Stormbringer

by Shannon Delany

  He looked away, thinking of the young pianoforte player in the Tanks at Holgate, subject to whatever treatment those in Bran’s stead deemed worthwhile. Caleb. He’d had the most elegant and perfectly shaped hands and fingers—masterpieces that looked as if designed by God to make nothing but fine music.

  Fingers the Maker had taken exquisite care to methodically destroy so the boy would embrace his abilities as a Weather Witch. Nothing had worked. Now the boy’s life was much like Bran’s own life: far beyond his control.

  But those fingers—before Bran had gotten to them—looked remarkably like those of the man seated across from him now. The man who, based on the tilt of his head, knew he was being watched. His pose mimicked Bran’s, adding to it the subtle twist of a smile obscured by the mouth of the mask, frozen in a snarling roar yet mobile. The Wandering Wallace shook out his mane, long locks of differently colored yarn and ribbon intermingling and catching in the breeze.

  Beside Wallace, small enough to be mistaken for barely a woman, was the brunette beauty who clung to him like his shadow. Her eyes were filled with stars—like the universe had fallen into two dark pools and lived there, planets spinning, surrounded by a forest of long lashes. She was surely the Wandering Wallace’s wife …

  Though they rode an airship and Bran was certainly not traveling with a woman who was legally bound to him …

  He wondered about their arrangement—not that it changed anything between him and Maude; still, he was curious. He had not yet even heard her speak. Where had she come from? Surely the Far East, thanks to some trade or religious mission, or … He looked back at the Wandering Wallace, searching his masked face for some clue.

  Military mission?

  The Wandering Wallace pulled his linen napkin from off his lap, rubbed it between his hands, and dabbed both corners of his mouth with it. The fabric was blotched with dark spots of broth and wine, but the Wandering Wallace deftly folded the linen into the shape of a bird. His lion’s head tilted, he speculated a moment before he tossed the napkin overhead, declaring, “That one’s dirty, may I have a fresh one, please?” The napkin held its place in midair before exploding into shadow-filled wings that sprouted black feathers, and, bristling, a raven darted away.

  The serving girl reappeared, her mouth flat, expression absolutely unimpressed, and she shook out a perfectly white napkin to replace the Wandering Wallace’s previous one.

  Graciously he took it and, grinning, responded, “I’d wager you lose more linens that way…”

  She snorted, and Bran tilted his head. It was an odd reaction for a servant girl to have when dealing with the guest of a captain. The girl spun on her heel and stalked off to stand, waiting, by the wheeled cart that held every need the kitchen staff could anticipate for a grand dinner Topside.

  “Not everyone is fond of trickery,” the Wandering Wallace stated, looking to the young woman at his side. “Nor of illusion, are they, Miyakitsu?”

  She shook her head, long black tresses glowing in the lightning that formed a flickering net around the ship, weaving about their vessel with a system of living light.

  “I must say, Maker…” The captain addressed him directly, and Bran pulled his attention into a more narrow focus to listen. “I had no idea you would be a passenger on the Artemesia. Why, to hear the boys below tell it, you’ve never ridden an airship, you merely provide us our most valuable power source!”

  Bran glanced at Marion and the little girl balanced on his knee. So blond her hair was nearly silver, she had a heart-shaped face and big eyes that took in everything.

  Much the child’s senior, Marion also drank in the details, controlling every action of his three unwilling guests like a puppet master tugging strings. He dipped his head in a small nod and the Maker spoke.

  He chose his words carefully even in common conversation. “I rode an airship once as a boy. But Making is a tedious and taxing business and a Maker seldom has time for vacation.”

  “True, true,” the captain agreed, “more the reason to be glad when Lightning’s Kiss yields a Warden or a Wraith. Leave the Gathering to them and the Testers and focus on what needs your skill set so someday you might go on a grand adventure!” He opened his arms wide to envelop the entire journey.

  “Yes,” Bran agreed. “One never knows when travel might beckon.” His gaze drifted back to Marion.

  The Frost Giant’s eyes were as cold as the bits of the weather he so easily summoned.

