“I agree that Fosca Mazzoletti must be stopped and her Family punished,” Agosti said stiffly as she sat in conference with Cristof, Captain Amcathra, and Taya. Liliana hovered by her sister’s side in silent support. Lucanus was busy manning the boiler while Dautry and Jinian remained above to run the ship. “However, this war began before my Family was killed, and it encompasses far more than a desire for revenge.”
“Did your grandfather order the invasion?” Cristof asked, bluntly.
“He said that he did not.”
“Then it was a rogue assault led by a revolutionary force and you have no reason to perpetuate their bad decision. Your grandfather was suing for peace.”
“But now the Alzanans aren’t the only country at war with Ondinium. Demicus has also turned against you.”
“The sheytatangri’s strength lies primarily in the support it has received from Alzana,” Captain Amcathra said. “If Alzana stops supplying the tangri with weapons and transportation, its influence over the clans will be significantly weakened.”
“But we have trade agreements with several Demican clans.”
“You?” Cristof asked. “Or your grandfather?”
“I intend to uphold my grandfather’s political agreements and treaties.”
“I’m not asking you to break them. But I am asking you to carefully consider the best interests of your Family and Alzana. Tell me, what do you hope to get out of this war?”
Agosti considered her answer.
“The war has already revealed quite a bit of valuable information about Ondinium,” she said at last. “We now know that your country lied to its neighbors for centuries about its capacity for aerial warfare and that many of the imperial war machines it claimed were destroyed are still intact. That is the sort of information that could entirely reshape the diplomatic landscape of our continent.”
“Perhaps, but what price have you paid for that information? How many dirigibles and crew members have you lost so far? What else do you expect to get out of this war?”
“If Fosca Mazzoletti’s plan works, we will have crippled Ondinium and opened it for occupation.”
“You won’t get all that just by destroying the Great Engine. The Engine’s important to us, but it’s only a tool.”
“Mazzoletti will do more than simply destroy your Engine,” Agosti said. “She also has the serpentfire cannon. With that, she can raze the entire city.”
“Pietra, no!” Liliana gasped.
“That would be an extremely short-sighted strategy,” Cristof grated. “What’s the point of occupying a country you’ve turned into charcoal?”
“I imagine we will only need to use the weapon once or twice before your Council surrenders.”
“And it doesn’t worry you that the person wielding that weapon is the same one who slaughtered your family?”
The Alzanan colonel tensed. “I have heard my sister’s testimony, but I will wait until I hear Lady Mazzoletti’s side before I decide she is guilty.”
“We’re chasing the Formidable now,” Cristof said. “If you help us stop it, I’ll return the ship and Lady Mazzoletti to you.”
“And its cargo?”
“The weapons will stay with us.”
“Unacceptable.” Agosti gestured to the empty space around them. “I will not help you on those terms, and you don’t have enough heavy weapons to take the ship on your own.”
“We have already boarded and taken one of your ships with nothing more than rifles and needle guns,” Captain Amcathra said without emotion. “However, I have no objection to setting down my non-military passengers and ramming the Formidable myself. The Firebrand’s boiler will ignite the Formidable’s envelope and destroy everything and everyone on board.”
“That would be suicide,” Agosti protested.
“Not entirely.” Amcathra fixed the colonel with his pale blue gaze. “Since you are not a civilian, I would keep you on board during the maneuver.”
“Captain!” Liliana recoiled. “You wouldn’t!”
Taya forced herself to remain silent, although she wanted to protest, too.
“Or you can work with us, take the Formidable, Lady Mazzoletti, and your sister, and leave,” Cristof said, his voice hard.
“But you would keep the Cabisi weapons,” Agosti said.
“Yes, we would.”
“Would you destroy them?”
“That’s my ultimate goal, yes. But I don’t know how quickly or safely they can be neutralized, so if I need to take them with me rather than leave them in your hands, I will.”
