“That’ll leave Reddleman here on his own,” Iren said, and though her voice was thinned by the plumbing that carried it, Edith still heard her apprehension. They’d made a point of not leaving the Red Hand alone at the helm. But that was before he had distinguished himself by catching the bullet that very well could’ve ended her life.
“Reddleman, you have the wheel. Keep us circling between the thirty-first and twenty-ninth ringdoms. Let me know if there are any new alarms.”
She listened to his “aye, sir,” and returned to her table to await Voleta’s arrival.
When Senlin’s message began to play again, it was by accident, at least at first. Edith had only picked the recorder up to stow it somewhere safe and out of sight and had inadvertently restarted the message in the process. But rather than stop it, she found herself listening to it again. And when it finished playing, she restarted it a third time, though she wasn’t entirely sure why. Was it just the sound of his voice she enjoyed, or was there something else, some coded silence between words, which kept her listening ever more closely?
Then Voleta burst into her cabin, and she fumbled the recorder and had to go chasing after it under the table.
As she scrambled to shut the recording off, and Voleta overheard Senlin’s bare and honest words bleed into the room like a wound, Edith felt a shock of embarrassment that she had not thought herself capable of. The pang of guilt seemed to be sharpened by the pleasure she had felt just a moment before. It was like walking from a sauna out into a snowy day. The swing between extremes was numbing and painful and yet weirdly invigorating.
She felt entirely flustered, and as a result, she allowed Voleta to direct the discussion more than she usually would’ve. When the talk turned into a negotiation, as it always did with Voleta, Edith found her ability to rationally deliberate hampered by her guilt. How could she tell Voleta she could not pursue Marya while concealing an intimate communication from Tom in her hand? It was impossible! Yes, Voleta’s argument seemed reasonable enough on the face of it, and Edith would’ve taken any reasonable measure to ensure the safety of Senlin’s wife. But she knew her judgment was impaired, and still she conceded: Voleta would infiltrate the Pelphian court and extend an offer of help to Marya for a second time.
Even as Edith made the decision, she knew it would haunt her.
Byron lingered after Voleta’s festive departure. Edith could tell by his expression that he was working up to saying something, and rather than watch him squirm his way up to it, she said, “What is it, Byron? You look miserable.”
“I don’t want to pry, but … did he mention anything that made you think that perhaps he might … wander off for a while?”
“What do you mean?”
“Senlin, I mean, did he say anything like, um … ‘Oh, don’t tell anyone, but I’m going off on a little romp. Maybe I’ll drink too much wine and lose track of the hours and fall asleep in an alley, and not send in my daily report like I’m supposed to.’ Anything like that?”
“I don’t understand. You just gave me his report, didn’t you? Or part of it?”
“Well, that’s not exactly wet paint.”
“What do you mean? When did this arrive?”
“Two days ago,” Byron said. “And before you say anything, yes, I sat on the message because I was having a hard, long think about whether I should give it to you. I don’t disobey orders lightly, Captain. And I admit, I very nearly sent it on to the Sphinx, despite my promise to Senlin, but I didn’t. I’m glad I didn’t.”
“And you haven’t heard anything from him since?”
“No.”
“And that’s unusual?”
“It is,” he said and watched Edith’s warm complexion turn ashen. He hurried to add, “But there are a dozen explanations I can think of for why his reports might have been delayed. He might’ve accidentally spilled something on his box of messengers, or the messengers might’ve been damaged in flight. After all, part of the reason the Sphinx sent him to Pelphia was to discover who was destroying his spies.”
“But you’re worried?”
Byron gave an equivocating grumble. “I’m not worried. Just concerned. I was hoping he might’ve said something to you that would set both of our minds at ease.”
“No. Unfortunately, he didn’t. He didn’t say anything about the Sphinx’s mission or his investigation or any of that.”
“Yes, I’m sure. But could I listen for myself, perhaps?”
“I don’t know what difference that would make,” Edith said a little coolly.
“Well, I’ve heard all his other reports, and so I’m very familiar with everything that he’s gotten up to. I thought perhaps I might hear something interesting that just sounded innocuous to you, but which might—”
“It’s private, Byron. It’s just … a personal message.”
