by Devin Hanson
"Why would we, uh, the king, think airships would work, then? An airship isn't cheap, he wouldn't have thrown so much away without thinking it was a good plan, right?"
Shen nodded. "Aye, airships cost a pretty, there is no arguing that." He reached over and patted one of the large crates behind Andrew. "Who knows what goes on in the minds of such men? Mayhap he heard tall tales about dragons being brought down by cannon. But Andrew, lad, think about it. If a cannon could kill a dragon, someone would have done it by now."
With those words of wisdom, Shen spurred his horse forward along the wagon train, leaving Andrew alone to think and watch Andronath draw closer.
Shen was right, of course. Airships carried cannon, and had for decades, centuries even, as far back as Andrew had heard tales of airships. In all those years, thousands of airships had been attacked by dragons. Surely they had fought back. In all those years, not once had there ever been a story of a dragon being slain by cannon.
King Delran's plan of using airships to claim the skies over Salia had come crashing down, a complete failure. Andronath, on the other hand, had achieved the goal, at least on a smaller scale. Owning the skies over a single city was a far cry from protecting an entire kingdom, but it was a start. Building cannon towers in sufficient density to protect herds and fields was ludicrous. It might work for Andronath, but there was no way for it to work on a larger scale.
In a way, the plan with the airships could have worked. If the gunners were better trained, if the crews were better prepared, if the people manning the ships were the best, it could have succeeded. Instead, the nobles and their power plays had undermined the effort from the very beginning.
What was needed was cannon crews who were used to shooting at fast moving targets and knew, at an instinctive level, how to lead, and how to predict the direction the dragon would go next. Andrew shook his head. It was a chicken-egg situation. The only way to get experienced gunners would be to have them shoot at dragons and everyone who did that was dead.
Andrew shelved that train of thought for future consideration. The slow and steady pace of the aurochs had brought them nearly to the walls of the city.
Like in most cities in Andrew's experience, the gate led to an enormous plaza surrounded all around by warehouses, taverns and inns. Shen had rode ahead of the wagon train and secured a warehouse for their use. Andrew's work was simple and straightforward, merely following the wagon in front of him.
It was a good thing it was so simple, because Andronath was like no city he had ever seen. Besides the marvel of straight walls and open streets, Andronath was the home of the Alchemists Guild, and the wonders of artifice they produced was evident everywhere Andrew turned his eyes. In a city proud of their stonework, you might find delicate arches, elaborate inlays, and other marvels of masonry and sculpture. A city with an export of paintings would have masterpieces hung in every parlor and massive murals in public spaces. Andronath was the city of alchemy, and their civic pride was as integral to the makeup of the city as the stonework itself.
Everywhere Andrew looked, there was some new sight to see. Airon, usually horded for its rarity and expense, was everywhere. Swampgas lampposts lined the streets, burning during the day, seemingly without smoke. A carriage rolled by, and it wasn't until it was past that Andrew realized it was not being pulled by a horse. A box made of glass with people inside it rose up the side of a tall tower, with no ropes or pulleys that Andrew could see. There was architecture too flimsy to possibly stay up, bridges they crossed without the familiar structural integrity to hold its own weight, let alone the wagons and aurochs. For every one thing Andrew knew, or thought he knew, about alchemy, there were dozens, scores, of things all around him that he couldn't even begin to explain.
Despite all the distractions, Andrew managed to keep his auroch team pointed in the right direction and they arrived at the warehouse without incident. Entering into the dark interior was a relief. Going about the routine of unhitching the aurochs and caring for them was a welcome break from the unfamiliar sights and sounds outside.
Andrew was brushing down the last auroch when one of the other teamsters called over to him, "Hey, Condign! The wagonmaster wants to see you."
Andrew waved, gave the auroch a last couple swipes with the brush and gave the animal a pat on the whither. "Enjoy your rest, big fella. You've got another long trip ahead of you."
He made his way to the front of the warehouse where Shen was talking to a man in a fine waistcoat and a top hat. He paused out of earshot and caught the wagonmaster's eye then waited until Shen waved him over.
