Deep Space Blues: Stormchaser Waltz Vol 3
Prologue. Storm Wall
The storms on Wend never stop.
Jace Keller flew into one anyway, to save a day of crystal.
Now his sail is torn, his helm is coughing, and a stranger with orange sails is waving at him to follow.
He doesn't like her. He's going to see a lot of her.
Chapter 1. Highline
Highline — Chapter 1
The Blue Hour limps into the docks of Highline behind the orange cutter, with its red sail torn in four places and its helm still coughing.
Jace Keller: Did everybody see that? She waved at me like I was a lost dog.
Gemma Drury: She waved, Red, and then she flew us out of a storm that was eating us. I'd have blown her a kiss.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Edie Marlowe: Edie liked her sails. Orange is a very brave color. Also, our sail has four new windows.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar Brack: The cheap road's always the long one, kid. My old sergeant said that, right before he got us lost for a week.
[Picture: previous speaker]
A man in dark blue velvet is waiting on the dock, as if he's been there all morning. It's Vittor Lisk, the Ashen card dealer from the Laurel Salon, his gold-capped horns freshly polished.
Vittor Lisk: Mr. Keller. You came through the Stormwall. How brave. How very cheap.
Jace Keller: Your letter said Highline. It didn't say what was in the way.
[Picture: letter]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vittor Lisk: I never spoil a surprise. There's a navigator in town called Tilde Anwen. She's drawn new safe lanes through the Dark Rim, and she's selling the chart.
[Picture: letter]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vittor Lisk: Crews get lost out there every year, and their families want to go and look for them. I represent a few of those families.
Ottar Brack: Lost past the Rim... Not many get found.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: Since when do you do charity?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vittor Lisk: I take a small cut of everything, Miss Drury. Even kindness.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vittor Lisk: A thousand Crowns to buy it. Your fee is a tenth of whatever she asks.
[Picture: purse]
Gemma Drury: A tenth? So if she charges a fortune, we get rich.
[Picture: purse]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vittor Lisk: Then haggle badly. Just this once.
[Picture: purse]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: That's the cruelest thing anyone's ever asked me to do.
[Picture: purse]
[Picture: previous speaker]
He sets a heavy purse on the console. Gemma reaches for it, but Ottar's one hand gets there first, and it disappears into his apron.
[Picture: purse]
Jace Keller: Why not buy it yourself?
Vittor Lisk: She doesn't sell to men like me. She sells to whoever gives her the best reason. You have an honest face, Mr. Keller. I have a salon.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vittor Lisk: You won't be the only bidders, of course. The Squall Fleet wants it too. Their captain is a Seren Ashby. She flies an orange cutter, I'm told.
Nobody says anything. Edie looks out the round window at the orange sails tied up at the next dock.
Edie Marlowe: Orange.
Jace Keller: We'll take it.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vittor Lisk: I'm staying at the Windsock, the inn under the town. The rooms swing all night. I adore it.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Highline is a wooden town on three platforms, hung in the sky under eleven huge red and orange kites and tied to a cliff far below by one thick cable. Across the bridge, a crew is rebuilding the rope works, where the twelfth kite crashed last week.
[Picture: wind]
Edie Marlowe: A whole town on kites! The houses are swinging, Jace. Edie's going to live here forever. Oh, something's landing on our sail.
[Picture: wind]
Something big, flat and grey has dropped out of the clouds. It circles the mast once, very slowly, like it's choosing a seat.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: kite ray side]
WARNING SHEET. KITE RAY. Danger low. Curious. Follows kite towns and sits on whatever it likes. Mind the tail.
[Picture: stamp low]
It's a ray as wide as a wagon, grey with white spots, with small eyes on top of its head and a long thin tail that crackles with blue sparks at the tip.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: kite ray front]
The ray settles over the red sail like a blanket on a bed. The mast creaks, and the whole ship leans toward the dock.
Jace Keller: Hey! Off! That's my only sail!
Edie is already halfway up the mast. She pats the ray's pale belly. There's a pop of blue spark, and all of her red hair stands straight up.
Edie Marlowe: He's warm! And he likes the red. His name is Pancake.
Jace Keller: We're not naming it, kid.
Edie Marlowe: Too late. He knows it now.
