In the Shadow of Lightning

40

Sweat poured down Thessa’s brow as she carefully pushed and turned on a massive hand drill as it bored directly down through the center of the cinderite. The cinderite was clamped in place perfectly perpendicular to the ground, and she stood on a ladder above it for leverage. The drill was from a quarry outside the city, made specially for stone and masonry, and it had been a day-long slog to effectively turn the long piece of cinderite into a pipe that she could run copper cable through.

She dabbed her brow with the corner of her heavy apron, checking all of her clamps before giving the drill another half turn. Behind her, the furnace roared, making the whole workshop uncomfortably hot.

“So that’s cinderite?” Pari appeared in the door to the little glassworks, looking distinctly uncomfortable in the purple livery of a Grappo porter. She was framed by a darkened doorway, and Thessa realized that she’d once again lost all track of time. She didn’t even remember the sun setting or porters lighting the lamps in and around the glassworks.

“Quickly,” Thessa instructed her, “come over and tighten that clamp right there. Just a smidgen, mind you!”

Pari followed her instructions, and Thessa turned her drill just a little bit more. “You’ve never seen cinderite before?” Thessa asked.

“In the museum once, when I was a child. It was much smaller than that.”

“Put your hands here and here. Hold steady, and tell me if you see any sand coming out the bottom of the cinderite.” Slowly, carefully, Thessa turned the drill a full rotation.

“Sand!” Pari said. “Definitely sand.”

“Good. Almost through.” Thessa took the weight of the drill, her arms trembling, so that it wouldn’t fall on the cinderite once it was through the bottom. She finished another turn and felt it give. At that moment she carefully pulled upward, bringing the whole drill back up through the center of the cinderite, and handed it to Pari. Looking down from the top, she could see the floor through the tube. “Perfect,” she sighed, and climbed down from her ladder. “Did you finish with Breenen?”

Pari shifted uncomfortably and pulled at her purple tunic. “I’ve never been sworn to secrecy on shackleglass before. He didn’t seem to like me very much.”

“Breenen is very protective of the hotel, and of Demir’s projects. Remember, you’re not working for him. You’re working for me.”

“I thought this was your project.”

“It’s our project.” Thessa sat down in a chair beside the cinderite, rubbing the back of her neck. Everything felt stiff and uncomfortable from trying to hold the weight of that drill, and she was grateful that Pari was finally approved to work with her. The extra pair of hands would be invaluable.

Pari fidgeted, looking at the cinderite, then at the big omniglass rings that Thessa had made the day before. “This doesn’t look like any godglass work that I’ve ever seen before.”

“That’s because it’s not.” Thessa had thought long and hard about what to tell Pari. To her knowledge, only Demir and Montego actually knew what she was working on. The rest of the staff, including Breenen and Tirana, had been told her work was important and nothing more. But Thessa needed an assistant if she was going to complete the phoenix channel as quickly as she liked, and an assistant couldn’t be kept in the dark. “It’s a device that will turn energy into sorcery, effectively allowing us to recharge godglass.”

It took a moment, but Pari’s expression slowly changed from one of dubiousness to one of surprise. “Oh. Oh! That’s why I was sworn to secrecy.”

Thessa chuckled, and turned to look out the window at where a porter was crossing the garden. The young man paused at the door just behind Pari. “Lady Foleer, a shipment has arrived for you from…” He paused to consult a card he held. “The Ossan Distributor of Volos Incorporated.”

“Ah! My lightning rod. Have it taken to the roof. I’ll be up to examine it soon.” Thessa hurried around the little glassworks, addressing her notes and thinking out loud. She gave Pari the same quick explanation about the lightning rod that the clerk at the bookstore had given her, then showed off the sketches for her design. “Lightning from the roof will hit this crown here, travel down the copper cable, through the insulated phoenix channel, and then harmlessly into the ground.”

Pari stared at her in horror. “You’re going to try to get hit by lightning? That’s madness!”

“It’s quite safe if done correctly. It’s all explained in that book over there. In fact, you should read that when I don’t need your help.”

“Um…” Pari looked down at the floor. “I can’t read.”

