Steal the Sky

by Megan E. O'Keefe

  “He told me he bought it new,” a young voice piped up. The prodigal Grandon stood with her arms crossed and her eyes even crosser. Detan cringed and glanced away. He was no good with children; he couldn’t even puzzle out how old the little thing was. Best to keep focused on the adults of the situation.

  “Alas,” he intoned and coughed wretchedly into the crook of his arm. “I am grievously ill, and so I have come to take the flier away before my contagion spreads to you innocent souls.”

  “Hah!” Grandon spit when he laughed. “I’m not letting you walk out of here with that flier, cur. I bought it fair and square. It’s my little girl’s, now.”

  “Hold, now,” Lady Grandon said. “Just what is your illness, young man?”

  “Ugh.” He reached up and shook out his greasy hair with his fingers as if it itched him dearly. Those nearest to him scurried further away, widening the gulf of empty air around him. “Sand scabies, gentle lady. I pray you don’t get too close, in case they decide to make a dreadful leap.”

  “Hmm.” She clucked her tongue and produced a pair of fine leather gloves from her pocket, then pulled them on with expert ease. “How long have you had symptoms?”

  “They began shortly after I met your husband at the Salt Baths.” Her lips twitched, and Grandon’s face went white. “I am told the nits may have been on me for weeks before. Why, they are no doubt crawling all over the fiber of the flier’s ropes and hosting dinner parties in the crevices of the wood.”

  “A reasonable assumption, but I will need to examine you to be sure.”

  “I, uh, would prefer you do not risk your safety on my behalf.”

  “Nonsense,” Grandon cut in, a smirk on his reddened lips. “My wife is the finest apothik in all Aransa.”

  Detan swallowed, and hoped his added pallor would make the disguise more convincing. “Is she now?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Well, then–”

  Before he could muster further protest the Lady Grandon crossed to him and caught his chin between iron-tough fingers. She turned his head this way and that, but he was startled to find her eyes did not leave his own. He met her gaze, choked down his fear, and squared his shoulders. He could probably outrun her…

  “Definitely sand scabies,” she raised her voice for all to hear.

  For one infinitesimal moment, a shiver of terror wormed its way into Detan’s core. Could there have been some mistake? Could a real sickness be lurking beneath his makeup? Damn Tibs and his sand trick, it was working too well. That had to be it.

  Lady Grandon shook her head, slow and grave, then released his chin and stepped back. She peeled the gloves from her hands and tossed them in a nearby firepit. Fine leather erupted into little sparking embers, an average miner’s week worth of pay gone up in a flash.

  “Well along,” she continued. “I am in fact quite surprised to see a case so advanced still walking and talking. Usually by the time they get this far they can do little more than roll around on their cots and moan. Tell me, do you have any pain?”

  “A very great deal of it.”

  “Pity. The flier of course will have to be destroyed, we can’t have the evil little things spreading.” She snapped her fingers and a black-jacketed valet appeared at her side. “Go and find the salvage men. Tell them they are needed right away, and that we have a case here for quarantine.”

  The valet bowed and scurried off, much to Detan’s relief. It was always pleasant when the mark made the requests for him.

  “If the flier is contaminated,” Grandon raised his voice to be heard over the nervous murmur of his guests, “which I’m sure it isn’t, then we should burn it here and now and be done with it.”

  Beneath his makeup, sweat crept across Detan’s brow.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Grandon’s wife interjected. “If scabies are aboard that vessel then they will leap to the nearest host the very moment the flames lick them. No, it must be wrapped and disposed of in the middle of the desert where only the cold blood of lizards will be on offer.”

  “You are,” Grandon dragged out the words, “quite certain this man is ill?”

  Detan froze as the apothik turned back to him, her sharp eyes sweeping him from greased hair to dusty boots. She arched a brow, one only he could see, and gave her husband a curt nod.

  “I have never before seen such a sorry case.”

