Steal the Sky

Chapter 16

“I cannot guarantee it will hold up under the tightest of scrutiny, sirs, but it is the best I can do on such short notice.”

Detan peered at his face in the steward’s proffered hand mirror, and scarcely recognized himself. His hair had been run through with oil and grit, twisted all askew. Mottled red welts contrived of lady’s rouge covered his skin, made to look all the more sinister by a liberal application of jade leaf oil, a viscous distillation of yellow hue.

“I don’t know, sirra. Looks the same to me.”

“Shove it, Tibs.”

Detan ignored his compatriot’s self-indulgent smirk and addressed New Chum. “Are you quite certain that the salvage men will be amenable to our needs? I’d hate for old Tibs here to actually have to do some work beyond passing a few choice grains of silver along.”

“I can assure you that Master Tibal will have no trouble in convincing them. In fact, from long experience I can attest that the application of silver may not be required. A simple offering of liquor and the evening off will suffice.”

“Fantastic.” Detan clapped his hands, sending up a little cloud of the dust they’d used to make his clothes look two-days slept in. “You see, Tibs?” he said as he threw an arm around the steward’s shoulders. “I told you New Chum here was a regular rake!”

“I have been known to garden, sir,” the steward said, an almost devilish smile quirking up the side of his lips. Detan whooped and thumped him on the shoulder, then jumped down from the dais New Chum had made him stand on while applying the essentials.

“May I inquire as to just how this particular scheme came to mind?” the steward asked as he tidied up makeup brushes and resealed pots of ladies’ paint.

“Scheme, New Chum? You do me injury! This is the way of the just. We are righting moral wrongs, my young friend. Correcting salacious injury.”

Tibs said, “Mucking about when we have more important matters to see to.”

Detan scowled. “We require the flier to further other pursuits, in case you have forgotten. And besides, it’s the principle of the thing. We can’t let that puffed-up sack get away with bald-faced thievery! Not when we are capable of more delicate, refined schemes – er, I mean methods.”

Tibs rolled his eyes. “It’s called the pox in the pocket, and it’s an old game.”

“Pah. You have no artistic spirit, my glum friend.”

“I got an artistic touch of my own to add, sirra.”

“Oh?”

Tibs held out his closed fist and uncoiled it just a half-hand before Detan’s face. Detan craned his neck to get a better look at the contents, and Tibs poofed out a breath strong enough to blow his hair off his ears.

The hair, however, was not the problem.

Detan swore and reeled back, slapping at the sting in his eyes with both hands. Eyes squeezed shut, tears streaming down his painted cheeks, he staggered and swatted at his face, sucking in hot air with sharp breaths. Through his own squealing he heard a short bark of traitorous laughter, and was forced to stand blind and weeping until all the fine grit had washed free. When the burn lessened, he dared to ratchet up one abused eyelid and found Tibs chuckling as he dusted grit from his hands.

So he punched him in the gut.

Or tried to, at any rate. With his fist mid-swing Tibs stepped sideways as his hand snapped down and wrapped around Detan’s wrist, then jerked him forward and released. Detan went stumbling, cursing, crashing into a chair that shattered beneath him. He sprawled across the mercantile remains, savoring the ache in his limbs as he nurtured his indignity.

“Shouldn’t swing on a man when you got just one eye open, sirra.” Tibs knelt before him and offered a hand. Detan spat on it.

“You’re a bastard.”

“True, true.” Tibs wiped the spit-smeared hand on Detan’s arm. “But it adds authenticity, don’t you think? Can’t go telling people you’re sick when your eyes are bright and clear as a hawk’s. And look, now you got a real nice bruise coming in on your cheek.”

New Chum cleared his throat. “The bruise does add a sickly touch.”

“Well fuck you, too,” he muttered as he pushed to his hands and knees, then levered himself unsteadily to his feet. He kicked at a piece of the broken chair. It didn’t make him feel any better.

“Here you are, sir.” New Chum stood with his arm outstretched, a thin grey cloak thrust Detan’s way. He eyed it, prodded it with a finger.

“What? Is this full of snakes?”

“To hide our work, sir, until you reach Grandon’s estate. If you’re spotted with sand scabies on the ferry back to town I daresay the game will be up before it’s begun.”

“Yes, well.” He cleared his throat and straightened his rumpled collar, then snatched the cloak from New Chum and settled it on his shoulders and flicked the hood up.

“How do I look?” He spun around.

“I can’t see a thing,” Tibs said.

“Marvelous.”

The Grandon estate was on the fourth level of the city, clustered amongst similar homes of the newly rich. Detan would have had a difficult time picking it out on any other day, but for his daughter’s birthday Grandon knew no restraint. The slatted wooden gate which separated the house’s private garden from casual eyes was festooned with paper imitations of rare flowers, and from behind reed flutes wavered a cheery tune.

Detan could see little through the close-set slats, so he lingered for a while on the opposite side of the street, his hood pulled low and his back pressed against the fence of one of Grandon’s neighbors. Few people wandered by, and most who did came with colorfully wrapped parcels beneath their arms and disappeared behind the gate. Each time it opened, he learned a little more.

