“This is the Maiden’s Fancy?” Kale Anton narrowed his eyes and stared at the poster in his hands. “That can’t be right. Your advertisement said it was the best airship on Drelven.”
“On Drelven, boy. On.” Beneath a gigantic walrus mustache, a surprisingly thin man grinned. The smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Those other airships? They’re over Drelven or at Drelven. The Maiden’s Fancy is on Drelven, and on Drelven, it’s the best. Now, you said you had the five hundred crowns?”
“Aye, I do,” Kale said. Instead of pulling out his money, though, the young man stared at the ship. Its myst condenser was completely missing. Its wreckage--that which had no value, at least–was scattered across the semi-flat, grassy field where it’d been wrecked. Surprisingly, the sloop’s two engines still seemed mostly intact. Years of salvaging hadn’t touched them. Then again, Kale thought, it wasn’t like they had a moving shipwright on Drelven, and Brelven wouldn’t ever loan theirs out.
The hull itself wasn’t much better. The brass reinforcement down the ship’s keel held it together–mostly, but missing boards and moss growing up those still there attested to its long rest. The railings had shattered in the landing, and the bow was stove-in.
The Maiden’s Fancy, he decided, was not his fancy. But it’d have to do.
Just not for that price.
“I’ll give you three hundred. I’ll need to hire ship rats or bring a skywright to get her up and flying. There’s too much work for just me,” Kale said.
“Aw, come on. She’s the best ship on Drelven!” The man cajoled. “She’s worth at least four hundred seventy-five.”
Kale stared at him, hand at his side, right above where a sword would hang if he were armed.
“Alright, four hundred fifty. I’m doing you a favor, boy.”
He fiddled with his purse strings and looked the man in the eye. “I’ll pay three hundred seventy-five. Not a wheel more. She’s not worth that, but you’re doing me a favor, as you said.”
The mustached man stopped talking. He fiddled with the keys on his wrist while his myst battery ticked. Then, after a moment, he nodded slowly and pulled the starter from his pockets. “Alright, Skipper, you have yourself a ship. Let’s see your coin.”
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“Dammit!”
Kale kicked at the jury-rigged myst condenser. It wasn’t on a mast. That was the problem. If it wasn’t on a mast, it didn’t matter if it was a Type Four coil/Type Thirty-One rig like the skywright said a sloop needed. It just wouldn’t pull enough myst!
He’d gotten the repulsors running, and the engines functioned at ‘Ahead Slow.’ But the damn Maiden’s Fancy wouldn’t lift off the ground to use that functionality. It just didn’t have the myst condensation. And without a skywright’s shop or a dock, he couldn’t work on getting a mast installed.
He just couldn’t solve the problem. And the night was coming fast.
He pulled the starter from the ship’s wheel and climbed off her deck, shoulders slumped. He should have been paid to take the derelict airship off that man’s hands! He shouldn’t have agreed to buy the wreck in the first place! It’d have been cheaper to book passage to Seapike and commission a cutter than to try and get the Maiden’s Fancy skyworthy.
He flipped open his journal as he walked up the steps toward Drelven’s town. The evening wind whipped at the pages until a leather strap secured them on the sketch he wanted.
The floor plan of the Silent Skipper.
The problem was obvious. A cutter wouldn’t be big enough to support [Pirate King] Kerr’s unique engine. Even on board the massive two-mast ship, it’d taken up a whole room, and they’d had to load the Silent Skipper funny to compensate for its weight. A cutter wouldn’t have the lift to carry it and any cargo–or treasure–to speak of. A sloop would be better, so he’d bought one. Now he’d have to live with that choice.
He turned the page. The silver engine’s sketch was crude. It wouldn’t be enough to replicate it. But he’d at least gotten a few good looks at Kerr’s masterpiece–and he’d had his hand on the pocket watch before. Surely, if the old maniac could do it, Kale could too. Right?
He walked through Drelven’s gate and flipped the pages to a sketch of the Maiden’s Fancy he’d made. His legs burned from the constant upward stairs, but he didn’t stop until he pounded on the skywright’s door.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
It opened to a gray-bearded man. He stared at the ex-pirate, eyes narrowing. “Again, Skipper Anton? The Maiden’s Fancy is a fool's errand. I’ve looked at your sketches and listened to what you said. She’ll never fly again, and she’s not worth the cost to salvage. That’s why I wouldn’t let you have my ‘prentices. Now get going. Find a job on board a Principalities ship, or fly for Gibson. Just stop bothering me.”
Kale stuck his boot into the door, earning another glare, which he ignored. “Please, Wright Thomas. I got the engines and repulsors functional. They run myst through them, just like they’re supposed to. I just need to figure out the condenser. Can you run one with no mast to hold it?”
“Eoghan, save me from fools like this,” the skywright muttered. “Show me the damn sketch.”