"Andrew, this is Master Burreg. He is the alchemist retained to perform the conversions on our cargo. Go with him, help him with anything he needs." Shen turned to the alchemist, "Master Burreg. Andrew is a capable worker. He will assist you in any way you see fit."
Andrew sketched a bow, uncertain as to how he would be of any assistance to an alchemist. "Whatever you need, sir."
Burreg looked at Andrew, his lip slightly curled. "I suppose he'll do. Come along, boy, let's go move those crates."
Andrew shot a glance at Shen, unsure of the alchemist was joking. Him? Move the crates? It took a crane just to get them into the wagon beds, and teams of aurochs to move them. Shen rolled his shoulder, body language clearly saying, "get on with it".
He wasn't going to get anything further from the wagonmaster, Andrew knew, so he turned and fell in behind the alchemist. Considering the unlikely city of Andronath, Andrew supposed that if Master Burreg said he could move the crates, there must be some way to do it.
They came to the first of the wagons, loaded with a pair of crates. Each crate was five feet across, four tall and another five feet deep. Each crate contained nearly a ton of mould-cast iron packed in wood shavings and braced with steel straps.
"Well, get the cart, boy."
Andrew looked where Burreg was pointing and saw a low cart of the type typically used to shift large, bulky, but relatively light goods, like bales of hay. Curiosity overcame his reluctance. If Burreg was playing a joke on him, he had an excellent poker face. If not, Andrew was about to see alchemy performed for the first time.
He jogged over and grabbed the cart. By the time Andrew wrestled it around so the wheels were facing in the right direction and began wheeling it back to the wagons, Burreg had climbed up onto the wagon bed and was shaking a liquid onto the crate while muttering something under his breath. The alchemist clambered over to the second crate and repeated the process. This time Andrew was close enough to hear bits of what was spoken, and it was no language he had ever heard before. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
Alchemy!
Alchemy was the subject of a hundred thousand anecdotes, plays, stories, songs, barroom brags, jokes and whispers. Some called it a science, others magic. Over the years, alchemists had been revered as wise men, chased out of towns as charlatans, exiled, ennobled, and everything in between. Young children claimed they wanted to be alchemists along with grand dreams of riding a horse into a battle as a knight or being an airship pilot or marrying a prince or princess.
Andrew had more exposure to alchemy than your average child, as his parents would occasionally trade in trinkets, airon, pureglass, or any of the other relatively common alchemical applications. His relatively educated viewpoint was that alchemy was a science and alchemists merely men. Even so, he watched in awe as Master Burreg finished his muttered chant.
"Well? Get a move on, boy. It won't last forever." Burreg gestured at the first crate.
Andrew looked askance at the crate. He was strong for his age, and tall, but he would have had trouble shifting the crate empty, let alone full of cast iron airship parts. There was a length of rope stapled to the side of the crate as a handle, perhaps for moving the crate when it was empty.
With a shrug, Andrew grabbed hold of it. If Shen and Burreg were having a laugh at his expense, so be it. He gave a tug, and nearly tumbled to the ground as the crate slide h
alfway off the cart and he had to scramble to get control of it. The whole crate, iron, wood shavings and plank sides, weighed less than a small dog.
Carefully, a bit awkward with the ungainly size of the crate, Andrew worked it onto the cart. He found it worked best to use the rope handle as a fulcrum, and his thigh as a pivot point, and shift the crate around that way. It was light enough to pick up in one hand, but so large that he had to struggle to keep control of it.
He moved the second crate onto the cart and nestled it close to the first as Burreg moved on to the next wagon. This time, he was close enough to hear what the alchemist was saying, at least the first phrase of it.
"On Idani At'dani On", Burreg chanted, and dashed liquid from a little vial of pureglass onto the crate. There was no immediate effect that Andrew could see, but after another mutter or two, the Alchemist moved onto the next crate.
Without having to be told, Andrew stacked the crate onto the cart, along with the fourth when Burreg was finished.
"That'll be enough for the first trip," Burreg announced. "Strap those down and follow me. We'll have to move quickly."
