The Conjuring Man, page 10
“Candidate Adam,” Betty said. “Take the stand.”
Adam had to force himself to step forward, into view. Hundreds of eyes followed him as he stepped onto the stand. He felt suddenly tongue-tied, as if someone had cast a silencing spell on him. His mouth was dry ... he swallowed hard, wetting his lips as the room fell silent. He had to speak, and yet his mind was suddenly blank ...
“I believe in equality of opportunity,” he said. “I believe that everyone has the right to try to rise in the world, and not be held back unfairly. I believe that people should be judged, not by their gender or sexuality or anything else beyond their control, but by the content of their character, their maturity and their willingness to work towards what they want. And I believe that idealism must go hand-in-hand with practicality, with a dream of a better future for everyone paired with a realistic understanding of what can be achieved, with each step towards that future leading to the next.”
He smiled, somehow. “It is not enough to carp and criticize the current state of affairs. It is easy to say that something isn’t working, or isn’t right, or is simply unsatisfactory. It is a great deal harder to propose alternatives, then debate them rather than trying to impose them by force. It is easy to say our comrades are stupid because they are not doing things that are, to us, obvious. It is harder to understand their point of view and adapt our approach to something that takes their concerns into account.
“If you elect me to the council, I pledge I will work towards effective policies that will promote reasonable alternatives and suchlike for everyone,” he finished. “I don’t promise a new godly realm for everyone, but practicality and common sense and opportunities for everyone.”
There was a long pause. There were no questions. It bothered him, leaving him wondering, as Betty directed the voters to line up outside the curtains, if his speech had been convincing or nothing more than a joke. He’d put it together very quickly and he knew, despite his own words, that there was far too much idealism in it for anyone’s peace of mind. It was easy to say everyone was equal, but far harder to make it a reality. The speaker who’d insisted on the right to keep and bear arms – and that anyone who proposed to confiscate guns was a de facto tyrant who needed to be executed on the spot – might have a more practical turn of mind. If everyone was armed, everyone would be careful of everyone else’s rights.
And it is true, he told himself. He’d seen it played out on the streets of his hometown, time and time again. The people who can defend themselves are the ones who don’t get picked on.
“Well,” Taffy muttered. “I was surprised they didn’t ask you any questions.”
Adam shrugged and waited. The flow of voters was coming to an end. Betty waited until the last ones had gone through, then pulled the curtain away to reveal the buckets. The counting was slow and very steady, the stones placed in order to ensure there were no duplicates, but eventually ...
“Congratulations,” Betty said. “Adam and Hector are our new councillors.”
Taffy grinned. “And now you have to attend all the meetings.”
Adam nodded, wondering – too late – what he’d let himself in for. “I will.”
Chapter Ten
“So,” Jasper said, as they clambered up the ladder and into the airship. “Am I supposed to call you Your Majesty now?”
“No.” Adam sighed inwardly. If he’d known how quickly word would spread – it had barely been a day - and grow in the telling, he might have thought twice about running for office. It had all happened so quickly that he’d had no time to realise how the news would be taken in the university. “You don’t have to call me anything.”
“Superior Sir?” Jasper smirked. “Splendid Supremacy? Your Most Magnificent Lordship?”
“No,” Adam said. The deck rocked under his feet as he stepped through the hatch and onto the airship. It felt as if he was stepping onto a boat, only worse. “And what do you care, anyway?”
Jasper shrugged. “You do realise it’s meaningless, don’t you? We could shut the Levellers down with a wave of our hands.”
Adam felt ice prickling down his spine. He ignored it. “And we could shut you down too, with the right tools,” he said. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I’m helping organise the spells,” Jasper said. “It’s pretty delicate work, you know.”
“Yes,” Adam said. “And that makes me wonder why you’re involved.”
