“Don’t worry so much, Mother. It isn’t anything we haven’t been trained for. I just had to put the old monkey-toe to use.”
“You know, Miss Barken from the art academy was just talking about opening their doors again. I could have your father talk to her about reserving a spot for you.”
“Mother, we’ve been through this…”
“I just feel that you deserve a chance to have a calling in life that is a bit more—”
Nita rolled her eyes and completed the sentence: “Proper? Ladylike? Acceptable?”
“I was going to say artistic.”
Amanita’s mother had never truly approved of her daughter’s decision to take a job at the steamworks. It was only right, in the eyes of most Calderans, to devote one’s life to the creation of objects of beauty. No one held this view closer to their hearts than the Graus clan. Over the generations, Nita’s family had produced some of the finest sculptors, musicians, and painters in all of Caldera. That tradition continued to this day. Each of Nita’s siblings had found a suitably creative calling.
Analita was a dancer and artist’s model. Though she shared a birthday with Nita, the pair were anything but identical. Nita, quite lovely in her own right, seemed terribly plain beside Lita. Beside Lita a goddess would be plain. Tall and slim with dancer’s legs, Lita had a flawless face and a rhythmic grace that showed in her every motion. Her eyes were ice blue, a match for her mother’s, and she took the time each morning to paint her fingernails, color her lips, pull up her hair, and otherwise put an artist’s touch to her delicate features. Nita wasn’t quite as tall, wasn’t quite as well proportioned, and wasn’t quite as graceful. Her eyes were her father’s brown, her hair a deep brown rather than her sister’s glorious black. In short, she wasn’t quite Lita. In her youth it had been a point of great envy, but such childish feelings had been left behind… for the most part.
Joshua was eighteen years old, two years younger than his sisters. He was the spitting image of his father: a strong, stout build, deep brown eyes, short brown hair, and a head taller than Nita. Though just finishing his schooling, he had already made a name for himself as both a sculptor and a musician. A part of that, perhaps, was having Lita as a model and dancer for his compositions, but his original works earned no less renown. The two of them had become precisely what the rest of Tellahn had expected them to be; fine artists and worthy inheritors of the Graus name.
When Nita became a steamworker, many viewed it as an admission of defeat. Those who found a place in a more utilitarian role weren’t precisely looked down upon in Calderan society, but they were universally viewed as those who had failed to find a way to contribute to the beauty of their land. In a way, this was true of Nita. As a child she’d tried her very best to follow in the family tradition. Alas, she didn’t have the legs for dance, nor the ear for music. Though her hands were steady enough, she didn’t have the eye for painting or sculpture. It wasn’t until she tried her hand at constructing the intricate clockwork music boxes that had brought her father his fortune that she found her true talent. She was a tinkerer, and something in the building of a mechanism ignited her passion. Perhaps she could have continued with the clockwork sculptures and music boxes and earned the position her countrymen viewed as her birthright, but what held her fascination wasn’t the beauty of the machines, but the way they worked. It was thus only a matter of time before she found her way into the steamworks, the grandest mechanism in all of Caldera.
“You shouldn’t have to toil away in that place.”
“I like to ‘toil away in that place,’ Mother. I do important work there, and I do it well. Foreman Stover says the system-wide pressure losses have been down four notches since I was made a free-wrench.”
Gloria gave her daughter a gentle smile of encouragement that betrayed a complete lack of understanding of anything Nita had said, save that it seemed to be a point of pride. “Well, that’s lovely, dear.”
“Where is father this morning?” Joshua asked, spooning out a serving of the steamy pot of oatmeal set on the table.
“Your father had to leave early, I’m afraid. He’s to discuss matters with the council in Drummer’s Valley again today.”
“The council? About what?”
“That’s your father’s business, dear. Something about the perimeter battery, I imagine. No doubt they want to request another contribution to be sure the guns are greased and ready.”
“They certainly have been discussing the guns an awful lot lately,” Lita said, selecting a peach from the fruit bowl.
