Chapter 4: Gerald

Much like the Apprentice hall, the streets on the path to the docks were mostly deserted. There is a nightlife in the clubs, for both the exuberant and the refined, but that life did not spill over into their path. The stone walkways were empty, and the fire-lamps that lined every street in the City burned without witnesses.

It reminded Gerald, in a way, of what the City might look like should the Gloam conquer it.

His master lead the small troupe, her hurried pace the only overt sign of her excitement. Her march gave no regard to the distance her companions kept, which gave Gerald a much-needed opportunity to talk to his master's shadow.

"Does that happen often?" Gerald asked. He didn't bother to elaborate, confident his master's shadow wouldn't need it.

"It does," Mathias admitted, without preamble. Gerald knew Mathias to be blunt and direct, unless necessary. It was an odd accompaniment to the secretive nature of his work.

"Worse, lately?" Gerald asked.

"It will always be worse. Scourged is a condition no one recovers from," Mathias said. The shadow glanced at him and added, "But she retains her control and her sense of self. Her temper is worse if something threatens her work, or you."

"You're not-" Gerald asked, but swallowed his words when Mathias shot him a hard look.

"I will do what I must when I must. Do not question my work, or the need for it," the shadow said, his voice a hard, harsh whisper that shook Gerald as he listened.

Gerald nodded, but Mathias wasn't finished with his rebuke. He didn't see the shadow move until a hand grabbed Gerald by the collar and pulled him off balance.

This close, Gerald could see the rage in Mathias' eyes, even beneath the shadows of his hat. "Very few people have earned the right to question my judgement. You, boy, are not among them."

Mathias released his coat and pushed him away. "Especially when you're too enamoured with your own brains to notice the dangerous position you've been put in," he added.

Gerald's curiosity twitched in the back of his mind, despite the harshness of the angry shadow's words. "What do you mean?" he asked.

Mathias stepped away and turned to follow Tabitha. Gerald did the same, waiting silently for an answer.

"You've been assigned a shadow."

The words struck him like a blow. "A shadow! No apprentice has ever been assigned one! Even full Crafters go up to a decade without having to put up with a weekly tag-along," Gerald exclaimed.

"And the failures are assigned one immediately. This doesn't bode well for your future," Mathias said.

"What prompted this?" Gerald asked.

"Think, boy. You're good at it. Yours is the third longest apprenticeship in the history of the Guild. Your grades are a matter of public record, you have been an active part of a secret project for over three years, and you've proven a theory about the Gloam itself. Why aren't you a Crafter?" Mathias asked, fierce and direct.

Gerald hesitated before answering. "It's the Airships. The secrecy is easier to maintain if I'm an apprentice. My studies and research are kept in-house, as long as I have a Master looking over my shoulder. She's obliged to share her research, not mine," he noted, thinking aloud.

Mathias turned away from him and nodded. "So you have a handle on the reasoning. Not that she's ever told you. She's worse at sharing than my three-year-old niece. Now, without knowing that you're a lead researcher on a top-secret project, what conclusion would my Bureau come to if they saw your records?"

Gerald cursed under his breath and shook his head. Mathias had a way of cutting to the heart of an issue. "They would investigate. It doesn't even seem heavy-handed when you put it that way."

"And tonight, a Shadow other than myself will watch you do a full-scale test of a taboo craft. Was using the Gloam your idea? Or did she farm it out to you?"

Gerald thought back through his apprenticeship, and the endless hours of study his years had seen. He knew, truthfully, that it was hard to separate anything about the Airships from his master's influence. But he had studied the Gloam since his first year. Before he had been apprenticed to Tabitha a'Loria.

"It's mine," Gerald admitted.

"I see," Mathias said, but shared little else as they rounded another corner, and stepped into the clearing that preceded the Inner-City Harbour.

Gerald's concerns vanished as they came into view of the dry-docks. Towering over the nearby warehouses, a cradle of scaffolding wrapped like a spider web around a pair of ships. Three floors deep, and hundreds of feet long, the hulls of two repurposed cargo vessels gleamed of recently burnished steel.

Above the ships, still encaged by the scaffolding, the closest ship had a massive cloth canvas being stretched over a wire frame. The cloth bag was easily large enough to hold the entire ship inside.

Gerald found himself waking faster, pride quickening his pulse and pasting a grin on his face as he stepped towards his creation.

"It seems unnatural, somehow," Mathias reflected, from beside him. "That much metal should not be allowed to fly.

Gerald laughed. "It's as if we're offending some distant Titan by breaking one of its laws?" he asked.

Mathias nodded. "Exactly that."

