by Ginn Hale
Suddenly the papers slid out from beneath Scholar Blasio's hand and spilled to the floor.
"Damn it," Scholar Blasio muttered.
Kiram helped him gather the papers. Scholar Blasio seemed embarrassed. He turned to the bookshelf against the far wall and picked up a heavy, wooden bookend that he plunked on top of the papers and as if some gust had been to blame for the earlier fall. The bookend had been beautifully carved into the shape of a dove.
"I suppose I'm just trying to warn you," Scholar Blasio said at last. "It may seem exciting to drink and fight and be one of those kinds of young men, but I hope it doesn't come at a cost to you. I hope you don't feel like you have to behave that way just to fit in with them."
"No, sir, I haven't been out drinking with them and the only fighting I'm doing is in Master Ignacio's class." Kiram was only half thinking about the conversation; instead he was observing the bookend. It strongly resembled the carvings Fedeles had shown to him.
"I'm not so good at fighting that I would engage in a brawl as recreation," Kiram added. He was rewarded with a smile from Scholar Blasio.
"No, you're no Elezar Grunito. You're not like any of the young ruffians in that group. I know that Master Ignacio would have it otherwise. More than likely he'll exert as much pressure as he can to reshape you into the kind of brute that he can impress. But you should know that outside of the academy there are quite a few thinking men who do not share Master Ignacio's values."
It struck Kiram suddenly that Scholar Blasio was probably speaking from his own experience as a student at the academy. Scholar Blasio wasn't really that much older than Kiram. Master Ignacio could well have been one of his instructors. Kiram couldn't imagine Scholar Blasio excelling in Master Ignacio's classes or commanding much respect from his fellow students.
For an instant Kiram thought that there was even a kind of resemblance between Scholar Blasio's nervous, awkward interactions and the uneasy exchanges Ladislo attempted from time to time. Kiram chose not to consider the comparison too closely.
"When I was a student here I had my brother to confide in," Scholar Blasio said. "I just want you to know that if you need it, I will always make time to talk with you."
"Thank you, Scholar Blasio." Kiram did feel touched by Blasio's offer, though he doubted that Scholar Blasio would remain so friendly if Kiram described the details of the dream that had been distracting him all day.
A silence hung between Scholar Blasio and himself for a moment and Kiram realized that the scholar was expecting some kind of confession or confidence.
All Kiram could think of was a question.
"I was wondering where this carving came from?" Kiram touched the smooth surface of the dove's neck.
"That?" Scholar Blasio looked a little relieved that Kiram hadn't actually dredged up his personal troubles. "My brother made that. He's quite accomplished at carving."
"You mean Scholar Donamillo?"
"Yfes, yes. Scholar Donamillo." Scholar Blasio looked amused at the formality. "He doesn't carve very often anymore. He's much too busy. But I think you can still see his artistry in his mechanical cures. They're actually quite beautiful."
Kiram nodded. Though he rarely considered the question of beauty in a mechanism, he had to admit that the luminous panes of glass and beautifully etched supports of Scholar Donamillo's machines made the mechanical cures seem like works of art.
Still, Kiram judged them on their performance. A machine that functioned perfectly was lovely to him even if it stank and looked like a heap of refuse. And there Scholar Donamillo's mechanisms were more than pretty objects; they were inspiring.
He had personally seen the difference they made in calming Fedeles and relieving him of his bouts of paranoia and strange anxiety. Kiram couldn't help but wish that one of his own mechanisms could someday do so much so well.
"You might mention your admiration for his carving to Scholar Donamillo." Scholar Blasio's words brought Kiram back to the subject at hand. "Solstice isn't all that far away and who knows? You might just get a gift from him."
"I wouldn't want to trouble him," Kiram replied. He hoped that Scholar Blasio didn't think he was one of those boys who complimented someone's belongings just in hopes that they would be given to him.
"I don't know that it would be too much trouble," Blasio replied. "He likes you, you know. We both do."
