It was like Ash said before: the Jungali were all dependent upon one another, too tightly packed together to exist any other way.
“I’m closed for the day!” the tinker shouted from inside. The shopkeeper fussed with something, her dress a flurry of blue as bright as the Jungali sky and woven with a white thread that ran in jagged lines like mountain peaks. She was bent with age, but she moved fast, scurrying out of her shop to face Aniri. She snatched a tiny automaton from Aniri’s bandaged hand—it was a child’s toy Aniri hadn’t even realized she had picked up. The woman twirled away, waving her off with a wrinkled hand, then stopped, turned back, and peered at Aniri again. Aniri shrank back from the light of the shop, tucking herself farther under her hood, but the woman was upon her again before she could flee.
The tinker examined Aniri’s bandaged hands, then her face in the darkness under her hood. “Do you need some clockwork, child?” Her voice was rough with age, or maybe a cough that came with it, but it was also kind. The woman gestured to her table of clockwork toys. There were all manner of beasts and birds, including a shashee that glinted in the gaslamp.
“No, thank you,” Aniri said. “But I do have need of directions to the Samirian embassy.”
“The embassy?” The shopkeeper swept the gray straggles of her hair off her shoulders. “Are you in some kind of trouble, child?” Her voice was so soft, Aniri could barely hear her over the boisterousness of the street, and she was forced to lean closer.
“No, I…” she stumbled, not expecting to have to explain herself. “I have a message to deliver to the ambassador. I’ve news from Sik province.” She hoped that lie would be sufficient for the shopkeeper. What she really needed was to find Devesh, to have him settle her heart, heal her wounds… but once she gained an audience with the ambassador, finding Devesh should be straightforward.
The shopkeeper hesitated, cocking her head right and left, frowning. “Is it the fashion in Sik, now, to hide your face from your mountain kin?” Her words had some warning in them, but Aniri wasn’t quite sure what it was. She pursed her lips together and stepped back, ready to flee. She would have to find the embassy on her own.
The tinker’s eyebrows lifted, and she raised her hands to stop Aniri. “Do not worry, child. Whatever trouble you are in, I will not speak of it.”
Aniri’s shoulders relaxed. She wasn’t quite sure what trouble the tinker thought she was involved in, but that would suffice as a cover story.
The old woman held up one gnarled finger. “Wait here. I have just the thing for you.”
She shuffled away and disappeared into the shop. Aniri pulled in a slow breath, unsure if she should stay for the woman to return. Before she could decide, the tinker returned. She carried a small basket of cloths, brushes, and tiny bottles with a rainbow of colored liquids. She set the basket on the table with the clockwork, then surprised Aniri by taking her hand.
Aniri nearly pulled out of the old woman’s light grasp, but then she saw the Dharian crest from the engagement party was still inked on the back. The ink had started to fade, and it was half-covered by bandages, but it was clear as day to anyone who cared to look.
And the shopkeeper was staring right at it. “If you are from Sik province, I believe some new ink is in order.” She dropped Aniri’s hand and fished in her basket, coming up with a rough cloth and a bottle of clear liquid that smelled of lemon and oil when she uncorked it.
Aniri simply stared as she wetted the cloth and rubbed it over the exposed crest on Aniri’s hand, wiping away the ink as easily as if it were dirt. This woman was helping her. She had no idea why. Seeing the Dharian crest… the tinker had to know who Aniri was. And yet, without a single question, she was helping Aniri keep her pretense of being from Sik province.
She swallowed back the tears gumming up her throat.
The tinker wiped the last of the ink from the back of her hand and blew on it, bringing a slight chill to Aniri’s wetted skin. Then she retrieved another bottle, this one dark with ink, and a quill with a tiny tip. Not looking up, the tinker asked, “Northern Sik or Southern?”
Aniri cleared her throat before trusting herself to speak. “Northern.”
The woman carefully swiped a curling set of swirls and dots. A bird’s wing appeared; the tinker labored over it with an artist’s love. When it was done, Aniri had half of a Sik crest peeking from her bandage. The shopkeeper gestured that Aniri should blow on it, which she did. The ink quickly dried in the cool mountain air.
