Royal Airs Read online

  He remembered the night Corene had slipped into Samson’s bar, how she’d armed herself with a couple of table knives because she had no other weapons. “She strikes me as someone who always fights back,” he said. “No matter what kind of blows she sustains.”

  Josetta nodded. “That’s a pretty good description. Describes Alys, too. I think sometimes Corene wants to be like her mother, and sometimes she’s afraid she is.”

  Rafe shrugged. “She’ll have to sort that out. Like everyone else does.”

  She smiled again, a little sadly. “As you and I have said before.”

  Rafe picked up the bundle, essentially one long swatch of scrap fabric carefully wrapped over the assortment of gifts. “I brought you something,” he said. “To thank you for taking care of me while I was here.”

  For a moment, she gazed down at the lumpy package. “I know I should tell you that you don’t owe me anything, but I’m consumed with curiosity,” she said at last. “What kind of gifts would Rafe Adova buy someone? I have to find out.”

  He grinned. “Anyway, it’s rude to turn down a present.”

  “And I would never want to be rude,” she said. She was already untying the knot that held the whole collection in place, and she unrolled the fabric slowly, exclaiming in a low voice as each separate item was revealed.

  As soon as she uncovered the flute, the one at the very heart of the bundle, she started laughing. “A deck of cards! You brought me the five suits!” she exclaimed. “Oh, I loved all of them anyway, but that’s so clever!”

  “I know some of them are a little strange,” he admitted. “I mean—a skull—”

  “No, but it’s so beautiful. And he looks so wise—it is a he, don’t you think?—as if he has learned all the secrets of life. But then the roses. And the palace! And the bracelet is so charming. Zoe will want to steal it from me, because she thinks every coru item should belong to her. But I think this is my favorite of them all.” She put the tiny flute to her lips and looked enchanted when she produced three sweet notes. “Oh, and it actually plays! I love this.”

  Her reaction pleased him to an absurd degree; he thought he might actually be beaming. “It was fun to shop for everything,” he said. “Once I decided what I was looking for.”

  “It’s funny,” she said, “because I have something for you, too. Not a gift exactly. Well, sort of.”

  His curiosity burned even hotter than his delight at this announcement. “Now I know how you felt,” he said. “I have to know. What does a princess consider a suitable gift for an aimless drifter?”

  She pulled a slim leather coin purse from a pocket of her tunic and handed it over. “Something very elay, I’m afraid.”

  He opened the clasp and poured the contents into his palm. Three wide rings slid out, all of them too small to fit on his little finger. One was gold, one silver, one copper, and the outer circumference of each one was stamped with a different symbol. He rubbed his finger along the engraving on the gold. “Are these—they look so much like the pictures on the coins—”

  She nodded. “Your blessings. Triumph and synthesis and time. I thought you could wear them on the same necklace where you’ve hung Corene’s rings.”

  His hand went automatically to the silver chain around his throat and he pulled it free of his tunic. “Maybe I should give these back to her.”

  Josetta shook her head. “Oh, no. She was so pleased with herself that she thought to give them to you. Anyway, she’s long since replaced them.”

  He was busy stringing the new rings onto the chain and refastening it around his neck. “Thank you,” he said. “A couple of ninedays ago, I had no blessings, and now I have six.”

  “Maybe eventually you’ll acquire the whole set.”

  “Maybe.” He folded his hands before him on the table. “Thank you,” he said again, more seriously. “It was a thoughtful gift. And I can’t tell you how pleased I am to learn that I was in your thoughts this past nineday. I can’t really guess why.”

  He hadn’t phrased it as a question, but she answered readily enough. “Because you’re interesting to me,” she said. “And because you’re different. You’re not smooth and polished like the men I know at court—ambitious and political, always trying to impress me or obtain some advantage. You’re not desolate or desperate, like so many of the men I see here. You’re something else entirely. You don’t really have a solid place in this world, but you seem comfortable wherever you are.” A smile swept across her serious features, lighting the room more than candleflame. “And you have such extraordinary blessings! I think you’re going to have an extraordinary life. It’s just hard to guess how.”

  “It was pretty ordinary until I met you.”

  “Then maybe the blessing of time is about to come into play.”

  At that moment, the door pushed open, and Rafe was spooked enough by the conversation to swing around, staring, wondering if destiny was about to stride through. But it was only Caze and Sorbin, back for the night after a final patrol.

  “Hey! Rafe! Good to see you!” Caze greeted him in his friendly way. “Stay long enough for us to eat, and then we can play a round of penta!”

  So the guards joined them, and then Foley joined them, and then Callie and Bo joined them, and then all seven of them sat in on a game that lasted past midnight. Between the eating, the talking, the playing, and Callie’s insistence on examining his injuries, which she pronounced satisfactory, Rafe didn’t get another five minutes of solitude with Josetta. No chance for another exhilarating exchange of personal observations, no chance for another even more exhilarating kiss.

  But it was all right, or almost. “You’ll be back again next firstday?” she asked as they all clustered at the door to wave him off into the night.

  “I will.”

  “We’ll see you then.”