Tilde Anwen rents a room over a rope shop on the market deck. She's a tall Tessari woman with long pointed ears, silver hair to her waist and blue ink on her fingertips, and she doesn't get up.
[Picture: chart case]
Someone is already leaning on her table. Another tall Tessari, with black hair tied back, sharp grey eyes and a long weathered orange coat.
[Picture: chart case]
Seren Ashby: Well. It's the pilot who flies into the Stormwall to save a little crystal.
Jace Keller: And it's the captain who waves.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seren Ashby: You followed, though. Right up my wake, like a duckling.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: I was letting you lead. I do that for nervous pilots.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seren Ashby: Seren Ashby. I've flown storms since I was six, pilot. Nobody calls me nervous twice.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: Oh, Sparks. They're going to be unbearable.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Tilde Anwen: Are you two finished? I pay for this room by the hour. And I don't care about price. I sell to whoever gives me the best reason.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seren Ashby: Thirty ships, Tilde. Eleven hundred people. Lanes nobody else has. That's my reason.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Tilde Anwen: That's a reason to want it. Everyone wants it. And you, pilot?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: A man's paying us. He says it's for families looking for lost crews. I don't know if that's true. I know his money's real.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Tilde Anwen: That's the first honest thing a captain has said in this room all week.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Tilde Anwen: A Dominion man offered me gold. The Union sent an envoy with a ship. Then a man in a hood brought me a box of stones that were cold to the touch.
[Picture: cold stones]
Ottar Brack: Black crystal.
[Picture: cold stones]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Tilde Anwen: I sent him away. I've felt that cold before, out in the currents near the Rim. I don't want it in my room.
[Picture: cold stones]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar looks at the door for a long moment. He doesn't say anything else.
[Picture: cold stones]
Tilde Anwen: No to all of you, for now. Come back when you have a reason I haven't heard.
Seren Ashby: When she says yes, it'll be to me, pilot.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Shouting comes from the north bridge. A kite flyer in a climbing harness is chasing a heavy man in a striped shirt through the stalls. The flyer has a rigger's axe, and his lips are stained blue.
[Picture: wind]
Gerald Croft: Pell, I told you! I'm out of sailcloth! There's no more sailcloth!
[Picture: wind]
The heavy man runs out onto the rope bridge to the next platform. The flyer follows and starts hacking at the hand ropes, with clouds passing a long way below.
[Picture: wind]
Seren Ashby: That's Pell. He flew Kite Seven.
[Picture: wind]
Jace Keller: Which one's Kite Seven?
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seren Ashby: The one that crashed.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace takes the near end of the bridge and Seren the far one. In the middle, Pell lifts the axe over the last hand rope.
Jace Keller: Hey, pal. Nice axe. Can I see it?
Seren Ashby: Pell, it's Seren. You know me. Put it down.
Pell turns toward her voice. Jace catches his axe arm from behind, Seren gets him by the harness from the front, and their foreheads knock together over his shoulder.
The axe drops away into the clouds. Nobody hears it land.
They sit down right there on the swinging bridge with Pell between them, all three breathing hard. Seren starts laughing first. Then Jace does.
[Picture: wind]
Seren Ashby: You've got a hard head, pilot.
[Picture: wind]
Jace Keller: You headbutted me.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seren Ashby: And I won.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: previous speaker]
The heavy man has crawled back to his sailcloth stall. Gemma is already standing in it. Two of his bales are sewn shut with blue thread, and all the others are white.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: bale]
Gemma Drury: Funny thing about sailcloth. It's usually not blue on the inside.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: bale]
She slits a bale with her boot knife. Bright blue powder pours out onto the deck.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: bale]
Gerald Croft: Gerald Croft, best sailcloth on Highline! That's, um, dye. Very strong dye. For very blue sails.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: bale]
Ottar Brack: Kite Seven flew on that. Two people died in your rope works.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gerald Croft: Tired flyers always find it somewhere! I thought, better they get it from a friend.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seren Ashby: Where does it come from, Gerald?
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gerald Croft: Updraft Market! Stall nine! Two bales in every load, and I don't ask, I never ask!
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Rolf Hensley, the town's line captain, comes running with his riggers, and they march Croft and Pell off to the command tent. Croft is still talking as they go.
