The Hod King

by Josiah Bancroft

  Then her tether snapped taut. On the rooftop three buildings away, Haste had gotten a firm grip on the brake line. Edith landed on the patio in an ungraceful but living sprawl.

  She floundered about in the piles of silk that fell over her and emerged to discover she had landed in the middle of a whist tournament. An upturned table and chairs lay amid a spray of playing cards. The players stood in frozen shock, many still holding fans of cards clutched to their chest.

  A woman, who was wearing a hat like a layer cake, cried out, “You all saw it! It was a trump card! I played a trump! I win the round!”

  Out on Port Virtue’s long pier, the late-afternoon sun had cracked upon the mountains and spilled its orange yolk.

  Georgine Haste presented Edith’s arm to her as if it were a bunch of roses and she had just won a race.

  Edith thanked her for having carried it and slung the heavy engine over her empty shoulder.

  The big port was much more serene without all the fanfare and crowds. Half of the slips were empty, and the docked ships were still except for a flat-bottomed barge being unloaded by a gang of stevedores. The workers shifted colorful bolts of cloth down a bouncing gangplank and stacked them upon a dray. One spool of silk escaped the rest and rolled across the pier, leaving a train of blue behind it. Before anyone could catch it, the bolt rolled off the edge and vanished with a snap of its tail. The port guards laughed at the loss.

  “You’ll make sure he’s looked after?” Edith asked. The young hod had survived his fall, but not without injury. In addition to some nasty bruises, he’d broken his wrist.

  “I will. There’s a mission that takes in injured hods. It’s run by ladies of the court who admittedly like dressing up as nurses more than they like doing the work, but they’ll give him a bed and meals till he’s recovered,” Haste said. The Wakeman was smirking as she said it, but now she began to shake her head in wonder. She seemed to deliberate a moment before speaking her mind. “You know, I can’t tell whether you’re insane or just burdened by an overlarge conscience. I’m sure half the people of Pelphia wouldn’t have done what you did to save their own child, much less a hod. I would’ve thought the Sphinx’s priorities were different.”

  “If I ever get to the point where I can stand idly by while a child falls to his death, I don’t think I can claim to have priorities of any kind anymore.”

  “A refreshing perspective.” Haste’s gaze roved over Edith’s head, up the hull of the State of Art, bright as mercury, and farther upward to the immense envelope and the Brick Layer’s green crest that decorated it. “She is quite a sight! Almost seems a different species, like a condor flying among pigeons. I’d love to see what she’s like inside. How about a tour?”

  Edith’s lips puckered. As much as she liked Georgine, she wasn’t ready to invite her aboard. Not just yet. It seemed a silly reservation given the fact that Edith had let Haste remove her arm. And perhaps Haste’s fidelity really hadn’t shifted to the ringdom that had adopted her. She certainly didn’t seem to care for many of the locals. But revealing the ship’s hollow state seemed an unnecessary test of Haste’s loyalties, and there really was no benefit to it other than to satisfy her curiosity.

  “This isn’t a good time,” Edith said as diplomatically as she could.

  Georgine smiled, perhaps to conceal her disappointment. “Some other time.”

  “Yes, perha—” The thought was suddenly overshadowed by the ascent of three black globes above the port’s horizon. The appearance of the massive balloons was enough to divert the course of the wind. Edith’s greatcoat flapped, her hair streamed, as she watched the Ararat rise into view. Despite her changed circumstance, the abrupt return of the flying fortress filled her with horror.

  She had grown accustomed to looking at it through a spyglass, which carved the terror up enough to make it bearable. But hanging a hundred yards away, the Ararat was an overwhelming presence. She could see far too many of her seventy-eight guns, could see the iron bands of her drawbridge, heavy enough to crush a man. Her hull gleamed like wet ink with a fresh coat of tar. The crew of the Ararat cast lines to the longshoremen from the battlements, and as they pulled the black warship in, Georgine Haste remarked, “Come home to roost at last.”