Together, they pored over the Maiden’s Fancy. Kale pointed out his fixes, earning eye-rolls and curses from the wright. Then, he got to the root of the problem. “The mast is snapped at the hull. I bought the parts from you–”
“I know. I was there.”
“--but I think there’s not enough air for the condenser to condense up close to the hull, and I can’t get a mast on where she’s sitting. If you have any advice, I’d appreciate it,” Kale finished, looking hopeful.
“No. You can’t get myst without air. Lots of air. You’d need at least fifteen feet of clearance. You don’t have it, so the Maiden’s Fancy can’t move. I’m sorry, Skipper Anton,” the wright said. He almost looked apologetic. Almost. “Now, get out. It’s closing time, and my wife expects me before the Sable Tide comes out.”
Kale's shoulders slumped again as the skywright ushered him out and shut the door. He yawned, trying not to let himself cry. He was so close. But if the wright said it wasn’t possible…maybe it wasn’t.
He returned to the hostel he’d been staying at and threw himself onto his bunk. He’d long gotten used to the way the bunks didn’t sway back and forth like a hammock in the Silent Skipper’s hold, but it still took him far too long to get to sleep. There had to be a way for the Maiden’s Fancy to fly again. There just had to be.”
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The morning dawned gray. Clouds hung low around Drelven’s summit–and below the town, as well. Kale stomped through fresh, sticky mud toward a little shop. At least the rain had cut the myst-smell from the air.
Kale opened the door. A little bell tinkled, and a tricorn-wearing man looked up from his clockwork project. “Mister Anton, you’re just in time. I’m putting the finishing touches on your pocket watch now. Feel free to watch the assembly.”
Kale sat down and quietly watched as the man’s hands deftly fitted together the brass casing and installed the glass over the watch’s face. It wouldn’t do to interrupt the man, he thought. Watch-making was a delicate process.
The man, however, didn’t stay quiet for long.
“So, the escapements here, they run the watch’s hands. It’s odd, though. Most watches only want three hands, not five. In any case, though, the extra escapements and the gear train to run them did fit inside the case you asked for. That’ll be a truly unique-looking watch. Are the other hands for keeping track of the time elsewhere? I built it with that in mind.”
“Um, yes,” Kale said. In truth, he didn’t know what the other hands were for. [Pirate King] Kerr’s watch had had five, so his had five as well. “What about extra space inside? I’ll be flying to different places with different temperatures. Things expand and get smaller.”
“Yes, there’s plenty of space inside the pocket watch’s case for temperature shifts, Mister Anton. Now, I have to say, the cog pattern is unique. So is the exposed threading on the back. Are you sure you don’t want me to cap that with something? It’d protect the mechanism better and be easier to keep clean.”
“No, thank you. It’s the way I want it.”
The tinker tightened the screws until the casing was fully installed. “Now, a chain. You asked for a myst-port in the watch. We can run some conduit up the chain and connect it to a battery. It’d be safer that way and, quite frankly, prettier. But more expensive.”
Kale considered. After a moment, he nodded. “Do that.” He didn’t have anything to lose, after all. The watch was the most important thing if the Maiden’s Fancy was truly unsalvageable.
An hour passed. Kale tried to tune out the tinker as best as possible, but the man asked too many questions. He found himself growing more and more frustrated, both with the ship he’d bought and with the man’s grating voice. “I’m going to step out for a moment. I need fresh air, away from your myst,” he said at last, standing and opening the door with a familiar tinkling bell.
He lit his pipe and stood on the narrow, mud-spackled porch above a street quickly becoming a river. He’d spent almost every coin he’d recovered from one of Kerr’s old hiding spots–not a great treasure, but it should have been enough. He’d have to work aboard a Gibson ship for years to make enough to buy a good sloop. He’d never find Kerr’s real treasure like this.
“Anton! Skipper Anton!”
He turned. A street rat plowed through the flowing mud, wading toward him. As the kid got closer, he realized it was a girl–beneath the dirt, she wore a wrights’ apprentice uniform.
“The wright thinks he found a way to get your ship myst. Not much, but maybe enough,” the ‘prentice shouted through the deluge.
His heart rose, and he smiled. That old bastard hadn’t given up on him after all. The Maiden’s Fancy might yet fly!
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Kale Anton looked at the maze of myst flow lines suspended on poles over his head and the condenser parts atop each long shaft. The skywright was a madman, he thought. To break apart the condenser and stick it on a dozen poles? On the ship’s deck?
But it was the best trick he had. Even if the Wright Thomas had warned him that the condenser would likely never work right after, Kale didn’t care. If the ship moved, he’d figure out that bitch later.
The starter slotted into its place. He shifted the altimeter up slightly and pushed it in.
The engines creaked and roared.
The repulsor vents vomited myst.
The moment of truth was upon him. Kale gingerly pushed the ship’s speed dial until it just edged into ‘Ahead Slow.’ And, slowly, with hull groaning and engines screaming in protest, the newly-christened Hourglass rose from the Maiden’s Fancy’s grave.