[Picture: wind]
Seren Ashby: This town took me in when I was a baby, pilot. Nobody sells that stuff on Highline.
[Picture: wind]
Seren Ashby: Come to Muster Raft tomorrow. Bring what you know about the Rush, and bring your ship. I want to see if it flies as badly as it looks.
[Picture: wind]
Jace Keller: Is this a date?
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seren Ashby: It's a race. Try to keep up.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: previous speaker]
She walks off across the deck and doesn't look back. Jace watches her the whole way.
[Picture: wind]
Gemma Drury: Go, Red. I'll keep Sparks out of the kites.
[Picture: wind]
Chapter 2. Muster Raft
Muster Raft — Chapter 2
Morning on Highline. Edie wakes up in her hammock to a soft sound, like rain on a roof. It isn't raining.
The lid of the crystal crate is open, and it's covered in moths, hundreds of them, each one as wide as a hand.
[Picture: aether moth front]
[Picture: aether moth front]
[Picture: aether moth front]
[Picture: aether moth front]
[Picture: aether moth front]
[Picture: aether moth front]
[Picture: aether moth front]
WARNING SHEET. AETHER MOTH. Danger low. Eats crystal. The wing dust stings bare skin. Shut your crystal crates at night.
[Picture: stamp low]
They're pale grey with bright blue spots, and blue dust falls off their wings as they chew on the crystal cases. Little sparks jump between them in the dark.
[Picture: moth dust]
[Picture: aether moth front]
[Picture: aether moth front]
[Picture: aether moth front]
[Picture: aether moth front]
[Picture: aether moth front]
[Picture: aether moth front]
[Picture: aether moth front]
Edie Marlowe: Hey! That's the helm's breakfast, not yours!
[Picture: moth dust]
Edie grabs a brass lamp and opens its shutter all the way. The whole swarm turns toward the light at once.
Edie Marlowe: Come on, babies. Brighter lamp. Much tastier. Follow me.
She climbs up on deck with the lamp held high, and the moths pour out of the hatch behind her like smoke. At the rail, she snaps the shutter closed, and the wind carries the whole cloud off over the town.
Edie Marlowe: Bye! Go eat a storm!
The crew stands on deck, blinking. Everyone is covered in fine blue dust. Jace sneezes, and a little blue cloud comes out.
[Picture: moth dust]
Ottar Brack: On the Rim we used to say moths on your crate means you're rich. Then the moths ate everything, and we weren't.
[Picture: moth dust]
Jace Keller: I'm flying to Muster Raft. Seren wants to talk about the Rush.
[Picture: moth dust]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: In a race. Sure. We'll take the trade raft to Updraft Market and find stall nine.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: Somebody's selling Rush to the people who fly this town. That's reason enough for me.
Ottar Brack: I'll come. Markets have food.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Edie Marlowe: Edie's going with Gemma. Pancake can stay with you. He's very loyal to the sail.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Muster Raft is four old warships tied side by side in a stormy sky, their decks joined by wide wooden bridges. Thirty smaller ships with orange sails are moored around it, and every crew Seren passes stops her to talk.
Seren Ashby: That's the Gull. Her captain's ninety and still flies better than you. That one's the Marten. Their cook makes a fish pie that'll make you cry.
Seren Ashby: Eleven hundred people live on these ships. Every one of them voted for me, and most still like me.
Jace Keller: And the rest?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seren Ashby: The rest I beat at cards.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: My crew went to Updraft Market to look at stall nine.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seren Ashby: That's Vessa Quarle's stall. She was my deck hand for ten years. Now she's got a Syndicate friend who gives her guns for nothing, and that worries me.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seren Ashby: Enough talk. Around the Cloud Watch peak and back, and the loser buys dinner.
Jace Keller: I'm broke.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seren Ashby: Then don't lose.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The Swift and the Blue Hour tear away from Muster Raft side by side, thirty crews cheering from the rails. Seren takes the inside line around the lone peak, so close that her side sails nearly brush the weather flags on the stone station at the top.
Seren Ashby: ◉ ▂▄▆█ You're flying like a cargo barge, pilot!
Jace Keller: ◉ ▂▄▆█ I'm carrying a ray!
