Zoe Archer - [Ether Chronicles 03]

by Skies of Gold

  “We’ll make a picnicker out of you, yet,” she said with a smile.

  Apparently, the idea wasn’t entirely unpleasant—he grumbled at her words, but she caught the flash of his own smile. At that same moment, the haze in the sky broke apart, and golden sunlight flooded the moor.

  “Now you can’t begrudge me thinking that is beautiful,” she said.

  “Aye, it is,” he rumbled, looking at her. “Beautiful, indeed.”

  The days fell into a pattern. She worked until noon, then walked to the pond, where she’d find Fletcher. Sometimes he’d be fishing. Other times, he’d be whittling. And sometimes he did nothing, only seemed to be waiting for her. He didn’t always smile when she appeared, but his shoulders straightened and he stood taller. Her heart would kick every time she saw him, no matter how much she’d come to expect to find him there.

  Neither of them had said anything specific. They’d made no plans after parting ways on the day of their shooting practice and picnic. But from that day forward, they met at the same place, at the same time.

  Anticipation would build from the moment she woke, and there were times when she discovered herself simply staring out into nothingness instead of working on her latest designs, or checking her timepiece to see if it was noon yet. The hands on the clock moved with glacial sluggishness those days, and she could’ve sworn there were times the hands actually moved backwards. She’d even disassembled the timepiece to make certain it worked properly. It did. But time moved slower and slower each morning.

  They never wasted time on meaningless pleasantries or inane conversation. No inquiries into each other’s evening—though she did wonder what he did at night, all alone in that airship—or breakfast, or discussions of the weather. They’d nod at each other and then, in silent agreement, walk. The destination wasn’t planned. Wherever their legs took them, they’d wander.

  Together, they explored the island. Its eastern coast, with its two-hundred foot bluffs that sank into the sea. The moors of the north, and the small wooded areas at its fringe. Fletcher showed her the graves he had dug for his crewmen, the rough wooden crosses marking their resting places and their names carved into the wood. He must’ve used the ship’s register, because the crosses bore the fallen men’s full names, dates of birth, and death. One of the dead had been only seventeen. She’d placed wildflowers on their graves—she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do the same at the mass graves in Liverpool, and flowers had been in short supply—so she honored the fallen now.

  He’d watched her do this, his expression stony. But he’d nodded in approval, and they’d moved on.

  They traversed the whole of the island together. Sometimes in silence, sometimes talking. Pointing out birds or animals or plants. Or even discussing their lives before they’d come to Eilean Comhachag.

  He asked of her life in India and why she’d moved so far away, all the way to chilly Liverpool. She hadn’t wanted to leave Nagpur, but in some ways, India hadn’t embraced modernity. Work for female engineers was scarce, and those positions that were available offered no room for advancement. She’d had to make a choice: her family, or the chance to truly make developments in technology.

  “Still hurts,” she said on one of their rambles. “Sometimes, my leg pains me, even though it’s not there anymore. It’s the same with my parents. It’s an ache in me, their absence.”

  “Yet you left them. Left your home.”

  “Because I knew I had more to offer the world than acting as some engineer’s glorified amanuensis.”

  “Not everyone’s got such a sense of purpose,” he said admiringly. “Most people are full of fear.”

  She snorted. “Oh, I was afraid. Terrified. Booked my ticket to sail from Bombay. Three times I changed the date of my departure. I kept finding excuses not to go. I needed to stay for a cousin’s wedding. Maa’ wasn’t feeling well and I ought to help around the house while she got better—never mind that we had servants who loved her and would do anything to help her. I was a hairsbreadth away from consulting an astrologer who could tell me not to leave. All the while, I hated the work I was doing for a civil engineering firm, if you could call fetching tiffins and tea work.”

  “The fact that we’re here now means you did leave,” he pointed out.