  Bran dropped his gaze, again raising the spoon to his mouth and swallowing its contents. Its warmth did nothing to lessen the chill crawling through his innards at the captain’s mention of his special skills. Would the captain, so merrily supping on fresh bread and soup, be so cheerful if he knew what talents Bran readily employed to Make a Witch? If Bran told him about his selection of fine blades, or his cat—Bran fought to keep the soup down—would he approve of his violent methodology? Would anyone outside the Council members controlling the Weather Workers approve?

  Aboard the Tempest

  Rowen followed Elizabeth up the stairs from the cargo bay and through a hatch in its ceiling. They emerged in a curving hallway far narrower than the bay below. He turned, looking behind him. “It encircles the entire ship?”

  “Aye, nearly,” Elizabeth said, smiling. “It enrobes nearly the lower third of the ship in three levels—all above the cargo bay. And, note the doors to our right?”

  He nodded, noting in particular how no two doors matched.

  “Cabins, closets, and assorted other necessary spaces, including the map room and library.” She paused, again taking a sip from her flask. It would have been in good taste to offer some of whatever she was drinking to him, too, but it seemed the thought never crossed her mind.

  Perhaps pirates simply did not share.

  “A library?” Rowen asked, squinting.

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Just because we are liberally aligned traders does not mean we are uneducated or uncivilized. The thing that most accurately demonstrates a person’s cultural value is the quality of that person’s library. Here,” she motioned for him to follow, “see this?”

  Portholes were spaced at fair distances one from the other all along the inner wall.

  “This is the true beauty of the Tempest,” Elizabeth confided, bending to peer through the thick glass of the nearest porthole. She wiggled a finger at him and he leaned close, looking through the same window. “The Mech Deck.” Light drifted and swayed inside the dimly lit room, giving Rowen the sickening impression everything he saw was sunk in a large lake.

  He braced himself, having only been underwater once before. He would never be caught that way again. That dare hadn’t been taken in a water body where Merrow—slinking and supple beasts leading the Wildkin War—swam, but the Merrow had allies. Swaying under the memory’s force, he shut his eyes a moment, condemning the thought to the darkest regions of his mind.

  When he opened his eyes, Elizabeth was staring at him.

  He looked back into the heart of the Mech Deck. In its center sat a large, glowing metal box bristling with tubes, rotors, and gauges. They shot out of it, joining with pipes aplenty, soaring and snaking into the surrounding walls, ceiling, and floor. The faint scent of smoke set Rowen’s nerves jangling. Deep inside him something primal stirred, insisting there should not be fire on a ship, not on any type of ship, neither water- nor airborne.

  Elizabeth leaned so close Rowen smelled mint on her breath. “That there’s the truth of the Tempest’s magick,” she confided. “And an excellent reason for our kind and the government to be at odds. We have the thing they want us least to know about, and we know how to hide it and hide it well.”

  Two men flanked the stove; one sporting large green goggles leaned over and yanked the metal box’s door open. Orange light poured out, and even at a distance Rowen stepped back. Vents hidden in the Mech Deck’s side walls whispered open, releasing the sudden flood of heat.

  Flanking the stove, the men improvised
a rhythmic chant as they loaded it with coal. Rowen pressed his ear to the glass and, closing his eyes, listened.

  The Tempest is our vessel

  The sky is our domain

  Our mission just to live our lives

  And seek out better days

  We ride the winds that carry us

  Wherever we intend

  And shun the war and miseries

  That plague all them on land.

  “We have steam power,” Elizabeth announced. “And the wits to hide that fact from the authorities. No one aboard my ship is enslaved.”

  “Just kidnapped,” he reminded her.

  A grin slid across her face. “Shanghaied. Crimped, Impressed,” she corrected. “Fair enough. But I daresay this is one of the finest crews to be taken by. Until the vomiting ensues.” She shrugged, and, turning away from him, opened a box built into a recess in the nearby wall. Unfolding a metal handle topped with a small wooden knob, she gave it a crank. She spoke into a horn mouthpiece, asking, “What’s our altitude?”

  The men standing by the ship’s hot, glowing heart leaned around the stove, glancing at a system of gauges and dials and then the taller of them jogged to the wall. “Just about right,” he shouted into a similar device.