  The gate trundled open, and through came the salvage men with the valet at their helm. Detan could only hope the valet hadn’t found their fortuitous proximity suspicious. Each one was dressed in the same moss-green trousers and tunic, and each had a matching scarf wound round their hair and the bottom half of their face to keep both sun and vapors off. Between them they hauled a low cart, its pocked surface smeared with suspicious stains.

  To the untrained eye, it was damned near impossible to tell them apart. For Detan, however, the slight swagger and paler hands of Tibs were clear as a candle in the dark. Tibs was also the only one to stop short, stunned, upon sighting the flier.

  Detan couldn’t blame him. Pink daisies would break the character of any man.

  While the valet directed them about their business, all eyes were drawn to the commotion, and feet were drawn steadily away from it. Detan slunk back, drifting along the edge of the crowd, his way made clear even if those darting from his path pretended to never have seen him.

  Contagion was the swiftest way to become both the most ignored and most watched man in the room.

  “A moment.” The Lady Grandon intercepted his slow retreat and pulled a palm-sized notepad from her pocket. She gave it a few spirited prods with a pencil then ripped the top page free, folded it, and thrust it toward him. “I insist you go to my clinic so that my people may do what they can to ease your suffering.”

  “I will go there straight away, madam, and if I survive this dreadful curse then I will be forever in your debt. I will make certain that all generations to come after me pay homage to your own. I will–”

  One of the salvage men let out a howl. He hopped around on one foot, clutching at the other, and the lanky man beside him shrugged a mute apology. Tibs. Detan scowled. Even when relegated to a wordless role, that bastard could be a stern critic.

  Lady Grandon cleared her throat. “Brevity, I believe, is prudent in the face of your ill-health.”

  “You are as wise as you are generous.” He bowed extravagantly, those nearest to him recoiling a few extra steps.

  They would be a while yet moving the flier, and so Detan made his escape into the dusty road, working up a good limp and a soft, painful groan whenever he drew close enough to be overheard. Once he’d shambled past the bright-painted doors of Grandon’s neighbors, he paused to read the note. It was an address all right – but to a posh club upcrust a good few levels. He knew the place. It was carpeted and slung all about with chandeliers, and known for serving the hardest hitting cocktails of those establishments who served them in clean glasses.

  Detan chewed his lip and waited for the filthy procession to pass by him. He fell into step behind Tibs and flicked his hood back up.

  “What’d the lady pass you?”

  “An invitation to drink.”

  Tibs sucked air through his teeth and chewed it around a bit. “Going to go?”

  “If only to be certain I don’t actually have sand scabies. She damned near had me convinced.”

  “Bad idea.”

  “Always good to have a lady of the medical profession on your side, my good man.”

  He grunted, and they lapsed into silence. The way to the Salt Baths was not long by ferry, but they planned to march the flier all the way down to the desert and then fly it in under its own power, low and slow. There’d be plenty of time to convince Tibs of Lady Grandon’s merits along the way.

  His erstwhile companion let loose with a reedy sigh.

  “What’s wrong, Tibs?”

  “Purple. Why did it have to be purple? That damned dye doesn’t come out of anything, le
t me tell you.”

  Under the harsh eye of the sun Detan adjusted his hood, shuffling around the parts of cloth that were damp with sweat. He’d be soaked before they even made it to the lowest levels. He’d have to buy water once there, no way around it. Real flowers like those painted on the flier he reckoned would need a quarter of a man’s daily water to keep on looking so pert. The blasted things didn’t even provide food. He glowered at them.

  The pink flowers shone back at him, relentlessly cheerful. He spit, and trudged onward.

  Chapter 17

  It was a relief to have the makeup off, even if the bruise remained, but still Detan felt unkempt. Unwell. The double doors to the Red Door Club reared up before him, their scarlet paint pristine despite the glare of the desert sun. No windows faced the street; not a soul behind those doors cared what the dusty road and its worn inhabitants looked like. Detan had never been inside the place before, but he knew the type.

  These upcrust beds of convenience were stepped all along the rise of Aransa, and if they bothered with windows at all they were pointed out into the air, toward the Fireline and the humped shoulders of the Smokestack.