Thessa paused in her work, a stack of papers in one hand. It had never even occurred to her that Pari might not be able to read. It made sense, though. If you grew up in the Slag, you probably didn’t have an education. Thessa had a pang of regret for bringing Pari into her confidence. She pushed through it. Pari had earned some patience and goodwill.

“We’ll have to change that. Remind me to hire you a tutor. But not right now. We have too much to do. Now … what is it?”

Pari blinked rapidly at her. “You’d teach me to read? Me?”

“Why wouldn’t I? You’re my assistant. An assistant needs to be able to answer correspondence and do sums. Can you do sums?”

“A little. Nothing too complicated.”

“We’ll hire you a tutor for that as well.”

“Oh.”

“Is that okay? Will you be all right with a tutor?”

Pari seemed particularly subdued, perhaps even overwhelmed, but she nodded. “I think so.”

“Good. Now go help the porters take the lightning rod to the roof. Don’t unpack it until I know where I’m going to put it.”

“Of course.”

Thessa clicked her tongue thoughtfully at her notes, thinking over everything, wondering if she truly was mad. A week ago she would have laughed at the very idea of harnessing lightning – of even trying something so foolish – but Professor Volos’s book had convinced her it could be done. It was free energy, without having to rely on gas, wood, or coal supply or a dirty, belching furnace.

If it worked.

Thessa finally checked her pocket watch as she headed up the stairs to the hotel roof, squeezing past Pari and the porters as they tried to angle a couple of large crates up the service stairwell. It was almost midnight, a fact that made her laugh at herself. No sense of time indeed. No wonder her back hurt so much, if she’d spent almost the entire day drilling out the cinderite.

She went over to Ekhi’s mews first, checking the grub bucket to make sure someone had fed him. She stroked his uninjured wing gently, taking a deep breath, using the moment to decompress from all of her ambitions. She should go to bed. She’d been working since early this morning, and she would need rest to finish the phoenix channel without a mistake. But her mind buzzed, her body full of energy. How could she sleep when she was so close?

“I’m going to have to move you somewhere safe,” Thessa told Ekhi. “I don’t want you up here if I’m going to encourage a lightning strike.” The thought gave her some pause and she looked around the roof of the hotel. There were several decent places she could put the rod itself – up on one of the chimneys seemed the most likely, where she could run the cable down her own furnace chimney and then ground it in the garden. But a sense of unease struck her.

What if something went wrong? What if she attracted a lightning strike to the roof of the hotel only to destroy part of it? People could get hurt or killed. Millions of ozzo’s worth of property could be damaged.

There was another problem as well, one that she’d been avoiding for the last couple of days. She had absolutely no idea when lightning would next strike. It could be next week. It could be months from now. Would she really be satisfied with setting up her entire project and then simply waiting until something happened? She scowled across the roof, wondering if she should prepare the lightning rod in such a way that she could attach it to the phoenix channel only in the event of a storm. That would let her experiment with other energy methods in the meantime.

Across the roof, the porters finally emerged from the service stairwell with the crates, and Pari directed them to a clear, flat space. Thessa watched them lay out the crates and turn up the gas lamps, then head back into the hotel. Only Pari remained, hovering around the lightning rod, clearly waiting for Thessa to come over and examine it.

Thessa turned up a nearby lamp to examine Ekhi’s injured wing, then headed over to join Pari. Something had stalled her – the excitement she felt moments ago had vanished, leaving behind a feeling of uncertainty. What if she was wrong? What if it didn’t even work? Could she endanger the entire hotel like this? She ran a hand over her face. Her initial instincts were right. She needed to get some more rest, otherwise she wouldn’t be able to think through this.

Pari hefted a crowbar. “Do you want me to open these?”

Thessa made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat. “I’m not sure.”

“Second thoughts?”

“Of a sort.” Was she moving too quickly? Jumping to too many conclusions, from ordering the lightning rod to hiring Pari? The pressure in Thessa’s chest, of knowing that the world would continue to grow more chaotic the closer it came to running out of cindersand, spurred her into a frenzy. But would it be her undoing? Even master siliceers took things slowly, with a lot of careful trial and error. She didn’t have room for trial and error. She had only one piece of cinderite and a limited amount of refined cindersand for the omniglass. She had one go at this. Maybe she should stop and step back.

