The Wall of Storms, page 79
Just as the scholars were about to give up, a chance experiment with Zomi Kidosu opened an unexpected path. Miza Crun suggested that Zomi try out a silkmotic bath on her left leg to see if perhaps the vitality of silkmotic force could rejuvenate it. Just as Miza had used the power of the silkmotic generator to relieve some Faça veterans of the Chrysanthemum-Dandelion War of the pain of phantom limbs, it had also done wonders for cases of paralysis and damaged nerves. If the force could even cause the legs of dead frogs to kick and swim, could it not bring life back to Zomi’s disobedient left leg?
Zomi consented to the treatment. Sitting in a sitting board elevated upon blocks of resin—an excellent silkmotic dam—Zomi allowed Miza to run a silver rod attached by wire to banks of charged Ogé jars over the skin of her leg, bathing muscles and nerves long deprived of feeling in currents of silkmotic force in an effort to bring life back into them.
This was the first time Zomi had directly experienced the power of silkmotic force, and she could feel her hair stand up and the invisible force pouring into herself. Bits of paper and dust in the air swarmed around her, attracted by the power the machine poured into her body.
“Hold on to the armrests,” said Miza Crun. “This will sting a bit.”
Another silver channeling rod was attached to the other surface of the Ogé jars. Miza brought it over with jade gloves, and, as he touched the rod to her leg, Zomi experienced her first shock.
An invisible current coursed through her body, numbing, burning, quaking her to the very core.
The sensation of being shocked by the silkmotic force, Zomi discovered, was like a faint echo of what she had experienced twenty years ago, when the thunderbolt had struck her and left her leg partially paralyzed.
The similarity between the appearance of the sparks generated by the silkmotic machines and lightning had long been remarked on, but until now, no one could say that the two were the same. However, as one of the few survivors of a lightning strike, Zomi knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the power of the lightning was silkmotic force wielded by the gods.
Heavy, dark clouds loomed overhead, so oppressive and close that it seemed possible to reach out and touch them. Zomi and Théra busied themselves in the open field high up the slope of the mountain.
On the ground they had erected two winches, connected to each other by a silk belt. The first winch was connected to a large kite made of silk over a strong bamboo frame, as well as a thin iron rim around the edge for collecting charge. The string of the kite was made of silk strands twisted with silver wire. At the bottom of the string, an iron chain dangled into a large Ogé jar.
Zomi and Théra stood some distance away at the second winch, from where they could control the ascent and descent of the kite. Eyes intent on the clouds above them, they let out more of the string, causing the kite to rise higher.
“Lord Kiji,” Théra fervently prayed, “please allow us to borrow your power.”
As though in answer, lights flashed deep inside the clouds, but it was impossible to tell if Kiji was saying yes or no to their request.
The sky darkened as though someone had banked the fire of the sun. The world seemed to grow smaller while heaven and earth pressed closer to each other. The very air was charged with invisible lines of power.
Heavy drops of rain fell. Théra and Zomi huddled under a flat, low canopy set up next to the second winch. The sound of rain striking the roof was like the explosion of oil inside a frying pan. The kite string, laden with water, sagged.
More flashes in the clouds above.
The iron chain dangling from the kite string began to crackle, and faint sparks could be seen streaming from it into the Ogé jar.
Théra and Zomi looked at each other.
“It’s true!”
“Look!”
A large stag emerged from the woods, leaping gracefully through the rain as though not bothered by it at all.
It looked at the two women with a majestic, arrogant expression. Then it walked toward the Ogé jar, still crackling with the power of the lightning.
The two women knew they were witnessing something extraordinary and did not speak.
The stag stopped by the side of the Ogé jar, placed one foot against the outside, and then bent down as though to give the still crackling chain a kiss.
And a giant spark almost two feet long leapt from the top of the jar, striking the stag in the head. The long spark was like a flower made of fire, a spiderweb woven from luminous ether, a river with tributaries filled with star matter. Zomi and Théra closed their eyes. The light was brighter than the glow of a thousand suns, and they could not gaze upon the power of the gods without being blinded.