"Thank you, sir." Kiram couldn't help but feel both pleased and shy at the same time. "I should probably get to my riding class."
"Yfes, but be careful." Blasio glanced up at him. "Don't fall on your head attempting some mad leap."
Kiram assured him that he wouldn't and then hurried out. He had no desire to irritate Master Ignacio by arriving late. Of course, he managed to irritate Master Ignacio in countless other ways throughout most of the class period. And then, near the end of class, he made a spectacular error.
Kiram shifted his weight in the saddle and twisted his leg against Firaj's side. At the same time, while reaching to scratch his knee, drew back a little on his reins. Somewhere in the chaos of Kiram's motions Firaj picked out something familiar to him.
Firaj went stock-still. Then slowly, and very mechanically, the big black horse began to prance backwards across the arena. Kiram was utterly shocked. He hadn't thought a horse could be trained to walk backwards, much less prance. He could tell from the tension playing through Firaj's body that this was not a simple maneuver.
Firaj held his head high and twisted his ears back, straining for any hint of what was behind him. Kiram sat like a stuffed doll atop Firaj, too worried about startling his horse to move. Once they reached the center of the arena, Firaj came to a halt and gave a soft, pleased noise as if he were extremely proud of his performance.
All around them other students sat atop their mounts, staring. Then Nestor laughed and it seemed to release a torrent of snorts and giggles from the other students. Kiram flushed. He patted Firaj, assuring him that he had done well -whatever he had done.
Only Master Ignacio remained stony faced. He ordered Kiram back to the other riders with a loud shout.
Throughout the rest of the class, Master Ignacio was relentless in his growling criticisms. He barked out angry reprimands at every one of Kiram's motions.
If Kiram was down in his saddle properly, then Master Ignacio snapped at him to pay attention to what he was doing with his knees. His hands were moving too much. He wasn't watching his surroundings. He was sitting too far back, and then too high up. Master Ignacio's constant recriminations destroyed Kiram's concentration and soon he was making mistakes that he had overcome months ago.
He prayed that some other student would attract Master Ignacio's wrath but Kiram was not so lucky. Even after he dismounted and turned Firaj's reins over to a groom, Master Ignacio wasn't through. He gripped Kiram's elbow and pulled him to the side of the arena.
"Do you know what your problem is?" Master Ignacio demanded. Kiram knew the question was rhetorical, and so he suppressed his response: at the moment Master Ignacio was his problem. Master Ignacio continued, "You are exactly the kind of distraction that gets soldiers killed! I don't ever want to see you show off like that again, do you understand?"
"I wasn't showing-"
Master Ignacio struck Kiram across the face so hard that Kiram stumbled back and almost fell to the arena floor.
"Yfes or no?" Master Ignacio growled. Kiram remembered Javier saying nearly the same thing to Genimo.
"Yfes," Kiram managed to reply. His entire jaw felt as if it had been ripped from its ligaments.
"Good." Master Ignacio took in a deep breath and only then seemed to become aware of the other second-year students lingering around the arena, gaping.
"Get to your classes and mind your own business!" Master Ignacio shouted.
Kiram saw Nestor start forward towards him, but when Master Ignacio stepped between them, Nestor fled with the other second-year students.
Master Ignacio turned back to Kiram. "I expect y
ou to take my classes seriously. I'm not instructing you in some nonsense of numbers or dates. I am teaching you how we Cadeleonians make war. These skills have protected and maintained our kingdom for generations. This is how the greatest Cadeleonian men have lived and how they have died! You understand that? My instructions make the difference between life and death."
Master Ignacio had never lashed out at Kiram like this before, despite the fact that Kiram had made far worse mistakes in his classes. In fact during the first weeks the master had ignored Kiram, allowing him to fumble ineptly through his training. But Kiram had not been one of the Hellions then. He suddenly wondered how deeply that must have vexed the war master. A skinny Haldiim mechanist fraternizing with his brutal, muscular favorite students. His great Cadeleonians.
