Saving the Sammi Read online

  The Captain stood quietly by as Meralda considered and rejected a dozen magical contrivances. Only two, Pancat's Airborne Disc and Morten's Reverse Faller, could even hope to reach the altitude required. Neither was large enough to lift a house-cat, much less lower a person to safety.

  "Nothing at all back there, then?"

  "I'm afraid not, Captain."

  "Well, it was worth asking. I'll keep you posted on the rescue efforts, Mage."

  Meralda turned to face him.

  "Perhaps, Captain, we must look to the future, rather than to the past."

  From his place on Meralda's desk, Mug raised his fronds and shook them.

  "Mistress, I know what you're thinking, and it's madness," he cried. "Madness, or worse!"

  The Captain frowned. "What's the houseplant on about?" he said. "And the Ghotes don't have much of a future, unless you've got a very special rabbit to pull out of a powerfully magic hat, Mage."

  Meralda pretended to ignore Mug's protestations. "I may know a way to reach the Sammi."

  "You know a better way to fly than aboard an airship?"

  "Don't do it, Mistress, let the Air Corps handle this!"

  Meralda crossed to her desk, the Captain close behind. She pushed her current work, a refinement of a holdstone cooling jar, into a corner, and then she laid down a fresh sheet of clean drawing paper before seating herself and taking up a pen.

  Mug groaned. "Captain, it's up to you now to talk some sense into her before she takes to the skies in some half-baked flying machine."

  "Hush," said the Captain, as Meralda began to draw.

  Her pen scratched upon the paper. She bit her lower lip as she drew.

  "It's too late," said Mug, defeated. He swiveled all his eyes accusingly upon the Captain. "What have you done?"

  The Captain watched Meralda draw for a moment, and then he quietly backed away.

  "I'll bring more coffee," he said, when his back was at the Laboratory doors. "And lunch."

  Meralda mumbled a reply. The Captain closed the massive Laboratory doors behind him.

  "I don't know why I bother talking, as no one ever listens," said Mug. Then he simulated a deep sigh, and set about checking Meralda's math as she paused in her drawing to scribble calculations at the paper's edge.

  "Dropped a seven there," said Mug. "Oh, I said 'dropped.' What a wit I am."

  The hurried scratch of Meralda's pen was Mug's only reply.

  * * *

  Meralda pushed back from her desk, stood, and stretched.

  Her back ached. She had a tendency to slump in her chair when deep in concentration, and her resolve to improve her posture always vanished as her calculations grew complex. Her right hand was cramped and sore. Her eyes were weary, her neck stiff, her head beginning to pound -- but there it was, scrawled across three wrinkled sheets of good High Street Brilliant White drafting paper.

  A means of flying without fragile bags of lifting gas or capricious levitation spells.

  His eyes hanging limp and closed, Mug slept. Meralda moved her hand toward him, intending to wake him, but decided instead to review her sketches and calculations one last time.

  It's simple enough, she thought. I use the same voltaic storage cells that power my fans and spark-lights to move a small electrical current through a coil of copper wire. The coil of wire is wound around a shaft of iron, and I can control the current using a hand-turned rheostat. A meter shows me the current flow. And when the electrical circuit is made complete by throwing a switch, the current in the coil creates a magnetic field. That much has been known for at least a century, mused Meralda.

  But no one before me ever suspected that moving magic through the same copper coil would create not a magnetic field, but a gravitational one. Meralda thought back to the day she'd accidentally discovered the effect, and she glanced upward at the chip in the Laboratory's granite ceiling, where the coil had flung her apparatus.

  Mug's leaves stirred, and his eyes, one by one, began to open and bob about. Half a dozen fixed themselves on the drawings, while the rest regarded Meralda.

  "You've done it," he said, after a moment.

  Meralda sank back into her chair. "I have."

  Mug poked at a section of the drawing with the tip of a curled leaf. "What's this bit here? Why the battery?"

  "I latch the magical current to the electrical current. Then I can control the arcane flow simply by moderating the electrical current with a rheostat. A single latched spell will suffice for each coil."

