The Conjuring Man

(A Schooled in Magic Spin-Off)

Book III of III

Book One: The Cunning Man
Book Two: The Infused Man
Book Three: The Conjuring Man

Christopher G. Nuttall

http://www.chrishanger.net
http://chrishanger.wordpress.com/
http://www.facebook.com/ChristopherGNuttall
https://mewe.com/page/5cd32005dc9f631c9973f058

Cover by Brad Fraunfelter

www.BFillustration.com

All Comments and Reviews Welcome!

Contents
Cover Blurb
Prologue I
Prologue II
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven: Dalia of Farrakhan
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One: King Ephialtes of Tarsier
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three: Lilith of House Ashworth
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Afterword
How To Follow
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Cover Blurb

Adam has come far.

From a lowly apprentice, and a powerless one at that, he has discovered a whole new field of magic, combining magic and technology into one, and become the leading light of the university.  His innovations have made many other things possible, from powerful magics anyone can use to hot air balloons and flying battleships.  And the world has changed beyond hope of repair.

And yet, the war is not yet over.  King Ephialtes of Tarsier may have lost one army, but he has others – and secret weapons, capable of keeping his aristocrats in check and eventually destroying the university.  As his own people rise in revolt, and Adam and the rest of the university’s population are drawn ever further into the fighting, an old enemy plots his final moves …

… And the final battle between the old world and the new is about to begin.

As an ancient Earth philosopher once asked, 'what did the last Neanderthal say to the first Cro-Magnon?'
Perhaps nothing was said. Perhaps the Neanderthal simply struck out in abject terror...
...Of that which would replace it.
-Captain Spock, All of Me
Prologue I

Background: The following is a transcript of a speech given by Adam of Heart’s Eye, one year after his discovery of the principles of magitech made him the poster child for magical/mundane cooperation.  The speech was widely distributed and just as widely banned, but this did not stop it from providing impetus to a growing movement to push the limits of magitech as far as they would go.

***
I grew up in a city-state.

Many people say that social mobility is easy within a city-state.  There is some truth to that, but it can be difficult to rise above your station.  Much of your life is determined by an accident of birth.  If your family is rich, you will have all the education and opportunities you could desire; if your family is poor, struggling to keep from drowning in a tidal wave of debt, you will not have the time to study and better yourself.  Lady Emily says that one must spend money in order to make money, which can be tricky if you don’t have the money to spend.

I didn’t.

I wanted to be a magician.  It was unfortunate that I lacked the magic to seek a magical education, or the money that might have transformed me into a theoretical magician capable of devising spells, but never casting them.  I was lucky to win an apprenticeship with a master open-minded enough to give me a chance, yet it seemed impossible I would ever make something of myself.  It was not until I was ... encouraged to travel to Heart’s Eye and study magic there that I found the key to a whole new branch of magic, a magic anyone – from the strongest magician to the weakest commoner – could use.  I could not have had that insight anywhere else.

But it was not just me.  Master Landis took me in and encouraged me to experiment.  My friends Lilith and Taffy helped me to experiment.  Craftswoman Yvonne and Enchanter Praxis assisted in building the tools we needed, often devising newer and better ways to produce them in the process.  I have been credited with founding the field of magitech, but the truth is that it was a joint effort.  Everyone I named and more beside played a role in turning magitech into a workable branch of magic, one that has grown beyond my wildest dreams and continues to grow.  And it could not have happened anywhere else.

Really.  Even this speech is a joint effort.  I didn’t write it on my own.

Lady Emily intended to turn Heart’s Eye into a crucible of innovation.  She laid the groundwork, from freedom of speech and assembly to the gathering of knowledge, insight and resources that powered the development of magitech.  She created a university where mistakes were allowed to happen, as long as you learnt from them, and even outright failures offered data that could be very useful indeed.  She told us that we can always learn from our work, and that we must be sensible and mature and tolerant of those who disagree with us, as long as they are tolerant in return.  She told us that all ideas would be tested, that the golden ideas would shine in the sun, while the bad ideas would shrivel and die under the light of questioning minds.  And she was right.

Freedom, Lady Emily said, is a constant struggle.  And, again, she was right.

Our university is under threat, by those who consider us a threat.  We represent a new way forward, a way for everyone to climb as high as they can ... a threat, to those who fear they will be surpassed by the new.  Their people will look at us, at the glittering civilisation we will build, and ask their rulers why they can’t do the same.  And they can’t, because to defeat us they will have to become us and we will win.

To them, we represent a threat far more insidious than anything they have ever faced.  We are not invaders, bent on conquest.  We are not usurpers, putting our claims to the test of battle.  We are not barbarian hordes or dark wizards or even necromancers.  We are an idea, the idea of freedom and self-determination and the right of a man or woman to work their way to the top, or to have a say in the government of their countries.  We are their worst nightmare given shape and form.  We are a free-thinking people.  They don’t want anyone, from the lowest serf grubbing in the dirt to the armsmen and soldiers who maintain their world, asking why?  Why should they be in charge?

And really, why?

To them, we are an existential threat.  Invading armies can be beaten.  Usurpers can be crushed.  Or, if they win, they’re the rightful rulers all along.  Us?  We are a challenge to their order, a rebuke of their conduct that grows stronger with every passing year.  They must crush us, strangling us in our cradle, before our mere existence crushes them.  They have already waged war on us, sending sorcerers and armies against us.  And they will keep going, because they must.  The alternative is their own people rising up against them.

What is a king, without his regal grandeur?  Just a man.

They don’t want us working together.  They don’t want fisherfolk working with merchants.  They don’t want soldiers working with civilians.  They don’t want magicians working with mundanes.  They don’t want us to work together for fear we will unite against them.  They work so hard to keep us apart, to foment hatred between magicians and mundanes, civilians and soldiers, cityfolk and countryfolk, because they fear what we would do if we united.  And they are right to fear.  

Look at what we have done, here at Heart’s Eye.  Look what we will do, if we have time.

We defeated a sorcerer.  We defeated a king.  I charge you all – wherever you came from, wherever you are going – to remember how we defeated an undefeatable king.  I charge you all to remember what we did and carry it with you when you leave this place.  I charge you all to spread the story far and wide, to tell the world that freedom is within our reach and that we can take it.

We won, through working together.  And I promise you this.

We will win again.

Prologue II

“You lost.”

Master Lance, who had called himself Arnold only a few short weeks ago, didn’t look into the shadows, didn’t meet the gaze of the sending lurking there.  The chamber was as heavily warded as a powerful sorcerer could make it, but he wasn’t particularly surprised that his masters had reached through his defences as if they were as gossamer-thin as a child’s play-wards.  He was bound to them, by oaths of blood and bone, and he could no more escape them than he could cut his own throat.  It wouldn’t save him, if he did.  He’d been told that even the dead served their former masters after they passed beyond.

“A minor setback,” he said, calmly.  “The overall plan proceeds.”

“The king’s armies have been destroyed,” his master said.  “And his sister has declared herself queen.”

“One army,” Lance corrected.  He cared nothing for the men, commoners or aristos, who’d died in the fire.  “King Ephialtes has others.”

“His kingdom is in turmoil,” his master said.  “And all because of a weak little mundane.”

Lance winced at the sarcasm poisoning his master’s tone.  It was deserved.  The average sorcerer wouldn’t have paid any attention to a threat from a mundane, but Lance?  He’d been there when Adam had taken the first fumbling steps towards magitech.  He should have taken steps to ensure Adam could never become a threat, from planting commands in his mind to stealing a sample of blood for a long-distance curse.  And he hadn’t.  And Adam had beaten him, not once but twice.  Lance had to admit he’d made a terrible mistake.  It would have been so easy to break Adam, the second time, or even put a fireball through his head.

“The Allied Lands themselves are in turmoil,” his master said.  “Void has made his bid for supreme power.  His daughter moves against him.  We will never have a better opportunity to secure a foothold, and a nexus point, for ourselves.  Nor will we be able to recover Heart’s Eye, if we don’t move now.”

“There are other nexus points,” Lance pointed out.  “And ...”

His master cut him off.  “There are other nexus points, true, but none of such great importance,” he hissed.  “It is vitally important the nexus point be secured.  The university comes second.”

“Of course, Master,” Lance said, controlling his temper.  He’d have the university and the nexus point and then they would see.  If only his old masters hadn’t called him back to their banner ... he snorted in disgust, remembering how Adam had wanted to be a magician so badly.  Would he have been quite so enthusiastic, if he’d known the price?  “I will not fail you.”

“No,” his master agreed.  There was no attempt to hide the threat in his voice.  “You will not.”

The shadows darkened, then snapped out of existence.  Lance staggered as the presence vanished with them.  His master was strong, too strong.  And yet ... his master knew Lance was plotting against him, but did he realise how far Lance intended to go?  Of course he did ... it was, after all, the only way to rise.  Lance hadn’t wanted to come back, but his master hadn’t given him the choice.  He was lucky he’d had enough freedom to lay his plans in a manner that allowed him to blame the failure on the king.

He straightened, brushing down his robes as someone knocked on the door.  Lance waved a hand impatiently, commanding the door to open.  The serving maid on the other side looked as if he’d frightened her out of her wits.  Or someone else had ... Lance felt his lips thin in disgust.  He’d done a great many horrible things in his time – his style of magic demanded it –but there were limits.  He didn’t do horrible things for the sake of doing them.  King Ephialtes’s new followers, loyalists and mercenaries alike, didn’t seem to have any limits.

“Master,” the girl said, prostrating herself. Her voice shook.  “His Majesty summons ... ah, requests your presence.”

Lance felt a wave of disgust at such weakness, mixed with a droll awareness the girl had no better prospects.  She was small and weak and would never rise any higher ... he wondered, as he dismissed her with a wave of his hand, if she would have done better at Heart’s Eye.  Probably, if she could have gotten there.  Lance wasn’t going to help.  She had nothing to offer him in exchange.

He checked his wards, then strode through the corridor to the king’s private chambers.  The king hadn’t spent any time in his throne room, or even addressing his court, since his armies had been scattered and broken.  Lance knew, despite the king’s best efforts to hide it, that Ephialtes had been having private meetings with his officers, as well as hiring mercenaries and other magicians.  The man wasn’t broken, not yet, but ... Lance shrugged.  Ephialtes would hate it, if he knew, yet the truth was the king meant no more to Lance than the poor little girl.  He was a tool, nothing more.

The maid would probably be more useful, he reflected, wryly.  Certainly in the long run.

“Sir Sorcerer.”  King Ephialtes looked tired, tired and stressed.  A goblet of dark red wine sat on his desk, untouched.  His eyes flickered from side to side even though he’d put a dozen sorcerers to work warding his chamber to the point that even Lance would have trouble taking the wards down without raising the alarm.  “Are you ready to take control of the university for me?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Lance said.  He would take control.  He just wouldn’t hand it over to the king.  “Are your forces ready to move?”

“There are rebels and traitors within my city, within my kingdom,” Ephialtes said.  It was practically a hiss.  “You will assist me in rounding them up, before we proceed.  And quickly!”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” Lance said, smoothly.  There was nothing to be gained – yet – by showing the king precisely how small and helpless he was.  Besides, he was right.  The king now had a challenger, a rival monarch, in the form of his own sister.  Factions that might otherwise submit to the king were weighing the odds, trying to ensure they came out on the winning side.  King Ephialtes needed to strike first.  “I am at your command.”

He bowed, deeply.  And smiled.

Chapter One

“Lady Emily,” Adam said, “is a genius.”

He stood in his workroom, staring down at the collection of notes and spell concepts he’d been given after the end of the siege.  He’d spent the last two weeks going through them, trying to understand it all before adapting the concepts to work with the runic tiles and spell circuits he’d devised, and he was lost in awe for her work.  And yet, there was something distinctly odd about the notes.  He couldn’t put his finger on it, but it was there, something that nagged at his mind.  Something … missing?  He’d asked Master Caleb if he’d extracted papers from the collection before he’d passed them on to Adam, but Lady Emily’s friend and collaborator had insisted the notes were complete.

And yet, it feels as if she left out the working, Adam mused thoughtfully.  As if she jumped from start to finish without bothering to work through the intermediate steps.

Lilith giggled.  “You’ve been marvelling over those notes for weeks,” she teased, lightly.  “Should I be jealous?”

Adam flushed, looking over at her.  It still baffled him, sometimes, why she was interested in him.  She was beautiful, with long red hair that fell over a heart-shaped face and slender body, and she had magic and connections to boot.  Their relationship felt solid and yet flimsy, as if she’d come to her senses any day and abandon him for someone greater.  It was hard to convince himself otherwise, even though they’d been through hell together.  Arnold – the damned traitor – had come close to killing them and destroying the university twice.  Adam knew it was just a matter of time before the rogue magician reappeared a third time.  And who knew what would happen then?

“No,” he said, quickly.  “It’s just that …”

He scowled at the notes.  Lady Emily seemed to have pulled a multitude of concepts out of whole cloth, without going through any developmental stage.  Adam had studied the history of spell design and magical research and he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the final result was always preceded by a multitude of earlier versions that had yet to be perfected.  It held true for steam engines and printing presses and everything else Lady Emily had designed over the last decade – he’d seen the earlier models in the university’s museum – and yet, it didn’t seem to be true for her notes.  It made no sense, not to him.  How had she done it?

“I think her earlier notes never got added to the collection,” he said, finally.  “That’s why there are so many gaps, so many missing pieces of working.”

“Or she didn’t need it,” Lilith countered.  “Quite a few wizards don’t bother to write down details they consider obvious, just to make life harder for anyone who steals their notes.”

Adam wasn’t so sure.  It was true a great many points were never written down, particularly in a sorcerer’s private spellbooks, but anyone who wanted their work to spread to the rest of the magical community had to document and detail everything from the cauldron volume to the hand motions they made while casting spells.  A powerful sorcerer might be able to skip a few steps, by using his magic to fill in the missing places, but there was no way the caster could write down such a spell and expect others to duplicate it.  He felt a twinge of the old envy, the bitterness and resentment he’d tried to bury for so long.  The task before him would have been so much easier if he’d had magic of his own, rather than borrowed background magic.  And yet, he knew he’d done something new.

“Perhaps,” he agreed.  “It’s clear she thought she’d need a nexus point for some of her spells.”

He smiled to himself.  It had taken weeks to bring the runic tiles from a paper concept to something actually workable, and there was still a great deal of research and experimentation to do, but the results were undeniable.  He’d cast spells without magic of his own.  They’d had to adapt the spells to work with the tiles and circuits – a difficult task, even for a trained sorcerer – and not every spell had worked perfectly, but they’d worked.  The world had changed and he’d been the one who’d changed it and … his lips quirked into a smile.  He thought he knew, now, how Lady Emily had felt when her innovations had taken off.  And yet part of him wanted to keep the whole concept to himself.

Too late now, he told himself.  We need the runic tiles to survive.

The thought haunted him.  The university had been lucky to survive the siege.  The enemy army might have been destroyed by the firestorm – the handful of survivors had fled into the desert before the university’s defenders could give chase – but King Ephialtes was unlikely to give up so easily.  His sister was still in the university, still trying to promote herself as an alternative monarch for their kingdom.  Adam had no idea how it would work itself out, but he’d met enough aristos in the last few months to know they were stubborn, stiff-necked and reluctant to concede defeat until they were battered into submission.  They were just too entitled, too convinced of their own right to rule …

He pushed the thought out of his mind as he returned to the spell circuits and started to carve out a new set of runic tiles.  The basic concept had been worked out weeks ago – first on paper and then in the workshops – but the craftsmen needed it as refined as possible before they put them to work.  Adam was thrilled to be part of the airship project and yet … he shook his head.  He didn’t need the glory of flying the airship for the first time.  He’d already flown a hot air balloon over enemy lines, evading their sentries with causal ease.  He could fly on the airship later, when the kinks had been worked out.

