Steal the Sky

by Megan E. O'Keefe

  “There are women and children present in this market. Sirra.”

  Dean jerked his arm back and rolled his eyes, but didn’t needle him further. Tibs could be a pricklebush about that sort of thing.

  “Now.” He rubbed his hands together. “For some paint.”

  Picking a direction at random, he strode off in search of a sign that might give him a clue. He felt flush with success, the sun warm on his shoulders, a slight breeze alleviating the greasy texture of his hair. If they could just get this one point settled, then they’d be well on their way to calling Thratia’s airship their own. For Ripka, of course. Or whoever she was.

  “Not that way.” Tibs’s hand closed over his shoulder, drawing him to a sharp stop. Up ahead, he could just make out the corner of the telltale dyer’s sign, a pot with a brush crossed over it.

  “You blind oaf, it’s right down there–”

  A door opened beside him, spilling familiar aromas into the sun-warmed air. Hints of pine and sweet, golden cactus needle sparked old memories. Sharp memories.

  Memories of blood and pain and straps, of his skin sloughing off and his eyes stitched open. Sweat broke across his brow, sticky and cold.

  The woman exiting the shop was slight, stern. The simple sight of her long, white skirt set him trembling. With the dye of her shirt faded by the bright glare of the sun she struck him, so clearly and for just a moment, as a whitecoat. One of Valathea’s dread experimenters, torturers. One of his own jail keepers, not so long ago. Awareness crowded his senses, sharp and frenzied. An animal need to destroy the thing which tormented him welled bright and hot and desperate within his chest. He lifted a trembling hand, outstretched toward the oblivious woman. There was selium in the woman’s bracelets – a Valathean fashion – and a dinghy of an airship passing close above, its buoyancy sacks half-full but tempting.

  Tibs squeezed his shoulder, cutting off his sense of the sel. “Just a plain apothik. No whitecoats here.”

  “Right.” Detan’s voice was rough and clotted. He cleared it. “Right.”

  “Whitecoats don’t come to the Scorched, they stay in their tower,” Tibs said.

  “Yes… Of course.”

  “Seems to me.” Tibs removed his hand and drifted a step back, away from that accursed building. “That the paint can wait until we get the equipment, eh? And anyway, I’m ravenous as a silk-widow that’s spent all day making a new web.”

  Detan followed, snared by the need to be close to a friend. To safety. Glad for air that smelled of nothing but dust and wood and vegetal rot. He rubbed his palms against his thighs, leaving sweaty smears. Took a breath. Steady, Honding.

  “Food? But Tibs! You only just ate lunch yesterday. Are you really so insatiable?”

  “Like a wild beast. I know it’s not very genteel of me, but I reckon I make up for it with my table manners.”

  “Well.” He clapped Tibs on the back. “Two gentlemen such as ourselves certainly cannot go out to dine in this state.” He gestured to his ragged clothes, stained with the black dust that permeated all of Aransa. “It would not be proper, I’m sure of it.”

  “I believe we’re adequately attired for that meatstick cart.” Tibs gestured toward a market cart tucked amongst the other foodmongers. The enterprising street chef had jars marked with a variety of symbols crowded on the top of his cart, each filled with a sauce of a different color. As patrons handed over their smallest grains, the proprietor produced a spitted piece of meat from somewhere below the cart’s top and dipped it into a sauce of the purchaser’s choosing.

  The smell of it made his stomach rumble. Detan half-turned, edging toward the cart, when he caught another aroma – bitter, tannic. A tea cauldron simmered at the elbow of the meatstick-maker, its cutting aroma reminiscent of the medicinal brews the whitecoats had pressed upon him. He shivered and turned away.

  With a hand on his companion’s shoulder Detan clucked his tongue, forcing himself to light-heartedness, and steered Tibs firmly back down the street. “But how will I enjoy a proper display of your table manners at a cart, old friend? No, no. No slumming it for us.”

  With a flourish he produced a droop-brim hat from within his coat and thunked it on his head. It was a much nicer fit than the burlap sack had been. Tibs looked at him like he’d stepped on a fire ant mound while pantless.

