The Floating Islands (19 page)

She’d thought the gate would be locked. But the tastes of fenugreek and fennel and a high note of sweet fragrant heat burned across her tongue and her fingertips, and the gate swung easily open. The noise and dust and sheer commotion of the Third City streets rolled through the gate into her garden.

Araenè half wanted to walk away from the hidden school into the freedom of Third City. She could feel herself relax just standing in her garden, listening to the bustle of the busy streets. She could go anywhere, at whatever pace she chose; she could speak to anyone, browse in any shop. No one would question her—no one would really notice her at all. When they saw her, they would only see Arei. Out in Third City, no one would expect anything of Arei at all.

And she wanted that. Didn’t she?

Yet she did not step through the gate. In the end, she swung the gate closed once more, stepped back through the window into her apartment, and went grimly up to the hall of spheres and mirrors to begin examining the nine hundred eighty-four spheres it contained.

9

T
he kajuraihi were the first to spot the Tolounnese warships, barely a week after Trei’s return to the novitiate.

The kajuraihi had been keeping watch on the Tolounnese coast, especially on the harbor at Teraica, and even the one farther north at Goenn. If Tolounn did launch an offensive, those were considered the most likely ports from which to launch it. So the kajuraihi were keeping watch: a distant and sporadic watch, for not every kajurai had the stamina to reach the Tolounnese coast, even with the floating rocks that served as scattered waystations. But, the novices now learned, the Island wingmasters had been sending their strongest kajuraihi on that long journey twice a senneri ever since the previous year’s great monsoon storms had ceased.

“And now they’ve seen unmistakable evidence that Tolounn is planning war,” Ceirfei told them.
He
had known from the first, of course. The ignorance novices normally suffered was not for him. But now he passed his knowledge on to the rest of them. “Ships, gathering at Teraica—big but narrow, built for speed, not cargo. Plenty of canvas, but ranks of oars for close-in work. Decks sheathed with metal …” Here Ceirfei’s tone grew doubtful. “Or so we are told.”

“Against clingfire, maybe?” Tokabii asked. “But the sails?”

Ceirfei shrugged. “We’re not sure. They may think their mages can protect them from fire. And from dragon winds, and from everything else we can do.”

Trei said, “Tolounn wouldn’t move against us unless they thought they could win.” No one else commented about the “us,” but the word rang oddly in his own ears.

“Maybe they’re just ambitious?” Tokabii suggested, uncharacteristically diffident. “Maybe they’re excited and just forgot about clingfire?”

No one laughed. Genrai said kindly, “The Tolounnese Empire isn’t a mean drunk, ’Kabii. It doesn’t swing a fist without looking to make sure what it’s hitting—and that it’s bigger. Of course, it usually
is
bigger.”

“So what do we do?” Rekei asked, looking at Ceirfei.

“What we’re told, I suppose.” Ceirfei hesitated. Then he looked at Trei, drew a piece of paper over from a pile in front of Rekei, and began to sketch. “The Tolounnese have these things at Teraica. Down at the harbor’s edge. Big.” He carefully drew a tiny human figure at the edge of the paper to show the scale. “They have three, right in a row. They’re all like this. They pour coal down this chute here. There must be huge forges within, but we don’t know what great fire magic they’re meant to invoke.”

Trei stared at the sketch.

“What is it?” Kojran wanted to know, craning forward to examine the drawing. “Some kind of, no, I guess not. All right, what?”

“It’s a steam engine,” Trei said. He asked Ceirfei, “Are there wheels that turn? Pistons that move up and down?”

Ceirfei looked down at the sketch, as though details he hadn’t drawn might suddenly appear in it. “Not that I know.”

“What’s a piston?” Tokabii asked.

Trei floundered, looking for words. He’d never tried to explain steam power before, and found that it wasn’t easy when his audience didn’t know the first thing about the principles. “Well, this is obviously a steam engine. It’s for making things move. Boats, wagons, mine scoops … What you do is, you pour in the coal, and the fire heats water, and the water turns into steam, and the steam pushes and makes a wheel turn or a piston go up. If there aren’t any wheels or pistons, then I don’t know.…”

“Steam
pushes
?” Tokabii said skeptically.

“Well …” Trei didn’t quite know how to explain this.