And if these runes don’t work properly, the airship won’t survive its first flight, he thought, pushing the next set of carvings into place.  A lone sorcerer will blow it out of the sky with a single fireball.

“Everything has to be flat,” Lilith muttered, a hint of irritation in her voice.  “Why doesn’t it work in three dimensions?”

Adam nodded in understanding.  Lady Emily had drawn on a nexus point.  She’d had enough raw power to force her spellwork into existence, then keep it in place.  They didn’t.  There was a nexus point below their feet, a pulsing source of magic that powered the wards running through the university, but they dared not become dependent on it.  Their spell circuits wouldn’t work outside the walls, if they did.  It was possible to draw on the nexus point through a pair of interlinked chat parchments, but even that had its limits.  Adam wanted – needed – his runic structures to be as independent as possible.

“She probably intended to streamline the concept, once she had the spellwork worked out,” Adam said.  The first printing presses had been crude, to say the least, but the later versions had been much more elegant – and reliable.  “She just never had the chance.”

There was a tap on the door.  Adam looked up, sharply.  There was no one who should be disturbing them.  The university staff had too much else to do, while Taffy – the third of their trio – was working with her fellow craftsmen, trying to get the airship ready for flight before something else happened.  Or working on newer and better weapons.  The university’s sole advantage was the simple fact it was a hotbed of innovation, with magicians and craftsmen constantly looking for newer and better ways to do things.  Adam had no illusions about what would happen if the flow of innovations came to a stop.  The kingdoms and other reactionaries would crush the university through sheer weight of numbers.  It would be the end of everything.

Lilith scowled, her lips thinning. “Come in!”

The door opened.  Jasper stepped in. Adam gritted his teeth, feeling a twinge of unease that threatened to unman him.  Jasper was slight, by Beneficence’s standards – he looked more like a scribe or an accountant than a docksman – but he had magic.  He had more power in his little finger than Adam had in his entire body, power enough to stop Adam in his tracks or strip him of his free will or even turn him into a toad – or worse.  Adam glanced down at the spell circuits, hastily plotting how to use them to defend himself.  It would be chancy, but the only alternative was letting Lilith defend him.  And that would make him a laughingstock.

But I did punch Jasper in the nose, after depowering him, Adam recalled.  I’m not as helpless as he thinks.

Lilith scowled.  “Jasper,” she said, stiffly.  “What do you want?”

“Your father requests your urgent presence,” Jasper said, sardonically.  “Yesterday, really.”

“And he sent you with the message?”  Lilith didn’t sound impressed.  “Why?”

Jasper’s face darkened.  “I was waiting outside the council chambers,” he said.  “He volunteered me for the job.”

Adam tried not to smile.  Jasper’s position was a little vague – too many of the older magicians were working to defend the university, rather than tutoring their students and apprentices – but it still had to gall him that he’d been turned into a messenger boy.  It was strange to reflect that Jasper was actually a weak magician, one who’d only come to the university because it was the only real option he had.  And yet … Adam shivered, recalling how Jasper had taken his resentment out on him.  Adam was no brawler, no apprentice who delighted in assembling his friends and picking fights with other apprentices, but breaking Jasper’s nose had felt so good.  The magician had needed to be knocked down a peg or two.

Lilith stood.  “I’ll be back in a moment,” she said, sourly.  Her relationship with her father was tense, particularly after she’d started dating Adam.  Adam didn’t pretend to understand why Master Dagon had approved of their relationship, then changed his mind shortly afterwards.  “If you finish the tiles before I come back, take them down to the airship.”

Adam nodded, trying not to stare as she hurried out the door.  Her dress clung to her in all the right places … he calmed himself with an effort, reminding himself he wasn’t alone.  Jasper wasn’t making any move to leave … Adam gritted his teeth, bracing himself for trouble.  He had, in theory, the authority to order Jasper to go.  But in practice, giving an order he couldn’t enforce was asking for trouble …

Jasper eyed Adam, thoughtfully.  Adam thought he saw uncertainty in the other boy’s eyes.  When they’d first met, Adam had been nothing more than a powerless mundane with delusions he could become a magician.  A great deal had changed since then, from magic-draining potion to runic tiles a mundane could use to cast spells.  Jasper had to be just a little unsure of himself, Adam reasoned.  He knew what a normal magician could do, and mundanes were powerless against him, but Adam …?  Who knew what Adam could do?

“I don’t know what she sees in you,” Jasper said, finally.  “Why does she want you when she could have anyone she wants?”

Adam kept his face under tight control.  The question baffled him too, sometimes, but he was damned if he was discussing it with Jasper.  Or anyone, really.

He kept his voice calm.  “What do you want?”

“I’m curious,” Jasper said, his voice artfully innocent.  “What does she see in you?”

Adam felt a twinge of irritation.  “What possible business is it of yours?”

“A magician has the obligation to look out for other magicians, particularly when they are on the verge of making mistakes that will drag their reputation through the mire,” Jasper said.  “As a son of House Karut …”

“You’re not a son of anything,” Adam charged.  He wasn’t sure that was true, but Jasper was getting on his nerves.  “You’re a newborn magician.”

Jasper’s face darkened.  “How dare you?”

“Easily.”  Adam met Jasper’s eyes, silently daring him to throw the first hex.  It would be the last – Adam was effectively defenceless – but Jasper didn’t know it.  His uncertainty might keep him from testing the waters.  “I have to get back to work.  Say your piece and get out.”

“You have no magic of your own,” Jasper said, waving a hand at the tiles on the workbench.  “You’re just playing with toys.”

“They’re not toys,” Adam snapped, stung.  “And Lilith understands that better than anyone.”

Jasper leaned forward.  “Toys,” he repeated.  “You’re little better than a conjurer.”

Adam felt a hot flash of anger.  Conjurer was not a compliment.  Conjurers were the lowest form of magician, barely equal to hedge witches and a great deal less useful.  They had limited magic, so limited that half of their spellcasting was little more than sleight of hand and con artistry – and couldn’t do anything with their lives, beyond showing off their talents on the streets.  To compare him to a conjurer …

“These toys, as you call them, have already changed the world,” he snarled.  “Or have you forgotten how I broke your nose?”

“Trickery.”  Jasper’s lips twisted into a fake smile.  “I can counter your gas” – he snickered loudly – “easily, now that I know what to expect.  That trick won’t work twice.”

“I have other tricks,” Adam said.  He forced as much confidence into his voice as he could.  “Do you want to find out what they are?”

Jasper shrugged.  “Do you think your tricks make you my equal?”

Adam knew better, but he couldn’t resist.  “I think I would have to fall a long way before I became your equal.”

“We’ll see.”  Jasper leaned forward, resting his hands on the workbench.  Adam stood his ground.  “Would you like to place a bet on it?”

“No,” Adam said, curtly.

“Really?”  Jasper smirked.  “Here’s the bet.  We duel, you and I.  Winner gets Lilith’s hand.”

Adam blinked.  “What?”

“If you win, I won’t say another word about your relationship,” Jasper said.  “I’ll even shut down the magicians who are gossiping about you and her, suggesting there’s something … unnatural about your relationship.  You know they’re talking about you.  And her.  Someone is going to do something dumb soon, unless it gets nipped in the bud.  You need me on your side.”

He smiled, nastily.  “And if I win, you ditch her so I can make suit for her hand.  How does that sound?”

Adam had to fight to keep his emotions under tight control.  He knew boys had fought for girls on the streets of Beneficence, but it had never happened to him.  He’d never had a girl, let alone one someone else wanted.  He wasn’t even sure if the winner got the girl.  Here … he found himself utterly unsure of where he stood.  Did magicians fight for girls?  He didn’t know.  He wanted to tell Jasper to get lost, to take his challenge and stick it where the sun didn’t shine, but his stubborn pride refused to let him.  He couldn’t back down.  He just couldn’t.

“Charming,” he said, with heavy sarcasm.  He reached for the runic tiles and pushed them into place.  “Do your worst.”

Jasper darted back – clearly expecting Adam to punch him in the nose, again – and raised his hand to cast a spell.  Eldritch light shimmered around his fingertips, flashed out at Adam … and disintegrated into a shower of sparks when it reached the spell circuits.  Jasper gasped, then cast another spell.  It failed just as quickly as the first.

“Toys, you say?”  Adam kept a wary eye on the runic tiles.  The magic was supposed to be absorbed into the spellwork, or dispelled into the surrounding air if it was too great to subsume without overloading the tiles, but the concept hadn’t been tested in an enclosed space.  The magic might contaminate everything in the workroom.  “Your magic is useless now, and all because of my toys!”

Jasper paled.  “Impossible.”

“You saw it happen.  Twice.”  Adam came around the table, careful not to step too far from the tiles.  “The duel is over.  You lost.”

“You didn’t best me,” Jasper snarled.  “You just … cheated.”

Adam felt a hot flash of disgust.  “And what do you call it when you use magic to overpower a mundane, who can no more defend himself against you than a mouse can fight a hawk?”

“That’s different,” Jasper protested.

“Is it?”  Adam clenched his fists.  “At least a real duellist would offer his opponent a choice of weapons, so they fight on equal terms.  You didn’t even have the nerve to do that, you …”

He bit off his words before he accused Jasper of being a coward.  Jasper would never forgive him for that.  He had no idea if the tiles would be able to cope, if Jasper started hurling spell after spell, or if he’d have the sense to use magic to throw something solid at Adam instead …

“I won,” he said.  “Keep your word.”

“She doesn’t really like you,” Jasper snarled.  “And you cheated.  You …”

He shrank, his head and body morphing into a brown furry mass.  Adam barely had a second to realise what was happening before his own vision twisted, the floor coming up towards him at terrifying speed.  His body was changing … he caught a glimpse of fur sprouting on his hands before he squeezed his eyes shut, all too aware someone had cast a spell on him … on both of them.  It should have been impossible, unless …

His eyes snapped open.  The room was suddenly huge, the workbenches and chairs towering over him like apartment blocks looming over the streets.  A rat – another rat – quivered on the floor, right in front of him.  Jasper, part of Adam’s mind noted.  And behind him … he knew, even before he turned his head, who stood in the doorway.  They’d been so wrapped up in their argument that they hadn’t realised someone had opened the door.

Lilith’s voice was cold, very cold.  “I am not a prize to be won.”

Chapter Two

Jasper ran for the door.

Adam watched him flee, his ratty form moving so fast it was almost a streak of brown lightning.  It wasn’t fast enough.  Lilith caught him with a spell, yanked him into the air and dangled him in front of her, his paws frantically struggling against the unseen force holding him firmly in place.  Jasper was panicking, Adam realised; he was too shocked to think straight, to try to counter the spell … the spell that shouldn’t have been cast at all.  Adam shivered.  The runic tiles were on the tabletop, out of sight and out of reach, but they should have dispelled the spell before it took effect.  That it hadn’t …

“I am not a prize to be won,” Lilith repeated.  “And you are not going to duel for my hand.”

Her lips thinned until they were almost invisible.  Jasper shrank into himself, as if he were trying to hide from her gaze.  His paws stilled … Lilith leaned closer, until she was looming over him.  Adam fought to stay still, despite all his instincts telling him to run.  He’d been a fool.  He might have let Jasper ruin his relationship with Lilith, once and for all.  If he had …

“You’re pathetic,” Lilith said to Jasper.  “You only came here, to the university, because you couldn’t get an apprenticeship anywhere else.  You could have worked with the other magicians here, to improve yourself to the point someone might give you a chance, but instead you lashed out at everyone below you.  You let Arnold pull the wool over your eyes because you refused to grant a mundane might actually be intelligent and dangerous, and then you let Matt do the same.  And now you’re thinking I’d actually go with you if you won a duel … a duel you lost, because you picked a fight in your victim’s place of power!”

She snorted.  “You’re not held back unfairly; you’re held back because you refuse to put your head down and work to accomplish something.  You could have made something of yourself if you’d worked at it, but instead … you’re no better than a mundy aristocrat who thinks birth trumps merit because birth is all he has.  And …”

Lilith flicked her hand.  Jasper flew through the air and out the door, which slammed closed after him.  Adam swallowed hard, feeling a conflicting blur of emotions he didn’t care to look at too closely.  Lilith had knocked Jasper down hard and … the spell would probably wear off sooner or later, Adam was sure, but the shock of being overwhelmed so easily would linger long after the magic was gone.  Adam hoped Jasper would remember her words and take them to heart, but he feared he wouldn’t.  He’d known one young man, back home, who’d been so thoroughly emasculated by a girl that he’d picked a fight he couldn’t win rather than come to terms with his shame or even move elsewhere, to a place no one had ever heard of him.  And … he shuddered, feeling his own paws twitch as she looked at him.  Hadn’t she promised never to transfigure him again?

“Adam …”  Lilith took a breath, then started again.  “Adam., you’re being silly.”

Adam felt his body start to twist and hastily closed his eyes.  It felt … disconcerting, as always, to have his body changed, even if he was returning to human form rather than becoming an animal or an object or something utterly beyond his comprehension.  Everything snapped into place … he opened his eyes to discover he was sitting on the floor, his legs spread out as if he’d been shoved down by an unseen force.  It was almost a relief.  His legs felt unsteady, as if they couldn’t take his weight a moment longer.  He hadn’t felt so bad since he’d had a fever, a few years ago.

Lilith sighed, heavily.  “You shouldn’t let him bait you like that,” she said, crossly.  “What were you thinking?”

Adam shook his head, unsure how to answer.  It was difficult to put his feelings into words.  He felt … he felt as if it was just a matter of time before Lilith grew tired of him and left him for someone a little more suitable, for someone with magic and bloodline and everything else a good little magician was supposed to look for in a mate.  Jasper might be only one step above a mundane, as far as the rest of the magical community was concerned, but that step was an impassable gulf.  His children would have magic.  It wasn’t clear if Adam’s children would share his infused blood, let alone have magic of their own …

“Jasper is a very small man and a fool besides,” Lilith said, more to herself than to him.  “He could have tried to befriend me, when he first arrived at the university, but instead he fell in line with the rest of them and shunned me.  He is so unable, because he is unwilling, to better himself that he spends his time trying to knock everyone else down instead.  And he couldn’t handle Arnold even when everyone thought Arnold was a mundy riding on your coattails, rather than a trained sorcerer in his own right.”

Her lips curved into a humourless smile.  “He was pleased when we learnt the truth because it meant he hadn’t been bested by a mundy, but just another magician.”

She cocked her head.  “Why does he get to you?”

Adam scowled.  Jasper was … Jasper was the embodiment of everything he’d hated and resented when he’d been growing up, from superior birthright and bloodline to prospects and privilege granted by an accident of birth.  Jasper could fall – he had fallen – but he couldn’t fall very far, not as long as he had magic.  Adam was all too aware that he could lose everything, that he could wind up begging on the streets or enslaved to pay his debts or something – anything – that would make it impossible to climb back up again.  Jasper would always have friends and family and sycophants.  No matter what he did, there would be people making excuses for him.  Adam … could easily wind up dying alone.

“He … he touches on all my insecurities,” Adam said, finally.  It was impossible to put the rest of his feelings into words.  She wouldn’t understand.  How could she?  “And I can’t just let it go.”

Lilith met his eyes, evenly.  “Let’s discuss this, shall we?”

She leaned closer, until they were practically touching.  “You invented a way to channel magic to produce potions, even without a single drop of power in your blood.  You devised a way to gather more magic and channel it into a storage medium, then transfer it to wands and staffs to power spells.  You then devised a way of producing runic tiles so they could be formed into spell circuits, allowing you to cast spells without – again – any magic in your blood.  And then you saved the university, twice, besting a trained combat sorcerer in the process.  How many of us would be dead, twice over, if it wasn’t for you?”

