Heirs of the Blade_ Shadows of the Apt_ Book Seven - Adiran Tchaikovsky [73]
That brought all the others leaning closer, waiting for the catch. A trap? was the plain thought on their faces, as if the Empress herself would go to such lengths to punish a cartel of weapons traders.
‘Himself’s shadow is here,’ Emon murmured darkly. ‘He’s not exactly talked it over with the crew, but word is that the Glove is about to shake hands with the Empire, after all this time. Over in Chasme, we’ve made some remarkable advances, they tell me,’ meaning the squatting little artificer town on the Exalsee that the Glove virtually owned these days. ‘A poor sailor-engineer like myself wouldn’t know where to start second-guessing Himself and his adopted son, but the Empire’s the biggest market in the world. Makes sense that we’d want to set things straight and makes sense that the Wasps would want to let us. Nothing but the best for the army, after all, and we surely do make the best.’
Himself’s shadow? Praeda wondered. ‘But what if the Empire won’t talk . . .?’
‘It’s like I said,’ Emon explained, ‘the Empire asked first. I reckon we probably sent them a catalogue, like merchants do sometimes, when they have special goods for sale. I reckon the Imperial artificers just about must have had a fit when they saw what we’ve cooked up.’ He gave a crooked smile. ‘I reckon the world’s about to change in all manner of directions, I do.’
To Angved’s surprise, Varsec had proved surprisingly good company. The Engineer was used to always having to compete with other officers, and all too used to failing at it, too. He and the aviator were still prisoners, and yet still being treated in a curiously tentative manner by their captors, who were all from the Engineering Corps themselves. Angved had meanwhile got a look at the machinery that had travelled the dusty road south to Khanaphes ahead of them, and he now felt cause to be hopeful.
Of course, they might have decided they don’t need me to make it work, but why bring me along at all, in that case? And if they needed Angved, having decided to roll the dice and gamble on his discovery, then the same seemed to be true of Varsec, who was housed in the same cell and given the same uncertain treatment.
Of course the Khanaphir expedition didn’t have a direct bearing on Varsec’s particular work, but he and Angved had already got past their initial caginess regarding their plans, and it was clear to both that the one could help the other. Aboard the airship – the Empress’s own airship! – they had taken every piece of paper they had been given and begun scrawling schematics and plans, diagrams of force and tension . . .
There had come a moment, far into the morning hours of a night that had slipped past almost unnoticed, when the two men had suddenly stared at one another, the plans spread out between them. Their shared gaze had spoken eloquently of a small part of the world changed for ever, the toothed wheels of progress moving on a notch.
They had called for the guard and demanded access to a messenger. The Fly-kinden who arrived was on the Empress’s own staff, as he informed them in extreme annoyance at having been woken at the whims of prisoners. He then refused to take their messages until Colonel Lien had been summoned and shown the schematics.
The Fly was on his way north almost immediately after that, dropping from the airship and speeding for the factories of Sonn, where some of Varsec’s initial ideas were already being worked into reality. It must change. It must all change. It will be better.
Now the two of them had been transferred to a room inside one of the embassies, still not considered quite as dignitaries but not quite as prisoners either, without rank and yet treated with cautious deference. Varsec was sketching again, drawing wing joints in delicate detail. He had kept the beard, trimmed down neatly now that they had given him a razor, but still a departure from the Imperial norm, and if his clothes were the simple tunic and sandals of a slave, at least they were clean and intact. He seemed at peace with it, too, their curious half-life. Angved himself