Sunrise revealed the desert covered by the white tents of The People’s Army spread out into the distance in neat rows and columns. At their center was a small cluster of disorganized black Wayfarer tents.
The only sign of the imminent arrival of the army the day before had been the assembly of a tower. Bars of thin, clean metal had been carried up from an arriving barge. Some of the Western City inhabitants had come out to see what the black-dressed bargemen had been doing. The people of the remote outpost city had never seen a tower constructed. The large components were carried up slope from the canal slung between teams of men, slid together to exact fit and measure, then stood upright under the guy wires of a tug balloon. The tower had been constructed in a few hours.
The ambassador’s airship hung there now, a cloud of billowing cloth on a skeleton of gleaming metal drifting a few bounds above the desert floor.
Three adults and a child gazed up at the airship.
One of the women was very tall and willowy thin with the light tones of the eastern dancers. She held an unstrung bow of giant steel in one of her four arms. The small woman beside her had cat’s eyes, slit pupils over a feline muzzle. Her skin was spotted, and her long dark hair fell in ringlets around her face. The ends of her arms and legs were formed from the blue plasteel of a droid. The third adult of the group was a man built short and solid. He wore a section of armour that draped one shoulder and arm. His helmet was sturdy, rimmed, and fitted with a visor, and a blunt weapon hung from his belt. They all wore the short capes of the Wayfarers.
The Wayfarer camp lay scattered behind them, dwarfed by the white, orderly rows of a massive army that trailed off into every horizon except towards the south. There stood the deep cool line of the canal water, and on the opposite side, the slab buildings in the drab stone of the Western City.
The morning sun cupped deep curves of shadow into the dunes. Smoke trails from the array of army breakfast fires filled the sky with smudged columns.
“This is it then.” It was the girl that spoke. The child that had her own tent and wielded the staff of the Wayfinder.
“When you do sleep, it will be a bad awakening.”
“Don’t be silly, Brik. I have my book.” She patted the lump wrapped in her sash.
“There are so many of them.” The extremely tall woman, Long Molly, had one of her four arms raised to shield her eyes from the rising sun. Her voice was soft, with only a hint of sound like she had difficulty speaking. “There must be some way they sustain themselves.”
“More secrets,” Brik said with scorn.
“Evil secrets,” Long Molly added.
The young girl placed her hand on the tower staff. The shielding around their camp dissolved, and she pulled the tall, thin crystal from where it had been driven into the sand the night before.
Behind them, cloaked figures rose and moved quickly inside the sprinkle of tents to start their own meagre breakfast. The drift lizards flocked nearby, already awake and munching on the dry husks of sand vines that grew out of the canal.
The girl handed the staff up to Tall Molly. When she did so, the crimson glow from deep within it went dark.
“Bring no weapons other than this. Brik, wear your armour. Biter, they will suspect nothing of you.”
“But they will be cruel to Molly and me,” the cat woman said.
“Of course they will. It is their nature,” the child said.
“I can’t believe he has been acting as an agent there all this time. Why have we never known this?” Brik said.
“Because we do our best not to reveal who is helping us, and of course, I couldn’t be sure to keep the memory in my mad head. The high priestess keeps her thumb on everything. If we can accomplish this without revealing anyone…” She thought of how that could be done, and she did not know.
“There will be sacrifices today,” Biter said, mirroring her own thoughts.
“There have been sacrifices all along. You need to keep focused. You wouldn’t be here, Biter, if this was going to be easy, now, would you?”
The cat woman smirked, “No way.”
“Just like we discussed. Bait and switch.” The girl faced the tall woman. “You too, Molly. Both of you will have to play along. Biter is right. They will be cruel. You can’t let them goad you. We make our moves as we discussed. Play along. They should expect nothing until the last moment. When it comes time to really act…”
“Someone is coming.” Biter looked out over the horizon with eyes better than all theirs. “It looks like they have sent the giant for you.”
“Ok. Start the water brigade. Don’t make it too obvious. Leave as many as you can until the end. But only the quick ones till the end. Leave everything else.”
“I don’t like letting the herd go,” Brick said.
“I know. We have to let them go for now. Maybe they can be rounded up later when it is safe.”
“If it’s safe,” he replied with sarcasm.
She reached up and put a small hand on his thickly muscled forearm. “Look, Brik.” She swung her arm around the enemy encampment. “They have so many drift lizards. Even if we can’t collect ours back up, they should move in with the other herd. They will be ok.”