Andrew grabbed some bailing twine and threw a couple loops over the tops of the crates, lashing them down. It wasn't a solid tie-down, but it would work so long as the road wasn't full of potholes.
With the load secured, Andrew hauled the cart after the alchemist. The cart wasn't heavy, and as Andrew dragged it through the streets after Burreg, he found the most difficult part of controlling it keeping it from tipping over in the breeze.
Fortunately, it only took a few minutes to get to Master Burreg's workshop, and Andrew dragged the cart over the threshhold without any mishaps. Following Burreg's directions, Andrew took the crates off the cart and placed them in a row along one wall empty of benches.
"Alright. That'll do for this load. Let's head back and get the next."
By the time Andrew finished moving the last of the crates, Burreg's workshop was packed. Trying to fit the cart past a crate left in the previous load, Andrew tried to shift it with his hip, and was surprised to find that the full weight of the crate was restored. He could no more shift it than he could jump off one of the nearby towers and fly.
The sun was nearly touching the tops of the buildings when Andrew got the last of the crates placed. In Andronath, Andrew found, the people didn't cower indoors once the sun set. In all the other cities Andrew had been to, the setting sun put a hard stop to any outdoor activity. Once the sun went down, the dragons came out. Being out on the street was a danger not only to oneself but to the whole city or town. The houses and buildings might look like raw stone from a distance, but any dragon could tell it was camouflage up close.
In Andronath, the street lamps kept the lanes and ways bright and the people carried out their business undeterred by the setting sun. Master Burreg definitely wasn't done with him. "Mister Condign! If you're finished faffing about, we have work to do."
Andrew turned away from the doorway and walked back into the shop. "Certainly, sir. What can I do to help?"
Burreg nodded at a crowbar lying on a bench. "Those crates all need to be opened. But do it carefully! The crates all need to be re-assembled for the return journey."
Somehow, Andrew suspected Burreg himself wouldn't be doing the re-assembly. "Of course, sir."
Andrew picked up the crowbar and examined one of the crates. They were all the same size, and of the same design, though the individual crates showed widely differing degrees of wear and tear. It didn't take long for Andrew to pick out the areas of bruised wood where nails had been repeatedly driven in and yanked out.
The crate came apart easily, the whole thing hanging together on a dozen nails and clever joinery. With the nails out, the top lifted off and the four sides fell away. After a small avalanche of wood shavings settled, the cast iron payload was revealed.
"Beautiful, isn't it," a voice spoke behind Andrew. The speaker was a man of medium height and slender build, brown hair shorn close. He couldn't be much older than Andrew himself was, and his beard was still patchy about the cheeks. He held out a hand. "Michael Esterforth. Call me Mike." He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder toward Burreg. "I'm the master's assistant. I'm a student at the guild academy, doing scut work to help pay my way."
Andrew shook the hand offered. "Uh, Andrew. Andrew Condign." He waved one hand vaguely back toward the direction the warehouse lay in. "I'm a wagon driver."
"You have a good eye for detail, Andrew. Most people end up wrecking the crate their first time. Old Burreg was waiting for you to mess it up so he could charge your wagonmaster more for the work. He'll be off fuming for a while."
Andrew frowned a little then shrugged. Business was business, after all. It was hardly the dirtiest trick he'd seen played for the sake of a few extra nobles.
Mike ran a hand down the side of the cast iron, knocking loose some packed wood chips. "I love the engines that come through here. So much power and potential, just waiting for our finishing touch to turn it into an airship. Have you ever flown?"
Andrew nodded, uncertain if Mike was looking for details. He wasn't certain he was comfortable talking about his time aboard with this stranger.
Michael rattled on, "It's the greatest thing in the world, flying. It was a tough choice, deciding between being an alchemist and an airship pilot. Alchemy was the right choice, of course. An alchemist can still fly, but a pilot cannot do alchemy, eh, Andrew?"
Together, they started dismantling the next crate. "Alchemy is great," Michael continued, "but it's so fiddly. Nothing like building or flying airships. A man is in charge of his destiny when he's in the air."