Up on the red sail, Pancake spreads his wings wide in the wind like he's helping. He isn't. The Swift crosses Muster Raft's bow one sail length ahead.
The sun goes down behind the storms. The Swift's crew has gone below to collect their bets, and the long orange sails hang loose over an empty deck.
Jace Keller: For the record, I let you win.
Seren Ashby: You had a ray on your sail.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: That too.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seren leans on the rail and looks out at the Cloud Watch peak. She stops smiling.
Seren Ashby: The weather readers up there say the currents are turning toward the Rim. Every storm this year drags a little further out.
Seren Ashby: In the spring, two of my ships got pulled past the last lane. The Petrel and the Tern. Forty people, and nobody's seen them since.
Seren Ashby: With Tilde's lanes, they'd have had a way home. Next time somebody gets pulled out there, they will.
Seren Ashby: My crews don't know any of this. They think I always know where we're going. That's the whole job, pilot. Being sure.
Jace doesn't make a joke. He stands next to her at the rail for a while, and neither of them says anything.
Seren Ashby: Dinner's on you. Tonight, at Highline. Bring whatever your thief finds.
Jace Keller: How do you know she's a thief?
[Picture: glove]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seren Ashby: She took my glove at Tilde's.
[Picture: glove]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Updraft Market is a ring of sky rafts tied together over a strong rising wind. Behind stall nine, under a grey and white flag, a man pays a sail trader out of a small chest.
[Picture: chest]
Gemma Drury: Look, Grandpa. He's paying for sailcloth in Syndicate Crowns. Nobody does that.
[Picture: chest]
Edie Marlowe: Those gun crates are new too. Nobody's even scratched them. Rufus says the big lady in the back has a lot of axes.
[Picture: rufus]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma follows the chest into a cargo bay behind the stall. A big Gorr woman is counting it, her shaved head covered in blue storm tattoos. She turns around with a throwing axe already in her hand.
Vessa Quarle: Wrong door, horns. I'm going to count to three, and then... no, I'll just throw it. Who's the big one?
Ottar fills the doorway behind Gemma. He looks at the axe. Then he sits down on a crate, takes a loaf out of his apron and tears it in half.
[Picture: loaf]
Ottar Brack: Ottar Brack. It's been a long day, ma'am. Bread?
[Picture: loaf]
Vessa Quarle: Are you eating? I've got an axe.
[Picture: loaf]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar Brack: I've seen plenty of axes. I haven't seen lunch.
[Picture: loaf]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vessa looks at his faded pale blue tunic and his pinned-up sleeve for a long moment. Then she slides the axe back into her belt and takes the bread.
[Picture: loaf]
Vessa Quarle: Order knight. My old captain left a whole crew to die in the Stormwall. Knights don't do that. Fine. Talk.
Gemma Drury: Rush from your stall crashed a kite on Highline.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vessa Quarle: I sell what the Syndicate ship gives me. Rush and guns, all of it free. Who gives away guns? Nobody does!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: And you took them anyway.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vessa Quarle: My ships were flying on scrap! I take the guns, I sell the Rush and I wait to hear the price. Three months, and nothing.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vessa Quarle: Till this week. Their captain told my mate to keep every Gale Rider away from Highline tomorrow night. His crew's loading a whole raft of the stuff.
Gemma Drury: He's going to drop free Rush on a whole town.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vessa Quarle: Half my crews have family up there. I'd stop him myself, but if my ships go near Highline, Ashby shoots first and asks later.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: Free guns for the Gale Riders, free Rush for Highline. Somebody wants Wend busy fighting itself.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar Brack: Busy people don't watch the sky.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Dusk. The Swift has tied up at the next dock with a table on her deck. Gemma tells Jace about the raft in four quick sentences, then fixes his collar, and fixes it again because he moved.
Gemma Drury: Don't do the cloak thing.
Jace Keller: What cloak thing?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: Where you throw it over something and look tragic.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: I've never looked tragic in my life.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Night. Lamps along the rail, a fish pie from the Marten, and a wind off the storms that gets colder every minute. Jace tells her about the raft before the pie is even cut.