“It wasn’t just me,” Adam protested.  “It was you and Taffy and …”

“It was you,” Lilith said.  “You saved the university.  Twice.  I dare say the staff will give you whatever you want, if you ask for it, because you saved everyone.  If you hadn’t been there, we would be atoms or slaves or eating each other in hopes of prolonging the siege long enough for help to arrive, help we knew wasn’t going to come.  You saved us all!”

She poked him in the stomach.  “Jasper envies you.  Jasper looks at you and he sees a person who came out of nowhere and rose to the top, a person who changed the field of magic forever, a person whose name will be remembered long after his death.  He may have magic, but he knows he will never match you.  He tries to put you down because otherwise he will be overshadowed by you, easily.  You’re not even trying to overshadow him and you’re still doing it!”

Adam swallowed, remembering how Lilith had treated him when they’d first met.  “And you …?”

Lilith heard the unspoken question.  “You’re smart, and resourceful, and kind,” she said, curtly.  “You could have … no one would have blamed you, a few months ago, if you’d tried to break me as thoroughly as you – quite by accident – broke him.  And instead … you tried to befriend me, even when you thought my father was trying to bring down the entire university.  You have your flaws, everyone does, but you also have a lot to like.  To … to love.”

She leaned forward and kissed his lips, lightly, then drew back.  “Stop letting him get to you.  Really.  He’ll never be you, and that’ll pain him for the rest of his life.  There’s nothing you can do to him that’ll hurt worse than watching you go on with your life, making newer and better discoveries that’ll change the world.”

Adam blushed.  “What if I never come up with anything else?”

“So what?”  Lilith poked him again.  “You have already changed the world.  You could sit on your backside and do nothing for the rest of your life and you’ll still have done more than Jasper ever could.”

“Thanks.”  Adam reached out and hugged her.  “I don’t know why he thought he could duel for you …”

“He’s an idiot,” Lilith said, bluntly.  “My father has his flaws, hundreds of them, but he’d never force me into marriage with anyone, let alone Jasper.  Either he really is stupid enough to think I’d go along with it, or he was just trying to mess with you.  And it doesn’t matter.  I would never have accepted him, not when his mere presence kills brain cells.”

Adam had to smile.  “What did your father want?”

Lilith scowled.  “Same old thing,” she said, standing.  “I must have an apprenticeship.  Now.  Before I get too old or … something.  There’s hardly any communication with anyone outside the university and yet he thinks he can organise something if I gave him a flicker of encouragement.  Whatever.  I’m not going to leave, no matter what he thinks.  I’m staying here with you.”

Adam smiled, feeling his cheeks heat.  “I ... thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”  Lilith smirked.  “I threatened to tell everyone I was your apprentice.  That shut him up, for the moment.  But it would be grossly inappropriate.”

“I suppose.”  Adam stood and studied the tiles on the table.  “No one would shut up about it, would they?”

“No.”  Lilith shook her head.  “And my father would be deeply unimpressed.”

Adam changed the subject.  “I set the tiles up to dispel spellwork,” he said, thoughtfully.  “Jasper couldn’t cast a spell … not when the tiles were functioning.  How did you do it?”

“Carefully.”  Lilith peered down at the tiles.  “The spell was harder to cast because the magic structure kept coming apart, despite my best efforts.  I had to massively overpower the spell to get it to work and I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did.  Jasper could have broken free if he’d taken the time to concentrate, rather than …”

She flushed.  “I’m sorry,” she said.  “I just …”

Adam squeezed her hand.  “I understand.”

“Just try and remember you’ve already done more than he’ll do in his entire life,” Lilith said.  “You have more than earned your place here.  You have changed the world and you have one hell of an arch enemy in the bargain.”

“Who won’t underestimate us a third time,” Adam said, sourly.  He wanted to believe Arnold was dead, that he’d been caught in his own spell or executed by the king for his failure, but it was impossible.  He wouldn’t believe it until he saw the body, and even then he’d have doubts.  “What is he doing now?”

“I have no idea,” Lilith said, primly.  “And we need to make sure he can’t get a spell through the tiles too.”

Adam nodded, adjusting the tiles.  Lilith was a very good spellcaster – there was no disputing it – and yet, she’d just cast a very complex spell.  The spellwork had held together long enough for the magic to take effect, despite the runic tiles trying to pick it apart … Adam was aware, uneasily aware, that a simpler spell might survive long enough to do real damage.  What would happen if someone cast a fireball at the tiles themselves?  If they were destroyed …

“Try to hit the table with a fireball,” he said, after he’d pushed the tiles into another pattern and checked they were firmly in place.  “See what happens.”

“Stand back,” Lilith said.  “A basic fireball …”

She raised her hand and cast the spell.  A fireball burst from her fingertips and flashed towards the table, coming apart into a haze of light that flared and flickered out of existence before it struck the tabletop.  Lilith frowned – she’d told him that the fireball was one of the simplest spells in the book, boring and yet thoroughly practical – and cast the spell again.  This time, the fireball reached the wooden table before coming apart and vanishing.  The table rocked under the force of the blow.

Adam looked at her.  “What did you do?”

“Tightened the spell structure,” Lilith said.  “And made it harder for the tiles to pick apart the spellwork.”

“Yeah.”  Adam scowled.  “The field needs to be expanded, doesn’t it?”

He stroked his chin.  He’d hoped to have a field that would simply cancel and dispel all magic within range.  It was theoretically possible.  In practice, without a nexus point to draw on, the field needed time to finish taking the spells to pieces and absorbing the magic.  It was quite possible a spell would last long enough to reach its target before it was too late.

And that’s what she did, when she turned us into rats, he thought.  Jasper had been within the field when he’d tried to cast his spells, Lilith had been outside it.  There just wasn’t enough time for the spellwork to come apart before they reached their targets.

“We have already been lining up the runes to expand the effect,” Lilith said, pushing more tiles into place.  “The airship should be relatively safe.”

Adam nodded, although it was impossible to be sure.  He’d flown over enemy lines on a hot air balloon, uneasily aware a single fireball would be enough to blow the balloon and its passengers out of the sky.  He had no illusions.  Arnold knew what they’d done and he’d tell his master, ensuring the tactic wouldn’t work twice.  The king’s spotters would be on the alert, watching for balloons and airships, and his sorcerers would be ready to kill them.  If the defences didn’t work …

“I hope so,” he said, finally.  They’d done everything in their power to test the spells, but there were limits to how far they could test the theory without taking the airship into action.  “If we’re wrong …”

“They’ll have to adapt their spells to get through even a simple runic network,” Lilith pointed out, waving a hand at the tiles.  “And we’ll be expanding the field so far that they’d need a nexus point to punch through the defences and strike the hull.”

“And they’ll probably be shooting at us too,” Adam reminded her.  “They don’t need magic to be deadly.”

Lilith grinned.  “And what are the odds of them actually hitting us?”

Adam winced.  He’d fought in the militia during the siege – so had nearly every man in the university – and he’d been cautioned that none of their firearms, even the latest rifles, were particularly accurate.  The odds of a lone shooter hitting his target were terrifyingly low.  It was the sheer weight of fire, his instructors had told him, that ensured the newfangled guns and cannons tore their targets to bits.  The odds of someone managing to hit the airship were low and yet … it would only take one hit for the airship to be damaged, perhaps even destroyed.  Could they fly high enough to make it difficult, if not impossible, for a bullet to reach their height?

“Not good,” he said.  “But we’ll see.”

Lilith grinned.  “If you hadn’t devised the spell circuits, the airship would be worse than useless,” she said.  “The enemy would destroy it as soon as they finished laughing.  And what would we do then?”

“Someone else would come up with the concept,” Adam said.  It was hard to believe there was anything unique about what he’d done.  Someone else, with access to the same spellbooks, and practical experience, could easily have done it too.  “Lady Emily, perhaps …”

“Perhaps,” Lilith said.  “But it was you who did.”

She leaned forward.  “I’m not ashamed of you,” she said.  “And I don’t care what anyone else has to say about it.”

Adam blushed.   “Thank you,” he said.  It felt as if she’d taken a weight off his mind.  “I’m not ashamed of you either.”

Lilith grinned.  “Glad to hear it,” she said, mischievously.  Her smile made his heart melt.  It was hard not to reach for her, to pull her into a hug.  “Now, do you want to continue messing with the tiles, or …?”

“We have a couple of hours and most of the tiles are ready,” Adam said.  Taffy and her team were already copying his work, something that pleased and worried him.  It felt as if he’d given up something, even though he knew the tiles needed to be mass-produced if they were to be anything more than a curious set of trinkets.  “We just need to do a few more and then we’re free!”

Lilith giggled.  “Then we’d better get on with it, hadn’t we?”

Chapter Three

“At least we moved most of the refugees out of the university,” Lilith said, as they made their way down to the former playing fields.  It had taken longer than they’d thought – three hours – to finish the tiles, but thankfully they’d been done.  “There were just too many people crammed into the building.”

Adam nodded, curtly.  The remnants of the enemy army had fled to Farrakhan and beyond, giving the citizens of Heart’s Ease a chance to return home and rebuild their communities.  It was an absolute nightmare, from what he’d heard the few times he’d emerged from his workroom to eat, but the community refused to surrender to the king and his army of thugs, brutes and mercenaries.  The town might have been destroyed, and only a handful of buildings had survived intact, yet the town’s spirit hadn’t been crushed.  Adam had no doubt that, a few months from now, the town would be rebuilt.  There were already plans to lay down proper foundations  now that the old buildings had been swept aside. He hoped the rebuilding project wouldn’t kill the can-do attitude that had defined the town before the war.

He kept the thoughts to himself as they passed a set of militiamen, standing on guard outside the classrooms.  The siege might be over, and the townspeople and craftsmen returning to their lives, but nothing would ever be the same again.  Adam could barely imagine how many lives had been lost, during the fighting, or how much property – tools and factories as well as homes and shops – had been looted or burnt to ashes.  It would be difficult to replace everything … not, he supposed, that it would slow the townspeople for long.  He’d heard survey parties had already located coal deposits and seams of metal, buried under the desert sands near the university.  The chaos sweeping across the Allied Lands might have shattered the old trade networks beyond repair, but the university was far from beaten.  Given time, they’d find new sources of supply and carry on.

A whiff of smoke – and burning sand – brushed against his nostrils as they stepped out of the rear doors and made their way onto the playing fields.  It was hard to imagine they’d ever been anything of the sort, not when they’d been covered with sand for years and then converted into a strange combination of refugee camp and open-air workshop.  The air grew warmer, sweat prickling down his back, as he turned the corner and stopped, dead.  The airship was so strange, so alien, he almost looked past it, as if it weren’t there at all.  And yet, it was so large it dominated the world.

“Gods,” he breathed.

It was hard, so hard, to take in the sheer immensity of the thing.  The hot air balloon had been small, little bigger than a horse-drawn carriage.  The airship was huge, bigger than the clipper ships that had been too large to enter Beneficence Harbour and had to wait on the open seas, while small boats ferried passengers and supplies back and forth.  The gasbag was a giant gray sausage, bulging like a banger on the verge of exploding; the gondola underneath tiny compared to the gas bag and yet bigger than he’d realised when he’d seen the planned designs months ago.  There was something oddly ramshackle about the design – it took him a moment to realise the craftsmen had cannibalised the locomotives they’d salvaged from the town to produce the airship – and yet, there was a certain grandeur to the structure that took his breath away.  It was as big as a house … no, bigger.  It was hard to escape the impression it was growing larger and larger, as he stared at it.  He tried to tell himself it was just a trick of the light …

“Adam!”  

Adam jumped.  The airship had drawn his attention so completely he’d lost track of everything else.  He hadn’t even noticed Taffy!

“What do you think?”

Adam grinned as Taffy ran up to them, a box of components stowed under one arm.  The other girl had been his first real friend at Heart’s Eye, the first person to be genuinely kind to him … she’d been fooled, too, by Arnold when he’d insinuated his way into the university on a mission to destroy it.  Taffy had been unfairly blamed too, for her role in the affair.  Adam had made a point of reaching out to her, as had Lilith.  It wasn’t as if anyone else had realised what Arnold had been doing until it was far too late.

“It’s impressive,” he said.  He’d seen some of the early work, back when the craftsmen had started putting the airship together, but it had been little more than metal struts resting on the ground.  It was hard to believe they’d been the first steps towards the giant airship in front of him.  “What’s she called?”

“We don’t have a name, not yet,” Taffy said.  “Lilith, what do you think?”

“It’s striking,” Lilith said.  “I can’t believe it was made without magic.”

“But it was,” Taffy said, beckoning for them to follow her.  “There are a handful of runes woven into the gas bag, and some spells worked into the engines, but otherwise there is very little magic involved.  The craftsmen were determined to get her flying without using magic … they feared it would be tricky, if not impossible, to repair her if magic was involved at any point.  They might be right.  We don’t know.”

Adam nodded as he followed her towards the gondola.  It was hard, almost impossible, to force himself under the gas bag.  It felt unstable, hovering above him, in a way a ceiling had never done.  The impression it might crumple and crush him was almost overwhelming.  He had to force himself to keep moving, even as the gondola loomed up in front of him.  It was strange … he’d walked to buildings that towered over him, yet he’d never felt so reluctant to move closer as he did now.  The gondola was just too imposing.  Lilith’s hand slipped into his, a rare display of vulnerability, as they stepped through the hatch and into the gondola itself.  It felt like a strange combination of a wooden ship and railway locomotive.

“This way,” Taffy said, leading them down a thin corridor.  “Keep your hands to yourselves.”

Lilith cleared her throat.  “How very … reassuring.”

“It gets to everyone at first,” Taffy said.  A faint shudder ran through the gondola, a faint sense the airship wasn’t on firm ground.  “They had us bedding down for the last few nights, just to get used to being on the airship.  Some of us couldn’t take it at all.”

Adam nodded as the floor – the deck, he mentally corrected himself – shifted again.  It felt as if he’d stepped onto a ship, one resting in the middle of a crude harbour, and yet … he’d expected it to feel like the hot air balloon, not something else.  The dull quiver running through the gondola was a grim reminder it was something new, something that would change the world …

Taffy was still talking.  “We worked control wires through the gondola and the gas bag, allowing us to steer once we take her into the air,” she said.  “In theory, we can steer against the wind; in practice, it may be very tricky.  We’re not sure what’ll happen when we get up there.”

“You could fly a broomstick and see,” Lilith suggested.  “Or would that be different?”

“We think so,” Taffy said.  “There are no levitation or flying spells worked into the airship’s hull.  Quite what that’ll mean for us we don’t know – and we won’t until we take off and find out.  A broomstick can fly against the wind, or so we are told.  An airship?  We don’t know.”

Adam opened his mouth to ask another question, then closed it again as they stepped into the engine room.  It was … he felt his head swim, his impressions coming in fits and starts as craftsmen swarmed over great pieces of machinery.  He caught sight of Senior Craftswoman Yvonne standing by one of the devices, barking orders to a handful of junior craftsmen as they pushed the machine into place.  Her partner, Enchanter Praxis, was nearby, directing a team of magicians as they installed the first set of runic tiles.  Adam tried not to curse under his breath as he saw Jasper standing with the others.  Enchanter Praxis would keep an eye on him, but still …

A dull thud ran through the airship as the device was shoved into position and locked into the hull.  Adam felt his legs shake, unable to escape the impression one boat had just rammed into another.  He’d grown up in a harbour town, and he’d been swimming and sailing since he’d learnt to walk, and yet … there was something disconcerting about the airship.  It felt different … he wondered, idly, if hiring sailors to work on the hull had been as good an idea as everyone had thought when the airship had been little more than designs on paper.  The airship wasn’t a steamboat.  It was something new.