The party was confined, so far as he could tell, to the shade of the front garden’s awning. Some expense had been poured into adorning the garden with real blossoms, though judging by the arrangement of painted rocks on the ground such extravagance was not the usual state of things. The house itself was two flat stories, the second rising just above the crest of the fence. Well kept, white paint. A little balcony to catch the sun on. Pleasant.

This was going to be delightful.

When he had gathered all the information he could, Detan shuffled across the street with his shoulders hunched, kicking up dust to coat his shoes and the bottom of his cloak. The dirtier, the better.

The gate swung inward at his touch. There were no guards to mind the way as at Thratia’s, a difference Detan found common between new money and old. Grandon wanted this party to be full enough that tongues would wag. He would be happy to see anyone at all attend.

Well, almost anyone.

Detan tossed back his hood, and grinned into the sunlight. All around him the crowd froze, murmurs of conversation ceasing as the curious up-and-comers looked his way to find out the nature of this latest distraction. The first woman to get a good look at him screamed, her clay cup shattering amongst the painted rocks. As good a start as any.

“Lady Tela, are you all right?” Grandon emerged from amongst the celebrants and took the lady’s elbow in hand, his thick face crunched with real worry. The lady pointed, and a chasm amongst the crowd opened up all around Detan.

“You,” Grandon snarled.

“Hullo,” he chirruped and waved with the tips of his fingers.

A softly curved woman with a severe jaw appeared at Grandon’s side, her greying brows furrowed in confusion. Not, Detan noted, the slender woman he’d seen Grandon with at the baths.

“Who is this man?” She spoke with a Valathean accent, which was a worry.

The guests gathered in tight round the Grandons, straining their ears to hear every last tidbit of this new scandal. Not a one of them had any clue what was going on, but Detan suspected that for them this little exchange was going to be the highlight of the evening. He intended to make it so.

Thick beads of sweat coalesced on Grandon’s brow, his cheeks flushing red with anger and heat. Whatever he wanted to say, he swallowed it right down. There were too many ears, and he wouldn’t risk tripping over his tongue and coming across as a brute in front of his genteel peers. Detan beamed.

“Why, I’m the man good ole Grandon here bought the flier from.” He gestured toward the place where his flier rested. He’d done his best not look too closely at it since he waltzed through the garden gate. The thing was tied to a raised platform to his left, the rudder-fan neatly patched and a new sel sack inflated above the warm wood.

Some asshole, however, had gotten the idea in his thick skull to paint the hull all over with pink and purple flowers. Happy Birthday Virra! was emblazoned in deep violet along the side of the buoyancy sack, right where a proper ship’s name would have been. As if a flier that small even needed a name.

It was the most hideous thing he’d ever seen, next to the quivering jowls of Grandon himself.

“He told me he bought it new,” a young voice piped up. The prodigal Grandon stood with her arms crossed and her eyes even crosser. Detan cringed and glanced away. He was no good with children; he couldn’t even puzzle out how old the little thing was. Best to keep focused on the adults of the situation.

“Alas,” he intoned and coughed wretchedly into the crook of his arm. “I am grievously ill, and so I have come to take the flier away before my contagion spreads to you innocent souls.”

“Hah!” Grandon spit when he laughed. “I’m not letting you walk out of here with that flier, cur. I bought it fair and square. It’s my little girl’s, now.”

“Hold, now,” Lady Grandon said. “Just what is your illness, young man?”

“Ugh.” He reached up and shook out his greasy hair with his fingers as if it itched him dearly. Those nearest to him scurried further away, widening the gulf of empty air around him. “Sand scabies, gentle lady. I pray you don’t get too close, in case they decide to make a dreadful leap.”

“Hmm.” She clucked her tongue and produced a pair of fine leather gloves from her pocket, then pulled them on with expert ease. “How long have you had symptoms?”

“They began shortly after I met your husband at the Salt Baths.” Her lips twitched, and Grandon’s face went white. “I am told the nits may have been on me for weeks before. Why, they are no doubt crawling all over the fiber of the flier’s ropes and hosting dinner parties in the crevices of the wood.”

“A reasonable assumption, but I will need to examine you to be sure.”

“I, uh, would prefer you do not risk your safety on my behalf.”

“Nonsense,” Grandon cut in, a smirk on his reddened lips. “My wife is the finest apothik in all Aransa.”

Detan swallowed, and hoped his added pallor would make the disguise more convincing. “Is she now?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Well, then–”

Before he could muster further protest the Lady Grandon crossed to him and caught his chin between iron-tough fingers. She turned his head this way and that, but he was startled to find her eyes did not leave his own. He met her gaze, choked down his fear, and squared his shoulders. He could probably outrun her…

“Definitely sand scabies,” she raised her voice for all to hear.

For one infinitesimal moment, a shiver of terror wormed its way into Detan’s core. Could there have been some mistake? Could a real sickness be lurking beneath his makeup? Damn Tibs and his sand trick, it was working too well. That had to be it.