  He didn’t have any business at all knocking on a door to a place like this, save the scrawled note Lady Grandon had shoved in his hand. Dangerous business, getting mixed up in the private affairs of the wealthy, and wasn’t he mixed up in too much dangerous business to begin with? Didn’t help matters much that the lady in question was a pits-cursed apothik. With all their aprons, gloves, bottles and strange tinctures, apothiks were one short step from whitecoats. Detan suppressed a shiver. Best to follow Tibs’s advice, as always. What good was having a wingman if you never listened to him?

  Detan turned, and one of the great red doors swung open. Rarified air blended with the dust and heat of the street. The air from within was cool from the low light, laden with the rich aromas of argent-leaf smoke and rare flower oils. A narrow man dressed in the brick-red vest of the club’s livery stepped out and glanced around the street until he found Detan. At the sight, a twitch took up residence in the corner of the young man’s eye.

  “Lord Honding?” the man ventured.

  “Who?”

  The man’s stiff shoulders slumped under the force of a long-suffering sigh. “The Lady Grandon requests that–” he cleared his throat and raised his voice in imitation, “–you either get in here out of the heat or scurry back into whatever sandcave you fell out of.”

  “Er, right. Yes. Very good. Lead the way, good man.”

  The attendant guided him through the maze of private booths and winding bartops while giving Detan nothing more than the flat of his back. He couldn’t even be spurred into conversation when Detan inquired as to the origin of the Red Door’s garish livery.

  Fretting so that he could hardly keep his head still, Detan gave up his attempts to cajole the man into anything like gentlemanly chatter. The club, he found, was quite larger than it had looked from the street. Three stories rolled down the face of Aransa, the top story the one which opened to the street. With each narrow set of stairs they ambled down the decor grew finer, the chandelier makers more generous with their crystal.

  Live flames licked behind the barrel-sized creations, casting twisting prisms of light over all the open tables and booths. Detan frowned. There wasn’t a soul to be seen at those open tables, and every little booth had its tiny red curtain drawn.

  The silent valet delivered Detan to a booth near the back of the bottom floor, its client hidden away behind one of those thick crimson curtains. Though he was certain they were along the back wall of the club, still no windows pierced the structure to break up the gloom.

  At least it was cool in here. The sweat between his shoulder blades was beginning to chill and prickle. Not an altogether pleasant sensation.

  The stone-faced valet picked up a narrow silver bell from a hook on the edge of the booth and gave it a jingle. It was an offensively gentle sound, like fairies pissing on a tin roof.

  “Sands below.” Lady Grandon’s voice drifted from behind the curtain. “There’s no need for that nonsense.”

  Detan beamed at the valet, but his sour little face hadn’t moved a muscle. He just hung the bell back up and wandered off to whatever bitter business needed seeing to next. Pity there was no time to work on the chap. With a flourish, Detan swept the curtain aside and half-bowed into the filmy light of the two-seater booth.

  “At your service, lady.”

  Lady Grandon exhaled a plume of silvery smoke, a black-lacquered extender hanging from her lips. “Of course you are, boy. Now sit. I am pleased, of course, by your miraculous recovery.”

  He shuffled into the booth and pulled the curtain tight. With the light of the common room cut off, the darkness was held back only by the bulbous glass of a dust and grease-smeared lamp.

  The low light softened the lady’s features, made her already artfully arranged face difficult to read. She’d held meetings like this before, he realized. Probably in this same booth every time. He grinned. It was always a pleasure to work with a professional.

  “The delicate ministrations of your nursemaids were all the balm I needed to return to glowing health.”

  She pursed her lips. “You haven’t set foot in my infirmary. I doubt you even know where it is.”

  “And yet you yourself proclaimed me dangerously ill. Only days left on this big ball of dust, if I recall. That’s quite a shock to a man’s mind, you understand.”

  She flicked ash into a black-glazed plate and drew smoke once more, the little cherry ember of her cigarette a brilliant pinpoint of light in the gloom. “You deserved a shock for interrupting my daughter’s party.”