When they opened their eyes again, the stag was gone, and only a smoking patch of ashes in the grass next to the Ogé jar in the shape of the stag convinced them that it had not been a dream.
“Thank you, Lord Fithowéo,” the women whispered, knowing that they had seen a sign.
They had succeeded in bottling lightning, in capturing the power of the gods.
Théra and Zomi embraced each other, laughing, kissing, babbling incoherently. Though they were drenched and cold, the joyous heat of discovery coursed through them, irrepressible. They fell to the ground, entwining their limbs and pressing their bodies against each other as they undressed in the rain; the power that had lit up the heavens a moment ago seemed to burn through the lovers as flames of passion.
Between the heavens and the earth, there was no more fitting altar to love than that mountainside in the rain.
GINPEN, A FEW MONTHS BEFORE THE BATTLE OF ZATHIN GULF.
Now that they had a source of power that was adequate to the purpose, they still needed a reservoir large enough to store the power yet compact enough to be carried in the airships.
The scholars of Ginpen and Pan worked night and day, arguing, debating, sketching plans and experimenting with novel materials. Fantastic ideas and suggestions flowed to the marshal from every laboratory, but most were too outlandish to be practical.
The answer, in the end, came from the highest and lowest places at once.
With Empress Jia practically making the entire Imperial Treasury available to support the work of the researchers, instances of graft and corruption were inevitable. Two of the palace servants were caught smuggling jewels out of the palace for private benefit.
Their method of theft was both ingenious and ancient. To reduce theft, servants who entered the Imperial Treasury had to change into special formfitting clothing without the benefit of voluminous sleeves and folds that could conceal valuable jewels. They used specially made wooden trays that were too thin to contain hidden compartments. The idea was to reduce the chances of anyone who, when faced with mountains of pearls and towers of gold nuggets, could not resist the temptation to grab and keep a few things for himself.
But wherever money was involved, theft was inevitable. Datralu gacruca ça crunpén ki fithéücadipu ki lodü ingro ça néficaü, or “No fish could live in perfectly clear water,” as the Classical Ano saying went.
Two of the servants realized that while the clothing they wore had no pockets, there was one natural pocket with a sealable opening that was still available to them. The two servants had worked as butchers before entering the palace and were quite familiar with the capacity of the animal intestine to stretch and hold material.
And so, by practicing with marbles and coins and even chicken eggs, the two learned the art of inserting objects through the fundament and holding them within the colon for hours until they could be safely retrieved. In this manner, they stole many pearls and gold nuggets and even intricate pieces of jade from the empress.
They were finally caught, as most thieves are, because they overreached. One of the men simply stuffed too much into himself, and after the unwise choice of a large meal of stewed cabbage the night before, he gave up the secret in an explosive confession before he could get to the toilet.
The scandal, however, provided Miza Crun and the mathematical Kita Thu an inspiration.
An Ogé jar, when reduced to its essence, was nothing more than two surfaces made of channeling material separated by a thin layer of damming material. It could be in the shape of a jar, a plate, a bulb, or anything else.
Such as a long, flexible tube that could be twisted and coiled to take up as little space as possible.
The scholars turned their attention to the garinafin carcasses still being dissected inside their shoreside cave laboratory: Each garinafin’s abdominal cavity contained miles of intestines, coiled and wound up into a relatively small space by volume. The inner and outer surfaces of the intestines, by Kita Thu’s calculation, formed a reservoir large enough to store the silkmotic force to kill a garinafin.
But how could they coat miles of garinafin intestines with the appropriate channeling material, preferably gold?
The answer, once again, came from the world of crime. Rin Coda’s farseers had many connections to the underworld economy, and the best forgers of Dara were soon brought to Ginpen to collaborate with the researchers.
