Third Daughter (The Dharian Affairs, Book One) (28 page)

“You’re a tinker?” Aniri asked quietly. “You said you worked the engines, not that you
designed
them.”

Karan gave her a sly grin, then grabbed a pair of goggles from a hook by the ropes. “You’ll be needing these up top. And leave the sword here. Don’t want you slicing anything inadvertently up there.”

“Maybe I could come work the engines with you instead?” Getting inside the ship seemed a much better way to see its capabilities, and she loathed the idea of leaving her father’s sword behind. “I’ve been known to do some tinkering myself,” she lied, hoping she could pull that role off convincingly.

“Just make yerself useful on shiners, and you’ll get to come back. Maybe next shift we’ll see what you can do on engines.” He gave her a kind smile, but of course there wouldn’t be any next shift for her. She would be lucky to get out of this one without being caught. She hesitated, then unbuckled her saber and propped it against the rail. “I’ll leave it here until my shift is over.”

Karan gave her a short nod and draped her jackets over the blade. “Now, up you go.”

Aniri stared at the ladder—it was really just a series of ropes twisted together—and reminded herself that a fall from that height was no different from any other. She put the goggles on, but they were far too dark to see, so she pushed them up on her forehead.

With a hand on the ropes, she stopped. “I wish I had some way to thank you for helping me.” And she meant it. She only hoped she could get through the shift and escape again without getting Karan in trouble.

His smile was half-laugh. “Ye need to stop saying things like that, fresh.” He gestured to the crew working the skyship. “These are mostly sailors, ye see. They’d be happy to take you up on that offer.”

Heat crawled up her neck, but it eased a little with his grin.

“Up you go,” he said again with a nod to the ropes.

She hoisted herself up on the rail and got a foot on the rope rungs of the ladder. It swayed and dipped under her weight, but mostly held taut between the skyship and the deck. Hand-over-hand she scaled the ladder, trying to ignore the drop below and telling herself she was lucky to be here and not on slurry mech duty.

She was already halfway up when she heard Karan shout behind her. “You’re a right monkey, ye are!” But his voice faded against the whisperings of the fins and the breeze and the thrum of a distant pump.

She had found the skyship; it was time to figure out what exactly it could do.

Aniri took her time climbing up the rope ladder of the skyship, absorbing as many details of the ship as she could and trying to commit them to memory.

The bow was encased in glass, and from the sailors’ movements inside, it appeared to be the bridge. The captain was there now, giving stern-looking orders she couldn’t hear from her perch on the ropes outside. A giant pipe rose from the gloomy depths, ran past the bow, and fed into the nose of the balloon. A steel cable ran from where the pipe joined the balloon, to the tip of the wooden platform above, to the dock below, and back to the nose again: it formed a triangle that held the pipe steady as it pumped navia gas from the slurry mech at the base of the harbor. Aniri was so fixated on the pipe, rippling the bag as it filled with gas, that she nearly missed her next handhold.

She focused on the rope for the rest of the climb, finally alighting on the thin wooden platform at the top of the balloon. It covered half of the giant gasbag and supported the massive butterfly on top. She slipped her goggles over her eyes to keep the glints off the wings from blinding her. Through the darkened glass, she could see the other shiners moving amongst the wings. They all had dull gray cloths in their hands and rubbed furiously at any specks that dared touch the beautiful brass insect.

The device was absolutely stunning. She had no idea what its purpose could possibly be, but she understood why the last thing Prince Malik wanted was to destroy it. Or any part of the skyship, for that matter.

She shuffled closer to the workers—they were all slender and short, like her, some barely larger than children. A dozen boots lined the edge of the platform, and the workers’ bare feet balanced on the slender rods that held up the wings. The way the mechanical linkages were arranged, the butterfly must open and close like a flower, or perhaps each wing could rotate on its own. One young girl handed her a polishing cloth. Her dark hair was trapped beneath the strap of her goggles, but the long strands floated behind her in the constant breeze. She returned to her wing, climbing the linkages on the underside, careful not to touch the shining brass surface.