Brick took her words well. He seemed reassured.
She looked at Molly. “Keep the soldiers away from camp. Even if you have to start one of our tents on fire, tell them it’s because of blood infections that our camp is off-limits. Keep them away.”
“We will,” Molly said softly.
“All right, then. Remember, we have to launch both pods. They have brought it all here for us, so we will use this opportunity to strip as much tech away from them as we can. No matter what.”
“We will work together. We will not fail,” Brik replied.
“Biter, please walk with me.” The girl turned, and her and the cat woman made their way towards the enemy encampment.
The tall woman and the short man watched them go.
Brik shook his head. “This seems so strange. I can’t believe we’re walking into the mouth of the beast.”
Long Molly was holding the staff uncomfortably. “You always worry so much, Brik.”
“That’s because it’s my job,” he replied. “And don’t stand there holding the bloody staff like it’s a water snake,” Brik said. “You can bet everyone in that airship is watching us. You have to hold it like she does. Like you’re used to it.”
The tall woman shifted, stood more casually, and let the long crystal staff lean against her shoulder.
“I have never actually touched it before. I was always so afraid of it,” she mumbled.
“You should be afraid of it. Look at what it did to her.”
They watched the girl walk into the enemy encampment. “She hands such power off so nonchalantly.”
“It is something she no longer thinks about,” Brik said.
“Maybe she no longer has the ability to think about it,” Molly replied.
“Yes. There is that, isn’t there.”
The girl and the cat woman walked a way towards the enemy encampment before the girl began to speak.
“Biter. I need you to concentrate today. Brik and Molly are gentle souls. They have no harm in them where you have plenty in you. You can’t lose your head when we are in the airship. This is why you are here. Without you, we can’t do this. Brik and Molly can take care of the others. Once we’re done here, the high priestess has people like you working for her. Find them. Work with them, and beware, The People have their own assassins.”
“You can rely on me,” the cat woman said. “I won’t let anyone distract me. And I will be careful. You be careful, and don’t lose that book,” she said and stopped her strides before they approached too close to the army tents. She would not be welcomed there.
The girl continued on and walked into the shadow of the airship. The people’s army and their white tent lines stood across the desert on either side of the airship, arranged and organized in precise columns and rows.
The girl started up the broad avenue bordered by the tents. She unwound a small bound book and a stub of charcoal from her sash.
The soldiers gathered around their morning cooking fires gave her barely any notice. With a rattle of heavy chain and a loud shriek, a bull lizard crested the ridge up the boulevard in front of her.
Astride the bull lizard sat Field Marshall Daktor. He was a giant man wearing heavy armour and helm. Bull lizards were three times the size of female drift lizards, and rare. The bulls controlled territories of thousands of females, and to meet another bull was certain death for one of them. This bull lizard had been captured and chained with hobbles so that the field marshall could use it as a mount. No other man could have done such a thing. No other man possessed the strength to do it.
Field Marshall Daktor was feared throughout the entire valley. He led his cavalry of shock troops from atop his mount on a swarm of female lizards. He drove the bull in its chains and hobbles, and the females would follow. He allowed only the best foot soldiers to become his cavalry. With the lizards, they could cover the distances in the valley with the speed of a storm far out ahead of the normal cavalry of men mounted on the clockwork horses. His men were elite, light, and fast and known for their brutality. Each man swore fealty to the death and was branded on both forearms with a lightning bolt.
Daktor let the chain go slack, and the lizard rushed towards her with the fluid rattling of metal links.
In a wash of sand, the beast and its rider rushed down the narrow clearing toward the girl. She had stopped walking and stood her ground, sketching as the beast rushed towards her. She glanced up and then back to her book, where she made more marks with her stick of coal.
From the rushing approach, the sand began to thump beneath her feet. The steel-wrapped lizard jangled, links of chain clashing as it ran. The marshall gave the lizard its head, and it bounded closer. Alarmed soldiers shouted for her attention, thinking an unheeding child was about to be run down. At the last moment, the marshall heaved back on both heavy chains, and the beast scratched to a stop, barely a stride to her front. He stood tall in the saddle to see her better.
The lizard’s muzzle turned to sniff at her. Entirely unconcerned, the girl slipped the book away and reached up and patted the massive nose. Chains kept the jaws wrapped shut, but a tongue like a longsword flicked the surrounding air.
“Child! Get out of the way!”
