Heart of Veridon

by Tim Akers

  “I heard the Fehn are helping out with the recovery,” I said. “The Council’s gathering the Glory up, going to use the parts to make some kind of memorial.”

  “Fitting,” she said. “Something to remember it by, I suppose. You have to do that sort of thing, when an airship crashes and kills everyone on board.”

  “Not everyone,” I said. She sighed.

  “Everyone who hasn’t had half their body replaced with foetal metal, everyone with flesh and blood hearts and eyes that don’t look like dirty dishes.” She set down her pen. “Regular people.”

  “You’re just jealous,” I said. “You wish you had eyes like mine. Anything’s better than those mud bogs.” I nodded toward her deep brown eyes, eyes that were wet and warm and sparkled in the light. She smiled and looked down.

  “Jacob Burn, the most charming man to ever survive two zepliner crashes, one of which he caused. Why, you must have to drive the ladies away with a stick.”

  I smiled. “You know I carry a gun.”

  She snorted. “Jacob, Jacob. Why are you here again? Not to show me souvenirs, no.” She closed her ledger and packed away the ink kit. She did things like that very precisely, very neatly. Her whole apartment was like that. The plaster walls were clean, the dark wooden floor never hinted at dust. Once her desk was clear, she opened a different drawer and set three things on the desk. Two of them were envelopes, and the third was an inlaid wooden box, about the size of a short book.

  “We need you to meet a man.”

  “We?”

  She nodded. “This one comes from Valentine. You’re okay with that?”

  “Sure. He knows I do good work, and he pays well.” I try to balance my obligations in the underworld, but Valentine was my main employer. I owed him a lot.

  “A Corpsman. Register Prescott, of the City Rampant. Give him this.” She pushed the first envelope a little closer. It was cheap butcher’s paper, hand-folded over something thick. I picked it up. Felt like river clay, dense and cold in my hand.

  “It’s cassiopia, right? Pure.”

  She shrugged. “It’s an envelope. You give it to Prescott.”

  I nodded and put it into my coat pocket.

  “The name’s familiar, but I’ll have to do a little research. Most of my contacts are Academy. Pilots and Mates, not the desk crew.”

  “Won’t be necessary. There’s a formal dinner being held, to honor the Corps. One of those political things. It’s being thrown by the Family Tomb at their estate on the Heights. Many Corpsmen will be there, including Prescott.”

  “It’s not a good place to make a deal. Too many curious eyes at a party like that, too many officials. I can make contact there, but the deal will have to happen somewhere else.”

  “It will have to happen there. Prescott has insisted. Doesn’t trust us, I suppose.”

  I shrugged.

  “I’ll need an invitation.”

  She pushed the second envelope towards me. “There will be a ceremony, in remembrance of the Glory of Day. Naturally, as the sole survivor, you’re expected.”

  “Naturally.” I took the envelope. “Anything else?”

  She presented the wooden box, turning it so I could see the clasp that opened it and slid it in front of me. “The party is being hosted by the Councilor-in-Standing for the Family Tomb. You know her? Angela Tomb?”

  “I know her.”

  “Her family has been making... let’s call them overtures in force. I’d like you to deliver that. Discreetly.”

  She opened the box, and a quiet song tinkled out. A music box.

  “Is this going to get me in trouble with the Lady Tomb?”

  Emily smiled and shrugged. “I hear you carry a gun.”

  She put the box into a leather folder and handed it to me. It fit nicely in the outer pocket of my coat.

  When I looked up, Emily was holding the cog-wheel. She was weighing it in her hands, shifting it slightly to watch the inner gears spin and cycle.

  I hadn’t thought much about the thing when Marcus handed it to me on the Glory. Other things on my mind at the time. I assumed it was some memento, something he wanted to get back to family in Veridon. Second looks made it clear that it was no sentimental bauble.

  “Marcus had this?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Wanted me to get it back to the city. Gave it to me, then went on about how he had killed the captain, wrecked the ship.”

  “It looks like a Church thing.”