Yvonne made her way over to them, dismissing the rest of her crew.  She looked tired and yet accomplished, very accomplished.  Adam understood.  The airship really was something new.  No matter what happened, no one would be able to take her accomplishment from her.  He smiled back at her, then raised an eyebrow as he saw Valerie Hunt step away from the hull and follow Yvonne.  The reporter was scribbling notes even as she walked.  Adam wondered who’d read the broadsheet, now the university was cut off from much of the world.  There weren’t enough people in the nearby town to keep it going.

“So,” Yvonne said.  “What do you think?”

“Awesome,” Adam said.  “Awesome and disconcerting.”

“Very disconcerting,” Lilith said.  “Does this thing really fly?”

“Yes.”  There was no doubt in Yvonne’s voice.  “The gasbag will get us into the air, once we undo the tethers and start heating the gas.  Steering will be slightly more of a problem, once we get up there, and we’ll have to do a lot of experimenting before we have it down to an exact science, but we are sure we can do it.  And then the world will change.”

“Again,” Lilith said.  “What happens if the gasbag leaks?  Or gets punctured?”

“The gasbag is divided into a number of smaller compartments,” Yvonne said.  “A single leak in one of those compartments wouldn’t bring the airship down, certainly not very quickly.  We would be able to take steps to reduce height gradually or simply seal the puncture, if possible.  Our crews are trained to climb up and onto the bag to carry out repairs … in theory.  We’ve never done it during flight.”

“We haven’t really flown at all,” Taffy put in.

“But she’s as safe as possible,” Valerie said.  “Right?”

“She’s as safe as we can make her,” Yvonne said.  “But there are always risks.”

“There are risks in sailing, too,” Adam said.  “And portals and teleporting and even walking.”

“Risk is unavoidable,” a new voice said.  Adam looked back to see Master Caleb clambering into the engine room.  “It is impossible to make any advances without risk, no matter how hard we try to minimise it.”

“And everyone involved in this project understands the risks,” Yvonne added, stiffly.  “We made it clear to the craftsmen, particularly the ones who’d join the flight crew, that there would be risks, that there was a very real prospect of a fiery death.  They chose to stay with the project and remain part of the crew.”

Adam nodded.  It was hard not to admire the flight crew.  The risks of sailing, or experimenting with newer forms of magic, were well-understood, but no one knew what would really happen when the airship clawed her way into the sky.  The wind might blow her across the desert and into the mountains, or she might be struck by lightning, or … who knew?  The air might get too thin, if they flew too high, or … he shuddered.  If something went wrong, there might be no time to recover and repair the damage before the airship hit the ground.  The university might never know what had happened to bring the airship down …

Valerie smiled.  “Does she have a name?”

“Not yet,” Yvonne said.  “We’re still taking suggestions.”

“And the staff have veto power,” Caleb added, quickly.  “Airship McAirshipFace is not an acceptable name.”

Jasper snickered.  “How about Big Richard?”

“Perhaps not,” Yvonne said, not bothering to hide her irritation.  “She needs a dignified name.”

“Lady Emily,” Adam suggested.  “The airship was her idea, wasn’t it?”

“Emily would not approve,” Caleb said, bluntly.  “She flatly refused to allow her officers at Cockatrice to erect a solid gold statue in her honour, as well as other monuments to her grandeur.  She wouldn’t let us name the airship after her either.”

Adam blinked in surprise, then remembered Caleb and Lady Emily had been close.  Very close.  “She turned it down?”

“She felt the money would be better spent elsewhere,” Caleb said.  “She is a very modest person, and I doubt she would appreciate having the airship named after her.”

“The airship does deserve a name that’ll make children smile, when they read about her maiden flight,” Jasper said.  “What about Overcompensator?”

“Professor Thande would not approve,” Caleb said.  “And there’s no need to steal the name from his textbooks.”

Adam frowned, sure he was missing something.  “What …?”

“I’ll explain later,” Lilith muttered back.  “But Master Caleb has a point.”

Taffy cleared her throat.  “What about Voidsdaughter?”

“That would not go down well with anyone, not now,” Caleb said.  “What are you thinking?”

“I think it would be a good reminder that not everything Void has been doing over the years was wrong,” Valerie said.  “Void is the enemy of everyone, right now, and Lady Emily is his daughter.  She might be opposing him, but far too many people will hold her birth against her no matter the outcome.  Naming the airship after her, even indirectly, will be a reminder that he did good as well as ill.  That’s how I’d spin it, anyway.  Or we could say she travels in the void and that’s where we got the name …”

“It will do,” Yvonne said.  “Caleb?”

“I’ll run it past the rest of the staff, but it might work,” Caleb said.  “However, if she objects, the airship will be renamed.  Are we clear on this point?”

“Of course,” Yvonne said.  “Now, can we put the rest of the tiles into place before the first flight?”

“Of course,” Caleb echoed.  “Let me know when you’re ready to make the first flight.”

He turned and headed for the hatch, then stopped and turned back.  “And make sure the first flight has no extra crew,” he cautioned.  “The experienced craftsmen are not to be involved until we are sure the airship is relatively safe.”

“People will grumble, sir,” Praxis said.

“Let them.”  Caleb met his eyes.  “We need those experienced men, at least until we have enough of them.  They can fly later, once we know the airship isn’t going to fall out of the sky the moment we cut her loose.”

He looked at Adam.  “And that includes you too,” he said.  “You’ll have to wait for the second flight.”

Adam scowled as Caleb turned away and left the compartment.  He had hoped to be on the first flight, even though he’d known it was unlikely.  There was no real point to him being there – the runes had already been carved and tested and were unlikely to break under the stresses of flight – and yet, he had been on the hot air balloon.  He was the only person who’d flown on the untethered balloon and landed behind enemy lines …

“He’s right,” Yvonne said.  The pity in her eyes gnawed at him, even though he knew she meant well.  “You should be careful with yourself.”

“I’ll try,” Adam said, stiffly.  “The tiles are ready and raring to go.”

He kept his thoughts to himself as they crawled over the airship, placing the tiles in position and testing the effects, one by one. It was a relief to discover his calculations had been accurate – the magic-dispelling field expanded further with each and every tile added to the network – but he still felt as if he were being pushed aside, denied the right to sail on the airship during her first voyage.  It reminded him of how young sailors were taunted if they weren’t selected for a voyage, even when it wasn’t their fault.  And yet … he shook his head, telling himself Master Caleb had a point.  He could do nothing on the airship.  He wasn’t even sure there was room for spectators.  The crew would need to move around without impediment.

Lilith joined him and Taffy as they disembarked and made their way to a safe distance, her face grim.  She’d been talking to Yvonne and Praxis … Adam wondered what they’d been talking about, but he knew better than to ask.  She’d tell him soon enough … he caught sight of Jasper and a handful of other crewmen leaving the airship as sullenly as the rest of the unnecessary crew and craftsmen.  Jasper scowled at him, then headed straight into the university.  Adam reminded himself Lilith was right.  Jasper had had plenty of opportunities to make something of himself and he’d let them all pass him by.

A dull roar split the air as the airship was disconnected from the mooring tower.  Adam felt waves of warm air brush against him as the engines came to life, the airship shifting back and forth as it rose into the air.  The gas bag quivered – for a horrible moment, he thought it was on the verge of popping like a soap bubble – before settling down.  The gondola shuddered noticeably as the airship climbed higher, the tip of the gas bag shifting oddly as a gust of wind brushed against the frame.  It looked weirdly fragile and yet …

“No magic,” Lilith said.  “And yet, it flies.”

“Yeah,” Taffy agreed.  “It flies.”

Chapter Four

“Tell me something,” Lilith said, after an hour had passed with agonising slowness.  “Can they actually land the airship safely?”

“Yes,” Taffy said.  “They can steer, to some extent, and they’re learning more with every passing moment.  They shouldn’t have any trouble docking once again, before lowering the gondola to the ground.”

Adam nodded.  The airship trials had been both exciting and tedious.  The airship had flown around the university and then out into the desert, moving up and down in a jerky fashion that suggested the crew weren’t fully in control as the winds grew stronger.  He’d watched carefully at first, making mental notes for later research, then allowed himself to get distracted after the magic tests were completed.  The sorcerers had done their best – he hoped – but the spells hadn’t touched the gas bags.  The airship was seemingly immune to direct magical attack.

Seemingly, he told himself, as the airship lumbered back towards the playing fields.  Arnold might come up with something new when he sees the airship heading towards him.

He scowled.  Heart’s Eye had never been very secure, even when the enemy army had been pressing against the wards.  There were so many people within the university that it was quite likely one or more of them were spies, reporting to Arnold or King Ephialtes or one of the university’s other enemies.  Not, he supposed, that they’d have to work too hard.  The airship was hard to spot – it was too large for anyone to wrap their head around its existence easily – but once it was noticed, it was impossible to miss.  A lone spy out in the desert, watching through a telescope, would have no trouble reporting his sighting to his masters.  Adam tried to tell himself the masters wouldn’t believe a word of it, when they got the message, but he doubted it.  Arnold had seen the hot air balloon, after all, and the airship was just an improvement on the original concept.

Taffy cleared her throat.  “Do you want to go down to Heart’s Ease?”

Adam blinked.  It had been two weeks since the siege had been broken and he doubted the town was in any state for visitors.  Their favourite restaurants had been destroyed as easily as the rest of the town, along with what food stocks the defenders hadn’t managed to get to the university before it was too late.  It was hard to get any food right now, even from the nearest cities and farms.  It was unlikely there was any point in going, unless they wanted to help with the repair and recovery work.  And right now they’d only get in the way.

Lilith’s mind was clearly running along the same lines.  “Why?  I mean, what’s there?”

Taffy flushed.  “There’s a Leveller meeting taking place tonight,” she said, glancing at the sun.  “And I was asked to invite you.”

“Me?”  Adam frowned.  “I thought …”

“Arnold did a lot of damage,” Taffy said.  “And the invaders did a lot more.  But they’re rebuilding and they’re asking for you.”

“Be careful,” Lilith said.  “There’s no telling what ties Arnold still has to them.”

“No,” Taffy agreed.  “But the new leadership wasn’t in town when he was posing as one of us.”

Adam winced at the anger in her voice.  Arnold had screwed Taffy, in all senses of the word.  She wasn’t the only one who’d been tricked and manipulated into doing things that had nearly triggered a civil war, but she seemed to be the only one getting most of the blame.  Perhaps they thought she should have known better or perhaps … he put the thought aside and forced himself to think.  The meeting could be a trap – Arnold could easily have other ties to the Levellers – but he was still drawn to the movement.  The Levellers believed everyone – male and female, magical and mundane – were born equal.  Adam agreed.  He was, at least in his heart, a Leveller.  And he was damned if he was letting Arnold ruin it for him.

“We’ll be fine,” he said, finally.  “Are you coming?”

“They’d be happy to see you too,” Taffy added.  “Really.”

Lilith shrugged.  “We do need a break,” she said.  “I was on the verge of dragging Adam out of the workroom and insisting he take it easy for a day or two.”

Adam flushed.  Lady Emily’s notes had been fascinating. He wished he’d had more time to go through them, to evaluate what he could adapt into spell circuitry and what would have to be put aside until he got permission to draw on the nexus point.  If he hadn’t been so pressed to also design and produce more runic tiles … he put the thought aside as a shadow loomed over the playing fields, the airship slowly returning to the mooring tower.  Voidsdaughter looked rough and crude, as if she’d been thrown together from a multitude of cannibalised devices, yet she was still stunning.  And she’d already taught the craftsmen enough to make sure the next airship was much – much – more capable.

“Let’s go, then,” he said.  There was nothing for them to do now the trials were more or less over.  Yvonne and Praxis would go over the flight with the rest of the crew, then decide how to proceed from there.  There’d be another flight soon enough, he hoped, and if he was lucky he’d be allowed to join the crew.  “It won’t be long before the sun starts going down.”

Lilith nodded.  “I’ll just grab my cloak,” she said.  “See you in the Great Hall.”

Adam nodded back, then made his way around the university to the main doors.  The air was noticeably less pleasant, filled with the stench of tainted magic that pervaded the desert joined by the aroma of burnt flesh and sand from the firestorm that had destroyed the enemy camp and burnt most of the enemy army.  Adam tried not to think too much about the hell he’d unleashed, about the men who’d been incinerated before they had a chance to run.  They’d been soldiers and yet … he tried to tell himself that being soldiers meant they were looters, rapists, murderers and parasites and yet he knew, now, that wasn’t always true.  The soldiers who’d fought to defend the university were good guys, as were the militiamen …

Like you, his thoughts pointed out.  You fought in the university’s defence too.

Taffy grinned at him.  “We’ll be flying soon, I hope.”

“Me too,” Adam agreed.  “What do they intend to do with it?”

“They have grand plans, if they can get the design to work properly,” Taffy said.  “Flights to the capital, flights further afield … sure, the airship is slow, but she’ll keep going when a horse would need to stop, nor does she need rails like a locomotive.  Just think about what we can do with her.”

Lilith joined them, her cloak wrapped around her dress.  “Shall we go?”

“Yeah,” Taffy said, checking her watch.  “We have about an hour or so to get down there before the meeting starts.”

The stench grew worse as they made their way down the road.  It had never been a very good road, but the combination of enemy soldiers laying down siege lines and the firestorm had left it in ruins.  It was hard to believe, at times, it even was a road.  Adam tried not to look at the scorch marks covering the ground where the enemy had established their camp, a blackened ashy ruin that was all that was left of hundreds of men and their equipment.  The dead men would never be buried, their equipment was gone … Adam knew better than to believe the more absurd estimates of how many men had died in the fire, yet it was undeniable that the final death toll had been high.  They really had been monsters – and he had no illusions about what they would have done to Lilith, Taffy and the rest of the girls if they’d caught them – but he still felt guilty.  They’d died because of him.  

I did what I had to do, he told himself.  But that doesn’t make it any easier.

His heart sank as they neared the edge of Heart’s Ease.  The town had never been walled – it had been a sprawling mass of ramshackle buildings and tents before the invaders had started the fires – but now it looked like an oversized refugee camp.  The former townspeople had pitched tents everywhere they could, while working on clearing the roads and restoring what few buildings they could to a usable state.  Thousands of men – and a few hundred women – were picking their way through the wreckage, transferring bodies to mass graves outside the town and scavenging what they could for reuse.  His heart twisted as a pair of blackened bodies were carried past, so badly burnt it was impossible to tell anything beyond the fact they’d once been human.  How many people had died, unnoticed and unmourned; how many people had simply vanished, their families never to know what had happened to them?

And how many people, he asked himself cynically, will take advantage of the chaos to start a new life somewhere else?

“It isn’t the same, is it?”  Lilith sounded bitter, bitter and broken.  “The old world died in the fire.”

Adam squeezed her hand.  They were close to where their favourite place had been … weren’t they?  It was hard to be sure.  The buildings were burnt-out ruins, at best, and the streets difficult to pick out of the mud and ash.  He looked around, cold despite the desert heat.  There’d been a bookshop there, hadn’t there?  And a bar over there …?  He couldn’t be sure.  The settlement was so badly damaged it might be quicker to build a new town from scratch.

His eyes narrowed as he heard the sound of clashing blades and men shouting loudly.  It sounded very … martial.  They kept walking, passing a pair of ruined walls, until they encountered a makeshift camp on the other side of the ruined town.  Soldiers – ice ran down his spine as he saw them – were drilling frantically, their movements watched by grim-faced officers and sergeants … and, standing at the rear, Princess Violet.  Adam felt his heart twist as he saw her.  Princess Violet had brought the war to the university, as well as a spy who’d come too close to taking the defences apart from the inside.  He wanted to hate her, for being just as much an embodiment of everything she hated as Jasper, but he had to admit she’d taken a stand against her brother.   She had, at least, stood up for something.

