All The Turns of Light (Paths of Shadow Book 2)

by Frank Tuttle

  ALL THE TURNS OF LIGHT

  by Frank Tuttle

  Copyright 2014 Sizzling Lizard Press

  Cover art: KaNaXa

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the prior written consent of the author, who by the way is a large mammal with an unpredictable temper and an assortment of hand axes.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are wholly the products of the author’s obviously fevered imagination and any resemblance to any person, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental and that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

  This is the second book in the Paths of Light series. The first book is entitled ALL THE PATHS OF SHADOW and is available in print and e-book format.

  To Randy and Maria and Beth and Lyse and Fanny! This book wouldn't exist without you.

  Chapter 1

  Meralda Ovis, Royal Thaumaturge to the Kingdom of Tirlin, gripped the plain wooden bench that served as the back seat of Shingvere’s speeding motor-car and held on for dear life.

  Shingvere hunched behind the steering wheel of the bouncing contrivance. He raced down Tirlin’s quiet back streets, leaving panicked horses and shaking fists in his wake. Twice, the silver-haired wizard steered the motor-car off the road and onto the sidewalk, narrowly missing a mailbox and a Royal Postman, the latter by mere inches.

  “Motor-cars are the wave of the future, lass, and no mistake,” bellowed Shingvere, as he whipped the car around a pair of bright red single-pony cabs. “They might as well start closing the stables! By Yule old greybeard and I will have sold a thousand of these machines and the good people of Tirlin will be clamoring for a thousand more.”

  Meralda shouted a brief affirmative as Shingvere wrenched the steering wheel and sent the vehicle into a sudden turn. Its rubber tires squealed and the cloud of acrid smoke burned the back of Meralda’s throat.

  Just get us home alive, she intoned, silently. I will never, ever, step into one of these mechanical monsters ever again.

  Shingvere’s wizened face tightened into a smile in the mirror that hung down from the motor-car’s windscreen.

  “Why, Mage Ovis, you look a bit pale,” he said, through his bushy white beard. “All that flying about in airships, yet you find a jaunty ride in our motor-car unsettling?”

  “Oh, slow down before you kill us all, you daft Eryan,” shouted Fromarch, who sat beside Shingvere in the motor-car’s front passenger seat. “I’m showing an overheat on the Number Two diffuser. Due to your heavy foot, no doubt.”

  Shingvere laughed. Fromarch growled and punched at the array of levers and knobs before him while lights flashed and needles rose and fell.

  Something popped beneath the motor-car’s copper hood. Shingvere twisted a knob and shoved a lever home, and the vehicle slowed to a sane speed, hissing and groaning as the motor steamed and smoked.

  “Do I need to pull off the road?” asked Shingvere.

  Fromarch scowled at his instruments. “No. Just stop driving like a lunatic.” He turned in his seat, frowning back at Meralda, his piercing blue eyes rendered owl-like behind his thick driving goggles. “You’ll have to excuse Shingvere yet again, Mage Ovis. You know Eryans and their hereditary lack of self-control.”

  Meralda eased her grip on the motor-car’s seat and let out the breath she’d been holding. “Quite,” she said. “How you two have avoided arrest is simply beyond me.”

  “Oh, it’s been suggested,” grumbled Fromarch.

  “They even tried to confiscate our creation,” said Shingvere, patting the motor-car’s brass steering wheel. “The cheek of that Traffic Master! Forty-three years in Tirlin, lass, and that was the first time I ever had to claim diplomatic immunity. The cheek!”

  Fromarch guffawed. “Well, we put the traffic courts in their place, we did. Bah. Wave of tomorrow, he’s right enough about that. You can have your airships, Mage. We’ll keep our fundaments firmly on the ground!”

  “They are hardly my airships,” Meralda said. But in any case, she thought, if Shingvere is driving, I’ll take my chances in the sky.

  “Well, you are the Mage Ovis who invented the miraculous Ovis Flying Coil,” Shingvere argued, watching Meralda’s face in his rear-view mirror. “Revolutionized air travel, according to the papers and the Royal Air Corps.”