Kiram could hear the voices of men coming closer. The third-year students were gathering for their lessons. Master Ignacio glanced to the doors of the arena. "Haldiim genius or not, I expect you to take my instructions seriously. Do you understand that?"
"Yes, sir," Kiram responded.
"Good." Master Ignacio turned his back on Kiram. "Now get out of my sight."
Kiram was glad to leave. And he wasn't surprised to find Nestor waiting for him outside the stables.
"Are you all right? I thought your head was going to come right off."
"Genimo hits harder," Kiram said. It wasn't true but the lie was the only revenge Kiram could take against the war master.
Nestor grinned. "You've got balls, Kiram. Really."
"Thanks."
Though the rest of Kiram's afternoon classes were less eventful, a feeling of alienation clung to him. The bruise on his face was slow to darken but it ached. Kiram decided that he would rather not see the other Hellions at dinner and instead retreated to his shed to tinker with his mechanisms and feel more in his element.
Blue light streamed in through the small window in the north wall. The smell of machine oil settled around Kiram and instinctively he felt safer.
He turned a long, threaded bolt between his fingers and wondered just who had first realized that the threaded shaft would offer a stronger anchor than any nail.
Someone who could see a place for innovation, Kiram imagined, as he fed the bolt into place and tightened its nut. Someone who knew that he could make something better than anything that had come before him.
Kiram smirked at the train of his thoughts. He was describing his ideal version of himself, of course. His ancient inventor was probably just a thick-headed bastard who wanted to sink a support without bothering to get up and find a hammer.
Kiram stepped back and studied his boiler. It looked good. Its glossy, black, iron mass filled a third of the cramped shed. The secondary steam chamber had yet to be assembled. The pistons and rods lay on a shelf. The condensation chamber only existed as a heap of iron plates leaning against the wall and a series of measurements in Kiram's mind.
But it was coming together, slowly taking shape. For a moment Kiram imagined the finished mechanism. All that fire and steam driving pistons with force and precision. It would be beautiful. He could almost hear the roar of the fires inside the big boiler. He gazed up to where the first steam chamber would sit atop the boiler. It would be.
Kiram frowned. It would be too tall for the shed, that's what it would be.
He would have to remove a huge section of the roof, unless he wanted the pistons smashing through it the first time he tested his mechanism. Doubtless the sight of that would thrill the academy scholars and groundskeepers.
Kiram sighed and sat back on the cool dirt floor. It seemed like nothing would come easily for him here at the Sagrada Academy. Not his classes, not his classmates, and not even the simple, stupid proportions of a damn shed. It was like a curse.
Not a terrible, malevolent curse like the ones that filled so many holy books, but a petty, annoying vexation of a curse. A curse that was like the pain in his jaw and the hunger in his belly, slow growing and persistent.
"Where is Javier with a pie when I need him?" Kiram whispered to himself and then he wished he hadn't, because he knew where Javier was. He was at the Hellions' table, laughing and tossing dice in that hearty, arrogant Cadeleonian manner that doubtlessly pleased Master Ignacio.
"Kihvash to Master Ignacio," Kiram muttered to himself. He returned to working on the valve that would eventually feed cold water into the condensation chamber. It would need to endure intense heat and then sudden influxes of cold. He had used a double casing to insulate the valve in his miniature version but he didn't know how the material would hold up on a much larger scale.
Kiram heard someone knock lightly at the door but he ignored it. There was a second series of much louder knocks. He thought they might even be kicks.
"I'm busy," Kiram shouted. "Go away!"
"You're missing dinner." Javier sounded annoyed.
"I'm not hungry." As soon as the response was out of his mouth, Kiram realized how childish and petulant he sounded. It was the kind of thing a spoiled six-year-old shouted at his mother when he didn't receive the gift he wanted for Solstice.
"Well, that's too bad because I brought you something to eat," Javier responded. "Now open this damn door."
Kiram sighed. He could sulk when he was alone but with Javier standing outside, having brought him food, Kiram just felt petty. He got up and unlocked the door.
