Steal the Sky

Chapter 5

Pelkaia sat before her vanity mirror and squinted at the unfamiliar face staring back at her. Somewhere along the way she’d gotten wrinkles. Common enough in the desert, where the air was dry and one was prone to spend most of one’s days squinting under the sun, but she’d missed the transition. Too long spent beneath other people’s faces. She was beginning to forget herself.

She dipped her fingers into a jar and spread beeswax ointment around the corners of her eyes, the creased side of her lips. Fat lot of good it would do her now, but at least it was something. Replacing the lid, she glanced down and realized her hands were still smooth – too smooth. With a sigh she attuned her mind to the fine second skin of selium over them and peeled it away. Once freed of her shaping, the substance lost its warm skin tone and shifted back to the strange, multifaceted pearlescence that was its natural state. She gathered up the modicum of it, forming a ball, and danced it through the air before her eyes.

Child’s play, such a simple shaping, but it had always amused her. Had. With an unneeded wave of her hand she guided the hovering ball toward a vellum sack sewn within the mattress of her bed. She knelt beside it and concentrated for a moment, making sure all the selium already within would stay put, then whisked the mouth open and bundled the little sphere in with the rest. Pelkaia sat back on her heels, letting wrinkled hands rest over her kneecaps.

She was running out of time for play.

She made quick work of checking the weights hidden in the hollows of her bedposts – it wouldn’t do her any good to have the thing floating off – and then stood and gathered her hair into a matronly bun. Slipping her fingers into her pocket she touched the little note card that warned her that the Watch would soon knock on her door. It paid to be known as the lady who handed out sweets to the young scoundrels of the neighborhood. Never a strange occurrence passed her by, never an odd event was missed. The coming visit wasn’t a direct inquiry, of course, just a general checking-up on those sel-sensitives who claimed aged or injured retirement.

The very thought still tied her stomach in knots.

If the knock had come a day ago, she would have gladly turned herself in. Pelkaia held no illusions that her crimes would remain undetected much longer, that she would be able to escape the net tightening around her. She had done what she meant to do, and then sat back and waited for the axemen to catch up. Now… Now she realized her work was not yet done. And she had found a way out. A hole in the net.

She smiled when she recalled spying the Honding lad in the Blasted Rock Inn, savored every whisper she’d ever heard about his strange abilities. His simple presence had reminded her that she was not alone. That the Scorched was not comprised of only those who could find and move selium, and those who couldn’t. There were others like her – many, perhaps – whose abilities deviated from what Valathea accepted. Others, maybe, who might rally to her cause. If only she could find them.

When she’d had him taken to the station house, she’d intended only to needle him to discover what he knew about the state Aransa was in, to see if she could push him into assisting her crusade against the empire in some way or another. When he’d mentioned stealing Thratia’s ship, well, it had been all she could do to keep from squealing with delight. She shivered as she recalled how close she’d come to blowing the whole thing when he’d asked who Ripka would support as warden. How the thought of failing then had turned her stomach to ice.

Funny, that, how quickly one’s mind can change.

She felt the watch captain’s presence moments before the knock sounded, one-two, firm and insistent. It was nice to know that the coat she’d traded for Ripka’s original had gone unremarked. It’d taken her ages to sew tiny bladders of selium into the hems of it so that she could feel when the real article was near. Getting the amount just right so that the whole thing didn’t float away had given her quite the headache at the time.

Pelkaia gathered herself, faked a smile, and kissed the locket which held her dead son’s face. When she opened the door, she found herself staring into the face of the watch captain, a shrewd young woman with serious eyes. Pelkaia noted that she had a freckle on the underside of her chin, and a tilt to the nose that she’d missed. She made a mental note to include those disparities in her next iteration of her.

“Good afternoon, Miss…” Ripka glanced down at a list of names. “Miss Pelkaia Teria. I am Watch Captain Ripka Leshe, and this is Sergeant Banch Thent. May we come in?”

“Yes, of course.” She stepped to the side and opened the door wide for her new guests. “I’m afraid the place is not very big, but you are welcome to it. Can I make you tea?”

The watchers spilled into her little sitting room, their brilliant blue uniforms gaudy against the drab simplicity of her few possessions. They stood, critical eyes sweeping the place from top to bottom, and Pelkaia was certain they saw nothing of interest. Just the small pieces of a lonely woman’s life. Ripka shook her head.