  I shrugged. The Church of the Algorithm was a strange group. That being said, they were the dominant religious organization in the city. Veridon was blessed with many mysteries, but the most profitable mysteries were the strange vessels that floated down the river at regular intervals. No one knew where they came from, or who sent them. They contained random collections of cog, half-built machines and enigmatic autonomic artwork. The Church of the Algorithm was built on the belief that these vessels were messages from a hidden God far upriver. They lived their lives trying to reassemble the machines, to reveal the nature of their deity. They worshipped a hidden pattern. We owed them a lot, sadly. Their divinations led to many of the technological discoveries that kept Veridon the dominant power on this edge of the world.

  “Maybe,” I said. “I’d rather not go to them. They’ll saint me.”

  “I doubt that. No one’s going to mistake you for a holy prophet.”

  “Stranger things have happened. Besides, this came from downriver. Their god is upriver, right?”

  “So maybe the devil sent this?”

  “Then the devil can have it back. I just want to know why Marcus had it.”

  “He gave it to you and told you to take it to the city?”

  “He did. Hell if I know why.”

  “Hm. I have to ask, Jacob. Why’d you shoot Marcus?”

  I shrugged. The details weren’t important, but I felt like I’d done him a favor. I had offered finality, a clear judgment on his actions and a clean end. Lots of my fellow passengers lingered on for days before they passed. My friendship with Marcus had bought him something easier, even if he was responsible for the disaster to begin with.

  “I wonder,” she said. She set the device on the table. “Why did he do that? Give it to you, for one thing, but everything before? Why he took an axe to the Captain, and killed all those people by proxy? It seems he got off a little easy, dying at your hand.”

  “Maybe. He seemed to think someone was following him, someone he couldn’t kill. Something wrong with his head, maybe.” I cleared my throat. “I think wrecking the ship was his way of escaping, ensuring that no one could follow him, wherever he was going. He meant to get off. He was making for the glideboats when someone jettisoned them.”

  “Well, he certainly made sure no one followed him.” She held the Cog out to me, held it between her hands like a plate. “Everyone who could follow him on that ship died, sure as fire burns and water drowns.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I remember.” I took the Cog from her, placed my palm under it and lifted. My thumb brushed the inside of her wrist, and I hesitated. Felt her pulse through my hand, the warmth of her skin on my callused knuckle. We stayed there a second longer than we should have.

  “Cacher’s on the way,” she said. “He’s coming by to pick up these ledgers. Valentine wants monthly reports, now.”

  “He’ll be here,” I said, “sooner or later.”

  “Sooner.”

  I took the Cog and held it up, blocking her face from my view. “Sure,” I said. “Soon enough.”

  She shuffled papers, retrieved the ledger and started checking it again. I stood still for a moment, looking at her between the workings of the Cog.

  “Look, if you’d like, I could hold on to that. Ask Cacher about it, or maybe Valentine, later on. They might know something.”

  I hesitated again. She was a good job-boss, good as any in the city. Like me, she was independent. Like me, she was in this for herself. Anything she did with the Cog would be in he
r best interest, not mine. But she had a wider base of contacts, and a better chance of getting Valentine’s attention, through Cacher.

  “Sure, thanks.” I held out the Cog again, waiting for her to take it. She didn’t look up, just nodded and motioned to the desk. I set it down and left.

  TOMB HAD SET up a private zep shuttle from the city up to their estate on the heights. There was a road, but it left the city and traveled twenty miles up the Ebd before crossing at the port town of Toth and winding up into the Thalleon Heights that overlooked the city of Veridon. It was a half-day’s journey in most cases, and the zep was simply quicker and more glamorous. Expensive, too.

  The Tomb Estate was a grand place, perched on the side of the Heights that overlooked Veridon’s gentle slopes like a crown on a stony forehead. There were many such estates on the Heights, though not all of them were as dramatically situated as the Tomb. Most of the founding Families had preferred a little more privacy, perhaps more of an escape from the city to their country homes. Elizor Tomb wanted a view of the delta he had helped found, the wide arms of the Ebd and Dunje, the flat plain of the Reine, and all the buildings in between. More buildings now than when he set the first stone in this estate.

