Akstyr was glad Books was doing the talking, as he didn’t have it in him to “my lady” anyone. Warrior-caste people weren’t any better than him. All their titles meant was that they’d had an easier time of life.
“Yes, of course.” Buckingcrest pulled off her cap, and wavy black locks tumbled about her shoulders, a contrast to the white fur of her coat.
She smiled at them, and Akstyr gulped. He didn’t think he’d ever used the word voluptuous, but it popped into his head as he stared at her lips. When her gaze skimmed across him, he reconsidered his ability to spout honorifics. At that moment, he figured he could spout anything, especially if it meant she might take him off alone for a private meeting. He bowed low so she wouldn’t see that her regard, however brief, flustered him.
“I thought your comrade, the assassin, might be along,” Buckingcrest said.
“He’s busy.” Books’s voice was grim as a funeral pyre.
“Ah, but you’ll be meeting him, yes? Will he return with you on my vessel?” She was no longer looking at Akstyr or Books, and a wistful tone crept into her voice. “I did so wish to meet him.”
Akstyr fisted his hands and jammed them into his pockets. He could understand Maldynado capturing some girl’s fancy, but it was disgusting to see women mooning over Sicarius. He didn’t even acknowledge them. If he knew how to smile at a girl-or anyone at all-Akstyr had never seen evidence of it.
“I can add you to the list in my journal if you want a private meeting with him,” Books muttered.
“Pardon?”
“Nothing, my lady,” Books said. “Akstyr, do you want to unload our cargo? Lady Buckingcrest, we’re on a tight schedule. Would you show us to the conveyance Maldynado… bargained for?”
“Bargained?” Buckingcrest chuckled. “Is that what he calls it?”
Akstyr leaned his bicycle against the fence and removed his rucksack and the box of blasting sticks, careful to keep the canvas cover tied tightly over the contents. Amaranthe had also given them a few smoke grenades. Akstyr couldn’t imagine needing them to blow up some rocks, but one never knew.
Lady Buckingcrest and Books headed through a short courtyard and walked into an alley between the fence and a massive building that dominated the large lot. Akstyr hurried to catch up. So nice of Books not to offer to help carry things.
As they walked alongside the building, Akstyr tried to get a view of the inside, but the windows they passed were too high to see through. Midway down, a door was propped open, and he glimpsed strange rotary devices and huge engines in various stages of construction. Buckingcrest continued to a vast open square on the back half of the lot.
Akstyr stopped to gape at the size of the craft waiting for them. A rectangular metal cabin with numerous windows-portholes? — hugged the bottom of a dozens-of-meters-long oblong balloon, filled and ready to float away. Only ropes anchoring the cabin to the ground seemed to keep the craft from pulling away.
“Oh, a dirigible,” Books said. “Excellent. Craft supported by lighter-than-air gases have been around for over a hundred years. When Maldynado spoke of a prototype, I was imagining some crazy ornithopter bouncing and bobbing through the air, ready to crash at a moment’s notice.”
Buckingcrest raised an eyebrow. “We do have other types of flying machines, but Maldynado stressed that the interior should be opulent and comfortable. A strange request for mercenaries, I thought.”
Akstyr snorted. Maldynado had a big mouth.
“Er, yes,” Books said. “Maldynado enjoys his comforts.”
“Yes, that is true.” Buckingcrest’s smile was a little too knowing.
Akstyr lifted a finger. “If these have been around for a hundred years, how come I’ve never seen one?”
“I suspect the military has laws against people flying over the imperial capital and the local army fort,” Books said.
“Yes, though that may change someday,” Buckingcrest said. “There are a number of wealthy civilians who have expressed interest in our work. Some buy private trains, but they must share the railways and work around station schedules. With a dirigible… there’s nothing to stop you from going anywhere you might please.”
Books stirred, and his eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything.