She didn’t know what to say. “Thank you,” was all she could manage. The tinker ducked her head, a nod of sorts, as she tucked the bottles back into her basket. She shuffled back inside her shop, and Aniri waited for her return, wishing desperately for some way to thank the woman for her help. She reached into her cloak pocket, hoping she might have a spare yakle from the shashee trader in Sik, but there was nothing. She looked again at the Sik crest—it was on the same hand as her father’s bracelet.
It was difficult with her bandages and only one hand, but she worked the tiny leather clasp free. Just then, the tinker returned. She stood tall now, her slender frame no longer bent. Her hands were cradled, palm up, in front of her, and in the center sat a tiny mechanical shashee—like the one on the table, only more beautiful. Small brass plates covered the skin of the clockwork beast, like toy armor, and it was speckled in minute crystals that caught the gaslamp and sparkled.
“A souvenir for you.” The woman gave her a quick wink. “When you return to Sik province, you can tell them Bajiran clockwork is finer than any Samirian design.”
“I… I don’t have any money,” Aniri stumbled.
The woman frowned deeply, wrinkles appearing to chastise Aniri.
“But I have something for you as well,” she said hastily. She held out her father’s bracelet, laying it next to the shashee before gently retrieving the tiny mechanical wonder from the woman’s palm.
Aniri marveled at the device. Jewels outlined a tiny ring saddle on its back, and the horns were sharpened like blades. “It’s beautiful. We have nothing so lovely in… Sik province.”
The woman’s face lit up, wrinkles banished, and Aniri felt a flush of warmth run through her.
“There is a small key in the belly of the beast,” the tinker said, pointing one delicate finger at it. “With winding, it moves. Like Devpahar has come to life in your hand. She is wise and steady and will calm all your troubles if you but ask.”
Aniri looked at the tiny beast and could see the goddess paintings on it now. Tears pooled in her eyes. Aniri slipped her arms around the tiny, old woman and embraced her. Then awkwardness overcame her, and she pulled back, wiping her face and tucking the shashee into her cloak pocket.
The woman smiled broadly. “The embassy is at the gate to the city. You would have passed right by it on the way in.” She pointed down the cobbled street. “Look for the big, ugly guards with the blunderbusses, and you’ll know you’ve found it.”
“Thank you,” Aniri repeated. Before she could tear up again, she whirled around, her cloak fanning out and sweeping the street around her. She pulled her hood tight and skirted the raucous men and laughing women who lounged in the darkening streets.
Somehow they no longer seemed too bright or too many.
Aniri made quick time through the narrow streets. The teetering apartments and taverns still bustled around her, but the shops were closing, and the streets grew more quiet and dark as she approached the edge of the city. When she finally came to a massive gate in the outer walls, she knew the Samirian embassy must be close. The enormous metal-strapped, wooden doors looked like they could withstand a battalion of armored shashee. Nearby, thick chains on wheels would open the gate, but it was shut tight for the eve. To the right sat a large, red stone building. Two men armed with blunderbusses guarded the wrought-iron gate of the entrance. Their black coats and midnight-dark squarish fur hats were similar to the Samirian guards at the airharbor.
They were quite ugly, just
as the tinker had said.
Aniri took a steadying breath and approached them. She held her hood close around her face, careful to keep her newly-inked Sik province crest visible. “I have an appointment to meet with the ambassador. I have news from Sik province.”
The guards frowned, then looked at each other. Some silent understanding passed between them.
The ugliest one said, “It’s late. The embassy is closed for the eve.”
She squared her shoulders and tried to look intimidating without baring too much of her face. “Surely the ambassador hasn’t already taken to her bed. Even if you have to wake her, she’ll want to hear my news.” When they hesitated, she added in a lowered voice, “What are your names? I’ll be sure to tell her who turned me away while she awaited my report.”
The less ugly guard shifted from foot to foot, then gave the other a meaningful look.