Could she afford to?

Looking out from the top of the roof, Thessa took a moment to admire the view of the city. Gaslights glittered for miles around, lining the street and lighting up the wealthiest tenements and houses. In the distance some dogs barked, and she could hear very faint artillery reports from the north. “They’ve started back up again,” she said to Pari.

“They?”

“The soldiers. Grent and Ossa, shooting at each other.”

Pari tilted her head for a few moments. “That’s not artillery. That’s the Forge.”

“It is?” Thessa listened. “So it is. Hah! When the war first started I mistook artillery for the Forge. Now I’ve done the opposite. I can tell the difference between the resonance of every type of godglass but I can’t tell thunder from artillery.” Thessa sat down by a chimney stack, unlacing her boots and kicking them off, wiggling her toes to get out some of the ache. “I need,” she said out loud, half to herself and half to Pari, “massive amounts of energy to turn into sorcery. I have an original design that funneled heat from a standard glassworking furnace through the phoenix channel and into spent godglass, but the process was imperfect. It took three loads of firewood to charge a single piece.”

Pari came to sit next to her. “That’s unsustainable, even for a guild-family.”

“You see my problem, then? All my thoughts the last week or so, even when I was imprisoned at the Ivory Forest, have been directed toward improving that conversion. I’ve already incorporated more omniglass to increase the resonance and heavier insulation to reduce heat loss. I latched on to this” – she pointed at the lightning rod – “because it seemed like an elegant solution. This new design needs to charge whole basketfuls of spent godglass. Lightning certainly has that power. But I am having doubts now. It’s dangerous, but it’s also unreliable. How long until the hotel gets struck by lightning? Months? Years?”

“What do you do when you have a problem you can’t solve?” Pari asked.

Thessa glanced sidelong at her. “What do you mean?”

“How do you get your brain to start over? My granddad was a philosopher – at least as much as a retired cattle driver living in the Slag can get into philosophy. He used to say that the human mind worked on cycles, and sometimes you need to wait until the next cycle before a solution presents itself.”

“Huh. My old master used to say similar things. Back in Grent, I got into the habit of taking Ekhi out to the countryside every two weeks. It kept my creative mind fresh.”

“Then do that,” Pari suggested with a shrug.

Thessa felt her doubt about Pari waver, dissipating like morning fog. She might not be able to read, but she was damned insightful. “You’re sure you never had a formal education?”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

“Then we’ll get you one. Come on, let’s retire. I need to sleep on this.”

The hotel was silent as they made their way back to the main floor; the halls empty, all the lamps turned down. The two of them returned to the workshop and cleaned everything up – sorting the notes and schematics, sweeping the floor, and stoking the furnace so it would still be hot in the morning. It was almost one when Thessa finally returned to her suite. Her feet dragged, her head drooping, and she hoped she didn’t spend all night lying in bed thinking about a new solution to her energy problem.

Pari was right. She needed to clear her head so she could approach the whole thing with more confidence.

All those thoughts were snuffed away as she opened the door to her suite. The main room was practically destroyed; the table and chairs were overturned, the sofa sliced to pieces. She ran into the bedroom and washroom to find the same. All of her new clothes were strewn about the floor, and the mattress lay against the wall, slashed in several places. Thessa’s stomach felt like it had crawled up her throat, and she practically ran down the hall to the night porter’s cubby.

The porter inside – the kind young man who’d made her tea on her first night in the hotel – lay slumped over a book, a knife buried in the base of his neck.

Thessa was sick all over the floor, her vision growing cloudy. She stumbled down the hall and pounded on Montego’s door. “Montego!” she shouted. “Montego!” When she tried the knob she found it unlocked, and burst inside. What she saw almost made her vomit again.