  “Hey, that’s my hat. I just had it–”

  “I believe you’ll find it’s on my head. Now, let us away to the Salt Baths so that we may present a proper image when we go for supper later.”

  “Oh? And that proper supper wouldn’t happen to be at Thratia’s fete tonight, eh?”

  “I can’t imagine what would make you think such a thing, Tibs. I, for one, was not even cognizant of the–”

  “I saw you nick the handbill off the fence by the inn on our way out.”

  Blast! Detan was beginning to think that Tibs could be halfway across the Scorched from him and still know whenever Detan helped himself to something useful. Or pretty. Or nifty. He adjusted the hat and smiled. At least the old rockbrain still missed some things.

  “Oh. Well.” He cleared his throat and ushered Tibs onto the main road. “I may have procured a certain advertisement to that effect, yes. What better opportunity to survey her ship?”

  “You do realize that there are baths at our inn, which is considerably closer – and already paid for.”

  “Baths? Pah. If you count a lukewarm bucket as a bath.” He swept a pointed gaze over Tibs. “Which you obviously do. And, regardless, do you have attire worthy of one of Thratia’s fetes? Because I certainly don’t.”

  Tibs jingled Ripka’s grain pouch. “I don’t mean to shock you, but we can buy those things. With money.”

  Detan rolled his eyes. “And do you think she’ll just hand over a ticket to us? Or are you going to buy a ticket, too? Sweet skies, Tibs, I thought you were the cheap one!”

  Tibs gave him that sour, you-just-can’t-help-yourself look which never failed to wind his gears. This time, he resolved to rise above. Ignoring his companion’s dour disposition he took the stairs up to the next level two at a time, drawing an annoyed glare from the guards stationed at either end on the top of the steps. Too bad for them, it was still open-market hours, and upperpasses weren’t required to move from one level to the next until well after moonrise. Not that he had a pass.

  Not that that tiny little fact would have stopped him.

  It’d been awhile since he’d perused Aransa, and though his extended absence had clearly eased Ripka’s heart he found he was a bit sick with the missing of it. It was a good city, laid out nice and clear, and was free with water due to its proximity to a network of flush aquifers. The ladies here didn’t fuss about with modesty, either. It was blasted hot, and even the uppercrust bared their shoulders and trusted in wide, shadowy hats and parasol bearers to keep the burn off.

  Yes, Aransa was a good city indeed.

  “Tibs, my good man, can’t you keep up?”

  Tibs was staring overlong at what was advertised to be a rack of lamb roasting in a shop window, but Detan rather suspected it was a gussied up sandrat. Detan snagged Tibs’s arm and dragged him off to many a weak protestation.

  “If we bent the winds at every rumbling of your gullet, old friend, we’d still be in shanty towns picking sand from our teeth.”

  “As you say,” he muttered.

  The line for the ferry to the Salt Baths was long, but not so long they couldn’t all be crammed onto the floating conveyance. Detan, tugging Tibs along beside him, sidled up to the end of the line and freed his friend’s arm. He worried Tibs would go wandering off at the merest sniff of scallion, but Detan was too busy working at blending in with the uppercrust to keep an eye on him. When you’re with the high-tossers, it’s all hands-in-pockets and slouching like a loose grain slide. He couldn’t be seen caring about anything, that would give the game away.

  And these were definitely the uppercrust. Seemed no one wanted to arrive at Thratia’
s with sand in their hair or dust on their trousers. All the better for him – he liked a variety of marks to choose from.

  As he tipped the brim of his hat down over his eyes to add that roguish mystique the upcrust ladies were all aflutter over, Detan reflected that all the posturing in the world wouldn’t make up for the holes in the knees of his britches. Which left the gentleman’s last resort – good, hard grains.

  It didn’t help matters much that Tibs was trying to blend in the same way. Detan leaned over to hiss a whisper at the man, which was a funny thing to do when you were both slouching like your spines were made of rotwood.

  “You’re supposed to be my manservant, remember? Don’t look so blasted confident.”

  Tibs rolled his eyes. “Why can’t you play the manservant for once?”

  “Because I actually know the plan. And besides–” he waved an arm down his torso, “–no one would believe it.”