And she’s the only real alternative to her brother, he thought.  He’d heard the debates, when the princesses had arrived; the staff and students had gone through all the implications, arguing over each of the possible outcomes.  Some had wanted to send the princesses onwards, others had argued to send them back … not, in the end, that it had mattered.  We need her as much as she needs us.

“They’re calling her Princess Violent now,” Taffy said.  “And men are flocking to her banner.”

Lilith gave her an odd look.  “How many men, and how?”

Taffy grimaced.  “A surprising amount of soldiers survived the firestorm and … well, they had nowhere else to go.  The king, they thought, wouldn’t be very welcoming to men who’d not only watched their comrades burn, but witnessed the army’s crushing defeat.  A handful of men who made it to Farrakhan were taken into custody and vanished and the gods alone know what happened to them.  The princess offered to take them into her service, if they swore to her and assisted with the repair work.  They didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“And we just … let them stay here,” Adam said.  “Can they be trusted?”

“The princess seems to think so,” Taffy said.  “And what other choice do they have?”

Adam scowled.  It wasn’t common, back in Beneficence, for a man to willingly become a soldier, let alone a mercenary.  The only time recruits had flocked to the colours, from what he’d heard, had been when Princess Alassa had led her troops against King Randor, her necromancer of a father.  And that had been when Lady Emily had been on the princess’s side, her name used to raise troops and inspire them to fight.  Did Princess Violet have the same advantages, or was she dependent on men who might switch sides in a heartbeat if they thought they could get away with it?  Adam didn’t know.  How many men could she raise?  And how many men could her brother raise?

And if she becomes Queen,, his thoughts added silently, will she become just as dangerous to us as Arnold and King Ephialtes?

“We’ll just have to hope for the best,” he said, finally.  “Where now?”

“This way,” Taffy said.

They kept walking, leaving the soldiers behind.  The buildings were still in ruins on the edge of town, but a handful had evidently been cleared and renovated quickly.  He felt a flicker of disquiet upon spotting the makeshift transit barracks and the hospital right next to them, the latter a grim reminder of what fate awaited someone unlucky enough to get injured if they lacked the money to pay for magical treatment.  The Nightingale Sisters were supposed to be the best chirurgeons in the world, but the bar wasn’t set very high.  Adam suspected he’d be better off trying to heal on his own, if he didn’t have money or magic.  He hoped that, one day, he’d be able to craft and power healing spells so everyone would have access to proper medical treatment.

“In here,” Taffy said, leading them towards a large hall.  “They put the dance hall together very quickly.”

Adam heard Lilith snort as they passed through the doors and into the makeshift building.  It was packed, dancers swaying around on the floor while a band played a jaunty tune and onlookers made their way around the edge of the hall, taking food and drink from a row of tables.  Adam’s stomach growled, a grim reminder he hadn’t eaten much of anything since … he wasn’t sure.  He’d had lunch, hadn’t he?  The university had once had the best food in the world, certainly the best he’d ever eaten.  Now, even after the siege, rations were still low.  It would be a long time, if ever, before that, too, returned to normal.

Lilith sounded weirdly amused.  “They built a dance hall instead of housing?”

“The hall is also a barracks,” Taffy pointed out, tartly.  “And it is good for the community to have something to do after hours.”

Adam was inclined to agree.  Dancing – and drinking – had been part of adult life during his childhood.  His parents had gone out to dance before his father’s unfortunate death, his sisters had met their partners under their mother’s watchful eyes … he was glad, in a way, his father had avoided the bars before he’d died, knowing that far too many men had come home roaring drunk and ready to take it out on their wives.  And yet … he felt a twinge of amusement as he studied the dancers, making sure there was no real pattern to their movements.  A couple could enter or leave as they pleased, without impeding anyone else.

“Come on,” he said, pulling Lilith onto the dance floor.  She’d have been taught how to dance as part of her upbringing, although the magical dances were considerably more formal.  “Let’s go.”

Lilith smiled as they merged with the rest of the dancers and whirled around the dance floor, others cutting in or slipping out as the whim struck them.  Taffy found a young man and shared a pair of circuits with him, then glided back to the walls and found something to eat while waiting for Adam and Lilith.  Adam felt his stomach rumble again and pulled Lilith towards the tables too, hoping he wasn't committing some terrible faux pas by eating something.  Back home, the food would have been for everyone.  Here, he wasn’t sure.

“Next time, you can come to a formal dance,” Lilith said, putting her lips close to his ear so no one else could hear her.  “You’ll love it.”

Adam grinned, although the prospect was a little worrying.  There were few rules for dancing in a mundane dance hall, and no one would really care if he put a step or two wrong, but the magical community took a different view.  He didn’t know how to dance properly, not by their standards, and he had no idea who he could ask.  Lilith?  She’d understand, wouldn’t she?

“Pile something on your plate, then come with me,” Taffy said.  “They’re waiting in the next room.”

“Got it.”  Adam tried to hide his concern.  Who were they going to meet?  The old leadership was dead and gone.  He put a pair of sandwiches on his plate, adding a hunk of cheese as well as a mug of water, before nodding.  There was no alcohol within sight, something that both pleased and puzzled him.  “Lilith?”

“I’m ready,” Lilith said.  She didn’t complain about the food, although it had to be very simple by her standards.  “Shall we?”

Adam nodded, motioning for Taffy to lead them through a rickety door, down a wooden corridor and into a small office. Two people sat on wooden chairs, standing as Taffy showed them into the room.  One looked like a simple craftsman, his hands scarred by years of work at the forge, the other … he blinked in surprise as he realised she was a woman, wearing a tunic that marked her as a shopkeeper.  It wasn’t a surprise to see a female shopkeeper – his mother had been one – but it was odd to see one wearing the tunic in the university town.  

“I am Betty,” the woman said.  She wore a simple brown scarf that hide her hair.  “And we need to talk.”

Chapter Five

“Betty?” Adam leaned forward, barely noticing the offered chair.  “Betty the Birch?”

“Yes.”  Betty met his eyes evenly.  “The tale grew in the telling, of course, but … it’s me.”

Adam stared.  “How much of the story is actually true?”

“The basics,” Betty said, after a moment.  “I grew up in Kerajaan.  My father had no male heir and women aren’t allowed to own property there, so he married me off to an oaf who promised he’d leave me to run the shop and dicker with the tradesmen while he sat on his butt and did nothing.”

“Charming,” Lilith said, with heavy sarcasm.

Betty smiled.  “You’d think he’d be happy with such a deal, right?  All he had to do was sign the occasional paper and father a few children and that would be that.  He could go to the pub morning, noon and night and I wouldn’t say a word against it.  Our marriage was just a business transaction, a plot to keep father’s property out of the hands of his greedy and grasping relatives.  If he did nothing …”

She shrugged.  “He was an idiot.  Everything went well until my father was dead and buried, at which point he started asserting his rights.  His legal rights.  I wouldn’t have minded so much if he hadn’t been a complete idiot, refusing to listen to my advice and insisting on making deals that would see my father’s shop being ruined.  We didn’t have the money to cope with the ups and downs of the market, let alone take out loans that would come back to bite us if we had a bad season.  I told him so and he beat me, then signed the papers and sent them off anyway.  I was astonished he managed to put his name in the right place.”

“Someone probably coached him,” Taffy said, a hint of bitterness in her tone.  “I saw that a lot back on the farm.  The farmers didn’t know how to read or write, so they had no idea what rights they were signing away until the bailiffs arrived.”

“Probably.”  Betty snorted humourlessly.  “I was right.  We did take a loss.  And another loss.  And he had the nerve to blame it on me and beat me.  Again.  He thought I was trapped.  My family might take me in, if I left, but my son would remain with him and so would the shop unless …”

Her lips curved into a cold smile.  “The Levellers were active at the time, before all hell broke loose.  It was illegal, of course, and treasonous as well, but I joined up anyway.  And then I let myself get caught.  I was flogged, of course, but he was executed because he was legally responsible for me.  And, by a quirk in the law, I retained possession of the shop long enough to sell it and light out for Heart’s Eye.  I left before the kingdom collapsed into chaos and never looked back.”

Lilith took a breath.  “You couldn’t just put a knife in his back?”

“I would have been tried for murder,” Betty said, darkly.  “No court would have sided with a wife who killed her husband, no matter how he treated her.  His family would have demanded my execution, as well as custody of my son.  And if I’d abandoned the shop and vanished, he’d still have had my son.  No, I needed to make sure he was executed in a manner that couldn’t be legally blamed on me.”

Taffy chucked.  “Because the kingdom refused to admit a woman could act of her own volition?”

“Pretty much,” Betty agreed.  “Legally, I was my father’s property and then my husband’s.  I couldn’t be held accountable for my own actions, because I didn’t own myself.”

Her face fell.  “I had to leave, though,” she added.  “His family would certainly have sought revenge if I’d stayed.”

Adam sucked in a breath.  He’d known the story but hearing it from her own lips added a certain poignancy to the tale.  The thought of growing up as someone’s property … women had rights, legally speaking, in Beneficence, and yet those rights were often ignored when they clashed with the rest of her family.  It was sickening and he found it hard to understand why anyone would stay, rather than setting out in hopes of finding a better place.  But then, leaving one’s home to search for somewhere else was relatively rare.  He knew it would have been a great deal harder to get to Heart’s Eye if Master Pittwater hadn’t paid his way.  

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he said, finally.  It sounded so weak and pitiful, but he couldn’t think of anything else.  “And you came here?”

“And joined the Levellers here,” Betty agreed.  “I wasn’t expecting to find myself voted into leadership, but …”

“You have done well,” the other man said, mischievously.  He stuck out a hand for Adam to shake.  “I’m Hans, by the way.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Adam said.  “I’m Adam.”

“Everyone knows who you are, which is kind of why we reached out to you,” Betty said, pointing to the chairs.  “Please, take a seat.  We have much to discuss.”

“We do?”  Lilith sat, resting her hands on her lap.  “You could have written a letter.”

“There are certain discussions that are best had off the record,” Betty said.  “We have a proposal for you.  Adam, rather.  If he turned it down, the proposal would – officially – never have been made at all.”

“That seems a little extreme,” Lilith pointed out.  “Why …?”

“Certain proposals, if made in the full light of day, are hard to turn down even though you might want to,” Betty said.  “If the person feels obliged to accept, even though he doesn’t want to, it leads to resentment and bitterness and a certain lack of enthusiasm for the role.  If the person refuses, the public can and often will turn against them.  They will not understand the sheer complexity of the role, or the demands it makes on those who hold it.  They will just understand that the role has been rejected, and that will make them angry or resentful.”

Adam nodded, slowly.  “I see your point,” he said.  He’d witnessed older men in Beneficence being pushed into doing things against their will.  It had rarely ended well.  “I appreciate your consideration.”

“Thank you,” Betty said.  “I was a good shopkeeper.  I knew how to haggle with merchants who put money ahead of petty little concerns.  If I’d been allowed to stay in the shop …”

She shook her head.  “Like I said, we have a proposal for you.  And if you turn it down, there’ll be no hard feelings.”

“I understand,” Adam said.

Lilith cleared her throat, impatiently.  “And what is this proposal?”

“We – the Levellers – had a spot of trouble over the last few months,” Betty said, with a studied casualness that belied the intensity of her feelings.  “Arnold was one of our leaders, voted into his post in a perfectly legitimate election, and he turned out to be an infiltrator and wrecker.  Several of the officers who put his name forward as a candidate lost their posts, after the truth came out, and a number either left the city or died in its defence.  Others died too.  We have held new elections, of course, which is how I was voted onto the general council, but we are short of people who can serve as spokesmen.  My story doesn’t go that far.”

“And some people will see you as a betrayer, no matter how you were provoked,” Taffy put in, grimly.  “Family comes first, even if family is an abusive bastard too stupid to see the advantages of doing nothing and reaping the rewards of your efforts.”

Adam shivered, remembering how Arnold had lured Taffy’s fiancé to Heart’s Ease.  In hindsight, that should have tipped them off from the start.  And yet … he scowled.  Taffy had a point.  In a community where family came first, it was astonishingly easy to overlook everything from domestic violence and child abuse to outright criminal behaviour.  He knew families that closed ranks around their kin, even when their kindred were monsters.  Betty’s story was a double-edged sword.  For every single person who thought she’d done the right thing, there’d be at least one other person who’d insist she’d betrayed her husband and regard her as an untrustworthy bitch.  The fact her husband had done nothing to deserve her loyalty would be lost on them.

“Yes,” Betty agreed.  “My story has its limits.”

Lilith frowned.  “So what do you want from Adam?”

“We want – we need – a spokesperson who can represent our ethos to the world,” Betty explained.  “Ideally, we’d want someone who really had risen from nothing and become a great person in their own right, someone who would prove it could be done.  There are fewer possible candidates than you might think.  I inherited the shop I later sold, as did many other merchants who joined the movement; many craftsmen and engineers made use of their connections, at least at first, to gain apprenticeships and rise in the ranks.  The workmen and suchlike rarely have the time to become councillors, let alone spokespeople, while scribes and accountants tend to be unpopular outside their fields.  And, of course, we have to be very careful to vet the candidates we have.  Any flaw in their persons will wind up being used against us.”

Adam leaned forward.  “And you want me to be one of these spokesmen?”

“Yes,” Betty said, simply.

“We can’t give you a seat on the council,” Hans added, quickly.  “Not unless you run for it and convince people to vote for you, but you would be one of us and your voice would be heeded.”

“Interesting way of putting it,” Lilith said.  “You would listen to him?”

“Yes,” Betty said.  “Everyone has a chance to speak.  Everyone has a chance to convince others to agree with them, to do as they suggest.  But you have to convince them.  No one here will go along with whatever you say just because you’re the one who said it.”

Adam said nothing for a long moment.  “Why me?  And why now?”

“Why you?”  Betty smiled.  “You came from a lower middle-class family with few prospects and yet, when you came here, you devised a new kind of magic and played a major role in defending the university from both rogue sorcerers and monarchists.  You have contacts at all levels of both the magical and non-magical communities; your mother was a shopkeeper, which implies a hard core of common sense, while your masters were amongst the best in the field.  You have friends who are magicians and craftsmen” – she nodded to Lilith and Taffy – “and very few people speak ill of you.”

“And those who do rarely put forward decent arguments,” Hans added.  “They dislike you personally.”

Jasper, Adam guessed.

“You are, in short, living proof that a person can rise in the world on merit,” Betty finished, seriously.  “Your tale is an inspiration to all of us.  And that is why you’d make a good spokesperson.”

Lilith frowned.  “And why now?”

Betty nodded to her.  “The kingdom is in flux.  The king’s reputation has been dented and his army has been gravely weakened.  His sister has proclaimed herself a challenger to his authority and has put out a call for his supporters to defect to her, while – in the cities and countryside – his people have started agitating for peace, freedom and a few less fat bastards taking everything save for a few crumbs.  Despite the king’s best efforts, demands for political and social reform are spreading through the kingdom like wildfire.  We are in a position to back the princess and put her on the throne, in exchange for genuine reforms, but this won’t last.  We need to assemble the forces to do it and make sure she keeps her word afterwards.”

“I was going to ask about that,” Taffy said.  “Do you trust her?”

“I trust her to act in her own best interests, as she sees them,” Betty said.  “If we have the power to put her on the throne, and then depose her if she proves unsuitable, she’ll cooperate with us.  If she thinks she can get away with not keeping her word, she’ll break her agreement at the first opportunity.  We dare not take steps to support her unless we have good reason to think we can force her to keep her word.”