  Yes, a grand place, and probably one of the last old holdings still in the hands that had built it. The rest of us were just glad to hold onto our seats on the Council and the pared down manors of the city. Most of the old estates that dotted this ridge now belonged to factory bosses and Guild capitalists, along with a bare minority of the Councilorships. Old names weren’t worth much in Veridon anymore, not in the new city, the brave city of cogs hatched by the Church a couple generations ago. The city of my father was passing, with its traditions and lineage, and a new city was breaking through. Old names got you nostalgia and the occasional invitation to parties, and maybe a certain amount of tolerance with the Council and its agencies. And that was the product I sold, to Valentine, to Emily, to anyone who needed it. Someone else’s tolerance, and a name people would recognize, maybe respect.

  The crown of the Tomb Estate glowed under us. Night had already fallen, the countryside deep in velvet blackness that hummed with wild insect life, but the estate was lit up like a torch. It was early spring, and the weather was still wildly variable in the city. It was usually cooler up here on the Heights, but tonight was firmly in the grip of a promised summer. Most of the estates were still closed up, but Tomb had brought in the Summer help early, to host tonight’s party. There were stepped balconies that crept down the rock face, and I could see people gathered, musicians playing. We passed over the estate to the landing square. A loose ladder rolled down the zep, and Ensigns clambered across to secure us. A more permanent mooring gate was hauled up, and soon we were debarking.

  On my zep there was a cluster of Corpsmen, young officers, Academy-fresh and anxious to mingle with the city’s elite. They kept looking at me sidelong, trying to see my eyes without having to make eye contact. Tricky. Did they know who I was, exactly? Did the instructors still tell my story, or did they leave it out to keep the youngsters from getting too nervous?

  An avenue laid in river stone led from the mooring gate to the main hall. The stone crunched under my dress boots. The lawns were green and smooth, spotted with natural rock gardens and alcoves of trees. The house seemed to emerge from the lawn, another rock formation fitted together, smoothed in place by time. Like the lane, the walls of the estate were river rock, as smooth and black as night. It looked like darkness bubbling up out of the earth, darkness riddled with laughter and light and wealth.

  The guests had been arriving for a while. When I stepped inside there was already a crowd in the grand hall, though most of the voices were coming from the balcony beyond. A man slipped up to give my invitation a glance and then take my coat and travel hat. The remaining envelope fit comfortably in my jacket, along with the trim wooden box I was to give Angela. The man looked me in the eyes and smiled, nodded towards the hall, and disappeared. Apparently my best suit was good enough to appear on the grounds of the Tomb Estate, or maybe it was my eyes that were good enough. Either way, I was in.

  The grand hall wasn’t packed, just a few clusters of men, sometimes women, holding drinks and nodding to one another. There was a bar and a fireplace, both lively. The walls inside were different, though still beautiful. They were steel gloved in warm butterwood, the gloss at once brilliant and soothing. The hall smelled like warm bread and linen, with a tinge of wood smoke that hinted at the countryside around us.

  The broad length of the hall was all latticework windows and doors, leading out to the terraced balcony. There was a lot of light out there, and music. I got a drink and went outside.

  The night sky was crystal bright, thousands of stars and the silver moon bearing down on the darkness. The city was far below, just as beautiful as it had been on the Glory of Day in the moments after we cleared the falls. Veridon glittered across the sloping delta, laced in blackness by canals and rivers, lights hunched up in avenues and buildings, a warm haze of streetlights and the illuminated domes of the Holy Houses of the Celestes. They still looked bright, no matter how dead their religion, how empty their shrines. I could even pick out their successor, the massive Church of the Algorithm, crouched near the Reine, shimmering with the flames of its deep engines of God. The whole city was like a stone broken open to reveal a heart of precious fire, washed up on the riverbank.

  Out here on the balconies there were a lot more people. Frictionlamps hummed softly on sturdy tables, offering a place to lean or set your drink while encouraging mingling among the guests. A lot of the faces were younger than I expected, and unfamiliar. A lot of them were in uniform, as well, testament to the feast’s honor. I walked among the crowd, nodding and smiling as necessary. I paused at the railing, leaning against the cold stone and looking out at the Tomb grounds. Below me and to one side there was another terrace, and a third below it. There were others, I knew, smaller and more discreet, but they remained unlit tonight. It was on these terraces, visiting as a child and leaning dangerously far over the rail, that I first dreamed of flying. A child’s dream.