“I see.” Agosti reached into her coat, removing the case of cigarillos that they’d returned to her. She struck a match and lit up, ignoring Cristof’s poorly hidden impatience.
“It occurs to me,” she said after a moment of contemplative puffing, “that if your captain kills me in a suicide run on the Formidable, you will lose any chance you have at negotiating a peace with my sister.” Her dark eyes met Cristof’s. “Or would you kill Liliana, too, and try to convince Silvio that we were both casualties of war?”
For a moment they both stared at each other, impassive. Then, at last, his shoulders slumping, Cristof looked away. Taya breathed a silent sigh of relief, feeling the knots in her stomach uncoil.
“I am not a murderer, Colonel,” Cristof said, his voice pained.
“I had hoped not, Exalted. Overtake the Formidable and I will signal its captain to stop,” Agosti said, flicking her ash onto the berth deck. “I will take command of the ship and question Lady Mazzoletti about her role in the rebellion. Liliana will come with me, of course. You may do what you can to disable the serpentfire cannon and holocaust bomb; the Formidable’s engineers will assist. After the weapons have been dealt with to our mutual satisfaction, we will have your promise of safe passage on the Formidable back to the border. After that, you and I will both take stock of the situation and decide what to do next.”
“Exalted….” Amcathra growled. Cristof shook his head.
“We’re not monsters, Janos.” He dragged his eyes up to meet the colonel’s. “We are Family Agosti’s allies, and our first goal is to save Ondinium. Your terms are acceptable, Colonel.”
* * *
They encountered their first conflagration zone late in the afternoon on the second day of their flight.
First the Firebrands noticed gray ash carried on gusting flurries of snow, and then they smelled burnt wood. Soon a dark swath of scorched land came into view, a long black scar that cut through the forest, still too hot for snow to cover.
“Lady save us,” Taya breathed, leaning over the rail. “That’s from serpentfire, isn’t it?”
“There.” Captain Amcathra, studying the damage through his field glasses, pointed. “Look at the ship.”
Cristof took the glasses from him, looked a minute, and then passed them to Taya. One by one, each crew member examined the twisted, melted remains of the ornithopter that lay in the center of the burn.
“It’s not floating,” Taya murmured.
Amcathra’s voice was flat. “Dephlogistication.”
“What’s that?” Taya asked.
“In theory,” Cristof said, “enough heat could combust ondium’s phlogiston deposits, creating a vacuum that would immediately be filled with regular atmospheric gases. The process would transform ondium into a normally weighted ore.”
“It looks like serpentfire generates enough heat to induce such combustion,” Dautry observed quietly.
“The holocaust bomb….” Cristof turned to Jinian. “Does it have the same effects as serpentfire?”
“I do not know— I am only a kattaka, not a military artillerist. You need someone like Ra Tafar to answer that question.”
“Call Colonel Agosti to deck,” Cristof said. “I want her to see this. But nobody say a word about dephlogi
stication to her.”
Sober nods greeted his words.
“Jinian.” He turned to the Cabisi woman. “Will you keep this secret, too?”
“I will.” Jinian’s lips tightened as she surveyed the devastation. “I do not care for this weapon. Sometimes, I think, we Cabisi are so carried away by our enthusiasm for invention that we do not think carefully enough about the consequences of the things we manufacture.”
They waited as Colonel Agosti and Liliana climbed up the ladder and joined them at the railing.
“Lady Mazzoletti used the serpentfire cannon here,” Cristof said, gesturing. “I thought you might want to see its effects.”
Pietra Agosti surveyed the blasted area.
“She told me that the weapon would create a firestorm,” the colonel said quietly. “I thought she was exaggerating.”
“We were told it’s capable of scorching the land in a half-mile radius.”
“This fire burned farther than that,” Taya murmured. “Even though it’s winter.”
“We need to go faster,” Amcathra announced. “Dautry, are we still on course? Sergeant Lucanus, monitor the engine. Icarus, Kattaka, would you see to the boiler?”