  “Brought Tirlin to the forefront of a brave new era of aviation,” added Fromarch.

  Meralda immediately recognized the quote, which was from a Times article published nearly six months ago.

  “Quite a feat for Tirlin’s first female Mage, they noted.”

  “Youngest Mage ever as well,” said Shingvere. “Prettiest, too, if I may say so, and since I’m old enough to be your grandfather I jolly well may.”

  Ahead, a lumber wagon pulled out into the street, right in the path of the motor-car.

  Meralda’s widening eyes alerted Shingvere, who twisted the wheel and applied the brakes. Tires squealed. Shouts rose up. Horses whinnied and reared.

  Shingvere again took to the sidewalk, and again pedestrians fled and whistles blew and angry words were shouted.

  Fromarch waved and smiled as the motor-car lurched back onto the street.

  “Wave of the future,” shouted the grinning wizard. “You lot might as well get used to it.”

  Meralda closed her eyes, gripped the seat, and hoped for the best.

  * * *

  By the time they circled the Park, crossed Rivet Street, and made their way north toward Tirlin’s industrial quarter, Shingvere’s beloved motor-car was reduced to a wheezing crawl.

  Shingvere guided the machine to the curb, where it noisily expired. Great gouts of noxious smoke belched from beneath the hood. Stirrings and bubblings erupted, and something beneath the machine burst, making a noise embarrassingly similar to that of a carriage pony relieving itself on the cobblestones.

  A trio of uniformed airship mechanics guffawed as they strolled past. Meralda spoke before either of the retired Mages could issue a challenge.

  “So what is this wondrous sight you dragged me away from my work to see?” she asked, struggling with the motor-car’s door handle. “I warn you, gentlemen, if this is some ruse to coerce me into visiting another of your seedy ale houses…”

  “No ruse, Thaumaturge,” said Fromarch, who clambered easily out of the motor-car and opened Meralda’s door from the outside. “This blasted latch is stuck again,” he added, to Shingvere.

  The Eryan nodded absently, frowned at the plumes of grey vapors still wafting from beneath the motor-car’s copper hood, and finally shrugged.

  “Nice day for a walk,” he said. He moved to stand next to Meralda and offered his arm. “Shall we, lass?”

  “I have at least fifteen tests to run on the new holdstone configuration spell,” Meralda said. “I’m at least a week behind on the long-talker stabilization project. I haven’t had a meal except at my desk in three days,” she added. Too, she thought, I haven’t seen Donchen in ages, and unless I am quite mistaken I am a day late paying my apartment rent.

  The Eryan wizard dropped his arm and laughed. “If I was twenty years younger I’d be insulted.”

  “If you were twenty years younger you’d still be an old coot,” said Fromarch, glowering. “The airship docks are blocks away. I say we fetch a cab.”

  “I knew it,” Meralda said, fuming. “You’ve dragged me away from the Laboratory on some daft sightseeing expedition.”

  “Perish the thought,” said Fromarch. “This is a daft drinking expedition.”

  “You both know I’ve already seen the Intrepid,” Meralda said
. “I designed her flying coils. Her lifting gas generators. Her water converters. I know everything about the airship Intrepid there is to know.”

  The wizards exchanged grins and started walking. Meralda fell in between them with an exasperated moan.

  “If you know all there is to know, Mage Meralda, then you know when she’s scheduled to take to the skies,” said Fromarch.

  “Next March. Right after midmonth day.”

  Both wizards lost their grins.

  “She doesn’t know.”

  “No one is supposed to know,” said Shingvere.

  “Which is precisely why she ought to know,” said Fromarch.

  Meralda stopped and put her hands on her hips.

  “That is quite enough, gentlemen. I am no longer your apprentice, Mage Fromarch, nor am I your niece, Mage Shingvere. I will not be spoken over as if I were insensate. If you have news to impart, impart it, or it is I who shall fetch a cab.”

  “There’s been a lot of secret talk over the scrying glass we sent home with the Hang,” said Shingvere, stepping close enough to whisper. “It’s the Emperor. His health is failing, and they don’t expect him to last more than a few months.”