[Picture: fish pie]
Seren Ashby: Tomorrow night, then. Your ship and mine. You know, you're the first person in a year who's had dinner with me and doesn't need something.
[Picture: fish pie]
Seren Ashby: So tell me one true thing, pilot. Then you can go back to joking.
Jace Keller: I left Tallis when I was fifteen. I never had a crew till this year.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seren Ashby: And now?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: A mechanic, a thief, a cook and a ray. Edie says the ray counts double.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The wind turns cold, and Seren shivers. Jace stands up, swings his red cloak over her shoulders and looks off at the storm with a faraway face.
[Picture: red cloak]
Seren Ashby: Did you practice that?
[Picture: red cloak]
Jace Keller: No.
[Picture: red cloak]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seren Ashby: Liar. It's working.
[Picture: previous speaker]
On the next dock, Gemma and Ottar share a spyglass at the Blue Hour's window.
Gemma Drury: He did the cloak thing.
Ottar takes the spyglass and looks for a long time.
Ottar Brack: It worked.
Gemma Drury: Of course it worked. I'm opening a book on this, Grandpa. How long does it last?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar Brack: He'll last a week.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: Till the chart. Five Crowns.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar writes both bets on the back of a crystal receipt and signs it. Edie leans in to look.
[Picture: betting slip]
Edie Marlowe: Put Edie down for forever.
[Picture: betting slip]
Gemma Drury: That's not a bet, Sparks. That's a wish.
[Picture: betting slip]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Chapter 3. The Twelfth Kite
The Twelfth Kite — Chapter 3
Night. At the north corner of Highline, the kite ropes come down to a row of huge winches. One winch stands empty, its rope cut short. That was Kite Seven.
[Picture: wind]
Jace and Seren lie flat on the rigger platform, watching the clouds above the market deck. Their two ships wait just below the platform with their lamps out.
[Picture: wind]
Seren Ashby: Highline was built to fly on twelve kites. Eleven will hold her in fair weather. Just.
[Picture: wind]
Jace Keller: Good thing it's fair weather.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: previous speaker]
A rope ladder creaks. Tilde Anwen climbs onto the platform, her silver hair blowing sideways. She's out of breath, and she doesn't look like a woman who hurries.
[Picture: wind]
Tilde Anwen: The storm is coming tonight. Not in two days. Tonight.
[Picture: wind]
Seren Ashby: Cloud Watch says two days.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Tilde Anwen: Cloud Watch reads flags. I read the current. It turned an hour ago, and it's dragging the weather with it.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seren pulls off a glove and holds her bare hand out into the wind. She stays very still.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: glove]
Seren Ashby: She's right. The wind's wrong.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: glove]
Seren Ashby: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Rolf, it's Seren. Start the winches and bring the town down to the anchor rock. Now. Don't argue, I grew up here.
[Picture: wind]
Jace Keller: How long does that take?
[Picture: wind]
Tilde Anwen: Six hours, with four good crews.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: And how long have we got?
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Tilde Anwen: Less.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Edie Marlowe: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Jace? There's something big up in the clouds with no lamps on. Rufus doesn't like it. Also, it has green sails.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: rufus]
A fat cargo ship with dark green sails drops out of the cloud right over the market deck. Under its keel hangs a raft piled with crates on four long lines, and it starts lowering the raft toward the stalls.
[Picture: wind]
Jace and Seren slide down the ladders to their ships.
[Picture: wind]
Gemma Drury: ◉ ▂▄▆█ If those crates hit the deck, every tired flyer in town gets a free sack. I'm going.
[Picture: wind]
The Blue Hour comes up under the green ship fast. Gemma stands out on the bowsprit with a line clipped to her belt, watching the raft swing.
Gemma Drury: Not yet, Red. Wait for the wind.
A gust swings the raft out past the edge of the market deck, over nothing but cloud. Gemma jumps. She lands on the crates and pulls both of her boot knives.
At the bow, Edie winds up and throws her shock baton end over end. It hits the green ship's helm chair, and every rune on it goes dark.
Edie Marlowe: Ha! Sorry, helm. Somebody was using you for bad things.
Gemma cuts the last line. The raft drops away below the town, spilling blue powder into the wind. Ottar hauls her back up her line with one arm, like a bucket out of a well.