He turned away, his back starting to itch as he made his way down the metallic corridor to the engine room. The airship felt eerier with every passing step, even though it wasn’t the first time he’d walked the passageways. The bulkheads were metal or wood, solid to the touch, and yet there was something weirdly fragile about them. He ran his fingers along the edge of the hatch, noting the handful of signs directing the crew to take all precautions as they entered the engine room. Yvonne, who seemed to have become Flight Captain by default, was taking no chances. Anyone smoking on the airship would be lucky if they were just tossed overboard.
A ripple ran through the craft as he stepped into the engine room. He knew it was only a light gust of wind, barely noticeable, and yet he felt a surge of panic more suited to a sailing boat on the verge of capsizing and hurling her crew into a watery grave. It was just so ...unnatural. He told himself he’d get used to it as he looked around, spotting Lilith working with Yvonne and Praxis in one corner of the chamber. Taffy was standing beside one of the engines, cleaning the interior with a dirty cloth. She looked up and waved to him. Adam nodded back, then hurried to join her. The engines were endlessly fascinating to him.
“Ah, Adam,” Yvonne said. The Senior Craftswoman came over to them. “Do you have the next set of tiles?”
“I do.” Adam held up the box under his arm. “Do you want me to put them in place?”
“Please,” Yvonne said. “And then make sure everything is in order before we take flight.”
Adam looked up. It wouldn’t be the airship’s first flight – the giant craft had cruised over Heart’s Ease twice in the last week, as well as circling the university and spiralling further and further away with every circuit – but it was still exciting. It didn’t seem fair that he hadn’t managed to join the crew, not yet. He couldn’t help wondering if he’d ever have the chance, even though the more mature part of his mind knew it was silly. There’d be more airships, given time, and more chances to fly as air travel became commonplace. And yet ...
“I’d like to come too,” he said. “Can I?”
Yvonne hesitated. “We are planning to test the bombing racks,” she said. “We took on a load of bombs earlier today and placed them in stasis. It could get risky.”
“I flew on the hot air balloon,” Adam reminded her. “I can handle it.”
Yvonne frowned. “If you behave,” she said, deadpan. “I reserve the right to kick you off the ship if you don’t.”
Adam blinked, then realised he was being teased. “I’ll behave,” he promised. “When are we going?”
“When everything is in place and ready,” Yvonne told him. “Install the tiles, then stay with Taffy. She’ll keep you straight.”
“Understood,” Adam said. “And thank you.”
He nodded to her, then hurried away to emplace the tiles at the rear of the gondola. The airship quivered, the deck shifting under his feet in a manner that still felt disconcerting, but he did his best to ignore it. He’d heard of people having fits, the moment it dawned on them they were flying below a giant balloon filled with flammable gas, but ... he understood, better than he cared to admit to anyone else. He had no real control over the airship, no way to steer the craft or even get off while she was in flight. It would be worse than sailing onto the open seas, where at least he could try to swim back to shore if he couldn’t take the voyage for more than a few short moments. If something went wrong in flight, their odds of returning unharmed were low.
Taffy joined him as he slotted the last of the tiles into place and surveyed his handiwork. The spell circuits were magical, defying the edict keeping magic out of the airship, but they didn’t need a magician to work. He took a breath, silently contemplating how to adjust the tiles to produce one spell or another, then stepped back to allow Taffy to check his work. He didn’t take it personally. It was all too easy to see what you wanted to see, if you’d spent hours putting everything where you thought it needed to be, only to be bitten by reality. Better to have his work checked before they took off than afterwards, when it was too late to fix any errors.
“It looks good,” Taffy said. “Are you looking forward to the meeting tomorrow?”
Adam flushed. His first formal council meeting and ... he didn’t know what he was going to say or do. There was a lot to discuss, as well as planning speeches and presentations to invite more people to join the Levellers. And ...
“I think so,” he said. “But I don’t know what’ll happen when we sit down and get started.”
“Trust Betty,” Taffy advised. “She’s as practical as they come.”