  “If that long,” added Fromarch, arching his bushy white eyebrows in a frown. “You know what that means for the Hang, Mage. Change in ruling houses. Chaos. Turmoil. Civil war, perhaps. Trouble, at any rate. I’m sure your man Donchen has explained it.”

  Meralda bristled. “Donchen is very much his own man,” she said, fighting to keep her voice down. “But he’s said nothing of the sort.”

  “He might not know,” said Fromarch. “This is a state secret, after all. The Crown is keeping it all very quiet.”

  “Then how do you know of it?” Meralda resumed walking and the wizards fell into place on either side of her.

  Fromarch snorted. “I didn’t spend four decades in the Palace as Royal Thaumaturge without cultivating a few close friendships.”

  “He spends a fortune on quiet bribes,” said Shingvere.

  “I do no such thing. Nevertheless, Mage Meralda, it’s time you started thinking a bit more about politics.”

  “I did not take the office of Thaumaturge to waste my time on affairs of Court,” Meralda protested. “Although,” she admitted, “it seems that is what I do most, of late.”

  “I heard old Mage Grumpy here speak the very same words, a thousand times over,” said Shingvere. “Still. You are an officer of the Court, and this will wind up involving you. Oh yes, lass, it most certainly will.”

  “How? As sad as it is that the Hang Emperor is ailing, Hang is a very long way from the Realms, Mages. I believe I can trust the Great Sea to keep its affairs removed from my own.”

  Shingvere pointed ahead. There, rising over the neat red-slate rooftops and dwarfing every other structure around it, the new construction hangar of the Royal Air Corps rose up and up against the clear blue sky. Dock Number Five housed the largest airship ever built.

  “The point our Eryan friend here is failing to convey is this,” said Fromarch. “If the Hang Emperor dies, there’s going to be a state funeral. Since the Hang paid us a state visit last year, we’ll be expected to attend. Failure to do so could be interpreted as a slap in the face by the new Hang dynasty.”

  Shivers ran up and down Meralda’s spine.

  “Nonsense. The Intrepid won’t be ready for a Great Sea crossing for a year, perhaps two!”

  Fromarch laid his hand gently on Meralda’s arm. “Here’s another secret, Mage. Yvin tripled the work crews. Quadrupled the budget. The Corps have been told that the Intrepid is to be airworthy in four weeks, and finished in six.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “No, lass, it’s not impossible,” said Shingvere. “Just expensive. But you’ll soon see for yourself. The Intrepid, like as not, will soon be taking to the skies. And if Grumpy and I are correct, you’ll be aboard her, as the foremost expert on flying coils in all the Realms.”

  “I will do nothing of the sort,” Meralda said. “The flying coils are quite reliable and extensively documented. Any Air Corps mechanic should be able to maintain them with no difficulty whatsoever.”

  Fromarch grunted. “That’s not the way the Crown will see it, Meralda. You know King Yvin. If the Emperor of Hang passes, and that’s all too likely, you’ll be asked to join the crew.”

  “We’ll both volunteer as well,” noted Shingvere. “And we’ll be thanked, oh yes, thanked, but told no. Too old, you see. Both retired. Neither of us is a true member of the Court these days. No, it’s you they’ll ask. What will you say?”

  “I’ll wish them a speedy voyage and wave as they depart,” Meralda said. The thought of leaving Tirlin—of leaving Donchen—for months on end gnawed at her with every step. Of course the Court will never allow him to board a vessel on a diplomatic mission. Donchen is sohata, a living ghost, considered dead by his family and Hang law. Worse, he’s the grandson of the Emperor, and though he’s renounced any claims to the dynasty, his arrival would be nothing short of disastrous. And Mug! What of Mug? Would he even agree to undertake a crossing of the Great Sea?

  Meralda’s heart sank at the thought of Mug sitting alone on his windowsill, while Donchen counted off the days until Meralda returned.