“So the Tolounnese provincar at Teraica has built these steam engines. So he’s making a lot of power, but he’s not using it to turn wheels or lift pistons,” Ceirfei said, ignoring the details of how exactly steam power worked. “And if they aren’t using the power at Teraica … then … is it possible for
mages
to gather power from engines like these and channel it into magic?” He paused. “Power, access to power, that always limits what mages can do. They never have enough adjuvants, do they? But if Tolounnese mages have learned how to use
steam engines
for power …”

Trei hesitated. He’d never heard of anything like that. But … “I can’t see why they’d go to the trouble of pouring coal into those furnaces if they weren’t getting power out,” he said slowly. “Artificers make and use engines; mages don’t. Only … maybe they’ve learned they can. I think you’re right. I think Tolounn must have mages channeling that power out of Teraica and using it somewhere else.”

“Or storing it, to use against us. How, specifically? Can you guess?”

Trei shook his head uncertainly. He felt as though he
should
be able to guess how exactly a Tolounnese warship might use that power, but he couldn’t. Warships and furnaces, magecraft and steam power: obviously the Tolounnese planned to use their engines as a source of power when they attacked the Islands. But he had no idea how they might do it.

Across the table, Genrai said tentatively, “If they—”

The door was flung open, and Rei Kensenè burst in. He said sharply—to all of them, but mostly to Ceirfei—“A Tolounnese fleet of warships has set sail. No one knows what they mean to do—at least,
what
is clear, but no one can guess
how
they plan to do it. They’re expected to be at Milendri as early as the day after tomorrow.”

“Well,” said Ceirfei, “I suppose we’ll find out what they plan to do, and how.”

They found out. “The ships are carrying a tremendous amount of power with them,” Ceirfei told the novices, relaying information as he got it. “We know from where, don’t we? Each ship has a mage, and they’re clearing the dragons right out of the sky as they approach. Pushing them entirely away from the Islands with sheer brute strength.”

“They aren’t,” Rekei said, voicing the general disbelief.

“They are. And as we lose the living wind of the sky dragons, the Islands they pass settle lower and lower. Some of the smallest Islands have fallen right out of the sky into the sea.” There was an appalled pause, and Ceirfei added hastily, “It’s not that bad! The big Islands don’t lose height so quickly or violently, and as the warships pass an Island and leave it behind, the living winds come in behind them and the Island mounts again into the air—that’s what our observers see.”

“But, of course,” said Rekei, “when those ships get to Milendri, they won’t just pass by.”

“No,” agreed Ceirfei.

Trei understood: the Tolounnese force didn’t want to drown the Islands; what they wanted was to make the Islands into a good, productive, tax-paying province. So they wouldn’t damage any Island if they could avoid it: instead they would head straight for Milendri, invest it with troops, and try for a swift, decisive stroke against the king and his court in Canpra.

“So what are we doing that
works
?” Genrai asked, practical as ever.

“Nothing, so far. We—kajuraihi—can overfly the warships if we stay high enough to avoid their dead air. But that doesn’t matter, because nothing we’re doing is helping. We’ve dropped clingfire, but the ships are very difficult to hit from that height.” But then Ceirfei fell silent, glancing up as steps sounded. A man put his head through the door. The man wore court white and a badge with a violet dragon; Ceirfei got stiffly to his feet.

“Prince Ceirfei—” said the man.

“I know. I’m coming,” said Ceirfei. He gave a distracted glance around at the rest of them, managed a strained smile, and went out without looking back.

“Do you think he’ll come back this time?” Tokabii asked in a hushed tone.

“The man said, ‘
Prince
Ceirfei,’ ” Genrai answered. “So I don’t think so, ’Kabii.”

“He didn’t even say goodbye!”

“He probably didn’t want to think about not coming back—”

“They may send him back here if they need to hide him,” Trei suggested.

Genrai rounded on him at once. “Stop it! Tolounn isn’t going to
win.
You think Tolounn is so wonderful, so unbeatable—”

“
You
stop!” snapped Rekei, jumping to his feet. He clenched his fists, leaning forward. “Trei didn’t mean anything! What do you think, that he
wants
Tolounn to win?”

Trei stared at them both, taken aback. It seemed obvious to him that Tolounn was going to win. Acknowledging that wasn’t a matter of loyalty or disloyalty. This new method Tolounn had, this way to somehow power magic with steam engines … Tolounnese artificers and mages must have been very clever to realize they could tie their arts together.

