"Yes, I can see that, Papa. Thank you."
"It was a good question, 'Drin. See that you go on asking more like it. That's your current duty."
"I will, Papa."
Silence had fallen?a quiet, thoughtful silence?and they'd stood together, watching the coast slip by on either side, for the entire three hours it had taken to transit the Ibral Strait and reach the sea of the same name.
It took much longer to cross the Ibral Sea, which stretched a hundred and seventy five miles from northeast to southwest and was nearly fifty miles across at its widest. Despite its small area, Andrin knew it was over four thousand feet deep in the center, and the long lines of merchant vessels waiting to enter the Strait Windtreader had finally cleared stretched as far as she could see.
Andrin left the deck only long enough to eat and endure an exhausting hour or so undergoing Lady Merissa's ministrations. Then she returned, trailing Lazima chan Zindico?and Lady Merissa?to resume her place at the promenade deck rail and watch the dark waters of the Ibral Sea flow past. The merchant shipping gave Windtreader and her cruiser escorts ample elbow room, but there was still plenty to see, and she didn't really care if people thought she was gawking like a teenager. After all, she was a teenager, she thought with a grin.
It was well into afternoon when the city finally began to rise from the waves. A gray smudge appeared on the horizon and thickened, grew steadily higher and wider, until details began to emerge.
Tajvana straddled the southern end of the nineteen mile-long Ylani Strait, and it was indisputably the wealthiest, most culturally diverse crossroads on the face of Sharona. History lay thick as fog on those dark waters, and so many cities had existed along those banks that they'd piled up in layers of silt and ancient foundations, each of them laid over even older foundations. Walls built and rebuilt until the layers were more than a hundred feet thick in places.
Andrin longed to explore not only the living city, but also the ancient ruins historians had excavated here. There were structures in Tajvana older than the Ternathian Empire itself, which counted five full millennia. She'd read about the ancient ruins beneath Tajvana, had seen the old engravings of the early excavations, and the modern photographs as more of the ancient city was progressively uncovered for study. But not even the marvel of photography could equal the impact of walking through the actual ruins. Andrin had already told her father how much she longed to go, and he'd promised to arrange a tour.
"We won't be the only sightseers wanting to gawk at the city, after all," he'd said. "Most members of the Conclave will want to explore at least a little. I rather doubt that many of the Conclave's delegates have ever had the opportunity."
"Thus proving that even an inter-universal crisis can have some benefit," Andrin had smiled, and her father had laughed aloud.
"Fair enough. And don't worry, I'll be gawking right alongside you, 'Drin. Unlike you, I may have been here before, but you're not the only Calirath intrigued by ancient ruins and monuments."
Now her father appeared beside her at the rail as she saw high spires rising from the temples of two dozen or more faiths. Gilded domes caught the sunlight with mirror brilliance, scattering diamond points of light into the sky. And then, ahead of them, a faerie arch rose like a golden thread. It joined a second delicate arch, then another and another, as span after span marched across the wide Ylani Strait, and Andrin's breath caught at the sight of that eldritch bridge, spanning an impossibly wide gap.
"How?" she breathed softly. "Who could build such a bridge?"
"I wish we Ternathians could take the credit, but we can't," her father said with smile. "That honor goes to His Crowned Eminence, the Seneschal of Othmaliz. It's been finished for seven months, I believe."
Andrin glanced from the bridge to her father.
"But how, Papa? Surely a bridge that long ought to collapse under its own weight! Or as soon as a heavy wind hits it!"
"Well," Zindel's eyes twinkled, "some say he made a pact with the devils of the Arpathian Hells?all eleven of them. Hells, that is," he amended. "I don't think anyone could possibly count the number of devils Arpathians fear. Not even the Arpathians. I gave up trying several years ago, since they seem to invent new ones each time the moon changes phase or the wind shifts. Others say the Seneschal pledged his immortal soul to obtain the plans and that he'll have to spend the rest of his life building temples, trying to earn it back." He chuckled. "It's less colorful, perhaps, but the simple truth is that he put out a call to the greatest engineering geniuses on Sharona and promised a dukedom and half the lifetime earnings from the bridge traffic to the engineer who could design and build it."
"It's … astonishing," she said, inadequately.
So it was, and the closer they came, the more astonishing it grew. The pilings were massive towers of concrete and stone. The spans were made of steel, but not the solid steel she'd expected. Instead, they were made of steel cables, which gave the bridge its gossamer appearance, like a bridge made of thread. She frowned, trying to reason it out, as the wind whipped past in crosswise gusts.
Then she understood.
"It really is sheer genius!" she cried aloud in pure delight. "Using cables, not rigid beams, means the entire structure can flex just enough to keep from cracking!"
Her father grinned from ear to ear.
"Bravo, 'Drin! That's precisely why it worked. And don't forget, this part of the world is subject to relatively frequent earthquakes. I'm sure that was another factor in the final design." He laughed. "If you ever grow bored enough to entertain thoughts of an ordinary career, you might consider engineering."
Lady Merissa, who'd finally recovered from her seasickness, gasped behind Andrin's shoulder.
"Your Majesty! What a ghastly suggestion! Her Highness is a Calirath! Not a . . . a tradesman!"
The guardian of Andrin's reputation was glaring at her father, her expression scandalized, but the Emperor turned to meet that outraged stare calmly.
"My dear Lady Merissa, I didn't mean to shock you. But as a Calirath, if Andrin wants to build bridges between her comportment lessons, her sessions with the dancing master, and her studies with Shamir Taje?among other distinguished tutors?" he said, his eyes twinkling, "then by all means, she may build as many bridges as Ternathia has need of, with my blessing. We Caliraths have taken up any number of interesting occupations, just for the challenges involved. Besides," he added smugly, "engineering isn't a trade. It's a profession."
The distinction, alas, was lost upon Lady Merissa, and Andrin had to clap both hands over her lips to keep from laughing out loud at her protocolist's apoplectic look. Lady Merissa, clearly horrified by the Emperor's answer, turned a savagely repressive glare on Andrin … whose father did have the temerity to laugh.
"Lady Merissa," he said with a chuckle, "you're a hopeless aristocrat."
Lady Merissa was clearly torn between squawking in indignation and the deference due the most powerful single human being on Sharona. While she tried to make up her mind which to do, the human being in question turned back to his contemplation of the Ylani Strait Bridge, and gave Andrin a solemn wink. Zindel chan Calirath thought the whole notion of Andrin shocking the bluebloods by taking up engineering was wickedly funny. Yet there was a bittersweet edge to his amusement, for Andrin's future was crushed under far too many restrictions, and he feared that even more were coming.