  “What?” Edith said, rousing from her astonishment.

  “Commissioner Pound has been recalled. Seems Leonid finally tired of his excuses. It’s a reckoning that’s been a long, long time coming.”

  “A reckoning? You mean, they’ll remove him from his station?”

  “I mean they’ll probably remove him from this life.”

  When Edith walked onto the bridge of the State of Art, Byron had all but whipped himself into a panic. He and Reddleman had watched her approach with the native Wakeman on the magnovisor and had observed that their captain had been quite literally disarmed. The stag’s fright had only been compounded by the abrupt appearance of the Ararat, whose approach had escaped the pilot’s attention because he was too busy nosing a manual! Edith tried to calm the stag with logic and an explanation that he did not allow her to finish because he was not ready to be soothed. He said, “Yes, I’ll grant you, the ringdom’s flagship probably isn’t going to start a firefight while docked in its own port, but why in heaven’s name did you remove your arm?”

  Falling heavily into her captain’s chair, Edith said, “Byron, I can’t tell you what you want to hear and listen to what you have to say both at once. Soon as you’re ready for an answer, let me know.”

  “Oh, I’m ready, Captain!” he said, crossing his arms.

  First, she explained what interested him least: Namely, what had brought the Ararat to port. Though she thought it probably unnecessary and perhaps antagonistic, she still directed Reddleman to aim the aft cannons and six of the port guns at the timber warship. Then she explained that it had been her idea, her own choice, to remove her engine, and that Georgine Haste had not taken advantage of the occasion, though she might well have if she’d wished to. Admittedly, removing her arm had been an extreme step, but she’d done it to save a boy’s life.

  Byron was at such a loss for words, he spent some moments pawing at the steel floor with the toe of his boot. While he stamped out his anxiety, Edith asked Reddleman to collect the tools Byron would need to refasten her arm.

  “But I’ve never attached an engine before,” the stag complained.

  “Byron, if we’re going to stand here and list all the things we haven’t done before that we have been called upon to do, we’re going to be here all night.” She was interrupted by the chiming of the mysterious alarm, the source of which Reddleman had still not discerned. “Here, take the pliers, and let’s see if we can’t get these cables sorted.”

  Byron continued to object even as he worked on matching the dangling cords with the proper plugs. To calm him, Edith recounted that morning’s parade, the unnecessary train ride, the king’s bizarre tableau, and Voleta’s performance in the Circuit of Court. The details of the day made Byron alternately chuckle with delight and cluck his tongue in disapproval, but Edith was relieved that at least it stopped his scolding.

  “I’m glad to hear they liked Voleta,” Byron said. “But I can’t understand why she couldn’t just let them cage the squirrel. Not every inconvenience needs to be turned into a matter of state!” With that, the stag rejoined the last cable, and Edith felt the presence of her arm return. It prickled and tingled as if she’d slept on it wrong for hours and hours and been awoken by the throbbing numbness.

  Byron began tightening the arm’s bolts while Edith shared what she’d encountered in her investigation of Senlin’s hotel room: the concierge, his coats, the play program, and the duke’s letter.

  “And the moths?” Byron asked, apparently unsurprised that Edith had gone in search of Senlin. Perhaps the stag had just run out of outrage.

  “All gone,” Edith said, her reply eliciting a concerned frown from Byron. “I don’t know if Tom took them or someone else.”

&nbs
p; “But nothing else?” Byron asked.

  “Actually,” Edith said, recalling the curious book she’d found under Senlin’s undershirts, “Reddleman, look in my coat pocket. I want you to read that and tell me what sort of use it could be to anyone. There are some numbers in the margins. They may be important. See what you think.”

  Reddleman eagerly retrieved the book, then returned to his pilot’s chair where he sat with his legs crossed and the open book propped on the dash of the controls. “Captain, where’s Ostraka University?” he asked, pointing to the bookplate that was tucked into the front of the volume.