Aniri kept her boots on—she needed to be ready for a quick exit. She pretended to polish an unattended wing while inspecting the device. The wings were turned in every direction for polishing, but their linkages clearly showed they were intended to all focus inward. She leaned over the wing, pretending to reach a spot on the far side. An enormous crystal, the size of her head, sat in the center where the butterfly’s body would be. The crystal had a thousand facets shaping it into a cone, only inverted—the flat part at the base of the wings and the point diving below the thin wooden platform. It seemed foolish to have something so sharp near the billowing fabric of the balloon, but as Aniri craned her neck to peer at it, she could see the crystal pointed down a darkened tube. She carefully stepped between the linkages, leaning over for a better look—

“Hey!” a soft voice came close to her, making her jump. “You have the wrong cloth for polishing the crystal.”

“I wasn’t...” Aniri stole a final glance at the tube: it went deep into the balloon, but that was all she could see. “I was just curious,” she finished, turning to find the same girl who had given her the cloth.

A frown crinkled above her goggles. “If you touch it, we’ll all get in trouble. They won’t let us back on shiner duty.”

Aniri ducked her head and worked her cloth in her hands. “I’m sorry.”

The girl smiled. “Don’t let it worry ye. Everyone wants a peek. I bet the Queen, gods rest her soul, never seen a jewel so big.” She made a small bow, hands pressed together, as she said the Queen’s title.

“No, probably not.” Aniri nearly tripped in her haste to return to her wing. She lightly ran her rag over the shimmering brass surface and studied its construction. The brass was just a thin coating over a wooden panel underneath. The linkages were the same light-colored wood with metal hinges and articulators that disappeared under the platform.

It all looked so delicate, but she doubted its purpose was peaceful. Garesh wanted to bring Jungali to prominence through military might. The butterfly had to be some kind of weapon. Aniri pretended to adjust her goggles while eyeing the rest of the mechanism. Thoughts of sabotage tumbled through her mind. Could she do it? Maybe undo one of the hinges or take her dagger to the center crystal? Everything seemed to depend on a perfect state of polish. Maybe she could wreck Garesh’s plans by cracking the crystal or dragging the tip of her blade across the wings. Although she couldn’t be sure either of those would actually damage the weapon substantially.

And she would surely be caught.

Garesh would parade her across Jungali as a Dharian spy, the prince’s plans to claim the throne would be ruined, and she wouldn’t be able to message her mother about the skyship, to warn her the threat was no rumor, but very real.

Still, despite the risk, the temptation was great to do some kind of damage while she had the chance. Garesh had put his workers on extra shifts. He was rushing to get his skyship fully functional. Perhaps she could perform some sabotage without detection. Or possibly damage something on her way out. She might not stop Garesh, but she could at least slow him down.

She set back to polishing, looking surreptitiously for escape routes. A stray beam of sun glinted off the steel line that anchored the navia pipe and crisscrossed the air between the ship and the dock. Past that, the crane caught her eye. Its dark cable and massive steel hook swung another cargo load from the depths of the rail depot to the lofty lattice of the skyship dock.

The rail.

All at once, she saw it in her head. But she would have to move fast.

She ducked under the wing she was working on and crept away from the workers, edging along the platform to the corner by the steel cable. The shiners didn’t seem to notice, and no one was close enough to stop her, if they had a mind to. She pushed her goggles up on her forehead, so she could see better, then reached under the back of her shirt and drew out her dagger. She held it close to her body, hidden from the workers below. The crane had nearly reached the dock. It was now or wait—who knew how long—for another lift.