Gerald did his best to imitate his master's fierce, predatory grin. "If there is some far off deity, chances are it's already trying to kill us. So I'm going to make that metal fly."

Mathias chuckled, an amused laugh with a surprising note of kindness. "You burn with the same audacity she does. It may bring you a lot of grief, down the road."

Gerald nodded, solemnly, and marched on. His master, Tabitha, was out of sight somewhere up ahead, and a crew of people in the distance were just beginning to assemble the lift-bag for the first Airship.

He looked around at the dilapidated, long abandoned shipyards. Carrying freight along the river had always been risky. The Gloam carried across the water just as eagerly as it did over land, and even the pilot torches beneath the bridges could only do so much to keep the ships safe. Since the tram lines had been improved over the last sixty years, the ships had been abandoned for at least three decades. Had the Airship project started even a few years later than they had, the City would not still have these yards.

Every inch of the Everburning City had been seized from the Gloam. None of it was wasted for long.

He found his Master exactly where he thought he would; standing directly below the deck of the nearly complete Airship, inspecting the progress the Engineers were making on the Lift-Bag. Even from a distance, Gerald could see his master smiling, almost skipping with delight as the work marched along.

Mathias, gliding silently beside Gerald, glanced up to the lift-bag and asked, "Why is it grey? I thought you'd go with a Crafter's reddish-brown or black. The swirling grey pattern is strange."

"It's how the resin cures. We use powdered cold-stone, the same materials used to seal distribution pipes. We saturate it in a resin and pour it onto the canvas. The result is a light, flexible material that can withstand enormous heat," Gerald explained, careful to keep his voice slow and measured.

"A liquid resin made with cold-stone? I can't imagine you just coat the outside of that canvas with it," Mathias remarked.

"To cure the resin, we flash-vaporise it with fire. That swirling grey colour is how it comes out." Gerald finished. He shook his head, impressed with the shadow's technical acumen.

"It's the shadow of a flame!" his master bellowed, from a small distance away. Gerald stepped closer, to let her speak without having to shout. A casual glance to Mathias revealed the shadow was not happy with what he heard.

"It's the flame burning the canvas as it dies. The last act of life, as the cold-stone devours the flame. It's a crafter's memorial, in a sense," Tabitha added, and Gerald could feel, rather than see, Mathias' hands fingering his hidden knives.

Tabitha ignored her shadow's discomfort and pointed to one of the mechanics working on the lift-bag. "Mathias, would you summon your co-worker and have her introduce herself? It's bad enough your order exists, without them dabbling in spy-work."

Gerald was surprised to hear Mathias laugh. "Agrias owes me a pint," he remarked, and Gerald could see him smiling under his hat. "What gave her away?"

"She's been staring at my apprentice for the last few minutes," Tabitha rasped, almost spitting the words as she gave Mathias a rage-filled stare. "It would be cute, but I can feel the cold-stone on her."

The crafter's right hand was clenched into a fist, and the air around her seemed to shimmer. The hairs on Gerald's neck stood up, and his heart began to pound.

Gerald had some sense of his Master's strength in the Craft. Even among the graduated members of the Guild, Tabitha a'Loria was formidable. But even now, despite his master's aggressive posturing, his worry wasn't with the tall, red-headed demigod who could reduce this entire wharf to slagged stone.

He turned to Mathias, relieved to see the tall shadow pause for a moment, before he smiled and tilted his hat.

Mathias looked up, to one of the mechanics stretching the Canvas along the wire frame. She caught his gaze almost instantly, then nodded as Mathias waved her down.

Gerald watched, amused, as she made her way down the scaffolding with fluid, enviable grace. Her mastery over motion wasn't a skill taught to engineers or even soldiers. In the City, only the Bureau of Oversight teaches its evaluators to move like that.

The woman posing as an Engineer took the last few stages of scaffolding with practised ease. She jogged towards them, stopped in front of Tabitha and nodded respectfully. "Madam Crafter! We weren't expecting you for another hour. The Canvas attachment is on schedule, and we're preparing to-"

Gerald found himself pleased to see she was at least somewhat familiar with the project.

"You've been made, Lucille. You may as well introduce yourself," Mathias said, amused.

Her demeanour changed quickly, and dramatically. The respectful, nearly reverent tone vanished, and her bearing shifted from deferential to defiant. "Apologies, madam, for the deception. Orders," she explained, without elaborating.

"It's too much to hope you're here as his sidekick?" Tabitha asked her, pointing to Mathias. The girl scowled in response, having to look up to meet the Crafter's eyes.

"With respect, madam Crafter, your concerns aren't my problem. Unless you wanted to share why you haven't graduated him?" Lucille said, pointing in his direction.