  Edith recalled what Senlin had revealed in one of his later reports. “Ostraka University isn’t anywhere anymore. It was shut down years ago. The Coterie bought the building and used it to open the Colosseum.”

  While Reddleman studied, Byron worked to fit the wires around the engine’s mechanisms.

  “Have you ever heard of the Sphinx’s Will-o’-the-Wisps?”

  “I have.”

  “What sort of magic is that?”

  “I don’t believe it’s any sort. It’s just a trick of the mirror, the light, and the imagination. Don’t tell me you took a turn in one?”

  “I wish I hadn’t.”

  Byron asked what the Wisp had shown her. Edith glanced at Reddleman to see if he was listening, but he appeared absorbed by his study. So Edith described the vision, and did so honestly, but without inflection. When she finished, Byron asked her what she thought the vision meant, and she said, “I suppose I’m worried how many pieces I can lose, how many parts can be replaced before I lose myself.”

  “Well, I think I understand a little better now why you were so quick to pull off your arm,” Byron said, and Edith immediately rose to her own defense, citing the boy, the urgency, the lack of alternative. “Of course, all of that is true, but still, you thought to do it, and it occurred to you quickly. The question is why?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I wanted to know how it would feel to have it gone.”

  “And how did it feel?”

  “Awful. But I don’t like that either. It’s not my arm, but now it feels like a part of me, and what happened to that other part of myself?”

  “I’ve pondered that question: Am I the sum of my parts or am I something else?”

  “And what do you think?”

  “My sense of being, my identity, whatever you want to call it, it doesn’t reside in my parts. It lives in my past, and in the continuity of my present thoughts, and in my hopes for the future. I’m more afraid of losing a memory than a limb.” Edith regarded Reddleman, rocking and snickering in his chair. “Though I am fond of these hands,” Byron said brightly. He patted the sealed plate in Edith’s shoulder. “There. Finished. How do you feel?”

  Edith flexed the wrist of her engine, curling and straightening her fingers. “All there.”

  “Aha!” Reddleman exclaimed, and Edith and Byron turned in time to see the pilot swivel around in his chair. “This is an equation of a curve.”

  “What’s it doing there?” Edith asked.

  “I think it’s describing the trilobite’s anatomy,” Reddleman said. When Bryon expressed his perfect ignorance of the creature, the pilot explained, “It’s a type of ancient arthropod, like a crab or a scorpion. It has plated armor and many legs and some of them have a fork-like protuberance at the front. Once upon a time, trilobites ruled the earth. Then they all perished when …” He stopped and waved the detail away. “Well, that doesn’t matter. All that remains of them now are their shells. Maybe one day, it will be the same with us! Our whole race reduced to a picture in the book of some foreign species.” The occasion seemed to strike him as a happy one.

  Ignoring the digression, Edith asked, “The measurements don’t appear in the text?”

  “No, the text is more of a biological overview with pictures. I think some clever soul used these diagrams as the basis for some very novel calculations.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest idea!” Reddleman said cheerfully. “I suppose they could be useful for identifying a new species or subspecies of trilobite, or for building a model.”

  “I don’t see how a model of an extinct crab could be of much use to anyone, and certainly not worth all the effort they took to try to smuggle the book out of the ringdom.”

  “Maybe the notes aren’t relevant. For all we know, they were written by a student fifty years ago.” Reddleman shut the book so he could inspect the catalog numbers painted on the spine. “You know, Captain, I might be of more help to you if I had an active role in the investigation. I could come ashore with you. Perhaps I’d see something that you overlooked,” Reddleman said, though Edith had already begun shaking her head.

  “Out of the question.”

  “But surely just sitting here is a squandering of my talents. I could—”

  “I wasn’t opening the floor to debate, pilot. You’re supposed to be dead. So you’ll stay here on the bridge—” The mysterious alarm pinged again. “And you’ll figure out once and for all what’s making that blasted racket.”

  Reddleman beamed like an imbecile. “Aye aye, Captain!”