“I will shovel coal, Captain, but I prefer you call me Jinian,” Jinian said as she headed below with Taya. “Kattaka is a job, not a title.”
“He’ll never do it,” Taya predicted as she took her place next to the boiler and pulled on a pair of leather work gloves.
“Do you notice that he uses Professor Dautry’s name, but not her title?” Jinian asked, picking up a shovel.
“She’s crew.”
“No, he uses titles and last names when he addresses his crew members, and titles when he addresses strangers and social superiors. But he only uses Dautry’s last name.”
“Well, they’ve worked together a lot recently, and I know he respects her opinion. Maybe it means he regards her as an equal.” The fire in the boiler turned Taya’s thoughts back to what they’d just seen. “When you go back to Cabiel, will you tell them about the serpentfire?”
“Yes. I am here pursuing a challenge, but I am also gathering information for the Impeccable Justiciary. They wish to know more about the ways in which Cabisi technology is being used in foreign lands.”
“Not well, I’m afraid.”
They shoveled in silence for a few moments, each lost in her own thoughts.
“It is difficult to control a technology once it exists,” Jinian mused at last, “but it is not impossible. I intend to recommend the destruction of these cannon and their plans when I return to Cabiel.”
Taya nodded, although she couldn’t help but think of all the ancient weapons Ondinium’s Council had claimed to have destroyed. Would Cabiel’s Impeccable Justiciary do the same?
For the rest of the evening Amcathra kept the Firebrand flying at full speed, but by nightfall he eased back on the throttle. Stars and a half-moon shined through the broken clouds.
“Still no sign of the Formidable’s searchlight,” Dautry reported, scanning the sky.
“Dinner?” Cristof asked, joining Taya. “I hear we’re having bread and sausage tonight.”
“My favorite,” she said, wryly. “I hope there’s some cheese, too.”
“I think we can arrange that.”
They headed down to the communal deck, where Jinian already had the teapot resting on the boiler.
“Jinian, Janos wants you and I to wear our rescue harnesses,” Cristof said, rummaging through the food supplies to pull out a loaf of bread and a knife. “Taya, he’d like you to wear your armature, too.”
“Is that so he can throw us overboard if he decides to ram the Formidable?” she asked. Her husband paused, holding the knife in midair.
“I hope it’s because he plans to board the Formidable and doesn’t trust us to climb a rope,” he said, after a moment. He set the knife down, frowning. “But I’m probably too optimistic.”
Jinian raised an eyebrow. “Is your captain suicidal?”
“No, but he’s not afraid to make hard choices.”
“Does that include letting Professor Dautry die with him?”
Cristof frowned.
“Or Liliana? This ship only has two rescue harnesses.”
“Then he’s probably not thinking about throwing us overboard,” Cristof said. He picked up the knife again and began slicing the bread. “Besides, he wouldn’t find it easy to toss me off the ship. I have a strong aversion to falling.”
They didn’t encounter the Formidable that night. The sun was rising over the peaks when Taya awoke. She was still half-asleep as she took her turn at the helm. Dautry stood by the engine, keeping one eye on the gauges and one eye on the horizon.
“Taya, are those icarii?”
Taya squinted at the dark spots in the air in front of them, then reached for the set of field glasses that hung on a hook by the helm.
“They’re too big for icarii,” she said, twisting the focus ring. The figures grew clearer and sharper. “No— those are aerostats!”
“Alzanan or Ondinium?”
“Both, I think. Are we close to Safira?”
Dautry spun to check the charts. Taya stuck her head through the hatch and shouted for the captain.
“Report,” he snapped as soon as he climbed up the ladder, Cristof right behind him.
“Dirigibles and ornithopters at twelve o’clock,” Dautry said. “Looks like a skirmish over Safira.”
Taya handed Amcathra the field glasses.