  “My father.” She smiled at the memory. “He took me aside and said, I love you, my dear, but if you don’t get your arse out of Nagpur and show the world what you can do, you’ll taste regret for the rest of your life. And it’s a bitter flavor.”

  “Wise man, your father,” Fletcher murmured, pushing aside a patch of overgrown gorse so she could pass through.

  She emerged on the other side of the shrub, and they continued on their walk toward a stream. “Usually. But this is also the man who tried to invent a device that sounded an alarm whenever a baby’s nappy needed changing.”

  “I’d think the crying infant would be enough of an alarm.”

  “Thus the failure of the invention. But after he gave me that bit of advice, I finally left.” She sighed as an ache of homesickness swelled.

  “Advice or no,” he said, “not many would take the same risk. Did you even have an offer of work in Liverpool?”

  She grinned. “Not a one. Just my diploma from the university and a portfolio full of designs. I arrived in Liverpool knowing nobody, without a job or a place to stay.” Those first weeks in a dingy boarding house had been brutal, with her literally knocking on doors during the day and stifling her sobs into her pillow at night. Until Drogin & Daughters decided to take the gamble, and had hired her.

  These past few months, she felt as though she’d become nothing but longing. Missing her family, her friends. That grief never vanished, but the scar was fading, more and more with each moment spent in Fletcher’s company.

  “You’re a bloody brave woman,” he said.

  She laughed. “Not brave. Just egotistical. I couldn’t stand the thought of languishing in obscurity.”

  “I know bravery,” he said, abruptly solemn. “I’ve seen it in dozens of battles. So if I say you’re brave, then you’d better listen.”

  His vehemence stunned her into silence, and they’d been quiet the rest of their walk that day.

  He had stories in abundance. It took some work on her part to pull them out of him. Fletcher radiated strength, but he was a modest man, reluctant to talk of his own heroism. When once she even used that word, heroism, he snorted and fell into a moody silence. But there was no other word for it.

  As a sailor, he’d defended British outposts and their native populaces from warlords and other European nations trying to stake their claims. He’d run into collapsing, burning towns to pull people to safety. He’d risen quickly from a common seaman to an officer, proving again and again his courage and steadiness in the midst of battle. In one fierce battle, the captain of his ship had been badly wounded, and the next in command crumbled beneath the pressure, so he’d stepped in to command the crew to victory.

  She already knew his valor as an airship captain—she’d watched him in the skies above Liverpool. And he’d sacrificed himself so his crew might survive, and no one would be injured by the crashing Persephone.

  But these were tales that had been as difficult to extract as rusted bolts. He wouldn’t speak of the procedure that had transformed him into a Man O’ War, either, though from the small grains of information he’d accidentally dropped, she learned it had been painful, and long. He couldn’t be away from his ship, or one of the specially-designed batteries, for more than a few days without his energy building up to dangerous levels, provoking a frenzied, mindless rage. Thus the reason why he kept the turbines running at night, to drain the batteries so his energy had somewhere to go. And he couldn’t have children.

  He’d given away all chances of a normal life when he’d laid himself down on the operating table. Deliberately changed himself into an amalgam of human and machine. Though he never spoke of Emily again, it was clear he thought he woul
d have some chance of normalcy with her. And been wrong.

  When Liverpool had been attacked, Kali had been without a lover for some time. In the aftermath of the battle, there’d been no man to look at her or her prosthetic leg with disgust. She bore her transformation alone. All she’d written to her parents was that she’d been injured, but not fatally, and she would recover from her injuries in England. She refused their offers of help.

  One day, she met Fletcher by the pond. In his hand, he held a long, smoothly-polished stick. Wordlessly, he held it out to her.

  “What’s this for?” she asked, taking it. The stout piece of wood was four feet long, with a tapered end, and a wider top. A strip of leather looped through a hole near the top of the stick.