“But I was drawing you in my book. This is something I should not forget. Meeting the great Field Marshall Daktor.” She patted the lizard. “What is his name?”
“It has no name,” the giant said, settling back into his saddle.
“Well, that’s silly. Everything has a name. Even the clouds have names.” She patted the muzzle again. The lizard made a rumbling sound deep in its throat.
“Stop that,” the marshall said.
She was surprised to find his voice pleasant. Melodious. Like a singer.
“Why? He likes it.”
“No, he doesn’t. Without his chains, you would have been killed.”
“Someday, all of us will be killed. This is not my ‘someday.’”
“Get out of the way, you foolish girl.” She thought she could hear a smile in his voice. “If it weren’t for how precious children are, I would have run you down. Which one of these soldiers is your father? I will have the man whipped.” His helm turned from side to side. The soldiers that had been watching from the tent lines had already melted away.
“These soldiers don’t belong to me,” she replied and scratched the lizard again. Making a soft chortling sound, he nuzzled her hand.
“I said to stop that.” The marshall tugged on the heavy chains. “Wherever it is that you belong, go there. I tire of your presence.”
“I was just doing that before you got in my way. I was going to the ambassador. He came to see me. Isn’t his airship pretty?” She pointed up and behind the marshall. “All white and billowy. I have never seen one before.”
“You?” Daktor asked with surprise in his voice. “You are the leader of the Wayfarers. Are you the Wayfinder? The one they call Camps. Ma’am Camps?”
“Today I am,” she said and grinned up at him. This was met by a long silence from the saddle. The lizard shifted under him.
“Your answer is evasive. The Wayfinder carries the crystal tower staff. If you are the Wayfinder, then where is your tall crystal tower staff?”
“It’s really heavy. I left that back at camp.” She turned and gestured to the three figures in the distance.
The marshall looked at the small group. “Do you wield the staff?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“Field Marshall… Never mind. The ambassador wants to see you, but first, I will take you to the counsellor.” He extended an armoured arm down to her, hand open. “Come,” he commanded. A flood of fear rushed through her. She had not expected to be taken to the counsellor.
Does he suspect something? She wondered. Too late now… I have to play my part. Concentrate and calm down.
“You mean I get a ride!” She clapped her hands and reached for the offered hand.
He deftly pulled her up and set her behind him as if weightless. With a nudge from the chains the bull lizard spun and veered off to its left to follow a gap in the tents down towards the canal.
“We could call him Cloud.”
“What?”
“Your lizard. We could call him—”
“A stupid name.”
“Nosey, then. You’re right. That is better. I will call him Nosey,” she said, patting the thick hide.
He rode them away from the shadow of the airship towards the canal. They crested the sculpted dunes where the vine weeds grew thickest and thundered down to the canal wall. The canal opened up below revealing the ambassador’s flotilla. Clusters of dark barges. Colourful tug balloons with their chutes and gliders had been deflated and collapsed to be folded onto the barges.
Wayfarers had already started the water brigade from their camp down to the pier. They trekked a circle carrying pails and bladders down to the water’s edge and back up to camp. A few men stayed on the pier, dipped water into the pails, and handed them back to the carriers.
The black flotilla of boats was nearly deserted of bargemen, and all the local vessels had moved to moor on the opposite side of the canal along the city wall.
One figure stood below on the dock—a black feathered bird brain in a long cloak with a tall cowl. Over the cloak he wore a long necklace that had been constructed from a ring of small globes.
“The sun climbs in the sky. Hot for a water brigade,” Daktor mumbled to himself. “Why would they not collect water at night?”
“We did start last night. They do it in shifts—those who worked the first shift sleep now. Our herd has been without water for a long time. They will take a great deal of water. And then we have to fill the bladders on some pack lizards to carry it with us when—”
“Enough of your jabbering child. The bird brain waits for you. Get down,” he said and lowered her onto the top of the wall.
She stood and nodded up to the giant.
“Bye, Nosey,” she said, patting the big bull. “Thank you for the ride.”
Descending stairs took her to the pier and out to the bird brain—the counsellor to the People’s ambassador.
How good is his sense of smell? She wondered, will he pick up my scent and remember me?
