Spoils of War (Tales of the Apt Book 1), Adrian Tchaikovsky [13 ebook reader .txt] 📗

Later that night he had limped home with a sprained ankle, which had been the only result of his abrupt descent, and found another note waiting for him.

Shallowacre. New workshop. The Brothers Workwell. Don’t stare at them, Treat them like Citizens, and they’ll Suit you Well.

The writing had been the same and, when he went to Shallowacre, there the place had been. The Sarnesh renegades gave him no believable names, probably for fear that word of them might reach their abandoned home. Instead they had scrabbled around for a good, decent Collegiate-sounding moniker, and come up with Workwell. All three used it, apparently interchangeably. They were not aware of Lial’s tainted reputation, and were more than happy to rent out a worktable and tools. Once they understood what he was working on they became very excited, and he learned that they had been military engineers back in Sarn, artillery-builders. His plans acquired a number of improvements based on their knowledge of stresses, tolerance and the recalcitrance of moving parts.

A tenday or so later saw Goiter Parrymill hosting guests in his townhouse: not Beetle magnates but two Fly-kinden, the foremost of whom was a slight woman with greying hair and hard features who was well known in Collegium society. She had sat through his explanation and now she shrugged, lighting a small pipe with deft fingers.

“So it’s your obsession,” she told him.

“We had this conversation over Limner,” he reminded her.

“So we did, and we looked at Limner, and we knew he’d fail. Why should the apprentice outdo the master? Let him hurl himself off as many cliffs as he wants.”

“And if it flies?”

“A dozen good artificer-magnates assure me a heavier-than-air flying machine that carries a man is quite impossible,” she said, but something in her tone lacked conviction.

“And you trust that implicitly do you, Sulle?” Parrymill pressed.

“Goiter, flying machines are your business. If this boy builds a better one, that would therefore be your problem.”

Goiter stared out of the window, hands behind his back, like a tactician considering the disposition of his troops. “Your messengers enjoy riding on my airships, Sulle. They get good rates.”

“And that’s why they ride on your airships, rather than your competitors’,” she told the small of his back, unmoved.

“And if Lial Morless’s machine flies, covers the miles faster than my airships? And if your customers realise their packages and notes and letters can get where they’re going that much faster? And how much will Morless charge you? And will he want to build a machine that will take him and your messenger, or will he calmly suggest you hand over your solemn trust to him, and he’ll drop it from the skies over the recipient’s house when he flaps over?”

For a long moment Sulle regarded him. “So?” she said at last.

“So we have to know,” Parrymill stated. “Like last time. Send your man in.” He jabbed a thick finger at the third occupant of his parlour, an ageing, stocky Fly-kinden who had been sitting, quiet and still, in one corner. He wore clothes of dark and slightly shabby canvas, and an artificer’s toolstrip was bandoliered across his chest.

Sulle made the sort of face she always did at unavoidable expense. “Master Turlo,” she named him, “You understand what is required of you? Just like last time, yes?”

The Fly man nodded. Collegium bred an odd crop of experts, and Turlo was a particular specialist. Most accredited artificers from the College found roles in the daylight business of designing, building and mending machines. Turlo had turned his tools and his hands to less legitimate ends. With wings and lockpicks and an impeccable sense of order, there was barely a house in Collegium he could not enter, search through, and leave without the owner ever knowing he had been there. For all that, he disdained theft, despite the reputation his kinden had for it. He was an artificer, a professional. His front business was in thief-proofing but his meat and drink was professional rivalry within the trade, and many a jealous engineer had paid his considerable fees to know just what a competitor was working on.

He nodded politely to his two patrons, and went about his business.

Only two days later he returned a detailed report concluding that the machine that Lial Morless was attempting to build at the Workwell workshop could not work, with itemised reasons why.

And, a few tendays after that, the entire report, scrupulously copied, was left in the Workwell workshop, together with a simple note, in handwriting now more than familiar to Lial Morless: Read this. If you’re going to do this then get it Right.

Lial sat down with the Workwell brothers and they went through Turlo’s points one by one. Each was valid, each was something Lial had not considered. A master artificer had crept into the workshop, undetected and unheralded, and concluded that Lial’s flying machine would never get off the ground, and had been sufficiently proud of his knowledge, or conscientious about the services he was providing, to go into explicit detail. Months, perhaps years of frustration had just been taken from Lial’s back by someone who very plainly did not have his best interests at heart.

“Someone working for Parrymill, or one of his friends,” he concluded to Tallway, later. He still got drunk with her, when she wasn’t trying to push him off things. Sometimes she tried to scare him, too, leaping out on him from around corners, wearing grotesque masks. None of it had got him off the ground.

“Your contest thing is a long way off,” she said dubiously. If he wants to stop you before then, he’ll get plenty of chances. Set the workshop on fire, I would.”

“Three Ant-kinden in a strange city don’t all sleep at the same time. There’s always one of them around the workshop. That’s the problem. Whoever is dropping these letters off knows them, but they’ll not tell me anything. Someone’s stringing me along