  Laughter interrupted me. The Lady Tomb, holding court on the terrace below me. Her dress was trimmed in black and grey, the colors of the Corps. I found the stairs and went down to present myself.

  The orbit of people around here was tight, mostly young folks in nice suits and dresses. I couldn’t tell if they were the sons and daughters of merchants, hoping to curry favor among the Council’s Named Seats, or if these were the very capitalists who had leveraged away most of the old Families, bought up their named rights and property. Either way, it was unusual to see their kind at a party of the Tomb. Tomb’s seat was bought out, too, but the debt hadn’t yet come due. Old man Tomb still lived, though barely. The Lady held the seat in his absence, as had generations of Tombs. When he died, the seat would go with him. Maybe to one of these young bucks.

  I couldn’t force my way to the Lady directly, so I joined the slow social progression, drank and chatted, or listened to others go on about nothing. It took a while, but I was able to work my way in, slowly, circling, shaking hands and patting backs, then slipping forward a little more, a little closer. Eventually I found myself in the presence of the Lady Councilor-in-Standing Angela Tomb. I nodded at her.

  “Councilor Tomb.”

  She looked at me between long lashes. Her eyes were dusty, the faintest gray, and her hair was pulled back into a golden rope that trailed over her shoulder and down her back. She had a pretty chin and lips, but the smile she dressed them in didn’t make it to her eyes. She raised a hand, almost offering it to me but not quite, as though she was prepared to receive a kiss or deflect a blow.

  “Pilot Burn. The hero of Glory. Good of you to come.”

  “Always a pleasure to see the old estate, Councilor. But I wouldn’t dare assume the name hero.”

  “No?” She raised a nearly empty glass to her mouth and let the ice clink against her teeth.
She wasn’t drinking wine, I noticed. “I understand that you’re responsible for rescuing every soul that survived.”

  There was a brief, embarrassed wave of laughter around us. I clutched my glass.

  “Yes, I suppose. As the only survivor.”

  “Ah. I misunderstood. Still, I’m sure you did what you could. As a Pilot, I mean.”

  I didn’t like that. I wasn’t sure what she knew about my reasons for being here, if she knew that I was standing as a representative of Valentine, or if she thought I was just here in my role as disgraced nobility and fallen Captain, an example to others. Whatever she knew or believed she knew, I didn’t like this.

  The uniform standing next to Tomb leaned forward, a little smile on his face. He was older, wearing the plating of a Commodore. I didn’t recognize his face, but by his age and rank it was a fair bet I had reported to him at some point.

  “Let’s not throw that title around, my Lady. Pilots, as you know, can fly. Can you fly, Mr. Burn?”

  I was silent, awkwardly aware of my eyes and the hum of the dead machine in my heart.

  “You know I can’t.”

  “Ah. Then we have misnamed you twice. Hero and Pilot. It’s too bad so much blood has been wasted on you, Jacob Burn.” The man seemed satisfied to have used my full name, as though the absence of titles was insult enough. I put my hand on his shoulder and dropped my glass to the stone floor. It popped, and the crowd became quiet.

  “Can you, Commodore?” I flicked my eyes to the nearby railing and the empty space beyond. “Fly?”

  No one moved. No one said anything, the tight suits and uniforms all around held their glasses and their tongues and just stared. The Lady was looking at me cautiously, but made no call for help. The Commodore was white. I could feel his heart hammering under his skin. I liked this better. I laughed.

  “Nevermind. It’s a good party, My Lady. We should have more like this.” I patted the Commodore on the chest. “I like your friends.”

  I left, and conversation resumed. I took a drink from a passing waiter, found a smaller staircase that led to the third, and lowest, terrace and found a quiet spot. There was a garden here, a ledge that had been built up and landscaped, an unnaturally smooth bit of grass and tree dangling over the ridge’s height. There was a zepliner drifting in from Veridon, perhaps the last of the night. Upriver, far up the Reine, an accumulation of storm clouds was piling up. Lightning flashed deep in its heart, pink flickering into white. A breeze lifted from the delta valley, bringing a smell of wetness and growth and hot metal. Storms rolling in.