She marched out onto the dock and, striding up to him, sketched a deep bow. The bird cocked his head jerkily to one side inside his hood. His hood was held up off his shoulders with some type of internal support. His long flowing robe concealed his legs and feet. His eyes studied her from behind his goggles, and she couldn’t help but become tense. After a pause, he reached an arm up towards her, his long sleeve drooping to reveal the skeletal metal arm and bladed fingers. He was an average sized bird brain with the black feathers of his type. It surprised her how gently he was able to grasp her hand. She was close to his necklace now, and she could see he had built it out of optical sensors. A string of dead white spheres. Android eyes. She couldn’t help but flinch at the realization of what they were. Some of them were undamaged, but most of them were streaked with black fissures.
He has blinded all of those beautiful beings, she thought.
He hadn’t let go of her hand but instead stood, his head tilted, and studied her. The wait to see if he could recognize her seemed to go on forever. Finally, he spoke.
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“I instructed Daktor to bring me the Wayfinder, Ma’am Camps.” He dipped his head to sketch a barely discernable bow. His voice was that same unique machine voice he always had. “He is never wrong, so I assume this child before me is the one and only. I will admit that I am surprised to see one so young. Come, Wayfinder, I have many treasures to show you.”
“He let me ride Nosey,” she told him childishly.
“Ah. You must have made an impression on him then if he let you name his bull. Come along, child. The ambassador is eager to present to you his like-minded moral values and convince your people to join him in his ever-present pursuit of diplomacy over force. But before that happens, I need to show you things. Things that I think will bribe you into joining us. Bribery is immediate. Diplomacy can be forever, and we really don’t have that much time.”
He led her across a few interconnecting barges that formed a bridge to his vessel.
“Bribed with what?”
“Indefinite healing. Indefinite power. Indefinite clean water.”
“That sure sounds like a lot of indefinites.”
The bird brain cocked his head at her. Either she had just played with his words very intelligently, or it had been a child’s lack of understanding to create a coincidence of words. He decided that it must have been the second reason.
“So, by your appearance, it must be true that your people truly do pass around the responsibility of the crystal tower staff and the position of leadership,” he said as he walked with her. His boat, the one they now boarded, was the only covered one that she could see in the entire flotilla. It was mostly covered with a long, low-sloped roof instead of the small shack of a normal barge and had barely any exterior decking.
“The Wayfinder Ma’am Camps is always changing. The staff protects all of us.”
He led her through a small, curved door into a darkness that smelled dank and musty.
“So, with these changes, how do you keep the training of the staff and pass on the understanding of it?” he asked.
“We have three counsellors. I guess like you are the counsellor to the ambassador. The counsellors keep the current Wayfinder, I don’t know the right words… knowing things?”
“Up to date. Informed,” he replied.
“Yes. That sounds like it. They tell her what is going on. What she should be concerned about.”
“Is the Wayfinder always a woman then?”
“Yes.”
“Why? Why not allow men to be the Wayfinder?”
“I just don’t ever remember a man being Wayfinder.”
“And you’re not that old. Perhaps a question for your counsellors later, then. What things did they tell you about the staff before you were allowed to wield it?” he asked.
“Probably the same type of things you tell your ambassador about being good and stuff like that,” she replied. He looked at her thoughtfully and then dipped his head toward her, waiting. She continued, “you know, getting to bed on time, washing properly.”
“And possibly how to skilfully deflect questions.” They came to a halt in front of a sturdy-looking metal door. “Let me show you why I brought you here.”
He drew out a key that hung on a delicate chain around his steel wrist. “This vessel is a floating bunker. It was once a chamber from part of the Eastern Tower that we felled years ago. It is sealed. Vaulted. Consider it like a floating redoubt. We had quite the time separating it from the exterior of the tower and accessing it. We had to figure out how to bypass many active and automatic safety systems. Fire suppression, automatic vacuum sealing compartments. Difficult, tricky things that took some time to circumvent.” He swung the door open on heavy hinges. She could see a thick gasket around the door frame as she stepped over the sill.
“I have started locking things. Someone has been coming in, digging through my research. I will make them very sorry when I find out who it is.” He peered down at her and suddenly grasped her arm. She felt a bolt of fear rush through her.
“Watch your step,” he said and stepped over the threshold with her.
The room was long. About three times as long as it was wide, and it had a peculiar shape to it. The ceiling and floor of the room curved together to meet at the ends. She thought it was like standing inside a metal seed pod. Everything in here was constructed of some type of metal.
Structures and components from the tower, like he said.
The metal seemed ageless. There was no rust on it, no pitting. It was perfect, like brand new, but it was not the room that interested her. It was its contents.