  Even though she was out of their sight, she gave a quick nod of approval, adding, “Keep her clear of other ships if you can, boys—saves me a headache.” Uncapping the flask, she took another drink.

  “We’ll do our best,” he returned.

  The smaller of the two adjusted his goggles and shouted, “We’ll direct-line you if there’s a need for cover.”

  “Good enough,” she said. She flipped the handle flush, closing it back into the box. “Follow me.”

  Opening a wide blue door with two white panels, she ducked out of the hall and into a nearby room. Rowen’s curiosity piqued, he followed.

  Inside, Elizabeth stood before an open window through which a rope ladder extended, its lowest portion pinned beneath a decorated plank that clamped onto the floor with grandly molded brass fittings.

  From there, the rest of the rope ladder extended out and up.

  Elizabeth slipped a leg out the window and, resting her rump on the windowsill, leaned out and reached around, grabbing the ropes.

  “We’re going to climb…?”

  In answer, she began, hand over hand, to climb up, until she was completely out of his sight.

  He went to the window and looked up, his hands tight on the window’s frame.

  “Grab a ratline and come along,” she called, waving an encouraging hand. “There’s a great deal more to be seen before I settle you into your quarters.”

  He grabbed a vertical line of rope.

  She laughed. “That’s a shroud, not a ratline.”

  “I’m getting to it,” he growled, snagging one of the thinner horizontal ropes.

  Thinner.

  Rowen was suddenly aware of every bit of his bulk and, for the first time ever, was glad he had not eaten recently.

  The ladder shifted in his grasp.

  “It takes a little getting used to,” she told him, “but surely a man of your fine form can climb. Unless heights scare you…” The last phrase an obvious tease, still Rowen responded by hefting himself up the ladder, and not—no, not at all—looking down.

  The air rolled around him, tickling the hair on his face as if a gentle hand ran across it. He had climbed more than his share of trees as a boy. But no tree he’d climbed soared so high. Nor had any of the trees slipped loose as if ready to throw him to the distant ground if he took a single misstep.

  Or sneezed.

  The ladder shimmied across the fabric of the big blue-and-white balloon like a springy trellis. It slid only inches, but a few inches on an airship could equate to a fall of a thousand feet or much more, he imagined, to the ground below.

  His stomach lurched.

  Rowen kept his neck craned back so he was only looking up, but that had disadvantages. Peering up the ladder meant looking directly at Elizabeth’s rump as it continued its merry ascent, giving a far different impression in breeches than in a skirt. He had never seen a woman’s rump so clearly displayed while clothed—never seen one so close to wearing nothing and yet so definitely wearing just the perfect amount of something.

  Tavern girls wore layers of skirts and petticoats that left much to the imagination. It wasn’t as if he had never seen the rear parts of a woman unencumbered by clothing—he was eighteen. Still, he cleared his throat, distracted to be faced with a woman’s rump so prominently displayed.

  He tried looking beyond the back end of her—farther up the ladder that hissed against the fabric of the massive balloon.

  She loosened her grip, looking down at him again. “Have a care,” she warned.

  He froze, seeing they were only halfway to the top, the ladder disappearing over the curving apex high above them, and he realized how insubstantial their cords were in relation to the rest of the construction of the airship. The Tempest was a floating mammoth. Both hands clutching the same rung, he hung there, doing his best to breathe and hang on. Hanging on seemed more important than breathing, and closing his eyes, he concentrated.

  On not thinking.

  It was usually not a difficult task for Rowen. On not thinking.

  She shouted from somewhere above him, her voice light and silly for the captain she seemed to be. “What’s the problem, boy? What are you—a cat stuck in a tree?”

  He felt the ladder shift again and heard the rhythmic creaking of the ropes as she approached him.

  “Well, darling, it seems you have again been taken by surprise. Stunned to stopping! Here, attach this to yourself.”

  A cord slipped between his arms and slapped against his boots.

  “Can’t,” he grunted, staring so hard at the balloon’s silk he was certain he could count the individual threads.

  “Scared stiff, are you?”