“I hear the folks from the west have been making airships that can go even higher. We’ve got to improve our guns or they might be out of range, now.”
“It still seems silly to me,” Lita said. “As far as I can remember we’ve never even fired those guns except to test them, and at the annual memorial celebrations. Surely if the outsiders had wanted to invade, they would have done so by now. Better to dismantle the ugly things. Make room for a magnificent lighthouse or two. Or perhaps a really grand statue like they have at the mouth of Meristis Straight. That titan could really use a bride.”
“Oh, I’m sure the outsiders would love that. You know what a mess the rest of the world is. Foul air. People floating about in those ugly machines. Keeping them out is the only thing that has kept us safe from the same fate,” Joshua said. “They are completely lawless out there…”
Nita filled her dish as her brother spouted the same tired speech she’d been hearing her entire life. Caldera had indeed closed its borders to the outside many decades ago, long before she or even her parents were born. These days the only time people were likely to get a glimpse of a foreigner was during one of the few authorized trade visits, or else by sneaking off and trading with black marketers as Drew did. Everything she knew about the outside was based on hearsay and rumor. It was said that their technology was far beyond that of Caldera, with swift airships that could cross the sea in days instead of weeks and mechanisms that made the coil carriage look primitive by comparison. Of course, she’d also heard they were enslaved by a legion of ghoulish fiends and their favorite food was boiled rat. Like most things, Nita took the tales of their exploits with a grain of salt.
“I hear they even throw their own airmen into the sea for the most minor offenses, and…”
“Mother, is something wrong?” Lita said.
Nita looked up to see her mother slowly lowering her teacup to the table. Her hand shook visibly, threatening to spill it.
“It is nothing, dear. Put it out of your mind,” she said, rubbing her fingers with her other hand.
“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” Nita said.
“It’s nothing. I… just didn’t get very much sleep, dear. I’m tired.”
“Have the treatments been helping?” Nita asked.
“Yes, yes, dear, of course. It will pass,” she said, holding out her hand as the tremor began to subside. “There, you see? Nothing to worry about.”
In her day, Gloria Graus had been the finest sculptor in Caldera, if not the world. Shortly after her children were born, however, she noticed an unsteadiness in her hands. To her and the family’s horror, she was found to be suffering Gannt’s Disease. It was rare, no more than three cases had been recorded in the history of Caldera, but the prognosis was well-known. Shakiness was just the first symptom, but it had already robbed her of the precision necessary to honor her muse. For a lifelong artist, that was almost worse than the disease’s ultimate result: early death. The family tried not to discuss it, as what little could be done had been done. Yet if the tremors were back, it meant the end could be very near.
“Now. Let us not have sour faces around my table, hmm?” said Marissa as she cleared away the emptied dishes. “Josh and Lita have a full day ahead of them, and Nita has a long day behind her.”
“Yes, off with you, children. The academy wants me to select a lecturer to fill in for me.”
The family stood to go about th
eir day, but Nita lingered. Her mother had moved unsteadily to the parlor and stood staring at something on the mantle. It was littered with vases, statues, sketches, and paintings, as well as a large handmade clock of Nita’s father’s design. Gloria could have been staring at any one of them, but Nita knew without asking which it was that held her mother’s gaze.
“Mother?”
“Oh. Yes, Amanita dear?” she answered, shaken from her reverie.
“How long has it been?” Nita asked, plucking a small figurine of a deer from the mantle. It was skillfully made from clay, but, unlike the other figurines, it was unglazed and unpainted.
“Oh… sixteen years now. Oh cruel fate, eh? To take my gift from me before I could paint my final piece.” She paused to settle down to a chair. These days she couldn’t spend more than a few minutes on her feet. “Tell me, dear. What you do at the steamworks, does it make you happy? Does it feed your spirit and nourish your heart?”
“It is very fulfilling.”