That was demonstrably untrue in Andrew's experience, though he didn't feel like contradicting Michael. Instead he remembered what it was like to lift off the mooring tower for the first time, and feel the cool breeze on his face hundreds of feet off the ground. "There's definitely nothing else quite like it."
The crate came apart, and Michael tugged away the wooden supports that helped bridge the gaps between a tangle of iron that Andrew only vaguely identified as being part of an airship engine.
"Look at this camshaft assembly. The design involved! Making airships would have been a noble pursuit, but my mom wouldn't hear of it. ‘Alchemy or Pilot!' Bah. Maybe someday I'll have a chance to do some designing of my own. In the meantime, the next best thing." He brushed off some wood chips and worked the ponderous action of the cam through a full revolution. "Beautiful."
"Is it hard? Alchemy, I mean." Andrew popped out the question before he thought to stifle it.
Michael shrugged. "Well it's not easy. But I'd imagine you'd have an easy enough time of it. Requires an eye for detail and a certain pedanticness. Not that I'm saying you look pedantic!" He sighed. "My professor would say I could use a certain amount of that particular quality myself. Has, in fact. Several times. Guess I'm too much of a romantic."
"I've never seen alchemy done before," Andrew said. "Except when Master Burreg was doing whatever he did to the crates so I could move them over here."
"Probably just an airweight saying. Easy, quick, but kind of sloppy. Don't tell him I said that! Burreg is a work horse. Good at what he does, but no imagination. It's why he's down in the merchant quarter transmuting iron instead of working for a lord somewhere or inventing his own sayings."
Only about half of what Michael said made any sense to Andrew, but he nodded anyway. There were merchants who fell under a similar category. Ran the same circuits year after year with the same cargo down to the ounce of salt. Boring, dependable, and moderately successful. But utterly lacking in imagination or creativity that might either make a great deal of money or not pan out at all. He said as much, and Michael laughed.
"It's the same in every profession. From what I've seen, most everyone is like that. Only the rare few stand out above the crowd and are truly successful. To be really good at alchemy, you have to be something of a contradiction. Pedantic and mindful of the tiniest detai
ls, but open-minded and creative." Michael snorted. "Few and far between, that."
"I've always wondered how alchemy works," Andrew ventured. Between their efforts, they had exposed all but the last two airship parts.
"You and everyone else," Michael chuckled. "The how of it isn't a secret, as such, but the details are what keeps the Guild intact. If I told you, and someone found out about it, and believe me they would find out, I'd have half a dozen alchemist assassin's after me before the sun rose.
"Tiny gods, just the thought gives me the creeps. Alchemy isn't only for making iron light, you know. There are things that can be done with it…" Michael chuckled. "Well. Let's just say they've convinced me to hold my peace, hm? Leave it at that."
"I wouldn't want to get you in trouble. I was just curious. And, uh, the ‘how'? You said that wasn't a secret?"
"Hardly. Dragons, my friend, the dragons. It all comes back to the dragons. Back in the day, they tried to make machines that could fly in the air. You know what they found?"
Andrew shook his head. "What?"
"It's impossible! Mechanically impossible to make something as large as a dragon lift its own weight by flapping wings. They say that was the start of alchemy, as the pioneers investigated why dragons could fly and machines could not. Bird's wings, you know, are very light. Hollow bones and all that, but still strong. But dragons are dense. Hard as sheet iron and twice as strong. Nothing that dense could possibly fly."
"And yet they do," Andrew pointed out.
"Ah, and there's the crux of the problem! They can fly, and a damn sight better than anything else can. A bird has to work to get up off the ground. You ever see a dragon leap into the air? Easy as pie."
"And the early alchemists, they figured out why?"
"They did. Airon was one of the very first alchemical solutions. And it comes down to the nature of dragons. They fly, not because they are light, or hollow, or have immensely powerful muscles, they fly because they do." Andrew frowned and opened his mouth, but Michael waved him to silence impatiently. "Hold on, I know how it sounds. Frankly put, dragons bend the laws of the physical world. Dragons fly because they ignore basic laws of physics. Well, not really. They don't ignore the laws, they just have their own set. It is in their nature to do so. The very life force of a dragon creates an alternate reality.