  The ropes shivered. “Stay steady, boy, hold tight,” she said. “I’m coming for you.” Her boots passed into the constricted range of his vision, and then her legs and rump, her back, and finally the back of her head was flush with his nose.

  “Keep a tight hold, we’re about to become a bit more closely acquainted,” she warned as she took the slack cable in one hand and turned on the ladder, hooking the heels of her boots in a ratline.

  Her chest pressed against his and her arms encircled his waist as she wrapped the cable around him.

  He squeaked when she ran the cable between his legs—twice!—and looped it back around his waist, cinching the entire system tight.

  “Now you’re secure,” she said, her breath brushing his ear. “Keep calm and climb on.”

  He nodded and she spun in the space between his arms and ascended again.

  He swallowed hard and pried the fingers of his right hand open, pulling them free long enough to snap them shut on the next ratline up.

  “Atta boy—not much farther!” she encouraged.

  He worked his way up the last yards of rope by staring at the balloon’s fabric and willing himself to keep going for more than the sake of mere safety—for the sake of what was left of his pride.

  He’d wrecked his honor in Philadelphia and nearly lost his life. But here they only knew him by what he did and how he acted. Here he might regain some of what he’d lost for Jordan’s sake. Here he might reinvent himself and be something more.

  Or at least be someone different.

  If Elizabeth never mentioned this display to anyone else. He was even more thankful he hadn’t given her any other reason to devise a new name for him.

  He could impress the crew. At least the captain …

  If only he kept reaching, kept climbing. Up. And up. And—

  Her hand was in his face, reaching out to help him span the last bit. He took it, astonished by the power of her grasp and the strength in her arm as she hauled him onto a platform.

  Her eyes searched his face. “Here.” She grab
bed his hand and placed it on a brass railing that ran the majority of the platform’s perimeter. “Steady yourself a minute before we proceed.”

  “Proceed?” he asked, his eyes widening.

  “Yes. Of course. Why did you think I’d bring you all this way if not to let you explore all of Topside?”

  “For amusement,” he snapped, not meeting her eyes.

  She snorted. “You’re far too pretty to be so bitter so young,” she said.

  Rowen ignored the statement, caught his breath, and brought the world into focus, slowly raising his gaze.

  “This is it,” she proclaimed, taking her hat off to shake her hair free and throw her arms wide. “This is the biggest lie we tell the government. And the only lie that keeps us free to be the way we wish and do the things we want.” She spun on the deck, her hair falling free and flaring out around her and, brilliant in the slanting rays of the sun. She stopped suddenly, pointing to a woman who moved the gears and wheels and levers of the ship, Conducting its every move.

  His breath caught and he staggered a few steps forward, his eyes darting from the deck’s edge to the figure moving and jerking along at the whim of the ship—a woman tied—bound—to the ship.

  Enslaved.

  “You said no one was…” He stopped, swinging back to Elizabeth, aghast.

  “Look again.”

  He leaned forward, squinting. Strings shot out from the hands and head of the woman and Rowen realized it was not the woman steering the ship at all, but rather the ship pulling, tugging, and yanking the woman about in an awkward parody of living movement.

  He blinked, and laughed so hard he bent over and held his knees. “You have steam power hidden beneath the facade of a Conductor!”

  “Aye. Is not Tara the finest puppet ever?”

  Again Rowen laughed, looking back at the human-sized mannequin. “They wouldn’t know unless they were nearly upon you. But then … How do you get enough lift to get away from docks—to get out of view and wait to start the steam engine? That early fog—the cloud cover…”

  She chuckled, took a sip from her flask, replaced it on her hip, and put her two hands out before him. Something shimmered between her palms and wisps like cotton formed. A cloud grew there, cupped loosely in her grasp, and then she threw her arms open. The cloud split and skittered across the deck to pop off its edges and launch into the air. Lightning flashed and the little cloud swelled into a thunderhead, sizzling and popping before dissolving back into a clear sky. Elizabeth’s already impossible grin spread farther and she bowed before him, saying as she rose, “Welcome to Topside on the Tempest! This is only the beginning of our potential!”