  “An unfortunate necessity to ensure the young lady’s safety from contagion, I assure you.”

  “Please.” She waved the hand holding her extender, tracing a loop of smoke in the air. “Can we dispense with such nonsense? I’m growing too old for unnecessary games.”

  “Games are a necessary part of life, dear lady. Why, just this morning, I–”

  She snapped the fingers of her empty hand a beetle’s width from his nose.

  “I said enough. I’ve asked you here to warn you, not to waste my time.”

  “Warn me? Whatever for?” Detan forced his tongue to be still, to let her fill the gap in conversation. This was not a woman who could be distracted by his rambling ways.

  “You kicked a hornet’s house, getting under my husband’s skin. And while I thank you for it, out of a certain sense of comradeship with your old aunt I feel compelled to tell you to skip off Aransa just as quick as you can. My husband may be occupied with matters political for the time being, but the first chance he gets he’ll come for you. I suppose you are not staying in the same locale in which my lord discovered your flier?”

  “Whoa now, lady, back up just a second. I don’t know what you know about my dear old auntie, but I’ll hear it off you now.”

  She dashed her ash again and picked up an obsidian decanter. From it she poured two snifters, the round bottoms held upright in a little pot of sand, and nudged one toward him. The rim was already garnished with a thumbprint-sized section of dripping honeycomb.

  He picked it up, squinted at it. Sniffed it. Gave the bottom a little flick. It smelled of warm honey and the thick-petaled, pink flowers his auntie liked to keep in boxes outside her windows. Detan sipped and was surprised to find the thick liquid laced through with miniscule bubbles of effervescent sel. He was even more surprised to find his lips not at all numb. It was good to not be poisoned.

  “Dame Honding and I attended a private academy together as girls. I have not seen her in decades, you understand, but there is a flavor of loyalty amongst young school girls which stands all tests of time. Now, a return to more pertinent matters. My husband will be briefly occupied in acquiring a new vessel for our daughter, but such a thing will not take long, and then he will set his fervid eyes on you, my boy. Shove off before he has the chance.”


  Detan stared at the sun-weathered face of his companion, trying to imagine it as a young girl terrorizing the schoolmasters of the Scorched’s Academy for Young Ladies. She seemed older than her years to him, but then the desert was unkind to the delicate.

  And how long had it been since he’d last seen his aunt? Nothing but letters and parcels strung out between them for the last few years. He cleared his throat of an imagined lump and sipped again. The liquor was cool and palliative, a viscous balm to his unsteady nerves. On second taste he found the flavor deepened by muddled cactus pulp – his aunt had favored cactus liquors, too. He shook his head. Best not to dwell on matters familial while in uncertain company.

  “Why the rush for a flier at all? I supposed mine was a theft of opportunity, not a predestined desire.”

  Something ticked beneath the thin skin of the lady’s careful mask, a little flicker of pain trembling along her cheekbone. She drank of her own vial, nibbled on the edge of the honeycomb and placed it back in the sand.

  “Our daughter is sensitive, and growing stronger. Not too strong, mind you, she’s nowhere near verging on becoming a doppel, but her strength has been noticed. The mine master wants her training for the line soon, but I’d much rather see her in the skies than working in that… mess. Renold and I decided to teach her piloting so that she may easier find a place upon a vessel. Unless…”

  “Yes?”

  Lady Grandon breathed deep of the smoke-laden air, a nervous gesture so far outside her characteristics thus far that Detan felt his own chest clench with anxiety.

  “I’ve heard, of course, that the young Lord Honding’s sensitivity for selium dried up. Renold was too disgusted by you to put the question to you himself, but, considering our familial friendship, I had hoped you might be forthright about the circumstances.”

  He waved his hand in the air, cutting her off before she could press him further. “My loss of sensitivity was achieved through great trauma, lady. The loss of life of my entire line back in Hond Steading inspired it. It is not a route I think viable for your girl.”