Ottar Brack: Up you come, kid.
The green ship drifts with its helm dead. The Swift pulls alongside, and her crew throws grappling hooks over its rail.
Seren Ashby: ◉ ▂▄▆█ He's ours. He can sit in my brig and think about his life.
Gemma Drury: Not a grain of it landed on the town, Red.
Then every lamp on Highline flickers at once. The wind swings around. Out past the town, a wall of black cloud rolls up over the horizon, much faster than any storm should move.
The storm hits. Rain comes in sideways, and lightning lights up the kites from underneath.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: lightning]
WARNING SHEET. CURRENT RAY. Danger medium. Herds ride the currents in storms and go for a ship's helm. The tail shock will knock a grown man flat.
[Picture: stamp medium]
In front of the storm comes a herd of huge flat beasts, each one twenty feet across, dark blue with rows of white spots and sparks running along their wings. They're riding the new current, and the town is in the way.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: lightning]
[Picture: current ray front]
[Picture: current ray front]
[Picture: current ray front]
[Picture: current ray front]
The herd hits the kite ropes at full speed. Ropes snap and whip in the wind, and rays tumble through the lines, throwing sparks at everything they touch.
Edie Marlowe: ◉ ▂▄▆█ They're not attacking us! They're riding the current. They can't even see the ropes!
Kite Three tears loose. The huge orange kite flies off into the storm like a leaf, and the whole town lurches and tips toward the empty corner.
Seren Ashby: ◉ ▂▄▆█ We've lost Three! She's tilting!
On the platforms, houses slide. People grab ropes, rails and each other. Far below, the one main cable to the cliff groans loud enough to hear over the storm.
The herd is gone as fast as it came. The town hangs crooked in the storm on ten kites and one cable.
[Picture: rain]
Seren Ashby: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Pilot, listen. The main cable won't hold her alone, not tipped like this. The winch crews are dropping two more lines. Somebody has to fly them down to the anchor rock.
[Picture: rain]
Jace Keller: ◉ ▂▄▆█ In this?
[Picture: rain]
Seren Ashby: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Nobody else can fly in this. You and me.
[Picture: rain]
Jace Keller: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Fine. But I'm not waving at you.
[Picture: rain]
Edie Marlowe: The helm says it wasn't built to pull a town. Edie says it's a big helm now and it has to try. Also, Pancake's lying across the rip in the sail, so that's holding.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: lightning]
Two cable ends come swinging down out of the winch houses, each as thick as a man's arm. Gemma and Ottar catch one and clip it to the Blue Hour's bow post.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: lightning]
Ottar Brack: Don't fight the wind, kid. Lean on it.
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: lightning]
Gemma Drury: It's on! Fly, Red!
[Picture: rain]
[Picture: lightning]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Side by side, the Blue Hour and the Swift drop off the edge of the town, each dragging a cable, down through the lightning toward a cliff far below.
Seren Ashby: ◉ ▂▄▆█ You're drifting, pilot! Tighten up!
Jace Keller: ◉ ▂▄▆█ I've got a town on my back and a ray on my sail! Give me a second!
Lightning hits the Swift's storm vane. Seren doesn't even flinch. She leans into the wind and keeps going.
Out of the rain come six more ships with patched grey sails. Their crews throw lines over the cables and pull with them.
Vessa Quarle: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Move your fat cutter, Ashby! The Gale Riders are pulling too!
Seren Ashby: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Vessa? Why?
Vessa Quarle: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Nobody can shoot straight in this, so here I am! Shut up and pull!
Two hours later, the rain thins out. Highline hangs low against its cliff on three cables, battered and crooked, but tied down.
[Picture: rain]
Anchor keepers lock the last cable onto an iron post. Far above, a cheer goes up from the platforms.
[Picture: rain]
Edie Marlowe: Pancake held the sail shut the whole way down. Who's a good sail? You are.
Seren Ashby: Not bad, pilot. For a cargo barge.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: You drifted too. I saw it.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vessa Quarle: ◉ ▂▄▆█ You owe me one, Ashby.
Seren Ashby: ◉ ▂▄▆█ I owe you a warning shot. I'll make it a friendly one.
A rope lift comes creaking down the cliff. Tilde Anwen is in it, wrapped in a coat, with her hair stuck flat to her face.