  His merry response made Edith uneasy. He was like a cannon whose fuse had burned down but failed to ignite. She couldn’t decide whether he was a harmless misfire or a smoldering bomb, but she had a sinking feeling they’d find out which it was soon enough.

  When Edith opened the ship’s hatch the next morning, she was met with a very different sort of welcome. Port Master Cullins loitered at the end of the gangplank, a troop of armed men at his back. A heavy mist fell, an unusual gift from the clouds that collared the Tower’s peak. The port master’s usually impeccable mustache drooped in the rain. He craned his neck and tried to peer past her into the ship while the hatch was still open, but she blocked his view as she shut the door.

  “Good morning, Captain Winters!” Despite his wilted mustache, the port master seemed much more composed than he had the previous day. “I trust you slept well?”

  “Just fine, thank you.” Edith shifted to step past him onto the sturdy, square beams of the port, but he moved to block her way.

  Cullins said, “Of course, it’s a formality that we typically address on the day of arrival, but yesterday was such a delightfully busy day, we never had the opportunity to.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Edith said.

  “The inspection, of course.” Cullins held up a large magnifying glass as if it were some inarguable credential or perhaps a magic wand. “As part of my charter as port master, I must inspect each ship that docks here. I assure you, it won’t take a mo—”

  “No,” Edith said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “No, you can’t inspect my ship.”

  The port master’s confidence cracked. “But … but it’s the law.”

  “Let me be very clear,” Edith said, relishing the moment of revenge upon this man who’d once shot at her as if she were a feral dog. She plucked the magnifying glass from his grip. Holding the thick lens in the palm of her engine, she closed the pistons of her fingers until the glass popped with a glittering spray. “If anyone attempts to board my ship, I will blast this port and every man in it from the face of the Tower.” She handed the deformed instrument back to him.

  The port master’s mustache dribbled as he numbly examined his ruined glass.

  He did not resist when she brushed past him and parted his men with her gaze.

  When she arrived at the patchwork palace, the doorman invited her to wait in the Queen’s Foyer while he announced her and discovered the king’s wishes.

  The Queen’s Foyer was walled in quartz as translucent as pig fat. The floor was swamped with decorative poufs and floor pillows. Not wishing to squat, Edith sat upon the only available bench, a high-backed, unpadded affair, with her tricorne in her lap. She was forced to fend off repeated attempts by maids and butlers to bring her refreshment o
r diversion. She refused tea, a copy of the morning post, a full breakfast, hot chocolate, a selection of pastries, a book of amusing limericks, a second breakfast, and a bottle of champagne. With each successive offer, Edith’s answer grew more and more curt until at last she stopped speaking altogether and just glared at the unfortunate hallboy who offered her a massage.

  After an hour’s delay, the doorman invited her to return that afternoon when King Leonid would no longer be indisposed.

  Through gritted teeth, Edith said, “Please tell His Majesty I’m happy to wait for as long as it takes for him to keep his word.”

  Five minutes later, the doorman returned to announce that King Leonid was ready to receive her.

  Edith followed the doorman through the palace’s overfilled chambers. Frequently and without prompting, her guide would pause to point out some object of interest, which of course required exposition to fully appreciate: “That harp was a gift of the King of Nuxor, repaired by the royal harp maker, Blankenburg, after it was damaged in a fire. The stones of that hearth were donated by the Earl of Kowert from his land on the shores of the Ferrian Sea, and had been laid by the peerless master mason, Filipe Tucker.”

  After enduring several of these asides, Edith finally interrupted the doorman and said, “Look, I understand that you’ve been told to delay me for as long as possible. But I have already waited half the morning. Can we please dispense with the charade?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Leonid said from the doorway of an adjoining sitting room. The king wore a black waistcoat, rolled shirtsleeves, and striped trousers. The wild fringes of his hair were brushed down. He looked more like a bank clerk on his lunchbreak than a regent. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Captain Winters. Would you please join me on the gallery?”