little suspicious she would need to transport everything she’s got through the mines, but that doesn’t mean she’s got the books. Wait—” She rubbed her eyes, adjusted the paper, and held it out a little farther from her face. “There. Bombs.”

  “Bomb-bombs or grimoire-bombs?” Grier asked.

  “I don’t know why bomb-bombs would be listed here and sent through the mines. They’re not exactly a secret or something we hide here. If it’s on a map like this, it’s something she doesn’t want people to know about.”

  That meant their hunch had been correct. Grimoires could be pushing through these mines into Ethrecity and wherever else. It meant they were one step closer to finding out who was behind it.