The shadow's audacity surprised him. Despite himself, Gerald found a grin beginning to creep across his face.

Mathias moved beside Tabitha, and in a near whisper, said, "We should speak."

The rage in Tabitha's eyes was visible for only a moment, just long enough for Gerald to notice. Despite his master's willpower, the signs of her scourging were plain to see for anyone who knew what to look for, and became disturbingly clear when she was angry.

Gerald knew that most shadows would have ordered her execution for the symptoms she displayed. Tabitha's rages were getting worse, her eyes and hair had begun to turn the colour of ash, and in quiet moments she would stare at the Spire; her hands twitching, and her eyes filled with longing.

It occurred to him that his own shadow's presence might be because her bureau did not know if they could trust Mathias.

Gerald knew better. Apprenticed to the Shadow's charge, he had spent a lot of time with Mathias, and understood something about him that he had never seen in anyone else, even other shadows. When someone might make judgements, smirk about flaws, or silently critique their appearance, Mathias had decided how he would kill them at that moment. Every person, no matter their rank, ability to wield the flame, or even how much he trusted them.

He was nervous as he watched his master walk away with her eventual executioner. It troubled him that his master found her shadow's deadly competence a source of comfort.

He swallowed hard and shook his head, as he turned to regard the woman who might one day be his own killer. She had already stepped towards him, and held out her hand. "Lucille Kendor. I've been assigned as your observer."

Gerald grinned cheekily, as he noticed her scowl. He took her hand, and shook it. "Gerald Raeth. Were you supposed to be spying on me?"

"That was the plan," Lucille said, as she turned back to Mathias and scowled. "I'm surprised he blew my cover like that."

Gerald followed her gaze, watching Tabitha wave her arms as she said something to Mathias. He decided he owed the shadow, for telling him beforehand. "He didn't. Your superiors gave you away, by assigning you directly to the Engineers. They all know you're a shadow, and it shows."

He glanced at her boots, and let his gaze rest meaningfully on the sagging pockets in her mechanic's coat. "Also, the boots are wrong, you're wearing too many knives, I can sense cold-stone, and there isn't an Engineer alive as graceful as you are."

She shrugged, but her scowl had a genuinely appraising look to it. "Being so observant ain't healthy."

He wasn't sure how serious the threat was. "Nothing involving the shadows is healthy," he said, with more gusto than he felt. "What did you want to know?"

"My superiors are aching over why you haven't been graduated," she said. She finished, glanced around, and leaned closer, dropping her voice to a near whisper. "And I want to know why we're filling giant bags with the Gloam. Like to share?"

He rolled her choice of words over in his mind. An interrogation tool, she was suggesting that she might not tell her superiors about his experiment with the Gloam if he talked freely. She likely rehearsed her opening moves for the last few hours. He almost laughed aloud.

"My graduation is up to Crafter a'Loria, which means your answer should be in Mathias' weekly reports. If you find out, let me know," Gerald replied.

Lucille sighed, and shook her head. "Mathias has been less than forthcoming. We would try taking your master in to ask her directly, but..."

"She would turn your Bureau's headquarters into molten slag," Gerald finished for her. "You'd need a new career."

She shrugged, nonchalantly, and asked, "So the Gloam helps create lift somehow?"

Gerald's eyes widened when she shrugged over his casual threat. Taken aback, he nearly answered her next question without thinking. "I-"

She smiled at him, and Gerald found it a surprisingly warm gesture. "I read ahead a little. We're pumping the Gloam into the lift-bag of an experimental airship. Which means someone figured out a way to use the Gloam to generate lift. Odd, since it's heavier than air, but you're the genius airship designer," Lucille said.

"Right," Gerald said, lamely. It was surprising how much she made 'genius' sound like 'imbecile'. He paused for a moment, and decided to make her an offer. "Tell you what. Ten honest answers for a favour. Yes or no questions, 'I don't know' gets you a free question. After ten, I might start lying."

"What's the favour?" Lucille asked.

"I haven't decided yet. Nothing illegal, nothing indecent. Do we have a deal?" Gerald asked, holding out his hand.

Lucille pondered for a moment longer, then spat in her palm and shook his hand. Gerald grimaced at the saliva now smeared over his palm, but shook her hand and smiled.

Spit in the palm was an Undercity gesture. Gerald hadn't seen it used in years.

"You mean to use fire to lift the ship?" Lucille asked, quickly. Gerald took his hand back and tried to hide his efforts to wipe his palm off on his coat.

"Yes," he said.

"Of course you are. A crafter's answer to a problem that can't be solved by fire is to use more. You're using a craft, specifically?" she asked again.

Gerald nodded.