A halo of gold afternoon light poured in around Javier, accentuating the hard lines of his body and casting his face into shadow. He stepped into the shed and closed the door behind him.
The shed suddenly seemed dark, illuminated by only the dim light that fell through a small northern window and the few yellow shafts that filtered in from between the cracked planks of the walls. Kiram was very aware of how close the confines were. Javier thrust a warm bundle into his hands and turned to study the completed boiler.
"So, this is what you're always working on, is it?"
"Yfes." Kiram opened his bundle and found, wrapped inside the square of cloth, a stuffed roll and a hot apple pocket.
"Fresh from the kitchen windowsill," Javier commented.
"Thanks." Kiram felt a rush of pleasure, knowing that Javier had gone out of his way to bring these things to him, and embarrassment at the same time because he'd just spent the last hour resenting Javier and the rest of the Hellions.
Kiram bit into his stuffed roll. Thick cuts of pork slid into his mouth along with a warm mustard sauce. He hadn't really realized how hungry he was until he tasted food. He tore into the remainder of the roll.
While Kiram ate, Javier circled slowly around the boiler, studying it. He opened the heavy door where the fire would burn and then peered at the valves that would eventually feed up into the first steam chamber. Kiram watched him move. There was something fascinating about the way the light filtered through his white shirt, exposing the shadows of the body beneath.
Javier turned to the unassembled pieces of the condensation chamber and the cooling valves and Kiram dropped his gaze back down to his own hands. He ate the last of his roll and then wiped the mustard sauce from the corners of his mouth with the cloth Javier had brought him.
"So, what is it?" Javier asked at last.
"A steam engine. At least it will be if I ever get it done."
"You know that the royal mechanist presented the king with a steam-driven engine five years ago, don't you?"
"Yfes, but mine is an entirely new kind of steam engine. Mine will work, where the royal mechanist's simply functions."
"Really?" Javier raised a dark brow.
"Yfes, really," Kiram replied. "The royal mechanist's steam engine has a boiler and a single steam chamber. When pressure builds from the boiler, it drives steam up into the chamber and that forces the piston up."
Kiram tapped one of the huge pistons on the shelf beside him. "To drop the piston back down into its starting position, the steam chamber has to be cooled so that the steam condenses and dribbles back down into the boiler. Then the enti
re process has to start again. The boiler has to build heat back up and warm the steam chamber all over again before the piston can make a second stroke. The process requires an absurd amount of time and fuel."
"And your engine is different?" Javier frowned at the boiler. Kiram guessed that Javier couldn't perceive his innovative design, but it didn't bother him. Mechanisms weren't Javier's strong point.
"Once it's finished, the engine will have a second steam chamber inside a condensation chamber, which will buffer the boiler and the first steam chamber from cooling, so there won't be a delay in the drive of the primary piston." Kiram gazed lovingly at his work. "It's designed so that a second piston will be driven by the contraction of steam in the condensation chamber."
Kiram watched Javier mulling all of this over then after a moment he asked, "So what does all of that mean?"
"It means that my steam engine will do twice the work of the royal mechanist's but only burn half the fuel."
"But what will this mechanism actually do?"
Kiram suddenly realized what it was that Javier wasn't asking about the means so much as the end result.
"Anything you want it to." Kiram grinned. This was where he excelled and he rarely had any opportunity to flaunt it. "The miniature engine I built for my father powers our private mill. But an engine this big could pump water out of a deep mine or grind grain for a whole town. It could pound redbark or pulp linen. It could power almost anything. Riverships, siege engines, forge bellows, smithy hammers.It could do anything."
"Anything but ride a horse, I would suppose." Javier leaned back against the shelf next to Kiram. "Were you planning on staying out here all night?"
"No, I just didn't feel like eating at the Hellions' table." Kiram wiped a smear of oil off one of his wrenches. He'd almost managed to forget about his humiliation in riding class. "I suppose Nestor told everyone about what happened with Master Ignacio."
"No, he didn't say anything, but every other second-year student in the dining hall was jabbering about it."