Adam suspected that was true. No one became a successful shopkeeper without being both hard-working and practical, with a drop or two of ruthlessness when it came to pruning the fat and discarding workers who were no longer worth their wages. And yet, it was quite easy to become willing to sabotage the competition instead of working together to ensure a level playing field. There were towns and cities where Levellers had turned on the guilds and fought them and others in which the guilds had effectively co-opted the Levellers. It would be tricky for anyone to do that at Heart’s Ease – the town’s charter forbade exclusive guilds and insisted the leadership had to be drawn from the workers – but it wasn’t impossible. Who knew what would happen when Betty and her peers reached the end of their terms in office?
“We’ll see,” he said, wondering – once again – if he’d done the right thing. “What’s going to happen now?”
Taffy looked at her watch. “I’ll give you the tour,” she said. “We won’t be taking off for another hour or so.”
Adam nodded, then let her lead him through a maze of corridors. The gondola was larger than he’d realised, yet so many of the rooms – mainly the sleeping cabins – were almost painfully small. The corridor bulkheads were lined with hatches, a number propped open to reveal the machinery running throughout the structure. Adam had thought he understood how the engineering worked, but he couldn’t help feeling baffled as he peered into the works. It was too confusing to understand ... his head hurt as the sound of engines grew louder, beating on the air. By the time they returned to the engine room, he was having second thoughts about staying on the airship.
“We can go up to the balloon later,” Taffy offered. “The crew have even been scrambling over the outer gasbag.”
“No, thank you,” Adam said, quickly.
“Taffy,” Lilith called. “Is there a private room for us to talk?”
Taffy grinned. “And so many people within earshot?”
Lilith chuckled. Adam had to smile, both at the weak joke and how comfortable the two girls were in each other’s presence. It was easier to believe they’d be friends, he reflected, than Lilith dating him. And yet ... he put the thought out of his head as Taffy led them to a tiny cabin and opened the hatch. There was so little room that he couldn’t help thinking the crewmen would have to be very friendly indeed. They couldn’t sit on the lower bunks without brushing each other’s legs or cracking their heads against the upper bunks. Adam stood and leaned against the metal hatch, rather than make the girls uncomfortable by brushing against them. Lilith might not mind, if they were alone, but Taffy definitely would.
“We can’t stay here for long,” Taffy said. “What’s up?”
Lilith shook her head in disbelief. “There isn’t enough space in this room to spin a cat and they think they can cram four adults into it at the same time? Do they expect to shrink the sleepers before bedtime?”
“No,” Taffy said. “Believe me, I’ve slept in worse places.”
“There are some boats that are even worse,” Adam agreed. The airship didn’t stink of rotten fish, let alone sweat, piss and shit. That would change, in time, but right now the air smelt of nothing more than oil and machinery. “But you’re right, I wouldn’t want to sleep here for long. It’s worse than the dorms.”
“The dorms have more legroom,” Taffy pointed out. “You really don’t want to know what the toilets are like here, you really don’t. And there are no showers ... Anyway, why did you want to talk in private?”
Lilith hesitated. “Praxis ... Yvonne and Praxis, technically, have offered me an apprenticeship,” she said, finally. “They’re working on codifying Magitech and ... they’re offering me the very first apprenticeship.”
Adam hesitated, feeling torn between a glimmer of jealousy and an awareness it might be just what Lilith needed. An apprenticeship with a master – a pair of masters, who would train her in charms and enchantment as well as craftsmanship – that would lead to a glittering career, a career that wouldn’t require her to leave the university. And yet ... he wondered, numbly, if he’d have been given the offer if he’d had magic ... he gritted his teeth, telling that part of him to shut up. Lilith was brilliant as well as powerful and deserved the chance to make the most of her talents.
“You wouldn’t have to leave,” he said, slowly. He hated to admit it, even to himself, but he’d been dreading the thought of her leaving. Would she ever return if she escaped the university? Or would she find someone else ... “What’ll your father say?”