  Mug bobbed his eyes. "Clever, Mistress. This should be a two, not a seven." He indicated a long string of numbers by a sketch of a coil housing.

  Meralda leaned down, frowning, and in a moment she crossed out the offending number and penned a new one in its place. "Six places behind the decimal. An error, but not significant."

  "Maybe if you're not looking down on rooftops, it's not," said Mug. "Mistress, this is brilliant. Maybe you will one day make the skies safer, even if you can't help the Ghotes."

  "What makes you think I can't help the Ghotes?"

  Mug's leaves shook as if in a wind. "Surely you can't mean to throw together a few turns of wire and go flapping about the heavens this afternoon!"

  Meralda put down her pen. "Surely you can't mean we simply sit here and let an entire family perish without lifting a finger."

  "The Captain said every airship in Tirlin is after the Sammi. Mistress, I know you want to help. So do I. But we're Mage and Houseplant, not airship pilots. What can we do?"

  He's right, thought Meralda, as dozens of magical clocks chimed out the hour from every corner of the Laboratory. One o'clock, which means the Sammi has perhaps nineteen hours before it reaches the freezing, thin air that will doom the Ghotes.

  Nineteen hours? There's just not enough time. I can't build an airship in a day. Less than a day.

  "Why couldn't the Ghotes have taken an interest in boating?" asked Mug. "Not that boats aren't floating coffins. Bad as airships, I say. Why you legged people can't just stay in one place…"

  Mug trailed off. Meralda was out of her chair and running for the Laboratory doors, skirts flying, calling for the Captain before she reached the hall.

  The doors slammed shut. Mug turned his eyes to the ceiling and groaned.

  * * *

  It took ten Palace guards to wrestle the antique rowboat through the Palace halls, up the stairs, and into the Laboratory, where it came to rest on a makeshift stand composed of half a dozen purloined dining room serving carts.

  Meralda prowled around the rowboat, measuring tape and notebook in hand.

  "Where did you get this?" she asked, scribbling measurements. "It shows no signs of ever having been wet."

  The Captain grinned. "From the Royal Museum," he said. "It hasn't touched water since King Scorbin drowned while messing about in it."

  Mug sputtered and shook his leaves. "Is that really the only boat you could find? Honestly, did we run out of lakes?"

  "It was restored after being put on exhibit. It's been meticulously maintained ever since. There's no more sound and sturdy craft within a day's ride from here, unless you'd prefer one of the waterlogged paddle-boats they rent out on Lake Pleasant for two pennies an hour."

  "No. This is perfect. Better than I hoped for." Meralda stuck her pencil behind her right ear. "It will need some modifications. But it will suffice. Captain, you're a marvel. Did you perhaps bring a carpenter along as well?"

  "I've got half a dozen carpenters and the only boat-wright I could find right outside, Mage. With tools and lumber."

  "Call them in, please."

  The Captain bellowed. Wide-eyed carpenters and a single perplexed boat maker sidled cautiously into the Laboratory, clutching their tools and whispering.

  "Gentlemen," shouted the Captain, moving to stand beside Meralda. "The lady, if you don't know, is Mage Ovis, Royal Thaumaturge to the Kingdom of Tirlin. She is in charge here. If sh
e says jump I want your boots off the floor, no arguing, is that clear?"

  The builders responded with a muttered chorus of 'ayes.'

  "Pardon me, General --"

  "Captain."

  "Pardon me, Captain, but I understood we were brought here to assist in the manufacture of a flying machine."

  "Just so."

  The boat-wright squinted over his tiny round spectacles. "Then why am I here? Why is this boat here?" The small man leaned close and ran his hand across the boat's rail. "Why, this is the Luckless Jenny! I refinished her myself, ten years ago."

  Mug spoke up, loud and strident. "The Luckless Jenny? Oh, no. When were you going to mention that tidbit, General?"

  "It's just a bloody name," growled the Captain. "Rename it. Anything you wish."

  "You most certainly will not!" said the boat-wright, aghast.

  "We most certainly will," replied Mug.

  "Quiet, all of you," said Meralda. "There is no time for any of this. There are children up there, dying by inches. Now, gather around. Here is what I need."