His partner sighed and grunted out, “Follow me.” He pressed a heavy ring made from tiny clockwork to a mechanism in the gate. The lock hummed and clicked, and he withdrew his hand again. She followed him through a short courtyard of neatly-trimmed prickly bushes, the kind that could survive a winter in the mountains of Jungali. Then he held the door to the embassy entrance open for her.
She stepped into the relative light and warmth. Finely woven tapestries depicting rural Samir covered the walls and stone flooring, feeling at once warmer and more stifling than the open corridors of the prince’s palace. The warmth drew out the pulsing in her hands, now more a dull ache than actual pain. The air scented of dinner recently past, making Aniri’s stomach clench. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten.
The guard led her to a desk where a woman sat tensed on her chair. Her black uniform was similar to the guard’s, only more tightly wrapped, and her thin nose and dour expression were even more severe.
“A visitor,” the guard said, introducing her to the receptionist. “Claims an appointment with the ambassador. Says she has news from Sik province.”
The woman’s coal black eyes sparkled in the flickering low light of the lamps. Aniri feared her penetrating gaze would see right through her shadows and deception.
“I see,” she said, making Aniri twitch. Then the woman’s face transformed into a smile that seemed as practiced as her intense look before. She arose and pressed her hands together. “Arama. Welcome to the Samirian embassy. I’m sure the ambassador is eagerly awaiting your news. Please follow me.” She flicked her hand to dismiss the guard, who automatically took a step or two back as if the tiny motion had been a powerful physical force. He straightened and turned on his heel, retreating back to the entrance.
Aniri followed the woman down a hall, passing painted scenes of tinkers and Queens of Samirian past. Each Queen held a clockwork ship, the ocean-going kind, and a ceremonial sword—the twin symbols of Samirian power. The secretary led her deeper into the embassy, each turn more poorly lit than the last. Finally, she unlocked a carved wooden door with an elaborate key she pulled from deep within the bosom of her tightly-fitted jacket. The key had tiny wings at the tip that clicked and flared out as she pressed it into the keyhole. A mechanism whirred before she withdrew the key and pushed open the door.
Inside was a small waiting room with another door on the far side. Aniri stepped in, while the receptionist lingered by the threshold. When Aniri turned to her with a questioning look, the woman’s friendly demeanor vanished.
Aniri took a step toward her. “The ambassador—”
“Will let you know when she is ready to receive you.” Before Aniri could respond, the woman slipped out the doorway and pulled it closed. A mechanical whirring assured Aniri it was locked once more.
She pressed her lips together, hoping she hadn’t just made a tremendous mistake. She was here under false pretenses, without a guard. Once she explained to the ambassador that she only wanted to speak to Devesh…
Aniri swallowed. Devesh said she could trust the ambassador, but she didn’t know the beginning or end of his lies. What she really needed was to find Devesh before the ambassador discovered she had the Third Daughter of Dharia sitting in her waiting room.
The way into the room was locked for certain, but maybe there was another way out. Aniri approached the far door—there was no light coming from underneath, and when she tried the knob, it was locked. She knocked lightly, but there was no response. On closer examination, the lock was a simple one, not the elaborate clockwork that had just trapped her, but a regular keyhole… like the one Priya had so expertly picked on the train.
If only Aniri had a hairpin.
She searched her pockets, coming up with only the mechanical shashee the tinker had given her. However, its horns were quite sharp. She slid one into the keyhole and could feel some motion in there, but all her jiggling came to nothing. Priya had broken her pin in half, using two pieces to work the mechanism loose. The clockwork key.
Just as the tinker promised, a key was tucked in the belly of the beast. It was slender and fit in the keyhole but left room for the blade of the tusk. It took a minute of working the lock mechanism by feel, but to her surprise, she was able to nudge the pins inside and the knob finally turned.
She slowly eased open the door and slipped the shashee and its key back into her pocket.
The room beyond must be the ambassador’s office with its rich appointment of shelves, books, and mechanical trinkets. An enormous desk in the center held a couple of communiques, and closer examination showed them to have embassy letterhead. Another door stood off to one side, probably the ambassador’s private chamber. A quick check revealed its lock to be clockwork. She couldn’t begin to know how to pick that.