Montego lay on the floor in his nightclothes, the table and a whole set of tea tipped over on top of him. He didn’t move when Thessa threw herself on her knees beside him. It took all her strength to roll him over onto his side and slap at his face. “Come on, wake up! Glassdamnit, you can’t be dead.” Her hands trembled as a new thought leapt into her brain, and she left Montego to run to his window, which looked down on the hotel garden.

All the lights she and Pari had just extinguished were back on, and Thessa could see several figures in Grappo livery moving about inside her workshop. She didn’t recognize any of them, but they were almost certainly packing up her notes and the cinderite.

She had to raise the alarm, and quickly. She tried Montego one more time, slapping his thick cheeks, and was just about to sprint for the door when his hand suddenly twitched, shooting out to grab her by the wrist. The grip was impossibly strong, yanking her down to the floor beside him, where she found herself staring into his foggy gaze. “Montego, you’re hurting me.”

Moments passed, his grip only growing tighter, before his eyes shot fully open and he gave a great gasp. He let go and rolled over into a sitting position. “Shit and piss,” he mumbled, “I’m sorry, I don’t know…” His words trailed off as he took in the upturned table. “Someone drugged my tea,” he said.

“They’ve killed the night porter and ransacked my room,” Thessa explained quickly. “They’re in the glassworks as we speak, trying to steal all my work on the phoenix channel.”

A great rumbling sound seemed to roll from the center of Montego’s chest. He pulled himself to his feet and, though he was still wobbly, produced a massive cudgel from the coat closet of his room. “Whatever they drugged me with,” he said, his words growing a little more clear, “they didn’t use enough. Don’t follow me, and don’t look out that window.”

Thessa sank down on the floor next to the spilled tea, looking at her trembling hands, trying to get the poor dead porter out of her mind. A few moments later she heard a panicked shout, and then the screaming started. Thessa wrapped her arms around herself. Minutes passed. The screaming stopped, replaced by the more organized shouts of someone raising a general alarm. She could hear people rushing around the hall for quite some time, and then the door to Montego’s suite opened.

It was Pari, looking pale and frightened. She came to Thessa’s side and put a hand on her shoulder. “We should go,” she said. “Come on, Breenen is getting a new room set up for you while they clean yours.”

Thessa allowed Pari to help her up, then shrugged off her hand. “I’m all right,” she said, breathing deeply. “I just … They killed that night porter, and for a few moments I thought Montego was dead too and that they were going to take all of my work.” Thessa looked down at her hands. At least they’d stopped shaking.

“They’re not taking anything,” Pari said grimly.

“Did Montego…?”

Pari shook her head. “I’ve seen plenty of violence in my life,” she said unsteadily, “but never anything like that. You shouldn’t look out your window until after they’ve cleaned up.”

“Did they damage anything?”

“No. There’s some blood on your notes, though.”

Thessa turned her gaze away from the night porter’s cubby, where several enforcers were gathered around. She found Tirana in her nightclothes, standing at the end of the hall with her sword in one hand and a pistol in the other, directing the dozens of enforcers that swarmed the halls. Porters went from room to room, quietly telling the guests to stay inside until morning.

Tirana looked absolutely furious, and turned her gaze on Thessa. “That should not have happened. I am so sorry, Lady Foleer.”

“I’m fine. I’m more worried about the night porter.”

“It was quick. He wouldn’t have felt a thing. We’ll take care of his family.” Tirana peered at Pari. “You, Breenen will want to question you immediately.”

“She couldn’t have had anything to do with it,” Thessa said, stepping in front of Pari. “She’s been with me for the last hour, and before that she was with him.”

“It’s just a formality. He’s going to question the entire staff tonight. He’d question the guests if it were up to him. We’ve sent a messenger to tell Demir that the hotel was attacked.”

Thessa felt more secure now, with Grappo enforcers all around, and she felt her confidence returning. “Do we know who it was?” She took another deep breath. She had to look strong – to play her part. She was a Grappo client and partner now, and the staff would look to her as one.

