As he drifted closer, the sound of his ticking blue and copper bracer began to twitter rhythmically in Taelin’s head. The mechanized sorcery of the thing unnerved her, as did the trail of little red drops it left behind.
“I can’t float but I have a crutch,” said Taelin. “I could bat you right off this deck.” She brandished the crutch.
Specks laughed. “How far do you think I’d go?”
“Far enough.”
“I made you something.” His eyes were big and brown and beautiful as a girl’s.
“You need a haircut,” said Taelin.
“Do not.” His small hand patted at his mop.
“I can give you one.”
“No way!”
“What did you make me?”
He grinned. “Something.”
Taelin winced. Her knee hurt. She closed her eyes, but when she did she saw women’s faces crowding around her and the velvet gun biting into dead flesh on the deck of the zeppelin. She gasped, opened her eyes and hobbled to one of the dining tables where she collapsed into a deck chair. Specks floated after her. When her crutches slid off the wall where she had propped them, he picked them up for her and carefully repositioned them.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Dad says I need to be helpful.”
“You certainly are.” She saw another fresh paper lying on the table. “Could you hand that to me?”
“Sure.”
It was the Ghalla Chronicle, a rag published in Skaif which, as an unofficial part of Sandren, crouched five thousand feet directly below.
She read the headlines and tore the paper free of its waxen cover. Specks hovered close by—eerily—ticking and dripping as she spread the news out on the table and tried to ignore the pain in her leg.
“What are you reading?” asked Specks.
She didn’t answer. Taelin felt her eyes fill up with tears. Her hometown was not far south of Sandren and she had friends and relatives in the city-state. She covered her mouth with her hand. Her family had summered there almost every year while her father did contract work for the urban praetors. She couldn’t believe this was happening.
Her eyes scoured the editorial for details.
A one-line barb regarding the political fortuitousness of Stonehold’s medical ship fell just short of suggesting a full-blown conspiracy. When she saw her own name, listed among the High King’s retinue, she felt the indelicate implications.
She didn’t care. She was here because of the vision, because a great black smoking locomotive had burst from her chancel wall. Her goddess had spoken to her. And Taelin was determined not to let the High King’s witch escape.
Perhaps this was part of it. Part of her purpose.
“Don’t cry,” said Specks. “You want to see what I made you?”
“Yes I do.” Taelin tore herself away from the paper and wiped her eyes. She smiled when she looked at him. He was so thin and small. No more than a floating skeleton that couldn’t get enough to eat.
“’Kay. Hold on.”
“Hurry,” she teased. “I can’t wait.”
“Rot’s guarding it. It’s in my backpack.” He turned around. “Can you get it out?”
“Of course.” She reached in and took out a piece of thick paper folded into squares. “Is this it?”
“Yep.” Specks grabbed it from her and quickly unfolded it. On the sheet he had drawn a sarchal hound made up mostly of head and teeth. “You can name him anything you want,” said Specks. “I drawed it cuz I have rot and all you have is that necklace.”
“Thank you,” said Taelin.
“You’re welcome.” His smile was ear to ear.
“I’ll name him Speck.”
Specks laughed. “You can read your paper now,” he said.
“Oh, can I? Thank you.” She made like she was going to poke him in the stomach and he drifted backward, giggling.
Taelin looked back down at the paper where Mr. Wintour, the editor, was pointing out that the symptoms of the disease nearly matched those described a year ago, when Isca—the capital of Stonehold—had had a similar outbreak. It had been publicized in the south: how a plague-ridden borough had been ruthlessly corralled and burned. Isca had managed to contain it by force and cruelty. It had been one of the things that helped cement Taelin’s resolve against the Stonehavian government.
Mr. Wintour went as far as to suggest that Stonehold might be the only country with a viable vaccine.
Taelin put the paper down, pulled her crutches up under her armpits and lurched off across the starboard deck, ignoring the crewman that had just arrived to ask if she wanted something to eat. Specks floated after her.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
Several hundred yards away she could see the medical ship floating. Tiny red-coated figures moved back and forth on its decks.
It didn’t sit right.
Taelin scowled at the zeppelin. Why would Caliph Howl bring a floating hospital to an international conference? Even if he was a complete hypochondriac, a few doctors on staff would have made better sense.
“Miss Rae?”
“Hello. I’m Dr. Baufent.” Taelin recognized her immediately as the physician who had handed her the crutches. She was short, middle-aged and looked stubborn as a tree stump. She extended her hand. Taelin shook. She could tell Baufent’s hair had once been auburn but only traces of that color stained a boyish cut of nearly uniform marsupial-gray. “We haven’t much time. His majesty wants me to escort you to the Iatromisia … assuming you’re willing to pose for lithos that show how Pandragor and Stonehold are working together to battle the plague. If not, I’ll simply tell him that you declined. No one’s going to force you, dear.”
She said dear, but Taelin sensed no warmth. Her inflection of majesty established that she also held no special love for the High King.
Taelin made the affirmative southern hand sign at the same time she bobbed her head in a circular up and down pattern: a result of surprise and confusion mixed with yes!
“Let me get my things. Will a day bag be enough?”
The doctor said that it would.
Taelin swung her body around and nearly crashed into Specks. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Are you going?”
“Yes. I have to go up and see if I can help the people in Sandren. They’re in trouble. They’re sick. They need doctors.”
“Are you a doctor?”
“No. But there might be other things I can do.” She reached out and tussled his hair. “Don’t worry. I’ll bring Speck with. And then I’ll be right back.”
Specks didn’t say anything as she poled herself back to her room. She dug her newly stamped papers out of her luggage and stuffed a sack with some money and a change of clothes.
Feeling disheveled and sick and defiant of both, she emerged and saw Baufent in the hall who beckoned to her with tightly controlled impatience.
Taelin propelled herself after the stocky woman who neither acknowledged nor waited on her injury. They descended a metal staircase to the airship’s hold and Taelin, after managing the stairs on her own, caught up to the doctor who was already standing near an open slide door. A gust of fresh wind caused Baufent to squint.
Taelin heard a bang and saw a cable fire from a gun just above the gaping doorway. Its end leapt out toward the Iatromisia. Why are they firing on their own ship? But the cable missed the Iatromisia by yards. Its end snapped violently to the weighted end of a corresponding cable, which had been the real target. It hung vertically beneath the other ship. There had to be some kind of electromagnet or a holomorphic attractor because the two cables joined with such force that they partially entangled and sent whiplash waves rolling in both directions all the way to the hangar doors.