Aniri sighed, loosened her cloak, and threw back her hood, the warmth of the embassy starting to make her uncomfortably warm. She resigned herself to waiting, and prayed to her tiny shashee manifestation of Devpahar that meeting the ambassador first wouldn’t spell any more trouble. Aniri was about to retrace her steps, so as not to be found prying in the ambassador’s office, when a glint shined from the bookcase and froze her in place.
On the shelf sat a dull metal box which was unmistakably familiar: an aetheroceiver.
She paused and listened for anyone approaching. Hearing nothing, she hurried over and pulled the aetheroceiver from the shelf. It was crusted with coal dust, identical to the one Devesh had sent her. Was this its mate? It made sense, since Devesh had been working with the ambassador all along. Aniri searched for the three symbols Devesh had given her for a key: a tinker at work, the Samirian crown, and a ship from the Samirian navy. She pressed them and the box unfolded, revealing the same inner workings: a decryption wheel, a tiny crank to power it, and a dial to type the symbols for the message. There were no residual curls of paper lying inside, but a tiny notebook peeked from the back.
Aniri quickly plucked it out. A large sheet of parchment had been folded to precisely fit inside the confines of the notebook, and it sprung out once open. She spread it flat on the desk. Even in the dim light, it was obvious what it was.
A schematic of the skyship.
Complete with fin-like rudders protruding from the sides. The pencil drawing laid bare the inner workings that powered the ship, including engines in the aft section and the linkages to the steamworks. The butterfly was perched on top of the gasbag, just as she had seen in the airharbor. The wisps of charcoal lines didn’t do justice to the beauty of the actual device. Notes overlaid the wings, calling out the precise angles to which they were to be aligned. Lines focused on the crystal in the center, and a tube ran from there, deep through the ship, all the way to the bottom. The drawing didn’t state the butterfly’s purpose—the tinker who designed it surely knew and had no need for spelling it out in a mechanical sketch.
Below the ship was a map—at least Aniri thought it was a map. It had lines like mountain ridges, but instead of trees, it was covered with tiny arrows. She couldn’t make sense of it, so she peered closer at the notes, trying to decipher the minis
cule print.
A door clicked.
Aniri’s heart stuttered. The sound came not from the entrance door, but from the ambassador’s private quarters. Before she could move, the door swung open, and her heart nearly leapt from her chest. She was caught, hunched over the ambassador’s private aetheroceiver device.
But that concern slipped away when she saw who walked through the door.
The ambassador strode in, her silk coat not quite buttoned up the full way, and Devesh stumbled in behind her, straightening the high collar of his jacket and hastening to button the top button. Aniri might have expected the ambassador to be half-dressed, given Aniri had roused her from bed. She didn’t expect Devesh to be in it as well.
An ice-cold chill burst from her heart and drenched the rest of her body. “Dev.” The word was soft on her lips, mostly a gasp spoken to herself. Devesh looked up from fussing with his clothing and saw her.
His mouth dropped open. “Aniri!” He threw a panicked look to the ambassador. “What... what are you doing here?”
The ambassador stumbled to a stop, just now seeing Aniri in the dim light. “Do not speak, Devesh!” she hissed at him. He cowed under her admonishment.
The cold seeped into Aniri’s bones. She didn’t want to see what was plain before her, but it was unavoidable. He had never loved her. Even when he was professing it in fevered kisses, he had always been a servant of the Samirian crown. And apparently in service in more ways than one to the ambassador as well.
The heat came back to her body and face all in a rush. She should have known better than to love a courtesan. Everyone knew they broke hearts. They were good only for dalliances and affairs. She had been foolish to think the Third Daughter of the Queen would somehow be different.
Devesh winced at the look on Aniri’s face, then hurried toward her. “It’s not what it seems, Aniri—”
She came around the desk and hit him with her bandaged hand, palm open. She was sure it hurt her more than him, but he cringed under it. She hit him again and again, slapping his face and shoulders, each sting in her hands beating back the tears in her eyes. Devesh finally caught her hands, holding them away from his face.
Third Daughter (The Dharian Affairs, Book One) Page 23