“I’m surprised the army doesn’t want some for themselves,” Akstyr said. “You could fly to Kendor or Nuria or anywhere and sneak your troops in at night.” If he had something like that, he could fly himself to the Kyatt Islands without worrying about stowing aboard trains or steamships. He would have to pay attention to how to fly it. Just in case.
“I imagine,” Books said, “the fact that dirigibles are filled with hydrogen, a flammable gas, limits their usefulness in wartime applications.”
“You mean they’re easy to crash?” Akstyr asked.
Buckingcrest’s smile thinned. “I assure you, my crafts are sturdy and quite safe.”
“Hm,” was all Books said.
“Come, you’re in a hurry,” Buckingcrest said. “Let me introduce you to your pilot.”
“We’re getting a pilot?” Akstyr asked. “Did Maldynado say something about that?”
Books didn’t look surprised. He didn’t look pleased either.
“Yes, I told Maldynado,” Buckingcrest said. “If he thought I’d let a pair of sword-swinging mercenaries handle one of my darlings, he was being more delusional than usual.”
As the woman turned her back to lead them to the craft, Books used Basilard’s hand code to sign, I’ll find the technical manual, and then we’ll stuff the pilot in a closet for the remainder of the trip.
Akstyr wasn’t sure the idea of having Books drive the thing was reassuring, but he smirked at the idea of their stuffy, proper professor manhandling someone into a closet.
Buckingcrest led them up a loading ramp and into the rearmost section of the craft, a cargo area. A tattooed man with a beard on a quest to swallow his face leaned against the wall, a cigar dangling from his lips.
“Is smoking wise when you’re standing beneath all that hydrogen?” Books pointed to the ceiling.
The man curled his lip at him. He had arms as thick as Akstyr’s legs. If he was the pilot, he wouldn’t be easy to stuff into a closet.
“The living quarters are in the middle here and include two private suites,” Buckingcrest called from a central corridor leading out of the storage area. “There’s even a conference room. Do you want to see the navigation area up front?”
“Yes, please,” Books said.
Akstyr started to follow, but he halted before he’d gone more than two steps into the corridor. The hairs on the back of his neck lifted, and a familiar tingle ran through him. They were in the presence of something Made, an artifact or construct crafted with the mental sciences. He hadn’t had that feeling since the team invaded that underwater laboratory in the lake a couple of months earlier. That place had been a beehive of Made activity. What he felt now… It was just one item, he decided, but that it was there at all was strange. Or maybe not. He wasn’t sure how hydrogen worked exactly, but if all it did was poof up the balloon, then this vessel would need some source of energy for propulsion. He hadn’t noticed a smokestack outside for steam-engine exhaust.
Akstyr stepped into the corridor. The pink floral wallpaper and wooden doors engraved with roses gave him no hints as to where the Made item might be-though the decor did make him feel distinctly unmanly as he stood in the passage. He opened one of the doors, but only found a pale blue room with a bed drowning in pillows and furs. Faint reverberations emanated from the textured metal floor. An engine had to be around somewhere.
After a few more steps down the corridor, Akstyr spotted a trapdoor, its edges camouflaged by the bumpy texture. He knelt and patted about until he found a handle set flush into the floor. It, too, was well disguised.
Before he could pry the handle up, a shadow fell over his shoulder.
“Lost?” the tattooed man asked from behind him.
“Just exploring,” Akstyr said.
“Don’t.”
Akstyr thought about turning and tackling the man-emperor’s spit, he’d been trained by Sicarius after all-but when he peered over his shoulder, his eyes were precisely at the level of a pistol holstered at the man’s belt. A hand rested on the grip, fingers tapping a rhythm on the ivory. Maybe it wasn’t the best moment to start a fight.
“Problem?” Lady Buckingcrest asked from a cabin that opened up at the far end of the corridor. Books stood behind her, inspecting a control panel filled with levers and gauges.
Akstyr stood. “I was wondering about the engines. Are they down there? We’ll have to be familiarized with