Lilith grimaced.  “She’ll need to make deals with a multitude of interests,” she said, slowly.  “And some of those deals will be contradictory.”

“Yes.”  Betty raised her eyebrows.  “Are you politically involved?”

“My father is,” Lilith said.  “I heard a great deal of his grumblings over the years.”

Adam reached out and squeezed her hand, then looked at Betty.  “What’ll she do?”

Betty sighed.  “On paper, the kingdom is a perfect feudal state.  As long as the king enjoys the support of the aristocracy, he can run the kingdom to suit himself.  In practice, he needs to maintain a delicate balancing act, keeping the aristos in line without provoking them into open rebellion and making subtle concessions to priests, magicians and propertied classes to keep them on his side without giving them ideas above their station.  It isn’t easy.  If a large number of those aristos switched sides and joined the princess, the king would be unseated very quickly.  She needs to make promises to them to convince them to join her.

“But, at the same time, we want political and social reform that’ll clip the aristocracy’s wings once and for all.  The princess won’t have us fighting for her unless she makes ironclad and public commitments, but those commitments will alienate the aristos she thinks she needs on her side.  They’ll support the king if the alternative is losing pretty much all of their patrimony and hereditary rights.  But if we can make their support irrelevant …”

Her voice trailed off.  Adam frowned, considering her words.  The aristos had power, true, but that power relied on people accepting their leadership and following them.  History books might speak of Lord Someone or Baron Whoever supporting King Legitimate, yet they rarely mentioned the armies the aristos brought to the battles.  Without the armies, what did the aristos matter?  They were just … men, men who put their trousers on one leg at a time like everyone else.  And a lone man couldn’t turn the tide of battle on his own.

“You’d undermine the aristocracy,” Adam said.  There’d be issues if the landless classes reached for power, he was sure, but … they could be tackled.  Somehow.  “And the princess would be dependent on you.”

“Or so we hope,” Betty said.  She took a sip of her water.  “We don’t need an answer today, Adam, but we need it soon.  Matters are coming to a head.  We need to have an army ready or stand back and watch the princess leading her troops into battle, without our help.”

Lilith snorted.  “I suppose letting them fight it out and dealing with the winner isn’t an option?”

“No, because if we’re not involved, the winner will have the support of much of the aristocracy,” Betty said.  “And dismantling that will not be easy.”

“No,” Adam agreed.  

He’d grown up in a city-state.  He knew the score.  Being poor tended to mean you were conservative.  The aristos might be bad, or vile, but at least you knew where you stood with them.  If the aristos were overthrown, the entire world would be plunged into chaos.  Who knew what would happen then?  It was a major frustration, he’d heard, that reformers found it hard to convince poor commoners that social change would be beneficial.  But then, when people had so little margin for error, it was a very hard sell.

Maybe that’s why so few wives leave abusive husbands, he thought.  The husband might be bad, but being alone could easily be worse in a world that can be cruel to single women.

“It’s a very tempting offer,” he said, finally.  He wasn’t sure what he’d do with it.  Make a few speeches, then go back to work?  Or would he be expected to do more?  Or … he didn’t know.  He wasn’t sure he wanted to be just a spokesperson either.  If he was lending his name and influence to the cause, he’d want some say in how decisions were made too.  “Can I think about it?”

“Like I said, we need an answer soon,” Betty said.  “For the moment, you are welcome to stay here and join the dance.  And so are your friends.”

“Me too?”  Lilith leaned forward.  “Are magicians welcome here?”

“Everyone is welcome,” Betty said.  “We believe all people – male or female, young or old, magical or not – are equal in the eyes of the world.”

“It will be hard to convince everyone of that,” Lilith pointed out.  “Your husband certainly didn’t believe he was your equal.”

“No,” Betty agreed.  “An outsider may still disapprove of a wife’s decision to leave her husband, in the world we will create.  But the outsider will have no right to stop the wife from leaving, and the husband will have no right to his wife’s property if she leaves.  It doesn’t matter what one person thinks of another, as long as they are all equal before the law.”

Her smile grew sharper.  “And as long as our enemies refuse to make use of people with talent who lack the right bloodlines, we’ll have the edge.  They’ll have to become us to defeat us and that will be the end.”

“I hope you’re right,” Lilith said.  She didn’t sound convinced.  “I really do.”

Adam nodded, thoughts churning.  He wanted to take up the role, and yet … he feared it would be a distraction, something drawing him away from his work.  And … he told himself, firmly, he’d discuss it with the other two when they were on their way home.  By then, he might have a good idea of what he really wanted to do.

“Come on,” he said, standing.  “Let’s go back to the dance.”

Chapter Six

“There’s one problem,” Lilith said, as they made their way back to Heart’s Eye.  “You may not be able to take up the role as spokesperson, perhaps even as leader, and stay in the university.”

Adam grimaced.  The dancing had been fun, but easy … simplistic enough not to distract him from his churning thoughts.  The energy in the room had called to him, inviting him to commit himself to the cause, yet he feared the Levellers would have very real problems translating their ideals into political reality.  What did equality before the law really mean, in practice, and what would happen if someone with power defied the law?  And what would happen if a magician refused to go along with the mundanes?  Adam had no illusions about the limits of Durian Gas, or spell-cancelling circuits.  A magician could make a mundane say or do or believe anything, making a mockery of equality.  If there was no system in place to prevent it, it would happen …

“I don’t know,” he said, slowly.  He didn’t want to leave Heart’s Eye.  He’d come to love the university, and the thought of turning his back and walking away was unthinkable.  Besides, without his workroom, it would be difficult to carry out further research.  “What do I do about it?”

“Ask Master Caleb,” Lilith said, practically.  “He’d be able to tell you where the staff stands on the issue.”

“I will,” Adam said.  He glanced at Taffy.  “You’re being quiet.  What do you think I should do?”

Taffy said nothing for a long moment, long enough for him to wonder if she was jealous.  Taffy had been a Leveller for longer than him – technically, he wasn’t part of the local chapter – and yet, it hadn’t been her who’d been approached to serve as spokesperson.  She’d been fooled by Arnold, true, but so had a bunch of other Levellers.  She’d also risen through merit … no one, even her worst detractors, argued she didn’t deserve her role.  And yet … he grimaced.  Taffy would be a good spokesperson.  She’d certainly learnt from her mistakes.

“I think you should do it,” Taffy said, finally.  “The Heart’s Ease Levellers were … a little decentralised, before Arnold arrived.  He played a role in uniting the various chapters here, which set them up for him to turn them into his pawns and sowed the seeds of monumental distrust when he was exposed.  The risk of the gathering coming apart into a multitude of smaller and ineffectual factions is dangerously high, no matter how hard Betty and Hans work to paper over the cracks.  And that means there’ll be no concentrated action to change the kingdom.”

She paused.  “Worse, as the chapter starts coming apart, there will be more and more radical ideas entering the mainstream, ideas that will – at best – render the factions irrelevant because they’ll command no support from outside the chapters.  At worst … sure, the idea of collectivising farmlands and factories sounds good, on paper, but the results will be utterly disastrous.  And that isn’t even the worst idea I’ve heard seriously discussed in the last few weeks.  The Levellers need someone with a hard core of common sense to speak for them, someone who commands respect even from those who don’t like him.  You would be ideal.”

Lilith frowned.  “Why don’t you do it?”

“You’d be ideal too,” Adam agreed.

Taffy bit her lip.  “First, I came out of a farm, rather than a merchant’s shop or a magic school or something else that commands automatic respect from middle-class activists.  I certainly haven’t done anything like as much as you.  Second” – her face twisted – “I am a young woman, and that means a great many young men will not be disposed to listen to me, not automatically, particularly as I have neither magic nor property to make them pay attention to me.  And third, I did make a fool of myself with Arnold.  They kicked out a bunch of older men for missing the red flags, men who’d been part of the movement for years.  They won’t tolerate me trying to speak for them.”

“And there I was, thinking they meant everything they said about equality,” Lilith said sarcastically.  “How … foolish … of me.”

“There is a point where idealism must give way to reality or the entire movement will become worse than useless,” Taffy snapped.  “And the reality is that it will be far harder for me to make any headway now, before everyone involved has a chance to get used to the new world.  It’s shitty, but refusing to recognise the truth of the matter is just plain stupid.”

Adam winced.  “And you think I should do it?”

“Yes,” Taffy said.  “The Levellers need someone, and you’re probably the best person they could hope to find.”

“But I don’t want to do it,” Adam protested.  “I mean, what do they really want from me?”

“That’s a point in your favour,” Taffy said.  “If you wanted power and position, it would be a huge red flag.”

“True,” Lilith agreed.  “Too many school clubs fell apart because the leaders were more interested in bossing everyone around than actually keeping the clubs running smoothly.”

Adam frowned.  “If I do it, I’ll want to run for office too,” he said.  “How does that even work?”

“Discuss it later,” Lilith advised.  “First, ask Master Caleb for his advice.  If he says you can’t take up the post and stay at Heart’s Eye, you’ll have to decide which one you actually want to do.”

Adam nodded, shivering as a cold wind blew across the desert.  The university was a black mass against the skyline, only a handful of lights visible in the darkness.  A dark cloud seemed to be hanging just above the spires, a strangely alien shape that looked profoundly unnatural … it took him a moment to realise it was the airship, floating in the air.  It was hard to believe humans had built the craft, that there wasn’t much – if any – magic involved in its creation.  It was living proof that mankind could grow and develop and overcome its challenges, just as Lady Emily wanted.  The gods might have made men, as someone had joked during the siege, but it was Lady Emily who’d made them equal.

He sucked in his breath as they reached the university.  “I’ll go find Master Caleb now,” he said.  It was late, but he knew from experience Master Caleb tended to stay up well past midnight.  If he was in his office, he was generally willing to talk.  “I’ll see you both tomorrow.”

Lilith gave him a quick kiss.  “We have work to do,” she said, mischievously.  “See you at breakfast?”

Taffy winked.  Adam flushed as the two girls walked off.  It was hard to get any privacy outside the workroom and even then, with Taffy a full member of the team, he was reluctant to do anything when they might be caught at any moment.  He wondered, not for the first time, what Lilith would say if he suggested going to one of the privacy rooms, then told himself he needed to wait.  Lilith would tell him when she wanted to take their relationship further …

Mum always said that a man wouldn’t die if the girl didn’t sleep with him, Adam recalled, wryly.  He’d cringed when his mother had told his sisters to beware of any man who argued he would die if she didn’t have sex with him, but … if that were true, no man would live past puberty.  And if the girl doesn’t want to do it, you have to wait.

He turned and made his way up the stairs, into the suite of offices.  The wards made no attempt to stop him as he stepped through the doors and looked around, finding Caleb’s office at the end of the row.  He wasn’t sure if that was the luck of the draw or a subtle insult.  Mistress Irene and Master Dagon had offices far closer to the door … not, he supposed, that it really mattered.  The gap between their doors was only a few metres, hardly anything to complain about.  It would be a great deal worse if the office had been at the rear of the building.

But maybe not for everyone, Adam thought, as he tapped the door.  He’d be close to the workrooms and away from the rest of the administrative staff.

The door opened, revealing a large office.  Adam felt a twinge of envy as he stepped into the chamber and looked around.  The walls were lined with bookcases, bursting with hundreds upon hundreds of books; the desks were covered with maps, designs and countless other pieces of paperwork.  It was a mess, yet there was something strikingly homely and welcoming about it.  The chairs and sofas looked comfortable, rather than formal.  He wondered, suddenly, if Caleb and Lady Emily had … he bit off on that thought very quickly, before it could take more than a vague shape in his mind.  It was none of his business.

“Adam,” Caleb said.  He looked tired, so exhausted that Adam felt guilty about disturbing him even though he was clearly packing a bag rather than heading to bed.  “What can I do for you?”

Adam hesitated, suddenly unsure what to say.  “I …”

“I’ve been summoned to Zangaria,” Caleb reminded him.  His voice was impatient, as well as tired.  “I’ve already been delayed – badly.  Please tell me you’ll get to the point before I have to go.”

“Zangaria?”  Adam could only think of one person who could summon Master Caleb to Zangaria and that was …  “Did Lady Emily call you …?”

“Yes,” Caleb said, curtly.  “And to answer your next question, I don’t have time to take a letter to Beneficence or Cockatrice.  We’ll be arranging postal services later.”

Adam flushed.  The thought hadn’t crossed his mind.  “Sorry, sir.”

Caleb closed his rucksack and placed it on the floor.  “No matter,” he said.  “It was arranged at very short notice.  We were lucky she even made it to Zangaria.”

He sat and motioned for Adam to sit too.  “What can I do for you?”

“I … I was invited to serve as a Leveller spokesperson,” Adam said, and recounted everything that had happened since they’d left the university and walked down to the ruined city.  “And I wanted to know if I could accept the role.”

“Without leaving the university?”  Master Caleb frowned.  “Do you want to take on the role?”

“Yes.  No.  I don’t know.”  Adam hesitated.  “It needs to be done, but I don’t know if I want to do it myself.”

Master Caleb said nothing for a long moment, then shrugged.  “It seems to me you should probably decide if you want to do it or not, before you ask if you can.”

“Yes, sir,” Adam said.  “But if I can’t, the question becomes immaterial.”

“Perhaps so,” Master Caleb agreed.  “It is a hard question to answer.”

Adam frowned as Master Caleb sat back in his chair.  He wasn’t that much older than Adam himself, only two or three years … and yet, he was one of the most powerful people in the world.  It didn’t seem fair, somehow, although …  Adam had to admit, looking at it objectively, Master Caleb had made his own share of magical breakthroughs.  They weren’t that different, not really.  They’d certainly come from the same city …

“Emily wanted the university to be politically neutral,” Master Caleb said, breaking into his thoughts.  “We would be a research and development centre, a place for all to educate and be educated, a home for technological development and … I suppose it was inevitable that our mere existence would cause discontent, simply because we provided a home for dissidents as well as people who wanted to leave their former masters and strike out on their own.  We told ourselves we could strike a balance.  And we were wrong.”

“King Ephialtes laid siege to us, to get back his sister and his fiancée,” Adam said.  “He came very close to winning.”

“Our neutrality has been torn to shreds,” Master Caleb agreed.  “King Vanunu knew better than to push too hard.  He had good reason to be grateful to Emily, as well as nervous of what she might do if he tried to invade or destroy the university.  His son has little of his father’s good sense, as well as a belief Emily has been … neutralised … by the White Council.  In this, he was wrong, yet whatever doubts he had didn’t stop him committing himself to war.  Princess Violet might have provided the excuse, but in truth I think it would have happened anyway.  Our very existence is a challenge to the old order, and they must destroy us or be … left behind.”

He met Adam’s eyes thoughtfully.  “And too many of your peers believe we should become more activist ourselves,” he added.  “Voidsdaughter, in their telling, exists to take the war to Lokane City.  Our staff are designing weapons for our students to carry into battle, to seek out the monarchical beast and slay it in its lair.  They see the princess as a worthy cause and fail to consider the long-term implications for the university itself.  What do you make of it?”

Adam hesitated.  “Taffy said farmers had to balance the need for seed corn for next year’s farming with the need to keep their families alive throughout the winter,” he said, suspecting he was being tested but not sure how.  “If they didn’t have the seed corn in spring, there’d be no crops in summer, but it wouldn’t matter if they didn’t survive long enough to replant the fields after winter.”

“True,” Master Caleb agreed.  “And your point?”

“We need to think about the long-term,” Adam said.  “But the long-term won’t matter if we don’t survive the next few months.  The king could resume the offensive.  Arnold could get back inside the wards.  Or … anything could happen, if we do nothing.  The kingdom attacked us, not the other way around, and the king was clearly looking for a fight.  We didn’t throw the first punch, but we should aim to throw the last.”