“Thank you, ma’am, but no. We are quite busy today. Have you heard of the death of Warden Faud?”

“Who hasn’t? I don’t get out much anymore, you understand.” She eased herself into a chair and rubbed her knees with an embarrassed smile. “But I do get to the market one level down twice a week. Why, I was just there yesterday. It’s all anyone can talk about. Did you say your name was Ripka?”

The watch captain blinked. “I did. Is that significant?”

“Ah, well, it’s just that it’s a Brown Wash name, like my own. I bet you have an Uncle Rel or Rip, eh? Silly unimaginative lot, our folk. Slap an ‘a’ or ‘aia’ on the end and, ta-da, you have a beautiful baby girl.”

That got a genuine smile, eyes crinkling at the corners. “I do indeed, but I have been gone from that village a long time.”

“Me too, me too.” She rubbed her knees some more, letting them see a bit of pain in her face. They didn’t hurt, but no one ever feared a viper with broken fangs. “What can I do for you?”

“There has been some speculation that the late warden was murdered by a doppel.”

Pelkaia rankled at that, but kept her face as smooth as she could make it without sel. Being called a doppel was deeply disrespectful, but she doubted this girl knew any better. Illusionists could do so much more than hide beneath another’s face. Fires above, the girl didn’t even realize Pelkaia was a proper illusionist.

“You don’t say? Well, I’m just an old sel mover, not even a shaper. I can shuttle the stuff along all right, but I’m no illusionist. I don’t know any, either. Most of us don’t chat much once the contract with the mine is up, you understand.”

Ripka’s brows went up at the term illusionist, but she let it hang. Many of Aransa’s older citizenry refused the new terms for the strongest of the sel-sensitives. The elderly carried more of the indigenous Catari blood, from the time when Valathea suspected interbreeding was the only way to raise sensitives. The words of their great-grandparents filtered down the generations to their lips. Ripka couldn’t rightly suspect her for such a small thing. Still, it felt like a little rebellion. A tiny triumph.

“I’m sure that’s true, ma’am, but in the interest of protecting the city I’m afraid we’re going to have to search your residence. Do you consent?”

“Certainly.”

Pelkaia was proud at the breeziness of her voice, the unconcerned wave of her hand inviting them to have a look-see. Inside she was furious. The question of consent was moot, and the theater of Ripka even bothering to ask insulting. Pelkaia was damned sure that if she’d refused she’d find herself in the clink while the Watch tore her home apart.

The man, Banch, strode forward and began opening cupboards, rooting around her plain stone mugs and lifting up pictures to see if there were any hidden cubbies lurking behind. Pelkaia watched the watch captain’s face as she observed her partner’s proceedings.

Captain Leshe was thin of lip and kept them pressed tight, her small pupils following each of Banch’s intrusions. There was distaste in her posture, a certain rigid formality that was an attempt to separate what she knew was wrong from the job she had to do. Ripka seemed to be a good woman. It was too bad Pelkaia’s plans might eventually require her disposal.

“How long have you been living here?” Ripka asked, as if her little piece of paper didn’t say.

“Oh, ten years now. I was able to buy the place outright when my boy Kel died at the mines. The bereavement stipend, you understand.”

The captain’s gaze flicked back to Pelkaia, leaving Banch unwatched as he poked around her bookshelf. Apparently, that little piece of paper didn’t have all the facts after all.

“You had a son, Miss Teria?”

“Oh yes, fine boy he was.” Pelkaia licked her lips and looked away. To make herself vulnerable to this woman, this authority figure, was asking too much. And yet, she had a duty to Kel, didn’t she? He’d died a working man, the victim of unsafe conditions allowed to fester in the mines. It might rustle the captain’s suspicions, but Pelkaia reasoned that if she let her voice waver and her eyes mist Ripka would view her as sunk deep in grief, too tired and worn to do any kind of damage. Pelkaia found it too easy by far to dredge up the required quaver to her voice, the moisture to her eye.

“He had a real talent for sel-sensing. Might have become a shaper, with practice, maybe even an airship captain. But he died in that rockslide on the Smokestack’s third pipeline. His whole line went with him.”

“I am sorry for your loss, ma’am, and I thank both you and your son for your service.” Her words were automatic, rote. Pelkaia wondered just how many times she’d spoken them.