  Silently, he gazed toward the ridge of peaks to the west. The one part of the island they hadn’t explored. She’d always been afraid of those sharp hills. They weren’t mountains, but they were steep, and rocky. She didn’t know if she had the strength or balance to attempt them. Before she’d lost her leg, she would’ve challenged him to a race to the top, but now . . .

  “It came from the Persephone,” he said. “The wood. Took it from the engineering deck.”

  “Fletcher,” she said, eyeing the walking stick dubiously. Her heart contracted, thinking of him patiently carving the walking stick just for her. It was well balanced, too, and just the right height. Considerable thought had gone into its making. And he’d made it from a piece of his ship. “I hate disappointing you—”

  “Then don’t,” he said. Without another word, he strode toward the steep hills, leaving her alone.

  Go after him? Or stay? Risk injury and humiliation, or watch him climb the hills while she felt sorry for herself?

  She hefted the walking stick, took a deep breath, and followed.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  * * *

  He was patient. Kali had to credit him that. Doubtless he could have bound up the steep hill, powerful and fleet as a tiger. Or he could have shouted at her, urging her to be stronger, go faster. Of course, if he’d tried yelling at her, she would’ve taken his carefully carved walking stick and swung it at his head—or his groin.

  Yet she didn’t have cause to use the walking stick as a weapon. Fletcher hiked slightly ahead of her, but from the set of his shoulders, and the tilt of his head, it was plain his senses were tuned to her. He slowed whenever her steps faltered. Yet he didn’t once turn around to offer her help or suggest that she’d gone far enough for the day. As if he knew she’d push him away or insist she was fine. A compliment of sorts. He believed she could make it up the hill, and his belief shored up her own.

  But it wasn’t easy. Her leg of flesh and bone protested at the amount of work it had to do. The long walks around the island had strengthened her, true, but a steep slope presented a new challenge to her muscles. It took some finessing of her artificial leg, too. She had to stop once to loosen some of the pins, enabling a greater range of movement. And there was a rhythm to hiking, a careful calibration of balance and weight.

  Sweat filmed her back, and she wiped her forehead with her sleeve. Breath was like a furnace in her chest. She hurt all over.

  The summit seemed miles above. How could she ever make it?

  “I stole the captain’s brandy once,” he said, breaking the silence.

  His unexpected words pulled her out of her misery. “Didn’t peg you for a thief.”

  He continued climbing upward as he spoke over his shoulder. “I was a petty officer, and a right swaggerer. Thought I knew everything about everything. Got a few lashings back when they were still handing them out, but that didn’t stop me from pushing back whenever the warrant officer gave me an order. What a strutting bastard I was.” He chuckled.

  She stared at his wide back. “I’m having . . . a hard time . . . picturing that,” she gasped.

  “A miracle that I made it above the rank of seaman.” He didn’t sound breathless at all, the demon. “One night, I got to boasting with the other lads, telling ’em all how I was so ruddy clever, and that the officers didn’t know anything I didn’t know. So one of the boys—Browne, I think—tells me to prove it. Show everyone that I’m really smarter and quicker than the officers. Somebody got the idea that I should steal something from the captain’s quarters.”

  “How . . . would that prove . . . anything?”

  “The lot of us couldn’t have been more than seventeen years old. Had more come than brains. I mean, ah . . . we didn’t think clearly.”

  She panted a laugh as she dug the walking stick into the hill and dragged herself higher. “Quite a . . . feat to . . . manage.”

  “Nothing’s more steady than a naval ship. Everything happens at the same time every day. I knew when the captain would be out of his quarters, and when the midshipman who patrolled the passageway would go by. All I did was wait for the right moment.”

  “The door . . . had to be . . . locked.”

  “I nicked a few of the sailmaker’s awls and needles and used those to pick the lock. Got inside in a trice.” A large boulder blocked their path, so Fletcher veered to the side. He could surely have climbed over it, but she didn’t object that he changed their path to accommodate her.

  “You . . . clever rogue,” she mock-admonished him.