  It was strange, he thought, walking home, adroitly dodging the drunks and firmly refusing the prostitutes, strange to have something laid out in front of him that he looked forward to so much, that he desired so much, that he could actually feel its presence as a weight drawing him toward the future. He couldn’t remember the last time anticipation had exerted such a powerful pull on him that it could reshape time, rendering some days negligible and others momentous. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been so conscious of being alive. Of wanting something from his life.

  Of wanting something.

  • • •

  So how did a nobody gambler turn himself into a man of substance? He amassed money and prestige, Rafe figured. On secondday, he withdrew most of his windfall cash and boarded one of the public elaymotives that traveled regularly between the Plaza of Men and the port. The vehicle wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the one Josetta had provided for the previous trip; it was crowded and noisy and made frequent stops at little crossroads Rafe hadn’t even noticed before. He tried not to look like a man carrying a fortune in gold in his shoulder bag, so he gazed out the window with an assumed expression of boredom and resisted the urge to constantly check that the clasp on his bag was shut. It was a relief to finally arrive at the harbor.

  He had no trouble finding the hulking, stinking factory again, though it did occur to him to wonder if Kayle Dochenza was even on the premises—and if he would remember Rafe. “Tell him I accompanied Princess Josetta here a couple of ninedays ago,” he told the skeptical servant who guarded the door. “Tell him we talked about an investment I might make.”

  Whether Josetta or investment was the magic word, it was only a few minutes before the man returned to say, “The prime will see you.” Soon enough he was shown into the messy, overheated room with the magnificent view and the crazy occupant.

  “Rafe Adova,” Kayle Dochenza greeted him, bobbing his head in acknowledgment. His pale eyes blinked rapidly as he scanned Rafe from head to toe. “You said you’d be back, and here you are.”


  Rafe shook the bag over his shoulder. “I told you I had money to invest, and I brought it. I’ve never done this before. I don’t know if we sign a contract or go to the Plaza of Men and swear an oath before witnesses at the booth of promises.”

  “Oaths are worthless,” Kayle said, waving a bony hand. “If a man wishes to cheat you, he’ll do it, no matter what vows he’s taken.”

  It was a philosophy Rafe happened to agree with, but he asked the question anyway, wanting to hear how this odd man would reply. “Then how do you know who to trust?”

  “I don’t know how other people know,” Kayle said. “But I can just tell. I am attuned to their essences.” He tapped his own chest. “Man of air and spirit.”

  “You can tell, even with me?” Rafe said curiously. “Last time I was here, you didn’t even know I existed.”

  “I perceive you now,” Kayle said grandly. “And I can read you as well as I read any other man. I can see you don’t always find it necessary to be honest, but you remain honorable. The two are often confused, but they’re hardly the same thing.”

  Which Rafe thought was about as accurate an assessment as anyone had given him. “Well, I’ve already decided to trust you,” he said. “So here’s my money.”

  It actually took about a half hour to complete a formal transaction which—despite his posturing—Kayle did have witnessed by some kind of official-looking flunky who behaved with a cool efficiency that seemed foreign to Kayle.

  “Would you like to see the machinery you’re buying with your gold?” Kayle inquired once the banker type had left the office.

  “Yes! Except—didn’t you say the flying car was still ten years away from production?”

  Kayle made one of his frequent gestures, as if trying to sweep up useful words that would help him explain complex concepts. “Of course I did, but there are prototypes. There are experimental vehicles. No failures, only designs that taught us something, whether or not they worked.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  The experimental flying machines were housed in yet another factory, far enough from the bustling port that Kayle commandeered a small elaymotive and drove them there. He was a rapid and wholly terrifying chauffeur, apparently oblivious to the fact that there might be other vehicles—even people—on the road, but handling the car with such skill that he was able to steer past every potential calamity. Rafe was literally clutching the edges of his seat, hoping to hold fast in case they crashed or rolled; he hadn’t felt this close to death since the night the strangers had jumped him.

  Once they cleared the narrow, packed streets around the port, Kayle drove even faster. The roads were worse, but the hazards were fewer, so Rafe started to breathe more easily. But he was still hanging on in case they hit a bump and went flying.

  They’d traveled maybe twenty miles from the harbor when a series of large, utilitarian buildings rose into view, practically the only things on the skyline for acres of flat, open countryside. The roads got better, not worse, on this final stretch, and Rafe was so surprised that he commented on it. Kayle nodded.

  “Of course. There isn’t much traffic out here, so we block the roads off when we need to and use them as running ramps.”

  “As what?”

  Again, Kayle made that scooping motion, trying to snatch up the right words. “The flying machines. They need a long clear road to drive down at high speeds before takeoff.”

  “So you’ve done that much?” Rafe demanded. “You’ve put a prototype into the air?”

  “For short periods of time,” Kayle said. “We haven’t figured out how to sustain flights for longer than thirty minutes.”

  “It’s not going to take you ten years to figure it out,” Rafe said.

  Kayle gave him a quick sideways glance. He was smiling. “Maybe not.”