Tilde Anwen: I watched from my window. All of it.
Seren Ashby: Then you saw what my ships did tonight. Sell me the chart, Tilde.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Tilde Anwen: Not tonight, captain.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seren opens her mouth to argue. Behind her, Jace has sat down on a coil of cable and fallen asleep sitting up.
[Picture: character Tilde Anwen neutral]
Ottar lays a blanket over him and sits down beside him with the last of the bread.
[Picture: character Tilde Anwen neutral]
[Picture: loaf]
Ottar Brack: Any night you walk off the field is a good night.
[Picture: character Tilde Anwen neutral]
[Picture: loaf]
Chapter 4. Waltz
Waltz — Chapter 4
Morning. Highline is tied down low against its cliff now, on three cables instead of one, and riggers are already climbing the kite ropes with new line.
[Picture: wind]
Down at the market dock, Gerald Croft sits on a supply raft with his whole stall packed into boxes. The line captain has thrown him off Highline for good.
[Picture: wind]
Gerald Croft: Pilot! Your sail's in a terrible state. I've got cloth. Good cloth, cheap. Last chance before I go.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: bale white]
Jace Keller: Is it the blue kind?
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: bale white]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gerald Croft: Only the white kind now! I've learned my lesson. Mostly.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: bale white]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: Go learn the rest of it somewhere else, Moustache.
[Picture: wind]
[Picture: previous speaker]
The raft casts off. Croft waves all the way down into the clouds, still talking.
[Picture: wind]
Two of Tilde's charts blew off the wall in the storm, and she has already pinned them back up. She takes a rolled chart out of a long leather case, looks at it one more time and slides it back in. Then she holds the case out to Jace.
[Picture: chart case]
Jace Keller: How much?
[Picture: chart case]
Tilde Anwen: Nothing.
[Picture: chart case]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: Nothing at all? Couldn't you charge us a lot, Inky? As a favor?
[Picture: chart case]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Tilde Anwen: No.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: Why me?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Tilde Anwen: You both risked your ships for my town. She asked me for the chart before her boots were dry. You fell asleep on a coil of cable.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: I was resting my eyes.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Tilde Anwen: For four hours. You snore.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Tilde Anwen: Tell your families something from me. The currents near the Rim have been bending toward Rim Gate Seven all year, like water going down a drain.
[Picture: chart case]
Ottar Brack: And at the bottom of the drain?
[Picture: chart case]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Tilde Anwen: I didn't go and look. I'd like to keep it that way.
[Picture: chart case]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar doesn't say anything. He keeps his eyes on the chart case until Gemma tucks it under her arm.
[Picture: chart case]
That night, the Squall Fleet throws a party on the Swift's deck. Two fiddlers play standing on barrels, half of Highline has come down the ropes to dance, and Ottar is losing at cards to somebody's grandmother.
[Picture: fiddle]
Vessa Quarle walks up the gangway without being invited. Nobody stops her.
[Picture: fiddle]
Vessa Quarle: Don't look at me like that, Ashby. I pulled your town down. I want two drinks. Fine, one.
Seren Ashby: One. Then you're back to being my enemy.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seren Ashby: My people had a talk with the green ship's captain, pilot. He swears his orders didn't come from the Nine Bosses. They came from someone who doesn't sit at Boss Table.
[Picture: character Vessa Quarle amused]
Jace Keller: Who's that?
[Picture: character Vessa Quarle amused]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seren Ashby: He wouldn't say. He's more scared of them than he is of me, and that takes work.
[Picture: character Vessa Quarle amused]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nobody has an answer. The fiddles get louder.
[Picture: character Vessa Quarle amused]
Gemma Drury: Red. She took her glove back, right out of my pocket. Nobody gets into my jacket.
[Picture: glove]
Seren Ashby: It was my glove, thief.
[Picture: glove]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seren Ashby: Fly with us, pilot. Bring your ship and your crew and that chart. We'd split everything even.
Jace Keller: I've got a crew. And a job.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seren Ashby: I know. It's the best thing about you.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Seren pulls him out into the middle of the deck. The fiddlers slow down for them, and the whole crowd pretends not to watch.
Seren Ashby: You dance the way you fly.