Master Caleb smiled.  “Well argued,” he said.  “And we’ll see how it works out in the future.”

He looked down at his hands.  “To answer your question, you are free to join the Levellers and take up whatever post you wish, as long as you don’t seek a position on the university governing board.  If you are invited to take a seat, you will have to give up your outside posts, a rule that has – unfortunately – deprived us of quite some talent over the last couple of years.  I don’t know if you will be offered a seat, or if choosing to join the Levellers would ruin your chances of being offered one, but I have an obligation to make it clear.  Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” Adam said.  “But …”

Master Caleb cut him off.  “I also don’t know how Emily will react.  She may feel I have … overstepped … by telling you this, or indeed in giving sanctuary to the princess and giving the king the excuse he needed to invade.  It’s possible she will order you to leave the movement or leave the university.  It’s also possible she’ll do nothing.  I can’t make any promises, certainly not ones that bind her.”

Adam swallowed.  “What’s she like, as a person?”

He bit his tongue, an instant too late.  It was a deeply inappropriate question.  They were not friends.  They were from very different backgrounds, even if they were both from Beneficence.  Master Caleb would be entirely within his rights to send Adam away with a flea in his rear, or direct Adam’s master to apply the belt or … something that would be tricky, the irreverent part of his mind noted, as Adam was technically his own master …

“She’s a very good person,” Master Caleb said, finally.  “But she is also very difficult to predict.  She can and does do things no one would expect; she also misses things anyone else would spot easily, almost effortlessly.  Does that answer your question?”

“Yes, sir,” Adam said.  “Sorry.”

Master Caleb nodded, curtly.  “Go to bed.  Get some rest.  Decide what you want to do about the Levellers and do it.  Continue your research … we’ll catch up, hopefully, once I get back from Zangaria.  And good luck.”

“You too, sir,” Adam said.  “What do you think is going to happen?”

“I don’t know,” Master Caleb said.  “I have to finish packing and then leave.  Go.”

Adam bowed, then left the room and headed back to his dorm.  It was surprisingly quiet as he entered, the majority of his dormmates either sleeping or spending the night somewhere else.  He felt a twinge of envy, mingled with the awareness it wasn’t always a good thing.  He showered rapidly, changed into his nightclothes and drew the curtains around his bed before going to sleep.  If there was one advantage of being his own master, at least on paper, it was that he didn’t have to get up at stupid o’clock.  He could get out of bed at midday if he wished.

And as long as I produced results, no one would care, he thought.  And …

He sobered.  He still wasn’t sure what he wanted to do.  If he took the Levellers up on their offer … it would change his life, for better or worse.  He’d wanted to be famous, to be recognised as something special, and yet … he put the thought aside and considered the offer as emotionlessly as he could.  He was drawn to the Levellers, to their belief in equality and merit and everything else the aristos regarded with horror.  And he knew what would happen if they lost the war.  Everything Lady Emily had built would be mercilessly destroyed, along with everyone who believed in her.  It could not be allowed to happen.

Which is the answer, he told himself.  Isn’t it?

Chapter Seven

“You’re up early,” Lilith said, the following morning.  “Did the bed come to life and kick you out at first light?”

“I didn’t sleep very well,” Adam admitted.  He kept his voice low, even though the dining hall was surprisingly quiet.  The breakfast was slightly bigger than he’d feared – the university staff had apparently managed to buy supplies from the kingdom – but there still wasn’t enough of it.  “I was too busy trying to decide what to do.”

“I think Taffy had the same problem,” Lilith said.  “She tossed and turned all night and then went down to the craftsman’s shop as soon as dawn broke.”

Adam winced.  Taffy deserved better.  “Did she keep you up?”

“I didn’t sleep that well either,” Lilith said.  “But it wasn’t her fault.”

“No,” Adam said.  “What do you think would happen if I made my participation contingent on her involvement, as a leader and a spokesperson?”

Lilith pursed her lips.  “As a decent person, I would say you should go ahead and do it,” she said.  “As a friend, I would advise you to ask her first and go along with whatever she says.”

Adam blinked.  “It isn’t fair that she should be penalised …”

“She said it herself, she isn’t the only one being penalised,” Lilith said.  “Taffy isn’t a child, Adam, and she’s certainly not your child.  You can’t make choices for her.  Ask her, by all means, but if she says no, respect it.”

“I will,” Adam promised.  “And it does have to be done, doesn’t it?”

“I think you have to make that decision,” Lilith said.  “But I will support you regardless of what you decide.”

Adam felt a rush of warmth.  “Thank you.”

He ran his hand through his hair, at least partly to hide the blush.  Lilith was a magician.  She didn’t have to get involved with the Levellers, not least because female magicians were fully equal to their male counterparts.  Jasper might dislike her for being related to Master Dagon, or for dating Adam, but he’d never tried to pick on her for being a girl.  Lilith didn’t have to support Adam and Taffy, and yet she was, because …

“We’d better eat,” Lilith said.  “There’s work to be done.”

Adam nodded and tucked into his breakfast.  The food was bland, without the spices he’d gotten too used to enjoying before the siege, but there was enough of it to keep him going until lunch.  The hall slowly filled with staff and students, a handful of the latter looking as if they’d just come from early-morning shooting practice.  Adam felt a flicker of guilt about not returning to the militia, even though it was far from compulsory.  His lips twisted in irritation.  Sure, there’d been no law saying young men had to join up to fight, but any man who didn’t would be branded a coward even if he was needed elsewhere.  He knew he would have been mocked mercilessly – by Jasper, by Matt, by everyone – if he hadn’t signed up.  And in hindsight …

“Hey,” Valerie Hunt said.  “Did you hear?  Master Caleb left early this morning!”

“Or very late last night,” Adam muttered, tiredly.  It was too early in the day for dealing with Valerie.  “What did you hear?”

“Apparently, there’s to be a big conference in Zangaria or something,” Valerie said.  “But no one knows anything for sure.”

Adam nodded and finished his breakfast as rumours spread around the hall, growing in the telling.  There was no point in sharing what little he knew, not when it was too little to add anything to the conversation.  The truth … he looked at Lilith, who nodded, and then returned his tray to the catering staff before heading down to the workroom.  Their ongoing project had been paused while Voidsdaughter was put through her paces – Adam wondered, suddenly, if Taffy was on the airship – but there were plenty of other pieces of work to do while they waited.  It made him feel as though they were accomplishing something.

“Father was saying Master Caleb left in a hurry,” Lilith said.  “Do you know anything about it?”

“Nothing, beyond the bare fact he was heading to Zangaria,” Adam said.  “What did your father have to say?”

“Nothing useful, as per always,” Lilith said.  “The same old stuff, time and time again.”

She sat down on the workbench and stared at her hands.  “Let me have a moment, please,” she said.  “I’ll be ready soon.”

Adam nodded, feeling inadequate.  He wanted to say something to her, but what?  He wanted to go to Master Dagon and demand to know why he was hurting his daughter, to threaten him with horrific consequences if he didn’t just stop, but he knew it would be pointless. Lilith would never forgive him for interfering in her affairs, while her father would just blast him to dust or turn him into a toad or something – anything – other than listening to him and mending fences with his daughter.  What could he do?  He wanted to ask Lilith to run away with him, but … they couldn’t leave Heart’s Eye.  Even if they did …

He put the thought out of his head as he reached for his collection of notes and runic tiles and started to put together the latest version of the spell detector.  It had been easy enough to come up with a runic pattern to detect magic – although he wondered, in hindsight, if Arnold hadn’t given the first version a little boost – but harder to come up with a way to measure magic.  It was odd, he thought, that magicians had never come up with a standard way to measure magic like water.  They seemed to prefer to rely on instinct, at least when it came to raw magic.  Lilith had even explained that using too much magic could sometimes fill in the gaps in the spellwork, powering through any glitches caused by imprecision.  And yet … he knew he needed something a little more acute than guesswork.  His spell circuits didn’t compensate for a little too much magic.  They exploded.

We need a proper scale, he told himself, thoughtfully.  And if we’re the ones to put it together, everyone will simply copy ours rather than coming up with their own.

His lips twitched – Lady Emily had devised the metric system, and it was now used almost everywhere – as he put the detector together.  The final version would be much neater, he was sure, but it didn’t matter now, not when they might need to take it apart at the drop of a hat so they could replace burnt-out components.  The structure in front of him started to vibrate the moment he put the last piece in place, nearly making him jump.  There was magic in the room …?  Of course there was, he reminded himself.  There was a nexus point not that far away.

“That ticking could get very irritating very quickly,” Lilith said, looking up.  “Does it have to be so loud?”

“The next version will be a little bit quieter,” Adam assured her.  The noise really was annoying, although it had the advantage of being hard to miss.  “Let me see if I can zero it …”

The ticking stopped, so abruptly he wondered if he’d accidentally damaged the device beyond repair.  He poked and prodded at the structure for a long moment, before realising he’d done everything right.  The device was no longer recognising the background magic field and yet … it quivered, oddly, as his fingers moved too close to the tiles.  He cursed under his breath.  The magic infused into his blood was still there, still dangerous … still waiting to be used.  And the gods alone knew what it would do to him, in the long run.

“Ready, I think,” he said.  He picked up his notepad, ready to record the results as she joined him.  “Can you cast the simplest spell?”

Lilith nodded, lifting her hand and holding it over the device.  It started to tick, the ticking growing faster and faster as a lightglobe materialised over Lilith’s palm and hovered in the air.  She drew her hand back, the ticking slowly fading as the lightglobe spluttered before finally blinking out of existence.  Adam watched, noting how the ticking went on for several seconds after the lightglobe vanished for good.  There was still magic in the air, but the effects were no longer visible.

“That was as precise as possible,” Lilith informed him.  “I didn’t use so much as a drop of extra magic.”

Adam nodded, wishing he could sense magic himself.  It was easy to feel something was wrong when someone cast spells on you, but by then it was too late.  He made a final set of notes, then motioned for her to cast the spell again.  His breath caught in his throat – he was all too aware the slightest mistake on her part would render the experimental results worse than useless – but as the lightglobe flickered into existence and then out again, he realised she’d done it perfectly.  The power levels – as represented by the ticking – were practically identical.

“It works,” he said.  “I think we have a winner!”

“Sort of,” Lilith said.  “We need another magician to help test the theory before we get too excited.”

She hurried to the door, hailed a messenger and gave him a message.  Adam barely heard her as he bent over the device, trying to make sure nothing had broken.  The ticker was too fragile for his peace of mind, but there were limits to how tightly he could secure it to the device without rendering it accidentally immobile.  A proper craftsman would probably be able to do a better job – he intended to make sure Taffy did the work and got the credit for turning his concept into something anyone could use – but it would work.  He scribbled down the rest of his notes as they waited, then smiled as the door opened and the Gorgon stepped into the room.  He rather liked the demihuman and besides, she had the advantage of not being Jasper.  Or Arnold.

“Lilith, Adam,” the Gorgon said.  She closed the door behind her and smiled at them.  “You need another magician?”

“We need you to cast a precise lightspell, going through all the steps one by one,” Lilith explained, indicating the device.  “No shortcuts.  Do everything as if you were a first year once again.”

“That’s a pretty big ask,” the Gorgon said.  She stepped forward and held her hand over the detector.  “It’s been years since I had to put a spell together from scratch.”

Lilith nodded.  “I had problems too, when we started altering spells to work with the spell circuits,” she said.  “By this stage, we are beyond being precise and fiddly with our magic.”

“You might be better off working with a new student,” the Gorgon said. “Let me see …”

Her fingers seemed to curve up, just slightly, as she cast the spell.  The detector started to tick.  Loudly.  The Gorgon hissed something – it didn’t sound pleasant – and withdrew her hand, the ticking slowly fading with the light.  Adam carefully counted the sounds, making detailed notes as the gaps between them grew longer and longer until they were gone.  The Gorgon studied the device, face unreadable.  Adam wondered what she was thinking.

“It responds to magic?”  The Gorgon sounded as if she didn’t believe it.  “How does it work?”

“Active magic,” Adam clarified.  “And it tries to determine how much magic is in the spell.”

He studied his notes for a long moment.  “The more magic in the air, near the detector, the faster the ticks,” he said.  “I think that’ll be the basic unit of magic … can I name them after Emily, do you think?”

“There was magic long before her,” the Gorgon said.  “And I doubt she’d approve of something so basic being named after her.  She could have named hundreds of things after her and she didn’t, not once.”

“Queen Alassa named her daughter after Lady Emily,” Lilith said.  “And she wasn’t the only one.”

“Yes, but Emily didn’t choose the name,” the Gorgon said.  “Choose something else.  Something neutral.”

“So no naming it after me instead,” Adam said, wryly.  “How about ticks?  Pulses and ticks?”

“Better,” the Gorgon said.  “What’s the difference?”

“Ticks will be active magic,” Lilith said.  They’d discussed the concept earlier, without giving them a name.  “Pulses will be inactive magic, background magic.”

“You’d better write all the details down before you show it to someone else,” the Gorgon cautioned.  “Once it gets out, you’ll lose the ability to make certain choices for yourselves.”

Adam nodded.  “Do you have time to cast a few more spells for us?”

“A little,” the Gorgon said.  “Mistress Irene will want me back shortly.”

She paused.  “What do you intend to do about overpowered spells?”

“I think it’ll be a long time before we devise a way to identify spells,” Adam said, slowly.  “We’ll need a great deal more data before we can even begin.”

He kept making notes as Lilith and the Gorgon cast spell after spell, the magic flickering and flaring around the detector.  It wasn’t easy to put together a gradient scale, certainly not when the magicians adjusted the amount of magic that went into the spell.  He suspected it would take weeks to work out a system everyone could use … not, he supposed, that he’d let that deter him.  The detector was very clearly a step in the right direction.  He was so determined to make it work that he even asked Lilith to turn him into an object, then see if the detector responded to his transfigured form.  It did.

“No ticks,” Lilith said, after she turned him back to normal.  “But you were covered in pulses.”

“We need to do more research,” Adam said.  It was hard to be sure she’d done it correctly.  She was sensitive to magic, sensitive in a way neither he nor Taffy could match.  “And we need to work out how near the detector has to be, to detect magic.”

He bent over his notes, putting together a modified compass.  It twitched violently at first, as if it was being pulled in all directions simultaneously, but it twisted around and pointed the moment Lilith cast a spell.  The results were decidedly mixed.  The more power she put into the spell, the easier it was to detect, but … it didn’t seem to work logically.  Some spells could be detected from the other side of the room, others – seemingly more powerful – couldn’t be detected except at very close range.  His head hurt as he tried to put the pieces together.  They were missing something, but what?

“This might be a good way to detect magicians without intrusive scans,” the Gorgon said, as they finished the last set of experiments.  “Do you think it would detect a masking magician?”

“Like Arnold?”  Lilith frowned.  “It might work, but he was very good at hiding his true nature.  I never had a clue until it was too late.  If someone isn’t radiating magic, it might be impossible to detect him …”

“We should try and find out,” the Gorgon said.  She stepped back.  “I’ll see you both later, though.  I’ve stayed here longer than I should.”

“Blame it on us,” Lilith advised, with a grin.  “Mistress Irene won’t mind if you tell her what we’ve been doing.”

Adam nodded.  It was hard not to feel guilty.  The Gorgon might be in some trouble if Mistress Irene did mind.  And yet … he scowled as he finished scribbling down notes for the second and third set of designs.  They’d put together something that worked.  It wouldn’t be that hard to neaten it up or get others to start working on their own versions.  Who knew?  Taffy might come up with something that would work better …

And then she’d get the credit for the improvements, Adam thought. She’d deserve them too.

“So,” Lilith said.  “We have a working magic detector.”