“Oh,” the stag said and rolled his tasseled shoulders in a tactful shrug. “Yes, of course. I don’t mean to pry. Perhaps the thing to do is just wait another day. I’m sure we’ll hear something tomorrow.”
“All right,” Edith said, and though neither of them seemed to find the word particularly hopeful, she repeated it anyway: “Tomorrow.”
Edith spent the night drifting between anxious speculation and worried dreams until the two merged into a vision so grim and disastrous it seemed almost a farce: Senlin perished, the boiling sea on the Sphinx’s roof melted the Tower like a candle, and she was left with a dying arm on her shoulder and no safe place to alight. Then the sun fell behind the sill of the earth and never rose again.
Chapter Five
A stain is only a stain if anyone notices it. Slosh wine onto the carpet? Scoot a sofa over the spot. Spill gravy on your shirt? Fan your ascot to cover it. Spoil your political reputation with a grievous indiscretion? Start a domestic purge or a foreign war.
—Oren Robinson of the Daily Reverie
When Byron arrived at Edith’s door at the stroke of seven the next morning, she was already washed, dressed, and finished with breakfast. She had risen early more out of eagerness to be finished with the night than enthusiasm for the day.
Byron delivered the Sphinx’s morning dispatch. Since their launch, the Sphinx’s commands had been largely concerned with choreographing their promenade. He prescribed which ringdoms to showboat for and at what hours of the day, and which ports to salute and with how many guns. Edith made a point of not asking any questions, which was well enough because the Sphinx supplied no explanations, though Byron had been able to provide some context for some of the orders. When the Sphinx directed Edith to fly the ship in reverse past the ringdom of Zweibel—which even with propulsive vents was something of a challenge—Byron had explained it was to demonstrate the Sphinx’s utmost respect for the thirty-eighth ringdom. The Zweibelian people preferred to back their way into rooms, believing it a sign of humility, so the Sphinx wished to pay them the compliment of reversing past their port.
The Sphinx’s orders were not always so pacifying. He had directed Edith to prowl past the citadel of Dugaray with cannons blazing, a sign of strength to a people that interpreted courtesy as weakness. Famously, the Dugara eschewed the handshake in favor of a salutatory head butt. Byron described the Dugara as “basically bighorn sheep in frock coats.”
It had become tradition that they listen to the orders together, and so, with her cabin door closed, she twisted the head on the dewinged moth. The Sphinx’s crackling voice broke their attentive silence.
“I see you’ve attracted an entourage of curious captains. Well, good. We want the Tower to gawk. Today, you’re going to demonstrate the Art’s capacity for destruction. You will sidle up to the Silk Gardens’ derelict port and lay a little waste with a volley or two of the guns. This will, of course, serve another purpose as well. I know for a fact Marat decamped from the Golden Zoo days ago, but I don’t wish to let on that I know. I suspect he’s left behind a scout or two, and so the show of force will be for their benefit as well.
&
nbsp; “On another note, Byron may have informed you of an interruption to Senlin’s regular communications. I assure you, it’s not a concern that requires your intervention. Either Senlin is following orders and suffering some technical or environmental difficulty, which I will address, or he has defied me and gone off on his own. Whichever the case may be, you have no role in it, Captain Winters. I emphasize this point because tomorrow you will alight in Pelphia, and there, you will faithfully pursue your own orders, and quickly. Recover my painting, let Voleta do her charming, and be prepared to take off in three days.” The recorder hissed a moment more, then clicked into silence.
“Well, he doesn’t sound overly concerned about Tom,” Edith said, flaring her eyelids. “I don’t know what I expected.”
Byron was quick to console her. “The Sphinx took him into his confidence; he doesn’t do that with just anyone. He may sound unfeeling, but the Sphinx takes care of his interests, and he’s made it clear he needs Tom.”
“I suppose that’ll have to be hope enough for the moment,” Edith said, trying to suppress the ready litany of disasters Senlin could have encountered—discovery, arrest, illness, assassination … She hadn’t time to dwell on it now. “What sort of reception can we expect in Pelphia?”