  He chuckled. “Here’s where my cleverness ran out. I found the brandy and instead of just taking it and leaving, I decided to have myself a drink right there in the captain’s quarters.”

  “Oh, no,” she groaned.

  “We had our share of grog, and I’d drunk plenty of ale, but strong spirits were new to me. New, and tasty. Finished the whole bottle.”

  She groaned again at his foolishness.

  “When I came to,” he continued, “I was in the brig. They wanted to make sure I was conscious for my lashing. Before they dragged me out on deck for punishment, the captain himself came to see me. He said that if I wasn’t such a damned idiot, I’d make a fine officer. But I was going to have to make a choice. Keep up my blustering ways, or actually make something of myself. Bled more brandy than blood from the lashing,” he added.

  Clearly, he’d opted to reform. Yet it stunned her that this modest, honorable man had once been so young and stupid, so arrogant. The intervening years must’ve shaped him a good deal—or he’d chosen to change himself. Something few people could accomplish.

  Her thoughts scattered when he began to sing a seafaring tune. His baritone was low and rang like a bell.

  My comely lass, it’s back to the sky,

  For the Hun has come calling, but never you cry.

  With ether and courage, we’ll send ’em to Hell,

  And then I’ll be home, in your arms to dwell.

  “Ah,” he said. “Here we are.”

  Kali had been focused on putting one foot in front of the other, taking each step in turn, and listening to his shanty. Only now she looked up and realized they’d reached the summit.

  “You distracted me,” she said, almost accusing.

  “You made it to the top,” he countered.

  Her first look at the island in its entirety. It was a patchwork of gray and green, a rumpled blanket of stone and grass in the middle of a shale-colored sea. From this vantage, she spotted the roof of her cottage, miniscule from this height, and the rolling expanse of the moors, which truly did look like the ocean made solid. The Persephone lay in her permanent berth, dug into the earth. Shadows from clouds speckled the island. It wasn’t a lush place, but it held a raw, uncompromising beauty. Now, from the top of this peak, she could see it all, feel the cool wind nip at her cheeks and tug at her unraveling braid.

  And she had Fletcher to thank for it.

  But she didn’t want words. Thank you felt so pallid. She’d thought her leg would never allow her to have such a view or know this soaring freedom.

  So she reached down between them. Took his hand in hers. Gave it a squeeze.

  He squeezed back. A silent acknowledgment of what this meant.r />
  They stood like that, hand in hand, as if they’d made the world and now stood back to admire their handiwork.

  And she realized at that moment that for the first time in three months—for the first time in years—she was truly happy.

  Fletcher stared balefully out the window in his quarters. Nearly through the morning and the rain hadn’t let up. It had been coming down since the middle of last night, beating on the top deck like drummer boys announcing an admiral. He’d hoped it would clear by midmorning at the latest to give the ground the slightest chance of drying out. No luck.

  He glanced at the clockwork cricket, sitting quietly on his desk. He was careful not to use it too much, in case he should break it. But every night, he turned its key and listened to its musical chirp while it softly illuminated the darkness of his quarters.

  Turning back to the window, he cursed. He didn’t want Kali out in that muck. It made for treacherous going. Had they been in a city with paved streets, or even a village with packed earth lanes, he wouldn’t worry. But there was no town planning commission for Eilean Comhachag, unless you counted the rabbits’ warrens.

  She shouldn’t risk it. But the damn stubborn woman would probably show up at the pond anyway. What if she got hurt between the pond and her cottage?

  He threw on his coat and jumped down from the window to the ground. Then he ran. He reached her cottage in fifteen minutes.

  Kali frowned in confusion when she answered his knock. She stepped back to let him inside, out of the rain. The cottage smelled of tea, solder, and wool, with the sweet spice of her beneath it all. The windows had all fogged from the warmth of the cooking apparatus’s hearth. Though crowded with equipment and tools, everything was neatly organized and clean, a far cry from the chaos of the Persephone.