She had been told of this room, but she had never believed the full extent of the story. She had never seen so much technology or pieces of technology in one place. Electronic components, metal boards dotted with cables, motors, wiring, and weapon components were laid out on benches and stacked on the floor in piles around them.
No wonder so few have any tech for trade these days. He has it all, she thought.
“I imagine you have never seen such marvels,” he said as he made his way around a bench. She could see tools and devices for working on tech that had a complexity like she had never seen before. “I have been studying, disassembling, and repairing these components and weapons that were constructed in the before times. Powerful things to help The People populate the valley all the way to the world’s edge.
He beckoned her. She could tell he was excited. Even through the electronic-sounding voice, she could hear it. He spoke more rapidly.
“Here. Step up here and look. I want you to see what I have been most recently working on. I think you should be able to understand the significance of it and why your people should join us.” She climbed up onto the bench. Between them lay a component assembled from many other smaller components. Tech broken into pieces, but now, the way he had them connected into a cube, it seemed they all had once been a part of a single thing. All the parts surrounded a small clear chamber.
“Now, don’t be startled. I’m going to power it.” The blade fingers reached for two long wire leads, and using the small clips at their ends, he attached them to two large gold coils. The small chamber began to glow. “Do you know what this is?” he asked her excitedly.
“No.” And that was partially a lie. She did not truly know what the strange cube was, but she had been told that his power source in his floating laboratory was the large gold coils.
“It is a molecular water pump. It can make water out of… well, seemingly nothing, but I think it comes out of the trace moisture in the atmosphere. I have done testing, isolating possible other sources, and it is the only one I think that is left.” He unhooked the leads, and the chamber went dark. “It would greatly ease the burden of a water brigade. I am not far from completely repairing it. But I need more droids.”
“Droids?”
He turned and swept his arm behind him. She turned. On more distant tables in the shadows of the room were disassembled droids—dozens of them or more. The shock of seeing so many disassembled droids, their bare, smooth mannequin bodies and limbs torn and smashed, stopped her breath. It was a pile of death and wire. It was the same as seeing a pile of butchered human bodies.
She realized he was studying her, and she masked her feelings as best she could. His jerking bird head, those creepy eyes ogling her from behind the goggles. He was gauging her response. He had intentionally surprised her to see how she would react. At that moment, after all this time, she realized he had become an evil thing, and it disgusted her.
“I take as many droids as we find. The clockworks, well, that is another matter. I take the old ones that had maintained the river. Many of the places they used to work are now maintained by The People and our slaves. The clockwork horses would be another fabulous source of material, but the field marshall won’t let me touch the cavalry.” The counsellor continued to study the unsettled look she wore. “You don’t think their sacrifice is worth the technological gains to The People?”
“They scare me. I hope none of them are alive?” she said. She knew the shock was still in her voice, and she hoped her answer to mask it as fear would work. “They used to come to our camp. Before I was born, the old ones spoke to me of them. They said they were emotionless. They would take what they needed. They didn’t care what harm they would do by taking our things. They didn’t care if it caused death. They would just take things and leave.”
He canted his head when she finished speaking and paused a few moments before answering. “I see. Well, you have nothing to worry about here. You do not need to be fearful. All of them are most definitely no longer animated.” He walked around to the pile of droid parts. “You see, I need them for their power sources. They are rare, and when we pulled the eastern tower down, it crashed into the sea. We can only access what is not submerged by boat. Anything that we were able to strip from the outer chambers of the eastern tower didn’t come with power cells. The central tower we tried to reach but we can’t get through the storms. It’s at the world’s edge. Nearly inhospitable. So the droids, we capture every one we see, and they are brought here to me so I can pull them apart. Some of the clockworks, the ones we don’t need, the ones we can replace with slaves, I break up to be able to use their larger components. The droids though…” He picked up a broken leg, its filaments waving in the air like blood vessels. “They have some sort of repairability and I am trying to discover exactly how it works.”
“Of course. Such research is very important. The secret to healing.”
“And the Wayfarers, with all the tech we possess, do you not see? You have no choice but to join us. With you and your tower staff at our side, we will gain complete access to the cities of glass. The People will take the technology within and do with it as we see fit.”
He didn’t keep her in his chamber of horrors for much longer, and once she was back outside on the ship deck, she was able to pretend it was a joy to have been shown such marvels. And it had been. She had seen where he kept his key.
They had taken her to the airship with the towering armoured Daktor on one side of her and the small, cloaked counsellor on the other.