“I don’t know,” Lilith said. “He does want me to get my mastery. Praxis said I’d be tutored in traditional enchantment as well as the newer concepts, such as combining magic and mundane technology and runic tiles and suchlike. Yvonne thinks I can master the art of crafting my own tiles very quickly, particularly with your help” – she nodded to Taffy – “although she thinks I won’t become a craftswoman unless I work at it.”
“You’d have to develop your muscles as well as your magic,” Taffy teased, flexing her muscular arm. Lilith’s didn’t even come close. “And a few other things too.”
Lilith snorted. “It wouldn’t be decent for me to be apprenticed to a man,” she said, a hint of bitterness in her voice. She had been apprenticed to a man and people had talked. “But if I’m apprenticed to both Yvonne and Praxis, Yvonne can provide chaperonage and ensure there’s no room for people to make snide remarks about decency. Or propriety. And I’d be here, at least.”
“Which isn’t always a good thing,” Taffy said. “Your father can stick his nose in whenever he likes.”
“Praxis wouldn’t put up with it,” Lilith disagreed. It was hard to tell if she believed what she was saying. “If I take up the apprenticeship, my father will be politely invited to butt out.”
Adam had to smile, despite his churning emotions. “What’ll you have to do?”
“They want to start with small, precise magics,” Lilith said. “They’re actually talking about combining magic and technology to produce bigger airships, or even flying castles in the clouds. And they think ...”
She shrugged. “What do you think?”
“I think you should do it,” Taffy said. “You’ll never get a better chance.”
“And you’ll be the first one to take a magitech apprenticeship,” Adam added. “They’ll be more understanding of any mistakes because you’ll be ploughing your own path, rather than following a road many have followed before. They’ll be learning as much as you will, once you get started.”
He paused, his mind spinning in circles. Lilith would stay in the dorms ... probably. Praxis and Yvonne wouldn’t stop them seeing each other, would they? There were masters who insisted their apprentices devoted all their attention to their work, true, but the university staff wouldn’t do that ... would they? He was torn between asking and not wanting to say or do anything that might convince her to refuse the offer. She needed the apprenticeship, if she wanted to develop her talents ... and it would make her happy. He wanted her to be happy and yet, part of him feared what it would do to their relationship ...
“I can’t make the decision for you,” he said, as if there was ever any doubt about that. She wasn’t his property and would never be, even if they got married and had children. “I think you should take it” – he hoped to all the gods he wasn’t making a terrible mistake – “but the final decision is yours. Your father can’t argue ...”
Lilith snorted. “You do know my father, don’t you?”
“He wanted you to have an apprenticeship here,” Adam pointed out. “And that’s what you’re being offered. If you turn this offer down, you might never get another one.”
“And both of them have excellent records of raising apprentices,” Taffy added. “There’s no reasonable grounds for him to object.”
Lilith looked at her hands, then up at Adam. “I won’t be able to spend so much time with you, in the workroom,” she said. “Even if they let me do some work with you, as part of the apprenticeship, it won’t be the same.”
“I understand,” Adam said. He wished he could offer her something else, something that would satisfy everyone, but it was impossible. He might as well try to offer her the world. “I’ll wait for you and ...”
Taffy elbowed him. “She’s not going to vanish into their rooms and never be seen again,” she said, sardonically. “You’ll have time to see each other in the evenings, or on the weekends.”
“Possibly,” Lilith said. She looked as if she’d bitten into something sour. “Some masters can be strict about outside ties.”
“Not here,” Taffy said. The confidence in her voice was surprising, until Adam remembered how Yvonne and Praxis had stood up for Taffy after Arnold had made her look like a fool. “And not them.”
“We’ll see.” Lilith said nothing for a moment, staring down at her hands. “It could be just a waste of time, if the new apprenticeship program doesn’t work out.”