But … he couldn’t help but be aware that it
was
disloyalty to want Tolounn to fail. But there was no way to be loyal to
everybody.
Uncle Redoenn’s voice echoed in his memory:
You can’t stay here, Trei.…
He had turned Trei away, sent him south. Trei remembered the anger and the fear and, worse than either, the shame.… He had listened to Uncle Redoenn’s door shut behind him and, for the first time in his life, he had been ashamed of his half-Islander blood. He hadn’t really
understood
that at the time, but he’d known, without putting the knowledge into words, that what Uncle Redoenn had meant was,
You’re not good enough for Tolounn or for me.

And then Uncle Serfei, in contrast, had said warmly:
You’re not Tolounnese; you’re my nephew.
And Araenè, encouraging him before the kajurai audition, had assured him:
You’re an Islander now.
And that was true. Wasn’t it true? And didn’t he
want
it to be true? If he did, was it just because he still felt angry and ashamed?

No. No, it wasn’t just what Uncle Redoenn had said. It was more than that. Wasn’t it more than that? Tolounn wanted to subjugate the Islands, make them pay taxes and furnish conscripts; they wouldn’t want to
destroy
the Islands. Tolounnese provinces benefited from belonging to a great Empire: Trei’s father had said that and he was sure it was true. But the Floating Islands didn’t
want
to be a Tolounnese province, especially not a subject province. And why should they be forced into the Tolounnese Empire? Just because Tolounn’s art was the art of war?

And what about Ceirfei? The
best
that could happen to any captured members of the Island royal family was to be displayed in a triumphal procession in the Great Emperor’s city of Rodounnè and then imprisoned.

Suddenly unable to sit still, Trei jumped up, paced, and found himself staring blankly out the windows at the sky. The crystalline winds whirled past, glittering and manylayered. He could see the winds because the sky dragons had given him a little of their magic: he
was
kajurai. He found he was angry,
furious
—and he knew who he should be angry with. Not the dragons. Not the Floating Islands.
Tolounn
had thrown him away; the
Islands
had given him a new family and a new life.

Trei turned back to the other novices, glowering at them all. “I’m going to see the wingmaster,” he declared, and walked out while they were all gaping at him.

The wingmaster himself opened his office door. He looked drawn and tired. And surprised. “Trei,” he said. “Yes?” He stepped back, inviting Trei to enter with an economical tip of his head.

In the face of the wingmaster’s cool interest, Trei’s anger faded to nervousness and even embarrassment. He already felt that he had made a mistake in coming. But he obeyed the wingmaster’s gesture, crossing the antechamber to the office proper. A map of the Islands was spread out on the desk, along with a glass timer and a crystal sphere. Trei paused to look at the map, delaying the moment when he must look at Wingmaster Taimenai.

“Well?” said the wingmaster. He did not sound impatient. Yet.

Trei took a breath, steeled himself, and turned. He said, “Tolounn is using steam engines.”

“Yes,” said the wingmaster, and waited.

“Ceirfei drew us a picture. If he drew it right, I don’t think … I didn’t see a damper. At least not a big one. Even if there
are
dampers, if the fires are hot enough—”

“Dampers.”

“To damp the fire in case the steam builds up too much. But if the fires are hot enough, even the best damper will fail—”

“Trei. Can you explain what you mean as though I know nothing about steam engines?”

Trei flushed. He tried to collect his thoughts. It was hard; he was nervous. He tried to explain. “Boilers—the part of the engine where you heat the water to steam? The boilers explode when they overheat. It happens when somebody tries to force more power than the engine’s built for—but you never really know the limits of an engine until you pass them, and then it’s, well, it’s too late, you know.”

“Yes?”

“Well, they say—Ceirfei says—all the magic is out here, over the ships.” He put a hand over the map, about where he supposed the Tolounnese ships might be. “But if the power for that magic is coming from those engines in the harbor at Teraica … if someone could reach those engines … if someone could do something to force the fires hotter than they should go … then the engines would explode, do you see? And then the magic out
here
”—he touched the map again—“would fail.”

The wingmaster studied Trei for a long moment. Then he said gently, “It seems to me that if someone made the fires in a Tolounnese engine hotter, the engine would get more powerful, not less. That is how things work generally: if you put more power in, you get more power out. Yes?”

“Yes, but not if you exceed the engine’s capacity—”

“Trei.”

Trei stopped. He tried to read Wingmaster Taimenai’s expression, but he couldn’t. It occurred to Trei, belatedly, that the wingmaster might think he was trying to fool the Islands into trying a strategy that would simply boost Tolounnese power. A man who thought he was a spy might think that. He protested, “I’m telling you the truth about how these engines work!”

“I’m sure you are,” said the wingmaster. “You did well to come to me.”