With a quick movement, she knelt at the edge of the platform and plunged her dagger into the bright blue fabric of the balloon, dragging it in a foot-long gash. Navia gas blasted out, gusting against her face and forcing her to narrow her eyes against it. She raised the dagger and slashed again, cutting cross-wise to form a t-shaped vent in the surface of the balloon. This time, the gas surged even faster and suddenly the platform tipped underneath her. She gripped the edge with one hand and sheathed her dagger at her back. Cries rose up from the shiners as they were caught off balance as well. Aniri swallowed, praying to the gods the shiners all had purchase somewhere and wouldn’t tumble off, but she had no time for looking back. She looped her shiner cloth around the cable, wrapping each end around her hands as well, and leapt off the balloon platform.

The slide down the cable wasn’t nearly as smooth as she expected. The jarring worked her goggles loose, and they tumbled past her dangling feet, disappearing into the hundred foot drop. Just as she was worried the steel of the cable might eat through her shiner cloth, her thoughts shifted to the dock rushing up at her. She managed to swing her feet in front of her to absorb the impact, but it took a long, twisting, pawing moment to get her foothold on the railing. She was gasping by the time she managed to grapple her way over and land on the dock itself.

She lunged for her coats and her father’s sword. Shouts sounded from the direction of the gangplank. Most of the workers were pointing at the shiners and the bleating hole atop the skyship, but some had noticed her, including an overly tall, muscular tinker standing on the gangplank and staring at her.

Karan.

Aniri pivoted away, hiding her face, and sprinted for the crane. She wrestled on her hooded cloak, still grasping her shiner cloth and her sword, but the fur-lined overcoat slipped from her fingers. She had no time to stop. Clutching her saber and the shiner’s cloth in one hand, she scrambled up the side of the cargo container. The workman on top had just unhooked the crane. Aniri shoved him from behind and he toppled over, stunned. She leapt up to grab the thick cable of the crane line, bracing her feet on the bulbous metal hook at the bottom, and her momentum swung her out over the edge of the dock, into the free space above the harbor busily working below.

The crane arm quickly lowered her down, returning for another load. Just before she dropped below the dock, she caught Karan’s brown-eyed gaze locking with hers.

His frown felt like a dagger aimed at her.

Aniri glanced at the rail station below. If they knew she was coming… if he alerted the workers… this plan might not work as well as she had hoped.

She hooked her arm around the cable, careful to keep her footing on the slippery hook. Ignoring the twirling steamworks below her, she strapped her saber on and drew it out. She stuffed the shiner’s cloth in the pocket of her flapping cloak and breathed through the clench in her stomach as she neared the rail station. Several workers were dashing to and from a small wooden enclosure, and a smaller crane was still pulling up cargo from the rail. Aniri, and the hook she was riding, were rapidly approaching a line of containers that stretched in front of her like a very solid-looking wall.

The station workers had definitely noticed her. Several stared wide-eyed even as the crane lowered her close enough to the floor to jump. She landed, saber ready, and ran straight for them, praying to the gods that none had a blunderbuss tucked in their grimy overalls. They scattered. She managed to reach the edge of the hole that led down to the rail tracks, only to hover there, uncertain how to get down.

The train below had been relieved of cargo, all the half-dozen cars just empty frames where the containers had been. The whistle from the engine was drowned out by the screeching of metal on metal as the wheels started to turn. The drop was too far. She would break a leg at the least, with a high likelihood of not surviving at all. There was a ladder around the far side of the hole that she could use to climb down, but it was a dozen yards away. The line from the smaller crane—the one used to unload the train cars—dangled to the ground below, but it hung in the air, a yard out of her reach.

A pounding of feet and shaking of floorboards behind her meant she had no time to decide. She sheathed her sword and leapt for the crane line.

She grasped her gloved hands hard around the two-inch cable, trying to keep herself from tumbling to her death. After a heart-stopping drop of several feet, she wrapped her boots around it as well, slowing the plummet, but her hands burned as the cable slid between them, shredding her thin gloves and racing pain across her palms. Fortunately the cable was heavy enough to keep from swinging back to the platform. She loosened her grip, gritting her teeth through the pain, and hand over hand, she shimmied down the cable, quickly reaching the gravel next to the rail line. The train had already picked up speed, and she had to sprint to match it.