“And a way of calculating just how much magic is involved,” Adam agreed.  Their original measurements were more than a little arbitrary, but they’d be standardized soon enough.  “It may even be possible to draw off the magic, breaking the spells without explosive side effects.”

“If you draw the magic into the spellwork,” Lilith agreed.  She grinned at him.  “And there you were, thinking you were nothing special.”

Adam flushed.  “Anyone could have done this.”

“But it was you who did,” Lilith teased.  “Not anyone else.  You.”

She glanced at the clock.  “You want to join Taffy for lunch, then see if she’s free to help this afternoon?”

“She’ll come up with a better design,” Adam said.  He knew the basics of craftsmanship – it helped that the designs were always logical, like puzzle pieces that fitted together perfectly – but he lacked the expertise to turn dreams into reality.  Taffy and Yvonne and the rest of the craftsmen might lack his experience with magic, but their craftsmanship was unmatched.  “If it works …”

“It will,” Lilith said.  “I have faith in our work.”

She caught his hand and pulled him into a kiss.  Adam felt his heart start to race as the kiss deepened, caught between the desire to go further and the grim awareness the workshop wasn’t entirely private.  He wrapped his arms around her and held her … he felt her quiver against him, her breath coming in fits and starts as his hands wandered lower, brushing against her rear.  She let him do it for a single enchanted moment, then pulled away. Adam let go of her quickly, breath catching in his throat.  She was radiant.  She was …

Lilith sounded as if she was having trouble speaking.  “Shall we go?”

Adam stepped back and gathered himself, his heart pounding.  “Yeah,” he said.  He wanted to go further, and yet he didn’t want to ruin everything.  And yet …  “Let’s go.”

Chapter Eight

“She’s in there, somewhere,” Lilith said.  “Are you ready?”

Adam hesitated.  He’d spent an hour fretting as the girls prepared for the test, his thoughts tormenting him.  The idea had been his.  It felt like a demented version of hide and seek, and he’d intended he’d be the person Taffy had to find.  He hadn’t expected Taffy to insist on playing the target instead, or Lilith to go along with it.  He wasn't even sure why the girls had agreed that he’d play the hunter.  Lilith couldn’t play the role, of course, but there was no reason Taffy couldn’t have taken it on.  Adam didn’t like the discomfort of being turned into an object – no one did – yet he could have put up with it long enough to test the detector before they finalised the design.

The device in his arms quivered, a grim reminder that a random flicker of magic running through the university could throw their calculations into the waste paper bin.  He’d known, intellectually, that the building was suffused with raw magic, a side-effect of the nexus point, but feeling his invention react to the magic brought it home in a manner that was impossible to ignore.  There was no danger – they weren’t running any real risk of going to sleep as a human and waking up as something utterly inhuman – but it was still disconcerting.  He wondered, idly, how many mundanes would move out of the university as his detectors became more common.  They wouldn’t be able to pretend the raw magic didn’t exist any longer.

But we can channel it into infused blood or our wards, he told himself.  And then we can turn it into a power source.

“I’m ready,” he said, finally.  “Is she …?”

“She’ll be fine,” Lilith assured him.  “There’s no real danger.  The spell will wear off in an hour” – she made a show of peering at her watch – “and if you haven’t found her by then, we’ll just have to redesign the detector.”

Adam nodded, curtly.  Taffy, Yvonne and Praxis had taken the original design and improved upon it in a few short hours.  It was an impressive feat – Adam knew it would have taken him days to match their work, if he could have done it at all – and yet, it was impossible to be entirely sure the device would work as intended.  The test lay in front of them … he resisted the urge to tighten the screws or make one of a dozen entirely unnecessary changes as he hefted the device and motioned for Lilith to open the door.  It wasn’t that heavy, objectively speaking, but he still felt as if he were carrying something fragile.

“Good luck,” Lilith said.  She was careful not to step inside the room, not to give him any hints where he should look.  “You have fifty-seven minutes to find her.”

Adam swallowed.  His throat was dry.  He stepped into the storeroom and placed the device on the table, his eyes flickering from side to side as if he expected to be attacked at any moment.  The storeroom was huge, crammed with hundreds of pieces of junk from artefacts from the old school to items hastily removed from the town before the king’s army burnt it to the ground.  He wondered, idly, who they belonged to and why they hadn’t been recovered and returned to their original owners.  There was a good chance the poor bastards were dead, their bodies turned to ash or piled in one of the mass graves.  The goods might never be recovered by anyone who had a rightful claim to them.

We’ll have to set a deadline, he thought, as his eyes glided over old textbooks, magical objects long-since drained of power and pieces of clockwork that looked eerie in the half-light.  There was no magical lighting in the chamber, just a simple lantern hanging from the ceiling and casting a dull light over the junk.  If someone doesn’t come to claim them within a year or so, they go to whoever wants them.

He paused, forcing himself to look around the room even though he knew it wouldn’t be that easy.  He’d thrilled, as a child, to stories of heroic adventurers who’d somehow known their true loves no matter what form they took, or clever and cunning young women who somehow tricked evil sorcerers into revealing just what they’d done to their young men.  Now … a shiver ran down his spine.  The real world was rarely so obliging.  Taffy could have been turned into anything, from a dirty rag – there was one sitting at the edge of the table – to a wooden carving of an infant at prayer.  Adam looked for something out of place but spotted nothing.  The room was too messy for anything to stand out.

“Well,” he said.  “Let’s see how this works.”

He reached for the detector and removed the pin keeping the ticker in place.  It started to tick frantically, reacting to the surges of wild magic so violently he feared it would be torn apart within a few seconds.  The pin had been in place and yet the detector had quivered earlier … he hastily zeroed the device, trying to get it to ignore the background magic.  It was hard not to feel frustrated at how cumbersome his device was, compared to a genuine magician.  Jasper would laugh, if he could see it.  And yet, people had laughed at early steam engines and printing presses too.  They weren’t laughing now.

The ticking dulled, slowing to a regular clock tick that sent shivers down his spine.  The air was tainted with magic and … he thought he felt something brushing against his bare skin, something that felt real even though he knew he was imagining it.  It scared him at a very primal level, as if he was suddenly, painfully aware of the threat.  He’d grown up in a city where street violence was common, and there were places no one went alone unless they wanted to be raped, robbed and murdered, but he’d never been so scared.  And yet, he felt as if he was being scared of nothing.

Except it isn’t nothing, he thought.  Is it?

He picked up the detector, balanced it on his palms and walked towards the nearest pile of junk. The ticking picked up slightly, just enough for him to notice the time between ticks was growing shorter, then faded again.  He eyed the pile of junk thoughtfully, even though he knew it was futile.  It looked, very much, as though the collection had been tossed into the room randomly and then forgotten, abandoned by the entire world.  The ticking didn’t change, again, as he moved the detector over the rest of the pile, then moved to the next collection of junk.  An old typewriter – it couldn’t be that old, typewriters hadn’t been invented until Lady Emily designed them – seemed to have some magic worked into the keys, but not enough to suggest it was anything other than what it said on the tin.  Adam felt his heart sink as he moved onwards, all the old tales mocking him.  Taffy was somewhere in the room, but where?  The feather duster on the edge of the rickety bookcase?  The cracked crystal ball that had no real use, now that the orb was broken?  The fertility icon that made him blush when he looked at it?  He breathed a sigh of relief when he tested the icon and discovered it wasn’t magic, not in any real sense.  Taffy would not have forgiven Lilith if she’d turned her into that.

The ticking picked up suddenly, so suddenly he almost dropped the detector.  He caught it frantically and went down on one knee as he passed the detector over the collection of objects.  They were a weird collection – devices he didn’t recognise sharing space with components he’d seen in the university’s workshops and labs – and they were tainted with magic.  A lot of magic.  He sucked in his breath as the ticking grew quicker, the sound almost blurring into a single disconcerting note as he held the device over a block of green wood, then fading again as he moved away.  The block was one of many, and yet … his fingers prickled when he picked it up, something seeming to crackle against his bare fingertips.  He knew he was imagining it.  He had to be.  And yet …

“Taffy?”

There was no answer.  Of course not.  Adam carried the block away from the pile, placed it in the middle of the room and put the detector next to it.  The ticking grew and grew until it was a single note.  He breathed a sigh of relief – he’d found something, proving the detector was more than just a laboratory trick – and dug into his pocket for the runic tiles.  He placed four of them in front of the block, then pushed the fifth – the charged – tile into place.  The block shifted, twisting in ways his eyes refused to follow; he felt a wave of nausea that forced him to look away, swallowing hard to keep himself from throwing up, as the ticking slowly faded to nothing.  He heard someone grunt, gasping for breath, and looked back.  Taffy was on her hands and knees, staring down at the stone floor.  Adam felt a flicker of guilt, as if he were spying on a very private moment.  It would have been so much better if he’d been the object and she’d been looking for him.

“That was …”  Taffy sat up, taking deep shuddering breaths before she started again.  “That was unpleasant.”

Adam nodded, curtly.  Object transformation spells were supposed to compensate for someone finding himself unable to move or breathe or anything, but he knew from grim experience the effect was always disconcerting no matter how gentle the spell.  It was better being an animal, even something as tiny as a snail.  Animals could move … he wondered, not for the first time, how someone could see or hear anything when they literally lacked eyes and ears?  It made no sense, and yet he could testify, when he’d been changed into something himself, he’d been aware of his surroundings.  Perhaps it was something to do with the safeguards worked into the spell.  Being blind and deaf would make the experience literally maddening.  There were all sorts of horror stories about evil sorcerers using transfiguration spells to torture their helpless victims.  

He helped her to her feet.  “Are you alright?”

“I’ve been better,” Taffy managed.  She leaned against him for a moment, then straightened.  “I was aware of you moving around the chamber, but …”

Adam felt another pang of guilt.  “We need to sharpen the detector,” he said.  “I had to start at the beginning” – he waved a hand at the piles of junk – “and go through everything.”

Taffy nodded.  “Lilith didn’t really try to hide me,” she said.  “She could have concealed me a great deal more carefully if she wished.”

Adam nodded as he placed the detector on the table.  The ticking was almost gone.  “We really do need to come up with a compass,” he said.  “But it’ll need to be zeroed almost constantly.”

The door opened.  Lilith peeked in.  “You found her?”

“Yeah.”  Adam looked at his watch.  “It took nearly thirty minutes to pick her out, then cancel the spell.  And she wasn’t even buried under a pile of junk.”

“We made progress,” Lilith said.  “If you hadn’t found her, we’d have had to go back to the drawing board.”

“Not enough progress,” Adam muttered.  He knew the detector would be improved – someone would take his original concept and design a superior model – but he wanted to do it himself.  “If you’d hidden her a little better, I would never have found her.”

“Or you’d have gone through the entire room to find her,” Lilith corrected.  “Or you could have adjusted the detector to be a little more sensitive.”

Taffy frowned.  “I was thinking, while I was waiting,” she said.  “There’s magic in the airship, right?  She has defensive shields designed to dispel hostile spells before they reach her, and those shields are magic.  Does that mean she could be detected in flight, if someone had a detector like yours?”

Adam hesitated.  “I’m not sure,” he said, finally.  “The airship’s shields are largely passive magic.  They wouldn’t be detectable, now, unless you were very close to her.  I think.”

“It doesn’t matter.”  Lilith smiled at them.  “The airship is a very big flying … thing.  She’ll be spotted as easily as a dragon on the prowl … she’s bigger than the average dragon, and much more … visible.”

“Maybe,” Adam said.  He wasn’t so sure.  He’d been told it was rare for anyone – even sorcerers – to look up.  The airship was so strange, so alien to everyone’s experience, that they might look directly at the craft and still miss it, at least until they managed to wrap their heads around its existence.  Dragons were rare, so far from the mountains, and yet they were part of the natural order.  The airship was something new.  “Once they get used to seeing her, they won’t have any trouble spotting her from miles away.”

He scowled.  Voidsdaughter hadn’t gone that far from the university, but she’d been visible from the town and – quite probably – from the nearest city.  The king might have already been told about the airship … he cursed under his breath as he recalled the original discussions about building a proper airship, back before the war.  Arnold, damn the man, had been there.  He’d known airships were on the way long before Voidsdaughter had taken her first faltering steps into the sky.  If he hadn’t warned his master already, he’d do it the moment he heard the concept had become reality.

Taffy stretched.  “We can always paint the airship blue, or something else that will make her harder to see,” she said.  “Or even adjust the spells to render her invisible.”

“That would require active magic,” Lilith said.  “We could try to rig up an obscurification charm instead, but even that would be chancy.  The airship isn’t precisely quiet.”

“Not yet,” Taffy said.  “Of course, we could always turn off the engines.”

Adam nodded, feeling a twinge of envy. Taffy had flown on the airship … it might have been nothing more than a circuit or two around the university while the crew tested the latest modifications and adjusted the plans for the second airship, but he still envied her.  The first fliers would have their names go down in history books, even though they hadn’t designed and built the airships.  But then, anyone who mattered would know who the real heroes were …

It may be important to design airships and handle logistics and everything else one needs to keep a workshop or an army going, he mused, sourly.  But it’s hardly heroic.

Lilith ran her hand through her hair.  “I think we’ve proved the detector works,” she said.  “Do we try again?  Or do we wait until we devise a neater design?”

“We should probably experiment a little more,” Adam said, reluctantly.  “And yet …”

He felt an odd little shiver.  The experiments needed to be carried out, and yet they were hellishly disconcerting.  There had to be other ways to do it, hadn’t there?  He trusted Lilith, and yet … he swallowed hard, remembering some of Matt’s nastier taunts.  The bastard had … he shook his head, firmly.  Matt had been a fool, someone brought down by his own character flaws.  That he’d been hailed as a hero after dying bravely didn’t change the fact it wouldn’t have happened if he’d been a little smarter.

“Later,” Lilith said, firmly.  “Right now, we need to rest and plan our next move.”

“I have to go back to the workshop, if you don’t need me here,” Taffy said.  “I’m building bombs.”

Adam blinked.  “Bombs?”

“They were stuffing barrels of gunpowder into catapults and hurling them into cities,” Taffy explained.  “The impact made a spark, which made the gunpowder explode violently.  The basic principle is the same, we’re just dropping them from overhead instead of launching them from the ground.”

“Clever,” Adam said, slowly.  “And …”

His voice trailed off.  He knew – every child of Beneficence knew – that the only thing keeping the city safe from invasion was the river running out of Zangaria and splitting into two to isolate the city from the mainland.  No army ever raised could cross the gorges, even without organised opposition.  The city couldn’t even be besieged successfully, as long as fishing boats could keep the population fed and traders could bring supplies in and out of the city.  And yet, an airship could just fly over the rapids and rain bombs on the city as casually as a man might stroll from one part of the city to another.  What would it mean for his family, he asked himself, if a fleet of airships could lay waste to the entire city?  What would it mean for the world?

“It might be dangerous,” Lilith said.  “What happens if there’s a spark on the airship?”

“Boom,” Taffy said.

Adam shuddered.  “We’re not going to be the only people flying airships, are we?”

“No,” Taffy said.  “There were people who saw the designs and thought the airship couldn’t possibly fly.  They know better now.”

“And some of those people might be in the kingdom,” Adam mused.  He wasn’t sure which kingdom he meant.  Tarsier?  Zangaria?  Or one of the others?  They’d all be building airships now they knew the design actually worked.  “Or even further afield.”

Taffy cleared her throat.  “I’ll meet you both at the hall, this evening,” she said, turning towards the door.  “We need to go down to the town.  Have you decided what you’re going to tell the Levellers?”

“Yeah.”  Adam picked up the detector and cradled it in his arms.  The device was still ticking, so slowly it was possible to believe there was no pattern at all.  “I have.”

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