Jace Keller: Badly?
Seren Ashby: Like you think somebody's about to catch you enjoying it.
Under the lamps and the orange sails, with the storm grumbling far away, Seren Ashby kisses him.
On the far side of the deck, Gemma raises her glass to nobody in particular.
Morning. Jace comes down the ladder whistling, which he never does. Tilde's chart case lies open and empty on the crate beside Edie's hammock.
[Picture: chart case open]
Where the chart was, there's a folded note in neat, slanted writing. "My crews come first, pilot. Fly safe. S." Jace reads it twice, then sits down on the crate.
[Picture: seren note]
Edie Marlowe: She was very quiet. Edie didn't wake up. Rufus did, but he thought she was nice.
[Picture: seren note]
[Picture: rufus]
Gemma Drury: So. Till the chart. I win.
[Picture: seren note]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar climbs down behind her, sighs and hands her five Crowns. Gemma walks straight over and puts them in Jace's hand.
[Picture: crowns]
Gemma Drury: Tea money, Red.
[Picture: crowns]
Jace Keller: You knew.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: I saw how she looked at that case at Tilde's. It's how I look at a purse.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: And you didn't say anything.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: You were having a nice time, Red. I wasn't going to steal that too.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: For what it's worth, she meant the kiss. I know the difference.
She reaches into her jacket and pulls out a roll of paper. It's the chart. Every lane and every mark, copied out in her own hand.
[Picture: chart copy]
Gemma Drury: I copy everything worth stealing. It's a habit. And my writing's neater.
[Picture: chart copy]
Edie Marlowe: She did it yesterday while you were napping. Edie held the lamp. It was very secret.
[Picture: chart copy]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar Brack: You going after her, kid?
[Picture: chart copy]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: Thirty ships, big man.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Up on deck, the morning is clear for once. Far out past the town, thirty ships with orange sails are flying in a long line toward the dark wall of the Stormwall.
The last one is a long, narrow cutter with big kite sails. Just as it reaches the clouds, it dips its sails once, toward Highline.
Jace Keller: Show-off.
He lifts one hand anyway. The Swift flies into the storm, and the clouds close behind her.
That afternoon, Vittor Lisk sits on the navigator's stool with Gemma's copy unrolled across his knees. He reads every line.
[Picture: chart copy]
Vittor Lisk: This is lovely work, Miss Drury. And the original?
[Picture: chart copy]
Jace Keller: A pilot took it home.
[Picture: chart copy]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vittor Lisk: A storm captain with a chart of the Dark Rim. Well. I'm sure she'll find her people.
[Picture: chart copy]
[Picture: previous speaker]
His gloved finger runs down the last lane on the chart, the one that ends near Rim Gate Seven, and stays there a moment. Then he rolls it up.
[Picture: chart copy]
Vittor Lisk: Now. My thousand Crowns, please.
[Picture: purse]
Ottar sets the purse on the console. Lisk counts it. Every Crown is there.
[Picture: purse]
Gemma Drury: And our tenth.
[Picture: purse]
Vittor Lisk: A tenth of the price, Miss Drury. And what did she ask?
[Picture: purse]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: ...Nothing.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Edie Marlowe: A tenth of nothing is still nothing. Rufus checked.
[Picture: rufus]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: We saved a whole town.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vittor Lisk: And I'm sure the town is very grateful. I pay for the chart, Mr. Keller, not for your trouble.
[Picture: previous speaker]
He tucks the chart under his arm and steps over the rail onto the dock.
Vittor Lisk: Wend has wonderful weather and terrible tea. Good day to you all.
Evening. The Blue Hour lifts away from Highline with its patched red sail and five Crowns of tea money. At the top of the mast, Pancake finally lets go and drifts back down into the clouds of Wend.
Edie Marlowe: Bye, Pancake. Be a good sail for somebody.
Jace sits at the helm and doesn't say anything for a long time. Gemma comes up the ladder with two cups of tea and hands him one.
[Picture: teacups]
Gemma Drury: She was a good pilot, Red.
[Picture: teacups]
Jace Keller: She was a better thief.
[Picture: teacups]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: Nobody's a better thief.
[Picture: teacups]
[Picture: previous speaker]