  It turned out there were three mammoth structures this far out from the port, sharing the road but widely separated from each other as if determined to keep their own secrets. “Nelson Ardelay and his boys own those two buildings,” Kayle remarked as they drove by. “Actually, they own all the land out here outside of town. Brilliant investment, brilliant, and years before anyone else realized how valuable this land would be. All my property is in the port, so I have to rent space from them out here. Well, it’s more complicated than that.”

  “No doubt,” Rafe murmured.

  “And this is my building,” Kayle went on, driving up to the last, most isolated, and most unprepossessing edifice Rafe had seen here or in Chialto. It was huge, the size of four or five factories, made of what looked like lightweight metal soldered together in massive sheets. One whole wall appeared to be missing, though as they drew closer, Rafe realized that it was a wall that doubled as an entrance, and the gigantic doors had been rolled aside as if to allow some kind of monstrous creature to enter or exit.

  Inside, he could glimpse three of those monsters, and he couldn’t stop staring.

  They didn’t look all that different from the models he’d seen in Kayle’s office, slim metal lozenges sprouting an assortment of wings held in place with various struts and cables. None of them were as chunky as the elaymotives; in fact, there was something about their smooth contours, especially from front to back, that made him think of sea creatures gliding effortlessly through the waters.

  “And those things fly?” he breathed.

  He could hear the amusement in Kayle’s voice. “Not yet, but they will.”

  They spent the next two hours inspecting every inch of the three aeromotives, as Kayle was calling them, while Kayle and one of his mechanics answered all the questions Rafe could think of. He learned that the machines were crafted of a specialized new metal created to generate almost no friction even at high speeds and that the designer thought they’d solved the problems of liftoff but were now baffled by creating sufficient forward propulsion to keep the machines in the air.

  “We know how to glide forever, at least in a favorable wind,” said the designer, a pale-faced, dark-eyed woman with a fanatic’s intensity. It was no great leap to guess she was wholly elay. “But height. Speed. That’s what we can’t get enough of.”

  They allowed Rafe to sit in the small, uncomfortable space built into each machine for the lucky—or insane—person who would handle the controls. This lever would tilt the plane from side to side, they told him; this one would bring the pointed nose up or down. This dial would add more fuel to the combustion chamber, and this gauge would show him how much fuel was left.

  “What happens if you run out?” Rafe asked.

  “You fall out of the sky,” Kayle replied.

  “Or glide,” the elay woman amended. “If you’re lucky.”

  Rafe glanced between them. “How many pilots have you lost?”

  It was a moment before either answered. Maybe they were mentally adding up the number of crashes, the number of fatalities, the names of the fortunate few who had walked away. “Seven,” Kayle said at last.

  “We’re hoping there will only be one more,” the woman added.

  Rafe couldn’t help staring at her. “Why?”

  “That would make eight. One of the propitious numbers.”

  “Maybe you won’t stop till twenty-four,” he said. “Also propitious.”

  Kayle nodded briskly. “Well, however many it takes.”

  “I hope you don’t run out of pilots before you run out of aeromotives,” Rafe said. “I imagine it’s hard to find volunteers.”

  “We pay them,” Kayle said, his eyes on Rafe. “Quite a bit of money.”

  Rafe stared back. He was still in the cramped, uncomfortable driver’s box of the last machine, a long slim creature that glowed silver in the bright sunlight flooding in through the open door. It was smaller and seemed lighter than the other two; Rafe imagined it would be mercilessly bullied by a hostile wind, but easily carried by a friendly one. T
here was a long rip down the slanted wing on its right side, and a handful of Kayle’s inventors were attempting to mend it with blowtorches and some kind of bitter-smelling chemical. The machine was utterly quiescent—Kayle hadn’t even switched on its motor to let Rafe experience its rumble, as he had with the other two—and yet Rafe could feel its impatience coiled just under its prim metal skin. This was a creature that wanted to leap into the air and soar.

  “It takes a certain type of person to pilot an aeromotive, of course,” Kayle went on, as if Rafe had asked for a job description. “Someone reckless enough to take risks, but smart enough to avoid stupid ones. Someone who can think quickly in response to changing circumstances.”

  “Someone who’s not afraid of heights,” the woman put in.

  “A gambler. Who’s stood on a mountaintop,” Rafe said.

  “Yes,” Kayle said. “Someone like that.”

  • • •

  There was more to see in the factory—a whole room dedicated to parts fabrication and repair—but Rafe’s mind kept drifting back to the implied job offer. What did Kayle Dochenza consider “quite a bit of money”? If seven men had died so far, how many had survived? What was the ratio, what were the odds? Rafe would like to impress Princess Josetta with his cool daring and his accumulated riches, but she wouldn’t feel much admiration if he were dead.

  His hand kept going to his pocket where he kept his favorite deck of cards. It was an old habit with him when he was restless, when he was itching to make a bet.

  I’d do it if I thought I’d live through the experience, he realized. Even if I’d never met Josetta. Just to see what it’s like.

  He wasn’t paying much attention when Kayle led him to an out-of-the-way corner in the fabrication room, and the designer laughed.

  “This is your project, not mine,” she said, leaving them without another word. Kayle didn’t even glance after her.