As they approached, two soldiers stood to their front and saluted with their batons. A section of decking had been lowered from the airship. It looked like a small barge with a tether line on each corner that ran up to disappear into the ship above.
As she stepped onto it, she clapped with glee as the deck lifted.
“This is so exciting!” she said. “Magic!”
They were pulled up inside the airship. The superstructure enveloped them with its white billowy cloth. Thin gauzelike curtains acted as walls. She thought they may have been white spider silk from the Eastern City, but she was not sure. As they cleared the lower decking and continued up inside the ship, she could see everything had been lashed down and secured against winds.
The field marshall had noticed her interest in how things had been secured.
“It’s like a flying tent,” she said.
“Very much so,” Daktor replied. “It is magnificent. And it is only a taste of the power that we bring to the western valley.”
The platform settled at the lowest deck of the airship. She marvelled at what she saw around her. The ship was, surprisingly… “insubstantial. She thought might be the right word. It was taut wire and cables that ran between decks. Most of the steel structure was silver perforated with hollowed-out areas, like a bird’s skeleton.
To their front stood another set of guards, and between them, further back from the ship deck, stepped a slightly built man.
“You’ll find it looks familiar, I imagine,” the small man said. He had a drawl when he spoke—slow, even tones.
He wore simple robes that were clasped with a large round silver medallion over his heart. It was a direct copy of the silver orb that decorated the Sister’s masks.
Pretentious, she thought. He is actually wearing the symbol of the foretelling on his chest.
His robe left his arms and legs bare, tanned and thinly muscled. She had never met the ambassador before, but he had been described to her. Not so much the weasel face as people had said, but smaller than she had expected. He was long from being young, but she could see how athletic he once would have been.
He tapped the clasp on his chest. The foretold was to arrive swathed in the silver metal of the before time. She knew this, but she played innocent.
He is expecting some form of prostration from me.
His expectant look changed to a doubtful one.
“Counsellor, Field Marshall.” He turned to them with a pained expression. “She is obviously a child. This is foolishness. She obviously doesn’t know. Are you sure she is the…”
“Ambassador.” She bowed, interrupting him. “Please forgive me. I have become overwhelmed at meeting you for the first time, and this ship is simply glorious. These beautiful white shimmering curtains.” She held her bow, then continued speaking, acting the fool. “I have never ‘floated’ like this. This must be what it is like to be a god in the clouds.” She opened her arms like wings, pretending she was a bird, and then stood in front of him, smiling. “As a Wayfarer, I offer you the protection and hospitality of our camp and a day’s water.” She nodded solemnly.
He stepped closer to her. She sensed there was something unsettled about him—a hint of something she could not place.
“Why, what a fine speech from one so young,” he said, smiling down at her. “And never mind with that desert Wayfarer foolishness. You do not need to make an oath of hospitality to be friends. These are new times. We are not enemies. There are no enemies here. Would you like anything I can offer? Perhaps some cold, clean water?”
She smiled back. “Thank you. You are so kind, but I was already able to do so many exciting and new things today. I got to ride Nosey. I got to see the counsellor’s boat, and I got to be in this marvellous airship. What else could I hope for? I will always remember this day.” She spun in a pirouette and gazed into the heights of the airship above.
“Nosey?” the ambassador asked aside to the counsellor and field marshall.
“What she calls the bull,” the counsellor replied.
“This is foolishness,” The field marshall said angrily. “I don’t care if it is their representative. It is a child, and their traditions are foolish. We have their camp surrounded. We need to move on to phase two.”
She stood staring up into the superstructure.
I can not make out the positions of the escape pods from here. They must be secured much higher above.
“Is the field marshall correct? Are you just a foolish child, my dear?” The ambassador crouched down in front of her.
She met his gaze. “I ask the glorious Field Marshall Daktor for my forgiveness, but no, I’m not just a simple child. I also happen to be the Wayfinder. And they have asked for your permission to go.”
“Who has asked permission to go where?”
“Why, the Wayfarers, sir. They want to leave.”
“And they have always had that!” His tone was light, friendly. It felt almost warm to her. But there were those eyes of his. They spoke of… something. Was it a drug? Was he intoxicated? “But they can wait a few moments for your return, can they not? Please, let me show you my vessel. We will talk, I will make proposals. We will have a discussion. And if you still want to go afterwards, you may do so. Does that sound reasonable?”
“Thank you, Ambassador. I appreciate your kindness. I would love to see more of your ship.”