“Probably an elaborate fuss. As one of the lowest of the Lower Ringdoms, the Pelphians should be eager to make the most of the honor the Sphinx is paying them. I expect our welcome will be quite warm. Generally, the Pelphians are more interested in parties than politics. I don’t expect that King Leonid will argue much about handing over his copy of The Brick Layer’s Granddaughter.”
“Does the ringdom have a Wakeman?”
“It does. Her name is Georgine Haste, if memory serves. She’s been at her post for twenty years, I believe. I don’t really recall much about her other than a general impression of a large personality and a pleasant smile. I’m hopeful she might prove to be a willing ally.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Edith said, savoring the prospect of a friendly face.
Byron stopped in the open door to the passageway, turned, and said, “Don’t forget. I’m stealing Iren away for a dress rehearsal later this morning.”
“You’re sure you want to do that on the gun deck? It’s going to be noisy down there.”
“That is the idea, Captain.”
While Byron, Voleta, and Iren practiced tea service on the gun deck, Edith was left alone with Reddleman on the bridge. She unwrapped his bandage as he reported on the nightly traffic and the strength of the morning currents, neither of which was remarkable.
The bullet hole had closed overnight, turning as hard and dark as a knot in a plank. She replaced the bandage more to console herself than out of necessity. For the moment, she didn’t wish to ruminate on the fact that Reddleman seemed more or less impervious to bullets. If she ever was forced to dispatch him, she would have to be very thorough in her efforts.
Under her direction, Reddleman steered the ship into the Northern Steady, its currents hastened by the warming sun, and made for the Silk Reef at a quick clip.
When she saw the cannon-chewed portal swell within the frames of the magnovisor, Edith felt a chill at the memory of the swarming spiders, the zealot camp, and Luc Marat’s voice, as reasonable as it was cruel. She could still hear the grating creak of his wheelchair echo through the glowing forest.
The mysterious alarm rang again, and her thoughts returned to the bridge.
“We’ve drawn quite an audience,” Reddleman said, swiveling in his pilot’s chair to point at the port frames of the magnovisor. Edith regarded the airships that milled about beyond the range of her cannons. The backing light of the morning sun turned them all black as flies.
Edith shifted from her captain’s chair to the gunner’s station. That panel beamed with rows of green lights, each indicating a loaded and ready cannon. She pressed her face to the gunners’ viewfinder. The golden crosshairs floated into view above a black-and-white sketch of the world. Adjusting the knobs on either side of the hood, she brought the ruins of the Silk Reef into focus. “They want a show?” She selected all the bays she wished to fire, flipping the toggles up in batches of three and four. “Let’s oblige them.” She depressed a ruby-colored button.
The ship’s hull rumbled with the firing of the thirty-two starboard guns. Within the golden picture frames, a ghostly rendering of the Silk Reef’s port bloomed with flowers of masonry and dust, a violent bouquet that lingered a moment before being de-formed and swept away by the wind.
Reddleman brought the ship about for a second run. The port cannons cracked the sky, and the last erect pillar in the port fell as readily as dead timber.
Edith wondered what Marat’s scouts had made of the display, assuming they were indeed lurking inside. She wasn’t sure whether it was really such a great show of force to peck at an old port. Perhaps it only made the Tower seem more impervious. The gun hadn’t been built yet that could breach those walls. But perhaps that was the Sphinx’s intent—to allow a futile display to make the zealots feel safer in their burrows. It certainly wouldn’t drive them out into the light.
“They really are magnificent, aren’t they?” Reddleman said.
It took Edith a moment to realize he was referring to the airships watching them as if from the gallery of a theater. He pointed at each in turn as he rattled off the ship’s name, her commander, and what ringdom she hailed from, information that he’d gleaned from the ship’s copy of the Aircraft Registry. All the names began to run together, and it was a moment before the list seemed to be coming to an end. “… and there’s the Mane and Fletch under the command of Captain Jessup from the ringdom of Ludden, and that’s the Red Lawrence under Captain Dewildt of Nineveh. All formidable ships, all weighted with cannons and crewed with brave men, and all of it lashed to bags of combustible gas. It’s a funny agreement, isn’t it? To not fire on an enemy’s silks?”