The two groups made quite a sight. On one side were the renowned scholars in silk robes, their minds filled with obscure mathematical symbols and laws of nature, their spines curved after years of poring over scrolls and tablets and codices, their speech peppered with high-minded aphorisms from ancient scholars. On the other side were the forgers in their workshop smocks, their minds filled with thoughts of profit and wealth and techniques for deceit, their hands and arms scarred from years of working with heat and acid and paint in the quest of giving base materials the appearance of something far more precious, their speech spiced with thieves’ cant and the grease of commerce.
Normally, these two groups would never have even shared a pot of tea, much less have much to say to each other.
But in a time of war, knowledge made interesting friendships. Soon, the scholars and the thieves were . . . well, thick as thieves. Both groups discovered that they were kindred souls interested in the pursuit of knowledge, albeit knowledge of different spheres. They complemented each other, like the Kana and Rapa varieties of the silkmotic force complemented each other, and, when put together, generated brilliance.
“I am certain that had each of you been born to scholarly families, you would have all achieved the rank of firoa,” said Atharo Ye as raised his cup to toast the thieves at an evening banquet.
A few of the thieves flushed with fury, but Gozogi Çadé, the leader of the thieves, gestured for them to be calm. She was well respected in the community as the inventor of the technique for marking the patina of bronze replicas of ancient antiques with the warp and weft of silk wrappings that had rotted away to give them the appearance of authenticity—a very valuable and widely imitated forging technique. “I am certain that had you been born to one of our families, Master Ye,” said Gozogi as she raised her cup in return, “you would have been an inventive and adroit forger.”
“Do you really think so?” asked Atharo Ye, and he blushed with pleasure. “There are so many interesting engineering problems in your field! I was thinking of an idea for how to make soapstone appear as jade that I wanted to get your opinion on.”
The thieves relaxed, knowing now that Atharo’s compliment was genuine, though they were speaking of forgeries. “Someday I will tell my grandchildren that I once consulted for the greatest engineer in all of Dara,” said Gozogi. After a pause, she added, “I’m glad, however, that you have a job and aren’t my competitor.”
The thieves and scholars laughed together.
The forgers in Dara were, as one might expect, skilled at gilding base materials. They could turn a crude wooden carving into a simulacrum of the most precious artifacts made by ancient goldsmiths of Rima, and now they were charged with helping the marshal devise a way to coat the garinafin intestines with gold without destroying the thin membranes.
The scholars and the thieves together came up with the following solution. First, quicksilver was used to wash the inside and outside of the intestines to coat the surfaces with a thin layer of mercury. Next, an amalgam of gold and mercury was made by heating mercury and stirring in flakes of gold to saturation. The resulting amalgam, like molasses, was squeezed through the interior of the intestines and used to soak the outside until a layer coated the surfaces evenly, and then the intestines were brought to a gentle heat to boil away the mercury, leaving a thin, smooth surface of gold to coat the inside and outside walls.
The intestines were then cut into six long segments and coiled up: long Ogé jars with the capacity of arrays of innumerable regular Ogé jars connected in parallel, but small enough to be stored inside ceramic spheres dangling from the airships as ballast.
After they were charged in thunderstorms with the power of lightning, the coiled-up intestines were then coated in a layer of wax to further help isolate and preserve the dammed-up silkmotic force. Wires could be poked through to connect the inner and outer surfaces and draw out the Rapa or Kana variety of the force without a disastrous discharge until the moment it was needed.
ZATHIN GULF: THE TENTH MONTH IN THE TWELFTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF FOUR PLACID SEAS.
The scene that had played out before Silkmotic Arrow repeated itself in front of the other airships. Garinafin after garinafin fell from the sky, struck to death by the bottled-up power of lightning.
“Separate from Plum Formation and give general chase,” ordered Gin Mazoti.
The airships separated from their defensive posture and leveled off into cruising configuration. The oars were extended, and the prey now became the predator. They went after the remaining terrified garinafins, who could not understand how their opponent had suddenly gained this fearsome new power.