  She stabbed at the drawings laid out on her work-bench with her pencil. The carpenters and boat builder joined her, squinting and frowning. Meralda began to speak.

  Mug wilted. "Captain," he said, softly, so Meralda wouldn't hear.

  "Houseplant?"

  "She's going to need wire. Copper wire. Every bit you can find. Start tearing down telegraph wires, if you have to. But get as much as you can here as fast as you can."

  The Captain scowled. "She didn't ask for wire."

  "She's an optimist. Thinks her coils will fire up and work the first time she tries them."

  "You believe otherwise?"

  Mug rolled sixteen of his eyes.

  "My Mistress sometimes fails to take into account the inherent cussedness of nature," he said. "These flying coils are something new. Have you ever seen any bright new idea come to life without a hitch? Ever?"

  The Captain regarded the carpenters and boat builder. They were hovering over Meralda's drawing now, pointing and talking at once, but no longer frowning.

  "The Telegraph Office will have a fit," he said. Then he brightened. "But half the lines are down anyway. I can have the lads roll up downed lines, and no one the wiser." He winked at Mug, who returned the wink in six shades of red.

  "Back in a bit," he said, aloud. "Mage, send a runner if you need me."

  Meralda waved, engrossed in her discussions.

  Mug fixed three eyes on the nearest clock, and watched its hands go round and round.

  * * *

  By five o'clock in the afternoon, the carpenters had added what looked like stubby wings to both sides of the boat.

  By seven, the wings supported a pair of long iron rods, and each was being painstakingly wrapped with fine copper wire while Meralda soldered and muttered at her workbench.

  Just after ten, Meralda tested her flying coils for the first time, applying only a fraction of the electrical and arcane currents that would -- that should -- send them aloft. The rightmost flying coil immediately burst into flames, melting the copper wire in half a dozen places. When Meralda later remarked on how much extra copper wire she found lying about the Laboratory, Mug and the Captain merely exchanged quick grins.

  By midnight, the carpenters were sleeping in shifts, the boat-wright was sealing the wire-wrapped cylinders with a foul-smelling shellac, and Meralda was more than halfway through her third pot of strong black coffee. There was a brief disturbance when Randall's Midnight Sweeper came shambling out of the shelves and charged into the assembled carpenters, determined to sweep up the sawdust heaped on the floor and heedless of the booted feet standing in the way.

  Meralda just glared at the Sweeper until he bent in a stiff mechanical bow and withdrew, his glowing red eyes finally vanishing into the dark at the back of the shelves.

  "I still don't understand how this boat is supposed to fly," said the Captain, as the carpenters returned to work.

  "Mug, explain the coils --"

  "No. Never mind. If you say it will fly it will fly. I don't have to understand it. I just have to know enough to pilot it."

  Meralda nearly choked on her coffee.

  "You? Pilot the Jenny?"

  "And why not? I'm a Captain of the Royal Guard. This is a Guard rescue effort. Who else did you think would be flying this daft contraption?"

  The boat-wright, whose name had been determined to be Mr. Pithnotty, assumed an injured expression.

  "The Jenny is hardly a contraption, Captain," he said. "Flying or not. And I should be the one to pilot it. I am the only experienced boat handler here, you know."

  Meralda wiped coffee from her chin.

  "And I am the only Mage," she said. "Captain. Mr. Pithnotty. Do either of you know the relationship between electrical current, heat, and arcane fluid flow?"

  The boat builder shrugged. The Captain snorted.

  "I don't need to know the science," he said. "Just tell me how to steer it. We can't go risking Mages when there are Captains a few years from retirement about, Meralda. You're worth ten of me and you know it."

  "Finally, something the good Captain and I agree upon," muttered Mug.

  Meralda glared and shook her head. "Captain. Mr. Pithnotty. I am touched by your bravery and your concern, but this is my craft, and I will pilot it, or it will never go aloft."

  "We can burn that bridge when we reach it," said the Captain. He glared at the goblin-clock which peeked out from behind a stack of papers on Meralda's cluttered desk. "Which we'd better reach soon, if we're to argue about this at all."