  “You’re right, you’d make a terrible manservant.”

  “You dustswallower! I’d be a marvelous–”

  “Excuse me, sirs.” The ticket seller reached their spot in line, his little pad of yellowed passes ruffling in the breeze. “It’s two silver grains each to the baths.”

  Detan wasn’t much surprised to see Tibs’s jaw drop open at the price. Tibs wasn’t a man to go about wasting his grains, and during normal circumstances Detan was right glad for his persnickety friend’s tight-pocket affectations. Now, however, required a different sort of dealing. The kind of dealing that got filthy men past top-button gatekeepers. In Detan’s experience, such a thing required the liberal and unfettered lubrication of gold. It was just a crying shame he didn’t have any.

  “Only two? By sel! Such a bargain. Certainly fair enough to leave a little left over for yourself, eh my good chap?” Detan leaned in as he spoke, plunking the requisite grains into the official looking pouch as he plunked another silver in the man’s personal pocket. While the ticket seller had been looking at them like something unpleasant scraped off his shoe, he now seemed inclined to their favor. Or, at least, he wasn’t scowling.

  The ticket seller tapped his pocket with the edge of his hand, feeling the weight, and shrugged. He took their names on a slip of paper, his brow raising slightly at Detan’s, but the silver weighed enough to stifle any comments.

  “Enjoy the baths,” was all he said.

  After he shuffled off, Tibs hissed in Detan’s ear. “Moonturn’s worth of rent, that was.”

  “And a lifetime’s worth of goodwill!”

  “If by a lifetime you mean until we find ourselves in this line again.”

  “Do you ever plan on seeing the baths again?”

  “Well, no…”

  Detan beamed and threw his arm around Tibs’s shoulder. “What did I tell you? A lifetime’s worth of goodwill!”

  Chapter 5

  Pelkaia sat before her vanity mirror and squinted at the unfamiliar face staring back at her. Somewhere along the way she’d gotten wrinkles. Common enough in the desert, where the air was dry and one was prone to spend most of one's days squinting under the sun, but she’d missed the transition. Too long spent beneath other people’s faces. She was beginning to forget herself.

  She dipped her fingers into a jar and spread beeswax ointment around the corners of her eyes, the creased side of her lips. Fat lot of good it would do her now, but at least it was something. Replacing the lid, she glanced down and realized her hands were still smooth – too smooth. With a sigh she attuned her mind to the fine second skin of selium over them and peeled it away. Once freed of her shaping, the substance lost its warm skin tone and shifted back to the strange, multifaceted pearlescence that was its natural state. She gathered up the modicum of it, forming a ball, and danced it through the air before her eyes.

  Child’s play, such a simple shaping, but it had always amused her. Had. With an unneeded wave of her hand she guided the hovering ball toward a vellum sack sewn within the mattress of her bed. She knelt beside it and concentrated for a moment, making sure all the selium already within would stay put, then whisked the mouth open and bundled the little sphere in with the rest. Pelkaia sat back on her heels, letting wrinkled hands rest over her kneecaps.

  She was running out of time for play.

  She made quick work of checking the weights hidden in the hollows of her bedposts – it wouldn’t do her any good to have the thing floating off – and then stood and gathered her hair into a matronly bun. Slipping her fingers into her pocket she touched the little note card that warned her that the Watch would soon knock on her door. It paid to be known as the lady who handed out sweets to the young scoundrels of the neighborhood. Never a strange occurrence passed her by, never an odd event was missed. The coming visit wasn’t a direct inquiry, of course, just a general checking-up on those sel-sensitives who claimed aged or injured retirement.

  The very thought still tied her stomach in knots.

  If the knock had come a day ago, she would have gladly turned herself in. Pelkaia held no illusions that her crimes would remain undetected much longer, that she would be able to escape the net tightening around her. She had done what she meant to do, and then sat back and waited for the axemen to catch up. Now… Now she realized her work was not yet done. And she had found a way out. A hole in the net.

  She smiled when she recalled spying the Honding lad in the Blasted Rock Inn, savored every whisper she’d ever heard about his strange abilities. His simple presence had reminded her that she was not alone. That the Scorched was not comprised of only those who could find and move selium, and those who couldn’t. There were others like her – many, perhaps – whose abilities deviated from what Valathea accepted. Others, maybe, who might rally to her cause. If only she could find them.