Another long, mournful bone-trumpet blast sounded from the deck of Pride of Ukyu.
Tanvanaki angrily clenched her jaws. With only six garinafins left under her command, the two sides appeared to be evenly matched. The garinafins, however, had lost their fire breath to the bamboo caltrops and were near exhaustion, and their riders were losing faith in the wisdom of this war. On the other hand, the crews of the Imperial airships were cheering wildly at the successes of their new weapons. It was obvious who had the advantage.
But it was her duty to carry out the orders of the pékyu, to fight for the future of her people. She had to find a way to squeeze out an advantage.
Tanvanaki placed her speaking tube against the back of Korva’s neck and issued a rapid series of orders that the garinafin transmitted to the others with a series of loud moans and bellows.
Five garinafins seemed to lose their will and retreated from the battle, escaping in different directions, and the Imperial airships gave chase, one after each. The garinafins appeared tired, their movements sluggish. The crews of the Imperial airships cheered and redoubled their rowing, and as they closed in on their prey, let loose silkmotic bolts at the lumbering beasts.
But the garinafins somehow always managed to dodge out of the way, and numerous silkmotic bolts were wasted.
Aboard Silkmotic Arrow, Gin Mazoti pondered the tactical situation. The naval fleets were almost close enough to engage each other, and some of the Dara ships were already lobbing stones from catapults at the city-ships. The Lyucu fleet, unfamiliar with such machinery, relied on their bulk to press ahead. The city-ships dwarfed the Dara ships much as elephants dwarfed packs of wolves, or crubens dwarfed schools of sharks, and even direct strikes by the catapults caused little damage.
The Dara navy needed air support. But the Imperial airships were having trouble chasing down the garinafins, and now the five airships were far from each other.
“This is a trap!” Gin Mazoti slammed her hands to the handle of Na-aroénna. “Pull back!”
Tanvanaki’s mount, Korva, bellowed some more. Tanvanaki had kept her back from the air battle to survey the tactical situation from far above. She smiled. Her plan was working out perfectly.
All of a sudden, the five escaping garinafins sped up and swerved away from the pursuing airships. They looped up and around, and all five converged upon Heart of Tututika.
Tanvanaki had realized that the Imperial airships, when clustered together, could support each other with their silkmotic lances. By pretending to retreat, she managed to pull them apart from each other, and now she could concentrate her forces on a single Imperial airship and regain the advantage of numbers.
Soldiers aboard Heart of Tututika hesitated as five garinafins attacked at once, uncertain where to point their silkmotic lances. The frame of the airship twisted and crumbled under the simultaneous assault. Many of the crew tumbled from the airship and fell into the merciless ocean below, their piteous screams lingering in the air.
The garinafins had ripped open enough gasbags that Heart of Tututika began losing altitude. Tanvanaki called for them to pull back and focus on a different airship. As the panicked crew on the sinking Heart of Tututika scrambled to save their doomed ship, the silkmotic lances were brought close to each other and a long spark arced across their tips.
There was a massive explosion as the leaking gasbags caught fire. The fiery wreckage of the airship slowly drifted down to the sea, all hands lost.
“Charge the frame!” shouted Gin Mazoti as the surviving four airships once again clustered together. Her heart ached with rage and regret. No matter how often soldiers prepared in drills, the chaotic conditions of the battlefield and their lack of experience with the weapons meant that they didn’t always respond appropriately to threats.
Since many of the structural elements of the frame were made from bamboo reinforced with steel, it was actually possible to charge the entire frame of the airships. As soon as a garinafin seized one of the airships’ support hoops, the crew touched the silkmotic lances to the ship’s frame. The garinafin grabbing on to the hoop received a massive lightning jolt that killed it on the spot.
Tanvanaki issued yet more orders, and the garinafins now dove below the airships. With the gondola floors gone and the crew standing on platforms housing the giant crossbows, Tanvanaki gambled that the platforms would be free of the deadly force that was killing her garinafins and become the vulnerable underbellies of the airships.