“I honestly don’t know what you expected of me.” He stood, and, leading her by the elbow, took her deeper into the vessel. “But it sounds like you and your Wayfarers fear The People. When have we ever attempted to deny anyone of being free? There are no records of it, I assure you, and that is simply because everyone that meets the envoy of The People wishes to join with us. The desert spreads lies about us. No one needs our permission.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but someone came to our camp in the night. Told us you were going to take the Wayfinder’s staff.”
He brought himself up short, with mock surprise; fingertips splayed on his chest.
“And who said such a thing? I will have them outcast.” He made a gesture like he was in a stage play, throwing his arm away like casting a bobble into the sea. “I simply happen to be in the area and wanted to meet the Wayfinder.” He put his hand on his chest and pulled a sad face. “As simple as that. These rumours they start about me. You know I am just a simple servant of The People. I do their bidding. Much like you do the bidding of your council. We are very much the same, you and me. We are ambassadors of our people in our own little different ways. Doing things only to help them. Guide them. Do you see the similarities?”
“It is all about symbols, I think. Your airship, my staff. Whoever is in control of it is the boss.”
“Of course. Symbols. Very well put for one so young. But please tell me, who has been saying such awful things? Me? Take your staff? Really.” He started walking with her again.
“Your daughter. The princess.”
He chuckled. “Ah. The princess. She is always so eager to please me. What loving daughter wouldn’t want to please their father? I’m sure you were the same with your parents.”
“But we are not enemies.”
“Correct!” he declared. “Only friends!”
“How would you like it if we said we were going to take your things? It’s not very nice.”
“Of course. How improper. I apologize for any affront. I hope you will never take my things. That would be simply awful. What would I do?” He laughed.
“Apology accepted,” she replied.
“Of course.” He patted her arm. “See? We are already such good friends!”
He led her through narrow corridors of metal superstructure and open railings. She couldn’t believe the expense of the ship. The wire filaments running throughout the ship were more wire than she had ever seen in her entire life—the white silk and then the actual superstructure from one of the towers. The resources spent on this ship would have fed the Wayfarers for a hundred years. The ambassador continued speaking as they walked. “You know, I do admit that I’m interested in the staff. Often, I do prattle on and on about it. It may be a common thing to you, but you are all very secretive about it and few outside the Wayfarers have ever seen it.” She pretended to listen to him by inserting a nod here and there as she continued to study the superstructure above them.
Now, if I can just get this fool to show me those bloody escape pods, she thought.
“I understand why the princess has misunderstood, and I have no doubt she accosted you about it. She can be quite the willful daughter. Tell me, do the Wayfarers decide that only some of their people are offered the protection of the staff, and others are not?”
“Of course not.”
“Because that is not your way, is it?” he said to her as if knowingly guiding a young girl through a difficult train of thought.
“And…”
“And then the question that comes is why is it not offered to those outside the Wayfarers?”
“It is,” she stated matter-of-factly. “I just offered you the protection of our camp.”
“Well. You don’t offer its protection to all The People. To us,” he said, a hurt tone in his voice, his fingers splayed on his chest, and his eyebrows raised.
“That is untrue. Protection and a day’s water is offered to all. It is—”
He cut her off, smiling. “Yes, we know. It is your way. But really, your tradition is to offer to protect me, an individual. My point is… The People, why we carry our name, we are not individuals. We think and do as a group.” He gestured that she continue along with him. The counsellor and the marshall continued behind them. “Why should the Wayfarers keep it? Why not offer it to everyone of the entire valley? All of the people?”
“Because it was given to the Wayfarers so they could travel and trade in the wastes freely. To spread peace, understanding, and harmony. To carry compassion and consideration, to communicate. To remember the way of The Great Reclamation of the valley for all its beings.”
“You recite your lessons well, little girl. And you think we also don’t remember the ways? You and I want the same thing. Why would I not be one to help you with this burden? We could join our people and work in harmony to reclaim the land.”
“That is not my decision to make.”
“It sounds to me you’re not really the boss then, are you?”
“I only want to do the right thing, Ambassador.”
“Well then, that leads perfectly into the proposal we have for you. Come and spend your time with us, with The People. They would give you their protection. We could join forces. Help protect you and the staff. You would no longer be on your own. We could offer you our support.”
Their conversation had led them to the base of a set of stairs. The stairs were wide and shallow, almost like a metal dais. They climbed to higher levels of the airship.
Good, she thought, closer to where the pods may be.
“The Wayfarers would remain free?” she asked.