"So that explains the powdered cold-stone resin pour on the canvas. I have to admit, I've never heard of cold-stone used that way before. There are a lot of firsts on this project," Lucille conceded.

"Would you believe me if I said it was my idea?" Gerald asked.

"Of course not," Lucille replied. Gerald found her scepticism stung a little. Getting cold-stone into a liquid medium had taken up six months of his life, and a forged signature on the requisition order for the stone

"So it acts as a heat-sink. You superheat the bag, and the resin keeps it from burning up and bursting out. Am I right?" Lucille asked, and looked to Gerald for confirmation. He gave it quickly, with another sharp nod.

"There's enough cold-stone on that bag to stop incendiary rounds at point-blank range. Which means you plan on having an enormous amount of heat inside. But that much flame would drain a Reservoir in half a minute, and kill a Crafter in a few hours. Let's assume you're not a complete moron. Do you plan to use the Gloam to help heat the Bag?" Lucille explained aloud, pointing at parts of the ship behind her.

"I do, yes," Gerald replied. Lucille's eyes widened, and she took a deep breath. Gerald watched, carefully, for a reaction.

"So the Gloam interacts with Crafting, somehow?" Lucille asked, hesitantly. It was the first tentative question she had asked.

Gerald smiled. "Tell you what. For the price of two questions, I'll explain that more thoroughly. Deal?"

He watched Lucille ponder the offer for a moment, then nodded her head. "We've known for a long time that the Gloam interacts with Crafting. It amplifies the outcome of a Crafter's efforts, without it being more taxing. It requires quite a lot of willpower to use, since it feels similar to taking control of the flame from someone else, but it doesn't take the same toll. Which means a Crafter with the willpower to handle it safely can create a lot more fire without straining themselves," Gerald explained.

Lucille frowned, and thought for a moment. "But the problem you have is maintaining that fire. Isn't the Gloam consumed when a Crafter's fire is applied to it?"

"Sort of," Gerald admitted. He scratched his head and grimaced wryly. "Same deal?"

Lucille nodded, and Gerald continued his explanation. "Normally, you're right. Every time a Crafter's fire is applied to the Gloam, it builds on itself until the Crafter can no longer control it. Once the control is lost, it evaporates into the air. But in an enclosed system, it has no escape, and burns indefinitely. I don't know how long it can keep going, since I've never seen it stop."

"So that's your method," Lucille whistled. Gerald grinned, smiling to himself and glanced back to one of the ships, now almost finished. Without meaning to, he already started listing off the things he still needed to do before he could fly.

"Satisfied, miss Kendor?" Gerald asked, sweeping with his arm towards the ship behind him. "So, here you have a choice. Run back to your employers, and pass on all you've learned. Most of the tram lines don't run at this hour, but you could borrow the military telegraph lines to get a message to your Bureau."

She surprised him by shaking her head, and holding out your hand. "Stop monologuing. I'm your shadow, and I go where you go. Besides," she added, glancing up at the lift-bag. "If it works, there's no way I'm missing it."

"You want to fly?" Gerald asked, taken aback. He hadn't expected her enthusiasm. He was prepared for condemnation, fear, even threats. What he was doing was not forbidden only because it had never been imagined before, and his greatest fear was his City taking it away from him.

Instead, the Bureau of Oversight gave him a gift. The woman assigned to keep the City safe from him was smiling, eager and hopeful, at the prospect of riding three hundred tons of steel two miles into the air.

"Very much," she answered wistfully.

Neither of them could say anything for a long moment. The silence was interrupted instead by the still distant clapping of thick-soled boots on stone.

They both turned to see a military messenger approach. Her crisp, black uniform was stained with sweat beneath the chin, as she jogged forward and presented herself with a polite salute to them both, before approaching.

"Pardon me, sir, ma'am," she said. Gerald noticed a small envelope in one hand, and a long package tucked neatly into a satchel she slung over her back. She was breathing hard, and took the opportunity to catch her breath before speaking again.

"I'm looking for a Crafter. Tabitha a'Loria. Highest priority," the messenger said.

Gerald's eyes widened as every sense in his body acted as if it had never been awake before this moment, and his mind raced as he stared at the messenger.

The implications of that simple statement, along with her uniform, allowed for only a handful of possible messages. And her wide-eyed, fearful exuberance narrowed that list down to a single option.

"Highest priority?" Lucille asked, terse and direct. "Why?"

But Gerald already understood. There was only one reason for someone in uniform to come here, bearing a written message of such urgency.

The night air felt colder, despite the warmth of the Spire, and a chill spread through his body.

Gerald could barely raise his voice above a whisper, as he said, "Because we are under attack, from beyond the last wall."