“Change course?” Dautry asked.
“No,” he said, studying the ships. “Take us as close as you can, but keep us low and out of sight.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What if the Formidable uses the cannon on Safira?” Taya fretted. “A lot of people live there….”
“Most of the civilians will have been evacuated already. Exalted, will you take the helm from your wife? Icarus, a word.”
“You’re not sending her into a firefight by herself,” Cristof protested, buttoning up his coat.
“No, I am not,” Amcathra agreed. Taya paused long enough to exchange a quick kiss with her husband before following the captain below. Liliana had put the teapot on.
“Is this a private meeting?” the principessa asked.
“No.” Amcathra began setting out breakfast— which was the same as dinner, which had been the same as lunch, which had been the same as every other meal since they’d gotten on the ship. He sliced off a large hunk of cheese and handed it to Taya.
“Thank you,” she said, startled. Then her tired brain caught up. “You need me to fly reconnaissance, don’t you?”
“Yes. I would like to know whether any of those ships is the Formidable.”
“Why wouldn’t it— oh, you think the fight might be a distraction, and the Formidable’s sneaking in around the edges?”
“I was surprised that we did not catch up to the Formidable last night. However, it may have taken a different pass, especially if it had a prearranged rendezvous with other dirigibles. Our charts indicate those routes through the Yeovil Range that are best suited for icarii and ornithopters, but dirigibles do not need to pay as much attention to wind currents as we do.”
Taya nodded, chewing on the hard cheese. Amcathra filled a plate with sausage and bread and set it next to her, then began cutting more.
“Do you think the Alzanans plan to use the serpentfire cannon on Ondinium?” Jinian asked, joining them. Taya’s mouth went dry and she swallowed, hard.
“It is unlikely but not impossible,” Amcathra replied. “I believe Alzana would prefer to take the capital with minimal damage to its resources. Explosions are more directional than fire.”
“But it’s not Alzana in that ship,” Liliana protested. “It’s Lady Mazzoletti.”
“The
n the question is whether her goal is to conquer or destroy,” Jinian said.
“Alister said she and Corundel were planning to use the bomb to blow up the Great Engine.” Taya caught Amcathra’s quick, sidelong glance. She lowered her voice. “Alister may not be cremated, but I’m sure he’s buried. I think it’s safe to use his name.”
The lictor set the second plate to one side and started a third.
“Decatur Constante said she would attempt to retrieve his body as a courtesy to Exalted Forlore,” he said, “but I do not think it is high on her list of priorities.”
“Well.” Taya looked down. “Cris would appreciate it, if she did.”
“This is important in your culture?” Jinian asked. “To have a body?”
“Yes,” Liliana said, looking at the other two. “We bury our dead in Alzana, but Ondinium and Demicus cremate them. What does your country do?”
“We give them to the sea, to feed the sharks.”
Taya had to fight to hide her disgust. Consigning your loved ones to a cold, wet grave was bad enough— how could you allow them to be eaten by fish?
“Whether the Alzanans intend to burn the capital or simply destroy the Great Engine,” Amcathra said, firmly changing the subject, “I wish to stop them. If you locate the Formidable for us, Icarus, we will take steps to intercept it.”
“This reminds me.” Jinian unhooked her rescue harness. “I believe Professor Dautry needs this more than I do, especially if you plan to wreck the ship.”
Amcathra paused in his food preparation.
“I will not ram the Formidable while civilians are aboard.”
“Dautry is a member of your crew, is she not? I believe she is in your records as a warrant officer.”
“Yes…. I meant to say that she is not a member of the lictate.”
“Do you expect her to voluntarily abandon you if you make a suicide run?”
“That is precisely what I expect, Kattaka.”
“Please call me Jinian.” She held out the harness. “And Professor Dautry’s name is Cora. She is not as athletic as I am, so she needs this harness in case her captain throws her overboard once she refuses to leave of her own volition.”
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