Lady Grandon shook her head, slow and grave, then released his chin and stepped back. She peeled the gloves from her hands and tossed them in a nearby firepit. Fine leather erupted into little sparking embers, an average miner’s week worth of pay gone up in a flash.

“Well along,” she continued. “I am in fact quite surprised to see a case so advanced still walking and talking. Usually by the time they get this far they can do little more than roll around on their cots and moan. Tell me, do you have any pain?”

“A very great deal of it.”

“Pity. The flier of course will have to be destroyed, we can’t have the evil little things spreading.” She snapped her fingers and a black-jacketed valet appeared at her side. “Go and find the salvage men. Tell them they are needed right away, and that we have a case here for quarantine.”

The valet bowed and scurried off, much to Detan’s relief. It was always pleasant when the mark made the requests for him.

“If the flier is contaminated,” Grandon raised his voice to be heard over the nervous murmur of his guests, “which I’m sure it isn’t, then we should burn it here and now and be done with it.”

Beneath his makeup, sweat crept across Detan’s brow.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Grandon’s wife interjected. “If scabies are aboard that vessel then they will leap to the nearest host the very moment the flames lick them. No, it must be wrapped and disposed of in the middle of the desert where only the cold blood of lizards will be on offer.”

“You are,” Grandon dragged out the words, “quite certain this man is ill?”

Detan froze as the apothik turned back to him, her sharp eyes sweeping him from greased hair to dusty boots. She arched a brow, one only he could see, and gave her husband a curt nod.

“I have never before seen such a sorry case.”

The gate trundled open, and through came the salvage men with the valet at their helm. Detan could only hope the valet hadn’t found their fortuitous proximity suspicious. Each one was dressed in the same moss-green trousers and tunic, and each had a matching scarf wound round their hair and the bottom half of their face to keep both sun and vapors off. Between them they hauled a low cart, its pocked surface smeared with suspicious stains.

To the untrained eye, it was damned near impossible to tell them apart. For Detan, however, the slight swagger and paler hands of Tibs were clear as a candle in the dark. Tibs was also the only one to stop short, stunned, upon sighting the flier.

Detan couldn’t blame him. Pink daisies would break the character of any man.

While the valet directed them about their business, all eyes were drawn to the commotion, and feet were drawn steadily away from it. Detan slunk back, drifting along the edge of the crowd, his way made clear even if those darting from his path pretended to never have seen him.

Contagion was the swiftest way to become both the most ignored and most watched man in the room.

“A moment.” The Lady Grandon intercepted his slow retreat and pulled a palm-sized notepad from her pocket. She gave it a few spirited prods with a pencil then ripped the top page free, folded it, and thrust it toward him. “I insist you go to my clinic so that my people may do what they can to ease your suffering.”

“I will go there straight away, madam, and if I survive this dreadful curse then I will be forever in your debt. I will make certain that all generations to come after me pay homage to your own. I will–”

One of the salvage men let out a howl. He hopped around on one foot, clutching at the other, and the lanky man beside him shrugged a mute apology. Tibs. Detan scowled. Even when relegated to a wordless role, that bastard could be a stern critic.

Lady Grandon cleared her throat. “Brevity, I believe, is prudent in the face of your ill-health.”

“You are as wise as you are generous.” He bowed extravagantly, those nearest to him recoiling a few extra steps.

They would be a while yet moving the flier, and so Detan made his escape into the dusty road, working up a good limp and a soft, painful groan whenever he drew close enough to be overheard. Once he’d shambled past the bright-painted doors of Grandon’s neighbors, he paused to read the note. It was an address all right – but to a posh club upcrust a good few levels. He knew the place. It was carpeted and slung all about with chandeliers, and known for serving the hardest hitting cocktails of those establishments who served them in clean glasses.

Detan chewed his lip and waited for the filthy procession to pass by him. He fell into step behind Tibs and flicked his hood back up.

“What’d the lady pass you?”

“An invitation to drink.”

Tibs sucked air through his teeth and chewed it around a bit. “Going to go?”

“If only to be certain I don’t actually have sand scabies. She damned near had me convinced.”

“Bad idea.”

“Always good to have a lady of the medical profession on your side, my good man.”

He grunted, and they lapsed into silence. The way to the Salt Baths was not long by ferry, but they planned to march the flier all the way down to the desert and then fly it in under its own power, low and slow. There’d be plenty of time to convince Tibs of Lady Grandon’s merits along the way.

His erstwhile companion let loose with a reedy sigh.

“What’s wrong, Tibs?”

“Purple. Why did it have to be purple? That damned dye doesn’t come out of anything, let me tell you.”

Under the harsh eye of the sun Detan adjusted his hood, shuffling around the parts of cloth that were damp with sweat. He’d be soaked before they even made it to the lowest levels. He’d have to buy water once there, no way around it. Real flowers like those painted on the flier he reckoned would need a quarter of a man’s daily water to keep on looking so pert. The blasted things didn’t even provide food. He glowered at them.

The pink flowers shone back at him, relentlessly cheerful. He spit, and trudged onward.