In the year 478 a maverick artificer named Cutmold Limner caused a considerable stir amongst the academics and the artificers of Collegium by turning up at the cliff edge with his Mayfly. It was, by some large margin, the heaviest device ever to be presented at Clifftops. Moreover, when Limner himself climbed in, it was heavier still.
The stewards of the rally were still in frantic discussion over whether such a dangerous enterprise should be allowed when Limner bid his apprentice to set the clockwork motor going. The Mayfly rumbled forwards, to the mingled delight, alarm and derision of the onlookers and, as it passed over the lip of the cliff, Limner threw a lever that set the wings ablur. For a moment they beat the air fiercely, and several onlookers record in their diaries that the machine seemed to rise up from the cliff’s edge, hanging impossibly in the air like a living thing.
Then there was the unmistakable sound of an overstressed gear-train jumping, teeth parting company with teeth, and the vessel tilted madly in the air. Limner gesticulated wildly, his voice lost to the wind, and shortly thereafter, the sea. The Mayfly was well named, his detractors jeered later, or perhaps poorly named, for there was no may about it. It had not, and that was that.
The name of Cutmold Limner’s apprentice was Lial Morless, and this is his story.
The workshop was empty. Oh, the tools, the piecework, the odds and scraps were all still there – who would bother to take them? – but Cutmold Limner would never return, and so it was empty.
Lial Morless slumped onto a stool. He felt a yawning chasm within him, as though he was falling; not that steep plunge into the unforgiving sea that Limner had taken, but falling forever, no end in sight. The diminutive forge-hand, Scop, lurked in the room’s furthest reaches, a broom in his hands. He had not come to watch the Clifftops. He had said all along it would not work. He was just a forge-hand without a College education, and nobody had listened to him.
The walls of the workshop were covered with tacked-on plans: the cross-sections of wings, the corrugated backs of gear trains, skeletal sketches of the fallen flier’s wood-and-canvas hull. Lial stared at them dully. Another two years. Would that have been so hard a wait? But for Cutmold it had seemed so. Lial’s master had not been young, and he had been so sure of his calculations. Sure enough to cast himself off over the sea without a test flight.
Scop made a fierce spitting noise, and a moment later a bulky form blocked the sunlight from the open doorway. “My condolences, of course.” A broad Beetle man in formal robes ducked in. Lial knew him well and liked him not at all. He had been a patron of old Limner’s once, and later a vocal opponent. Goiter Parrymill was his name: the airship magnate. He had been keeping a narrow eye on Limner’s work for a long time, had spoken against him at the Assembly, had turned potential funders and friends against him. Lial looked up at the intruder with a baleful expression.
“No need for that, lad,” said Parrymill cordially. “You can’t say I didn’t do everything in my power to stop this happening.”
Which was true, Lial supposed, from a certain standpoint. In the background Scop made a rude noise and restarted his sweeping with undue aggression, but both Beetles ignored him.
“What do you want, Master Parrymill?” Lial asked, feeling abruptly tired and wretched.
“When you’re over the worst of your grief, think what you want to do with the rest of your life, lad,” the magnate said, a scum of sincerity floating over the patronising tones. “Come find me, if you want. Limner always said you were a promising lad as an artificer.”
Lial stood slowly. “Firstly, Master Parrymill, I am twenty-six years of age, and so don’t ‘lad’ me, if you please. Secondly, I’ll manage just fine.”
“And the rent on the workshop? You have the wherewithal? Only, I know the landlord, and Limner made him scrabble for the money while the old boy was still alive.” Parrymill raised his eyebrows as if in surprise at the wickedness of the world. “Alone, without commission or income, you’re like to struggle.”
“Good. I like struggling. Lets me know I’m still alive,” Lial said flatly. It was a sentiment from some Mantis tragedy, he belatedly recalled. The plot had not ended well for the speaker.
“You know best, I’m sure,” Goiter Parrymill said smoothly, and took his leave, strolling off down the street with his robes gusting behind him.
Scop stomped forwards, clutching the broom like a spear, all righteous indignation now the man had gone. His head just about came to Lial’s chest: the halfbreed result of some unlikely union of Fly and Beetle parents, neither of whom had stayed around to see what their child would grow into. Formal schooling was out of the reach of a man of Scop’s lineage, but he had been around artificers and their tools all his life, and made up in practicalities what he lacked in theory.
“Fat, gloating bastard,” the forge-hand said. “So, what now, eh? He’s right about the rent. My wages too, no doubt.”
Lial opened his mouth to offer some consolation, but Scop shrugged it off. “Never mind me. I can get work anywhere. Better paying, probably. I wasn’t sticking here for the money.” He looked at Lial fiercely, as though expecting the Beetle to bridle at that. “You?”
“I’ve got two years,” said Lial, flatly.
Scop stared at him, the meaning sinking in. “Master Morless, if you want to go the same way as Master Limner, the cliffs are there any day of