Service? More like servitude. “Thank you kindly, captain.”

“What’s through here?” Banch had given up his search of the bookshelf and stood pointing to the thin curtain that separated her sleeping room from the common. Pelkaia’s skin went cold, her palms clammy. She had to resist an urge to clear a knot of fear from her throat.

“Just my bedroom.”

Banch exchanged a look with Ripka, who gave him a curt nod.

“I am sorry,” she said when Banch pushed the curtain aside and went within. “But the protocols are very precise.”

“Don’t worry, dear. I understand the shackle of protocol. I worked a line myself, you know, before I became too infirm for it.”

Ripka frowned at her chart. “Forgive my prying, ma’am, but it says here you’re only forty-eight.”

“Yes, but I took some damage to my knees and haven’t been right since. The bonewither caught up fast with me, you understand. I hope you’ll forgive me sitting down through this interview of ours. Please do help yourself to a seat if you’d like.”

The watch captain waved away her offer, shifting her position so that she could better keep an eye on her sergeant. Pelkaia turned to watch as well, and had to suppress a flinch as he dipped his head under her bed. The sel sack was well hidden, but if he were to touch the underside of the mattress he would surely feel the seams. She forced herself to breathe easy.

“Captain, you best look at this,” Banch said.

Pelkaia’s heart raced, sticky sweat beading on her brow. With an apologetic shrug Ripka stepped half into the bedroom, head cocked to one side to see whatever it was Banch had found. “What is it?” Ripka asked.

Pelkaia knew. Slowing her breath, she slipped her hand down the side of her chair and nudged aside the flap of quilt draped over the back of it. Cold steel met her fingertips, and she coiled a fist around the grip of a hidden blade. Tensing her core muscles so that she would be braced to strike, Pelkaia leaned forward, sliding her feet back, bending her knees like springs.

She could stash the bodies somewhere. Pretend to be Ripka in truth for a while.

Banch thumped her bed on its post. “Let the record show that this is some fine construction.”

“Ah, well.” Pelkaia played off the nervous tremor in her voice with a contrite chuckle. “My Kel made it for me. Saved up his wood allowance for a year to get the materials and make it. That was after my accident, mind you. The mattress is no sel cloud but it’s llama-stuffed and just fine for me.”

The sergeant pressed his hand into the mattress top and nodded appreciatively. “Fine mattress. Your son did good work, ma’am.”

“You’ll have to excuse Banch,” Ripka said while suppressing a smile. “He’s a connoisseur of naps.”

He snorted and rolled his eyes. “Nothing worse than an uncomfortable rest, I stand by that.” He brushed his hands together, the search forgotten. “Might sweeten up your disposition, getting a good rest, captain.”

“But I’d still have to see you every morning. It would spoil the whole effect.”

Despite her distaste of what these people represented, Pelkaia caught herself chuckling at their camaraderie. It would be a shame indeed if the watch captain became too much in her way. Maybe… Pelkaia chewed her lip, thinking. Maybe she could scare her off.

“Thank you for your time, ma’am,” Ripka said as Banch caught her eye and shrugged, a pre-arranged signal which must have meant he’d found nothing of import. “We’ll be in touch if we have any other questions.”

“Happy to oblige, watch captain.”

The official pair bowed their official thanks and crisp-stepped from her little living room into the street. They shut the door behind them, firm but without banging, leaving Pelkaia alone with her sel and her memories. She sighed and rubbed her temples. Unlike her knees, those did ache.

Pelkaia sprang to her feet and hurried back to her bedchamber. Opened the bag, pulled a little sel out. She perched on the low bench before her vanity, staring into the pearlescent ball hovering a hand’s width from her nose. Every possible shade, hue, and texture lay within that undulating prism of lighter-than-air fluid. Gas. No one had ever been certain just what it was, only that it worked.

She dipped her fingers into the little ball and smoothed some of it against her chin and cheek, recalling the fading freckle on the bottom of the watch captain’s chin. All the fine folk of Aransa would be at the Salt Baths by now, primping and scrubbing for the night ahead.

If only preparing herself were as simple as a soak and a brush. She needed to start now, if she were to arrive at Thratia’s fete in time.

Just a day ago, she would have turned herself in. So much can change in a day.