He stopped and raised his arms indignantly. “Again, I don’t understand this question of freedom. How The People gained such a stigma? All are free, of course, just as The People are free.” He climbed the stairs beside her. “Just think, one big family, your council could join our counsellor.” He smiled and nodded to her with those dead eyes. She finally realized they were the eyes of an addict. She had seen those eyes before.
They had completed their climb to the uppermost deck.
Here, the thin sheers had been drawn back, and a breeze drifted in from the open vista of the desert all around them. Far to the north, the filament of the tower appeared like a hair-thin seam from the tip of the pyramid straight up into the blue sky. The counsellor’s feathers were being ruffled by the wind. The railings were all that stood between them and a drop to the distant desert floor. This deck of the airship stretched across its full length and width. The heavy tread of the field marshall’s armoured boots thudded across it.
She could see that guy wires suspended the decks from the central metal core. She traced their paths further upwards and saw where they finally connected to an oval of steel that hung far above. The narrow end of the oval clutched one pod at the front and one at the rear.
Like blue stones on the opposite sides of a headband.
“You must have never seen such technology before,” the ambassador said, watching her.
She walked forward as if mesmerized.
No ladders or stairs. We will have to climb…
“Everything seems so magical. Are they what makes your pretty ship float like a balloon?”
“Yes. We took them off the Eastern Tower.”
“What are they? I have never seen…” she began, then stopped herself. She remembered she looked and spoke with a child's voice right now. Of course, a child would never have seen such things. “… something so magical. Not even the staff has the power of these things.”
That was better—all true, she thought, and add in a little bait.
“They came to the surface of the ocean after the tower was submerged. They had pulled this metal ring up with them, most likely ripped away from the station. The counsellor has described them to me as balloons made of metal.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know how that would work.”
“We think they are some type of escape pod,” the counsellor said. “Internally, they have compartments for people and are attached with electronic locking mechanisms. I assume, in the event of an emergency, the tower failing, or what have you, they were built to provide a safe haven and escape. Also, when not in use but still attached, they would naturally provide buoyancy. Ingenious, is it not?”
“How do you know what they look like inside?” she asked.
“They have viewports. We shone the brightest lights inside them. We studied them. We learned,” the counsellor said. “Such scientific abilities we would offer your people if you joined with us.”
“I’d really like to see the inside of one. It must be marvellous. Like what the inside of a tower must be like. What would it be like to see the inside of a tower, I wonder. That is the most marvelous thing, I think, that anyone could ever see. To see inside one of those things may give a hint of what that would be like.”
“I understand the counsellor gave you a tour of his laboratory today. You should consider yourself lucky. Very few are allowed that privilege. I’m sure if you joined us, like the counsellor says, at some point, that would be possible.”
“Yes. I could shine the strong lights and show you inside them.”
“You could learn many things if he was one of your counsellors. He is extremely intelligent,” the ambassador said.
“Ah. I see…” she replied, dipping her head in thought.
“What is the problem, young one?” he asked.
“Well, it’s just that I thought I’d have more time to consider this. Joining you. It does sound like the proper thing, and I would like to learn so much about so many magical things. But I’m still unsure.”
“What is there to be unsure about? You’d be safe with us.”
“I’m sure I would. It’s just, well, it’s not my decision to make. I’m unsure if the council would allow it. If I could show the Wayfarers and our counsellors… if you could show them your ship, it may be a way...”
“And why have they not already joined us?” the ambassador asked.
There was a long pause as she seemed to consider.
“Tell them to bring the staff,” the counsellor said, guessing her worry. “It is ok, child. It will be safe here. The ambassador gives his promise of protection.”
“Of course. My promise,” the ambassador replied solemnly.
“And they will have a tour of the ship,” the counsellor said.
“Very well.” The ambassador clapped his hands again. “A mutual sign of trust on both parts. Wonderful.” He turned and strode towards the railing and looked down upon the Wayfarer camp. “Which ones are they? The ones you need to win the favour of?”
She joined him, pointed, and waved. “The ones there with the tall woman.”
“Ah, I see. And she holds your staff. She challenges you for your position in the camp?”
“I don’t think so.” She didn’t sound very confident.
“Well, it’s not the way I see it. Maybe you need my help, and you don’t even realize it. Field Marshall, bring them aboard and ensure they have the staff with them. And that tall one, Field Marshall, maybe a bride for you!” he said with a chuckle that didn’t match his dead eyes.