  Meralda nodded. "I'm an hour from connecting the holdstones and latching the batteries." She turned suddenly. "Mr. Pithnotty. I'll need a chair of some kind. With arms."

  "And a strap!" cried Mug.

  "And a strap." Meralda considered her drawings. "In fact, we'll need four other seats as well."

  The boat-wright frowned. "She's a row-boat and not a frigate, beggin' your pardon, Mage Ovis. Chairs will make her sit too high, turn over too easy."

  "She's not going in the water," said Mug, waving his leaves. "Airship, remember?"

  Grumbling, the boat maker consulted the carpenters, and Meralda returned to her workbench while high-backed oak chairs worked with Tirlin's lion-and-griffon crest were taken from the Great Hall and secured to the Jenny's narrow hull.

  Meralda pulled one workman away, and helped him build a wooden box at the rear of the Jenny. Meralda ran a pair of thick rubber-coated cables through two openings in the lid, and began to fill the box with heavy glass batteries, which sizzled and hissed as she moved them. Forty-five batteries, thought Meralda. That's all I have. If my estimates are correct, they will give me ten hours of flight time. Perhaps eleven. But certainly no more.

  "Mistress, what of the holdstones?" asked Mug.

  "They'll go at the fore, beneath the pilot's chair." Meralda pushed hair out of her eyes. "I've got two dozen charged here, and I've sent to the Airship Guild for another two dozen."

  "That's ten hours in the sky. If everything works according to plan."

  "Yes."

  "Mage," said the Captain. "Hold on a moment. If the Sammi has been drifting with the storm, she's probably made thirty knots or better for the last twelve hours. Which puts her three hundred and sixty miles away, give or take. For you to catch up before it's too late, the Jenny here will need to make better than a hundred knots an hour."

  "Much better," said Meralda. "A hundred and twenty-five knots, at the least."

  Mug did not speak.

  "Meralda, is that even possible? The fastest airship can't do more than thirty knots, I don't care what those blowhards at the Guild claim."

  "Airships move with fans. My coils manipulate gravity itself. We'll be falling forward, Captain, accelerating at will in level flight. My main concern is not achieving a hundred and twenty-five knots, but holding the craft to that."

/>   "Houseplant. What did she just say?"

  Mug stirred his leaves. "When you drop something, say a hastily-rebuilt rowboat with a history of tragic demise, it goes faster and faster each second it falls."

  The Captain frowned. "Really?"

  "Really. So picture the Jenny falling sideways. In just a few minutes, she'll be going so fast the wind will start tearing things off."

  "Mug. Stop. I can control the speed. We won't always be accelerating. But you do have a point. We'll need a windscreen or some sort. Perhaps a thick window-pane, fixed here, in front of the pilot's seat."

  "With respect, Mistress, on paper you can control the speed. Which is why some brave young Army airship pilot should fly this thing."

  Meralda muttered under her breath as she gathered an armful of holdstones from her workbench and hurried toward the Jenny.

  "Going to be impossible to keep her on the ground," whispered Mug, to the Captain.

  "Difficult," replied the Captain. "Not impossible."

  "Two of the clock," sang the goblin-clock on Meralda's desk. "Two o'clock and all is well."

  "That leaves her six hours," said Mug. The clock began to sing again, but slinked away instead at Mug's dozen-eyed glare.

  * * *

  By four in the morning, the Jenny was done.

  Done, and her flying coils removed, and hull and coils wrestled out of the Palace and into a small, tidy courtyard surrounded on three sides by soaring Palace walls. The remaining side of the courtyard faced the street, which was empty and dark save for a single leaning, sputtering gas-lamp.

  The carpenters and Mr. Pithnotty hammered and spoke. Within moments, Meralda knew she'd be either airborne, or looking very foolish, or both.

  I could be making history, she thought. If I’d only had more time.

  "Still time to call this off, Mistress," said Mug, from his bird-cage. "No one would blame you, not the least tiny bit."

  I wish I had a hairbrush. If I live through this, I'm going to keep a hairbrush handy, in case I need to make history unexpectedly again.