“Then cherish it, love. You won’t have it forever. And you never know when you might lose it. I think back sometimes. To balls I attended, galas I hosted. I think of all the hours I could have spent with my fingers in the clay or with a chisel in my hand. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t give to have just one of those hours back again. Just one more day that I could hold a brush and know that the line I paint would stay straight and true.” A tear ran down her cheek. “Oh, but listen to me. No sense talking like that. We look to the future in this family. I can still teach, eh? Off with you. Get some rest. Don’t listen to your silly old mother.”
Nita lingered for a moment more, looking thoughtfully at the unfinished figurine, then placed it on the mantle and left her mother to rest.
Chapter 2
That evening, as the sun was setting, Nita arrived at the steamworks for her shift. The events of the morning were still heavy on her mind, but she tried to push them aside and focus on the task at hand. The day shift had removed the broken section of pipe and the jammed valve, but daylight had run out before the replacement could be installed, leaving it for Nita and her partner to do. Tonight that partner happened to be Drew.
“Blast it,” he muttered to himself. “I must have left my five-sixteenths in the locker. Do you have yours?”
Nita slipped a wrench from her tool sash. “You really ought to take better care of your tools.”
“Yeah, yeah. Give me a break; I’ve got other things on my mind today.”
“Oh, that’s right. Your picture device. You know, trading with the outsiders is strictly enforced and very limited. I don’t think we’ve had a legitimate shipment in three years. How exactly do you plan to get away with using this device if you manage to buy one?”
“I’ll just say I found it in a curio shop from the old days before we closed the borders. For all anyone knows, the cam-er-a is an ancient invention out there. Heaven knows they come up with some remarkable gadgets. And fine spirits, too. We make better wine, but the whiskey from out there? Hits you like a hammer.”
Nita raised the new valve into place and steadied it while Drew began to tighten the bolts.
“Do they have anything besides pointless toys and things to feed your vices?”
“Possibly. Once they pulled out the liquor I stopped paying attention to anything else.”
Nita narrowed her eyes.
“Relax, Nita. I kid. They have all sorts of things. They make excellent optics. My best telescope came from them. They’re always eager to show off their firearms as well, but even I’m not foolish enough to be caught with one of those. There are rare delicacies, exotic fabrics and pelts, tinctures, ointments…”
“They sell medicines?”
“Well, I wouldn’t call them medicines. One was to regrow hair. Another was to, er, restore vigor.”
“Oh. Well, do they work?”
“What are you implying?” he asked, nervously running his fingers through his hair and checking his reflection in the fresh pipe section.
“You know what I mean.”
“If you’re so interested, why don’t you come along? We’ll take my brother’s boat up to Moor Spires. They’re due to dock there in a few hours. They’ll be leaving just before morning, so hopefully this replacement doesn’t take all night, and we can skip out a bit early.”
“Well… no. I didn’t bring any money.”
“No need. They don’t have any use for our currency. Why would they? Fortunately for us, it is just as difficult for them to get Calderan goods as it is for us to get theirs. Sea salt, jewelry, anything we make is worth more than gold to them. If you really want to get in their good graces, bring them something made of trith.”
“Trith? The stuff they make the coils from?”
He nodded. “They can’t make it out there. They’ll trade just about anything to get some.”
Another gift from the volcano, trith was first created centuries before by some of the very first settlers on the islands. An alloy made of half a dozen metals and a special mineral found only in the volcanic stone of the mountains, it had properties that no other metal could match. Paper-thin ribbons of the stuff could be made into coil springs that could store ten times the energy of a steel one, seemingly without fatigue. Thin bars of the stuff were stronger than several inches of iron, and once forged not even the heart of Tellahn’s volcano could manage to do much more than soften it. It didn’t rust or even tarnish. It was little surprise that its creators named it trith, which, in the old tongue, meant perfection. The formula for creating it existed as a closely guarded secret, and making it proved quite expensive, but it was nonetheless common in Caldera thanks to the fact that nearly all that had ever been made was still in use.
Perhaps seeing her will weakening, Drew pressed on. “Come on, if nothing else you’ll get a chance to meet someone from outside of Caldera. Not many who can say they’ve done that.”