“I wouldn’t really call it funny, pilot. It’s a war crime. If we start shooting envelopes, it would mean the end of the airship entirely.”
“But ‘lawful war’ sounds like a bit of an oxymoron, doesn’t it?”
“Perhaps, but it’s better than total war. Better than armies attacking civilians, and poisoning wells, and desecrating the dead. And I’m telling you, no matter how big and intimidating we might be, if we fired on any one of those ships’ balloons, the rest of them would turn on us like wild dogs. It wouldn’t make for a very good death.”
“The only people who talk about good and bad deaths are the living. There’s really no such distinction among the dead.”
“What’s it like then?” Edith asked, her frankness surprising them both.
“What’s death like? Well. It’s like …” He crossed his slight arms on top of his potbelly and closed his eyes. “Death is like what happens to a puddle when the sun comes out. It stops being a puddle and becomes a wisp of a cloud, or a drop of dew in the valley, or foam on an ocean wave.”
“All very poetic, but what does it look like? What does it feel like?”
“Oh, there’s no more looking or feeling, Captain. You’re still thinking like a puddle.”
“Can you say if you enjoyed it, at least?”
Reddleman’s smile showed a row of teeth that were as big as fingernails. “I was present at the beginning of time. I was there when the first coals of the universe turned red and burned for an age. I was dust floating in dead black nothing for half an eternity. I was a star when it formed. I was a star when it died. I was a ray of light bolting across a galaxy for ten thousand years, only to be caught and devoured by an oak leaf.”
“And?”
Reddleman pulled back on the horns of the helm and smiled as the bow of the ship rose. “This is more fun.”
Byron was enjoying a moment of peace inside his Communications Closet, which was aptly named and comfortably snug.
He had spent the afternoon arguing with Voleta over tea and having his bolts rattled by cannon fire. The
dress rehearsal hadn’t gone particularly well. Though a great shot with a pistol, Iren’s aim with a teapot left a lot to be desired. Voleta, meanwhile, seemed to believe that she could argue with convention and years of tradition using him as a proxy. One might as well try to dicker with the seasons! Why can’t winter be warmer? Oh, yes, spring is nice, but couldn’t we do with fewer showers? And surely the summer doesn’t need quite so many flies? If Byron could convince the young lady of only one thing it would be that she wasn’t the first to notice that polite society was irksome, and she wouldn’t be the last.
The Communications Closet was located on the bottom deck of the ship along with the crew berths and passenger cabins. Byron possessed the only key to the steel-bound door, and he was under strict orders from the Sphinx to keep it locked at all times and to admit no one under any circumstances. The Sphinx didn’t like to share her information, especially not the raw version of it. As much as the Sphinx now had to rely upon Edith and her crew to represent her to the Tower and gather the cells of her zoetrope, she did not fully trust their intelligence or intentions. Though trust had never been very important to the Sphinx.
She would never admit it, but Byron knew her contracts were just a means for figuring out the details of a man’s character and motivations. Once she knew those, she could predict what he would do, even if it went against the contractual agreement. She didn’t believe in the magical power of a signature on a piece of paper. But trust wasn’t required where doubt did not exist. A predictable man was as good as an honest one to the Sphinx.
Byron did not pretend to understand all the ins and outs of his master’s plots, but he didn’t need to understand to do his duty. He only had to preserve her secrets, which was admittedly sometimes difficult given her predilection for keeping different secrets from different people. Why had she chosen to show her face to Voleta and Senlin, but not to Edith and Iren? The Sphinx hadn’t offered him any explanation. He suspected it was because she wished to play to Voleta’s and Senlin’s sympathy, to appear vulnerable so that they would feel obliged to help her. Edith and Iren, meanwhile, seemed to respond better to the authority and power that the Sphinx’s cowl and mask projected. Byron also wondered why she had decided to send Senlin on ahead of the rest of his friends. He sensed that the Sphinx was not surprised by Senlin’s silence, which could only mean that it was part of the plan. Byron would sooner pluck out his eyeball than share that suspicion with Edith.
The Hod King Page 40