Tirana was shaking her head when Montego appeared. He was a terrifying sight, his nightclothes drenched in blood, his cudgel dripping gore, barefoot and shirtless. Thessa felt her stomach lurch. He padded over to them, surprisingly silent despite his size. He said, “I left one alive for questioning. They were Dorlani. Six of the bastards. One of them snuck in during the dinner rush. Killed Horphel and Faille, drugged my tea, and let the others in. Glassdamnit, I should have realized I didn’t recognize the asshole who brought that tea.”

“Ah, shit,” Tirana grunted. “I liked Horphel. Faille, too. She was a hard worker.”

“They know about the…” Thessa nearly blurted out phoenix channel before remembering how many enforcers and porters were within earshot. “… thing?” she finished.

“Not in so many words,” Montego replied, “but they had orders to search the siliceer’s room and take every scrap of work you’d produced. They were wrapping up your cinderite when I fell upon them. I took care not to break anything.”

“Except for them,” Pari whispered. She didn’t even seem to realize she’d spoken out loud until her eyes widened.

Montego gave her a toothy, mirthless grin. “Except for them,” he confirmed.

Thessa returned to her room, where porters were already cleaning up the mess. She found a couple of sets of clothes and her book – Professor Volos’s treatise on lightning rods – before following Pari down the hall to an empty room that had been hastily made up for her. She sank down on the edge of the bed while Pari nervously paced the floor.

“Are you all right?” Thessa asked.

“Me? I was already undressed when all this started. It was practically over when I got to the garden.” She paused her pacing, turning first to the door, then back to Thessa. “I’ve heard stories about this kind of thing, but I never believed that the guild-families went through anything as violent as what I’ve seen in the Slag. But after seeing what Montego did to those intruders, I just … I can’t even find words for it.” She flinched. “I’ve got to go report to Breenen. I’ll hold some glassdamned shackleglass without complaint if it means they don’t suspect me.”

“You’re not going to quit?”

“Quit? I’ve barely been working for you a day and you’re the best boss I’ve ever had. As long as Montego doesn’t eat the help around here, I’ll be fine.” She paused. “Will you?”

“I will,” Thessa answered with what she hoped was a confident smile. “I was just shaken up a little at first.”

“I’ll get you some tea,” Pari offered.

Thessa nodded her thanks. She didn’t let herself weep until Pari had left the room. The tears rolled down Thessa’s cheeks, silent and warm, and she let them go until she managed to get control of herself once more. In all her life she’d never seen a body before a couple of weeks ago. She’d been robbed at knifepoint once, and she’d endured the news of her family’s slaughter, but that was the extent of the violence in her life.

Now she’d seen seven bodies. She could double that number just by looking out the window. Piss, she’d killed Filur Magna. She’d witnessed murder by both friends and enemies, and been threatened with as much. Demir had warned her this would be dangerous, but she hadn’t expected it to strike so close to home.

To calm herself down once more, she picked up Professor Volos’s book and began to skim the pages. She read both the text and her own in-margin notes, studying the incomprehensible sketches she’d made on the trip back from the Lampshade Boardwalk. Her tears dried and she felt herself grow more steady. Focus on the work, she reminded herself. Let other people deal with the violence. That was their job, after all.

Pari returned with a pot of tea, setting it on the table and bringing Thessa a cup with sugar and cream. Thessa sipped slowly, feeling the tension seep out of her. “Professor Volos,” she said, indicating the book, “describes the location at which she tested her lightning rod as a singular geographic phenomenon – a place where warm air regularly rose up from the sea to meet the mountains, causing frequent lightning storms that allowed her to make good, consistent progress on the lightning rod. I need something like that.”

Pari stared at her in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“A geographic phenomenon is a–” Thessa began to explain.

Pari cut her off gently. “I understood the words you used, but we have that. The Forge. It’s exactly what you just described. The sound of distant thunder has lulled me to sleep my whole life. You too, I bet.”

Thessa felt her eyes widen. “Glassdamn,” she breathed, “you’re right. Consistent lightning; a remote location to mitigate the danger; and someplace so out-of-the-way that Dorlani enforcers won’t come looking for us.” She leapt to her feet, putting her tea aside and snatching Pari up in a hug. They had it now – their first location to test the phoenix channel, and it was less than twenty miles away.