She turned the offer over in her head. It would be a lie to say she’d never been curious about things beyond the Calderan borders. One of the few regrets she had about working in the steamworks was the simple fact that her skills would be of use in few places on the isles, and thus there would never likely be anything new or exciting to look forward to in her career. A small but vocal part of her yearned for novelty, to see new sights and experience new things. If nothing else, these black-market folks promised plenty to see.
“All right. I’ll join you this time. But neither of us are going anywhere if we don’t get this valve in.”
Few better ways exist to ensure problems will arise in a given task than by making plans for afterward. Halfway through completing the installation they discovered that one of the mounting holes hadn’t been machined properly. Once it had been removed, corrected, and fitted again, the supply crew managed to send along the wrong size nuts and bolts. The horizon was already starting to get rosy when they finally finished up the project and were given permission to leave.
“Ugh, I feel disgusting,” she said, hurrying out of the last roughly hewn tunnel and into the locker room.
“Well, you’ll have to feel disgusting a bit longer if you want to make it to the market on time. We’ve got to leave now, no time to shower,” Drew warned. He checked the clock and quickly emptied his locker into a bag.
“I suppose I can bring my clothes and get changed when I go home. We’ll be done before the sun is up; there shouldn’t be too many people to offend with my ripeness.”
“And just think of the wonders you’ll be bringing with you! Which reminds me. Don’t forget to bring something to trade.”
She nodded and hastily grabbed a few bags of salt and a brooch she’d left in her locker months ago. After a moment of thought, she grabbed a large coil box and two smaller ones. The prospective payments were loaded into a bag and thrown over her shoulder. With that they made their way quickly to the pier a few streets away, where Drew’s brother Linus waited in the early morning fog.
The boat was anything but impres
sive, a simple, flat skiff. It had two large paddlewheels on the side for propelling and steering, and a sputtering boiler to power them occupied the rear. Being a Calderan vessel, however, it was painted with bright, cheery colors in an intricate scheme and had a figurehead carved with skill to resemble a barracuda. The side proudly proclaimed it to be The Triumph.
“Any later and I’d have left without you,” Linus said, flipping open a pocket watch and leaning close to the yellow flame of the boat’s oil lamp.
“You’d have wasted your time then, because you don’t know today’s password. Now let’s get on with it before we miss them.”
Linus untied the boat, and the trio made their way along the shore to the western side of Tellahn. Their destination was a jagged cluster of outcroppings a bit more than a mile off shore. They were far too small and too steep to be considered islands, standing out of the water like menhirs erected by a particularly haphazard ancient civilization. In the days before Caldera had isolated itself, the cluster served as a neutral ground where authorities could make sure that nothing too dangerous was brought to the islands. Now it was a largely forgotten feature of the shore that just so happened to be perfect for mooring an airship near enough to the surface to avoid drawing too much attention.
The fog turned anything more than a hundred yards out into a shadowy gray form, so it wasn’t until they were nearly upon Moor Spires that they saw the airship emerge from the haze. It was lashed to the three tallest stones, and Nita’s eyes opened wide at each new detail as it was revealed. Until now, an airship had only ever been a dot in the sky drifting slowly along as it gave her homeland a wide berth. Seeing one up close fascinated her, though even to her untrained eye it was clear that this ship was not what one might call a fine specimen. A bulging, barely intact gas sack comprised the bulk of the vehicle. It had at one point been red, but time and misuse had turned it into a quilt of differently colored patches and grafts. The sack was enormous, perhaps seventy-five feet long and bulging to thirty feet in diameter at its thickest. It was rounded at the front and pointed at the back where a trio of fins stuck off the top and sides, giving it a stretched-out teardrop shape. The thickest part of the sack was wrapped in a wide metal lattice, which served as the mounting point for five barrel-sized nacelles, evenly spaced. Each nacelle was filled with a blossom of short overlapping blades and had a smooth metal cowling.
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