  The gently curving roof of the monstrous new construction hangar cast them all into sudden shadow. “I have better uses for my time than crossing the entire Great Sea just to exchange polite nods with suspicious royals,” Meralda said. “No. My home is here, my work is here, and I will leave neither.” Especially not Donchen, she resolved, silently. Meralda was certain he’d wait. We’re a couple, aren’t we? Surely, nothing formal has been exchanged, but we have an understanding, of that I am sure. Fairly sure, she amended, frowning. More or less.

  The sidewalk merged with another, and the Mages found themselves in the midst of a bustling crowd. “Well, we’re glad that’s decided,” said Shingvere, casually snatching a bright red apple from a fruit seller’s stall with one hand and flipping the merchant a penny with the other. “Still, as long as we’re here let’s go see this monster of an airship.”

  * * *

  Monster, decided Meralda as she stared up through the gleaming steel bones of the airship Intrepid, is precisely the right word.

  Oh, she’d seen the drawings. Made numerous changes to the original plans, in fact. Meralda knew the dimensions of the Intrepid, without the babbling of the nervous junior engineer turned sudden tour guide rattling off the numbers.

  One thousand and four feet long, from blunt nose to four-finned tail. One hundred and forty-three feet tall amidships. Her steel and cable skeleton was divided into fifty-five ringed sections, and each of those sections would soon house an inflatable varnished-cotton gas bag. A narrow crawlway ran through her center, like a spine, allowing a single nimble crewman access to the heart of every fragile bag of lifting gas, and the complex mechanisms that allowed them to be filled or vented as the need arose.

  Below the frame of the gas envelope the Intrepid’s hard decks were taking shape. The airship was designed to go aloft with a crew of forty-nine, with room for sixty dignitaries, ambassadors, and other Court functionaries.

  Meralda could see the cabins taking shape, and corridors, and even the outlines of the wide-sweeping viewports that would soon be covered by thick panes of tempered glass.

  The flight deck was crowded with busy workmen. Saws and hammers rasped and fell. Sunlight streamed down from enormous windows set high in the hangar’s curved roof, reminding Meralda of the stained glass windows that looked down over the Gold Room in the Palace.

  The long skeletal docking crane and mooring ramp hung beneath the Intrepid’s hard deck, half-finished but already conveying materials and workers up and down in steady streams.

  The flying coil supports that ran alongside the hard deck’s port and starboard hulls were already in place, although the coils themselves were still being built halfway across Tirlin in a hastily-converted telegrap
h wire factory.

  “—she will have a maximum gas capacity of seven million, two hundred thousand cubic feet,” said the junior engineer.

  “Seven million, two hundred thousand and ninety-eight and four-fifths cubic feet,” muttered Meralda, still staring at the coil supports. “Not counting the five hundred cubic feet stored in the gas lines at any given moment.”

  “That’s enough lifting gas to blow the Palace halfway to the Moon,” said Fromarch. “And you claim my motor-car is a menace.”

  “Lifting gas is quite safe, as long as ignition arrestor spells are in place,” Meralda said. “I can hardly say the same about your driving skills.”

  “We plan to have the framework complete in four days,” said the engineer. “Then we’ll begin installing the cured gas bags, three each day—”

  Fromarch fixed the wide-eyed young man in a glare. “You’d better tell that layabout foreman of yours to do four a day, or better,” he growled.

  “Yes sir.”

  “I mean tell him right now, son. Or do you want me to go find him myself?”

  “No sir! But—”

  Fromarch towered over the engineer and put a bony, oil-stained finger right on the tip of the younger man’s nose.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  The engineer blanched, but as Fromarch took a step closer, he turned and hurried away.

  “Now let’s have a real look at this glorified balloon, shall we?” said Fromarch, marching toward the nearest workman’s ladder. “See that they aren’t skipping anything important.”

  Shingvere shook his head. “He’s getting worse in his old age. But come along. We may as well keep him from doddering off and falling down a shaft.”

  “I woke up this morning determined to finish at least one of my projects,” fumed Meralda. “Just one. And now you two have me ready to illegally board a half-built airship for no good reason.”

  Fromarch bellowed from somewhere up above. “Well are you coming, Mage, or not?”