  When she’d had him taken to the station house, she’d intended only to needle him to discover what he knew about the state Aransa was in, to see if she could push him into assisting her crusade against the empire in some way or another. When he’d mentioned stealing Thratia’s ship, well, it had been all she could do to keep from squealing with delight. She shivered as she recalled how close she’d come to blowing the whole thing when he’d asked who Ripka would support as warden. How the thought of failing then had turned her stomach to ice.

  Funny, that, how quickly one’s mind can change.

  She felt the watch captain’s presence moments before the knock sounded, one-two, firm and insistent. It was nice to know that the coat she’d traded for Ripka’s original had gone unremarked. It’d taken her ages to sew tiny bladders of selium into the hems of it so that she could feel when the real article was near. Getting the amount just right so that the whole thing didn’t float away had given her quite the headache at the time.

  Pelkaia gathered herself, faked a smile, and kissed the locket which held her dead son’s face. When she opened the door, she found herself staring into the face of the watch captain, a shrewd young woman with serious eyes. Pelkaia noted that she had a freckle on the underside of her chin, and a tilt to the nose that she’d missed. She made a mental note to include those disparities in her next iteration of her.

  “Good afternoon, Miss…” Ripka glanced down at a list of names. “Miss Pelkaia Teria. I am Watch Captain Ripka Leshe, and this is Sergeant Banch Thent. May we come in?”

  “Yes, of course.” She stepped to the side and opened the door wide for her new guests. “I’m afraid the place is not very big, but you are welcome to it. Can I make you tea?”

  The watchers spilled into her little sitting room, their brilliant blue uniforms gaudy against the drab simplicity of her few possessions. They stood, critical eyes sweeping the place from top to bottom, and Pelkaia was certain they saw nothing of interest. Just the small pieces of a lonely woman’s life. Ripka shook her head.

  “Thank you, ma’am, but no. We are quite busy today. Have you heard of the death of Warden Faud?”

  “Who hasn’t? I don’t get out much anymore, you understand.” She eased herse
lf into a chair and rubbed her knees with an embarrassed smile. “But I do get to the market one level down twice a week. Why, I was just there yesterday. It’s all anyone can talk about. Did you say your name was Ripka?”

  The watch captain blinked. “I did. Is that significant?”

  “Ah, well, it’s just that it’s a Brown Wash name, like my own. I bet you have an Uncle Rel or Rip, eh? Silly unimaginative lot, our folk. Slap an ‘a’ or ‘aia’ on the end and, ta-da, you have a beautiful baby girl.”

  That got a genuine smile, eyes crinkling at the corners. “I do indeed, but I have been gone from that village a long time.”

  “Me too, me too.” She rubbed her knees some more, letting them see a bit of pain in her face. They didn’t hurt, but no one ever feared a viper with broken fangs. “What can I do for you?”

  “There has been some speculation that the late warden was murdered by a doppel.”

  Pelkaia rankled at that, but kept her face as smooth as she could make it without sel. Being called a doppel was deeply disrespectful, but she doubted this girl knew any better. Illusionists could do so much more than hide beneath another’s face. Fires above, the girl didn’t even realize Pelkaia was a proper illusionist.

  “You don’t say? Well, I’m just an old sel mover, not even a shaper. I can shuttle the stuff along all right, but I’m no illusionist. I don’t know any, either. Most of us don’t chat much once the contract with the mine is up, you understand.”

  Ripka’s brows went up at the term illusionist, but she let it hang. Many of Aransa’s older citizenry refused the new terms for the strongest of the sel-sensitives. The elderly carried more of the indigenous Catari blood, from the time when Valathea suspected interbreeding was the only way to raise sensitives. The words of their great-grandparents filtered down the generations to their lips. Ripka couldn’t rightly suspect her for such a small thing. Still, it felt like a little rebellion. A tiny triumph.

  “I’m sure that’s true, ma’am, but in the interest of protecting the city I’m afraid we’re going to have to search your residence. Do you consent?”