14. Arianna
Arianna was a stone gargoyle atop one of the spires surrounding the port of Ter.5.2. Magic pulsed through her fingertips, wrapping around the cabling and clips, making its grip on the ironwork surrounding her sure and strong. She watched men and women go about their business.
Dragons walked with guild masters on and off airships. The sight alone made her want to retch in disgust. Fenthri—no, not just Fenthri, guild masters—fraternizing willingly and openly with Dragons. She remembered a time when guild masters embodied everything pure and true in the academic world, when they were the pillars of guilds. Now, they spilled their secrets for their oppressors like dogs returning a fetched ball.
The world had changed in the nearly three years she had sequestered herself in Dortam. Every day, it slipped further and further from the land Arianna had been born into. Now, it seemed to race toward a future that cared little for the past.
The line nearly cut into her flesh, she held it so tightly. She was no better than those she judged. She worked with a Dragon, harbored a Dragon; she’d let a Dragon imbibe from her. The line finally bit into the same hand Cvareh had, drawing blood. Her mind betrayed her, filling her with thoughts of the way he looked at her while he consumed her.
Arianna snarled at the memory, scaring it into the recesses of her awareness. She uncurled her fingers and watched the wound on her hand heal slowly. She was part Dragon, too, more than she would ever admit to anyone.
“Eva…” She touched her wrist and the tension faded from Arianna’s shoulders. “I’m headed back. I’m going back, finally. I will finish what we started.”
That was what separated her from those she watched fraternize with the Dragons below, from the Chimera who prided in being part Dragon. Arianna did not act for herself. She hadn’t taken on Dragon organs for pleasure or self-centered power. She didn’t help Cvareh for his own sake, or to use his boon for personal gains. She’d done it for her mission, for Loom, but most of all for her vengeance.
Arianna waited for darkness before moving. Three freighters remained docked after the sun set and she already had her eyes and suspicions on one being their best chance for getting to Ter.4.2. But there was one place that would have all the information. Before leaving, and just after docking, Arianna had watched the captains of each of the vessels make their way into a building across from where she perched. She saw them through the third floor windows as they talked with a portly man. This same stout man locked up his business only after the port had gone quiet and the last of the light had diminished from the sky.
She leapt off her ledge, the cord pulling taught and spool whirring as she dropped in free-fall. Kicking her legs in front of her to swing, Arianna set her second line flying toward a crane that loomed high above the docks. The cable clipped to itself, locking with magic. As soon as the new line was fastened, the first unwound and retreated back to its spool.
Changing lines and cabling with her winch-box was mindlessly simple. Her hands knew how to move, her magic operating on instinct. She soared through the night unhindered. No barrier, no watchmen, could keep her out.
The wind howled in her ears and her nose singed with the smell of the sea. She was weightless as she soared high above the port. She was well out of the glow of the lamplight below, and the creaking and clanging of vessels against their tethers with the shifting tides masked the sounds of her lines and winch-box.
Arianna kept her knees loose, bending and curling her body inward to help absorb shock and sound as she landed against the building’s exterior. She cast a cautionary eye across the docks. A few sailors and pilots milled about, attracted to the glow of smoking parlors and bars.
Letting out the line, she lowered herself to the third floor windows of the port authority. Her goggles enhanced her Dragon sight, rendering the darkness a mere annoyance rather than a hindrance. The windows opened at the halfway point, no doubt to let in cool sea breezes during warmer months. Simple locks, nothing that would pose a real problem…
She fished through one of the smaller bags on her belt. She could just break the glass and be done with it. But Ari didn’t want to do anything that could raise suspicion before the ship they were on was well out of port. Her tool looked almost like a ribbon of gold, flat and hard, it didn’t bend as she shoved it halfway through the window jamb.
Arianna shifted her weight on the line, allowing tension and physics to hold her in place more than magic. With her mental capacities freed, she applied them to the strip of gold. It wiggled to life, working its way into the room. At her command, it wrapped itself around the lever of the lock and pulled. The window clicked open, and Arianna slipped effortlessly inside.
The office was well lived in. The leather wing-backed chair was cracking in places of heavy use. The desk had dimples from where forearms had rested for years.
You could learn a lot about a person from their home, and offices were nothing if not second homes. The man was a creature of habit. He paced when he was nervous—judging by the threadbare tracks in the carpet—and he never missed a day. His records had been methodically checked every morning and night for the past year.
Arianna flipped through the port manifest, the record of every vessel, its contents, and its crew. The cargo ship she’d selected for them was named Holx III. She suspected that a ship named after the capital city of Ter.4 would be headed in that direction. She slowly flipped through the papers, careful to do so in such a way that she could return them exactly as she found them.
“Holx III, cargo… Textiles, safe enough,” she mused aloud. “Arrives and departs at night.” There wasn’t much time; she flipped the papers back in place.
By ship, it would take just under twelve days to travel to Ter.4.2. The Holx III was a simple freighter and would likely cruise around 27,800 peca an hour—or 27.8 veca an hour. Arianna breathed a sigh of relief when she saw it ran with a refined engine. Most of the regular runners were outfitted with engines that could run on magic or steam to help save on coal. There would always be room for another Chimera on board a magically-propelled vessel.
Her fingers paused over the ledgers she had been returning in order. Her eyes narrowed and Arianna skimmed the records, trying to put her finger on what her mind was telling her wasn’t quite right. She flipped the page, then the one after, and the one after that. That’s when she found it—or rather, didn’t find it. Not one vessel had headed for Ter.2.3, the main port of the Alchemists’ territory, in nearly a year.
Arianna hunted like a Dragon on a blood scent through the port authority’s records for evidence of even one vessel headed for Ter.2.3. Sure, it was a far voyage and likely to only be made once every few weeks, even months. But to have none, in or out? That made no sense.
It had been the Alchemists who developed the first Chimera. The Rivets were the ones who’d soused out the refining process in their steel mills and all the applications for gold. The Revolvers were close behind, eagerly finding further uses in their guns and explosives. It was the Harvesters who supplied them all with their base materials and the Ravens who moved the entire world—people and goods. Yes, the Five Guilds of Loom were a connected system, a chain in which every Guild formed a link.
So why was one being cut off?
Arianna’s hands rested on the file drawer as she closed her eyes in thought. The Revolvers needed Alchemical runes for their weaponry and refining. The Alchemists’ Guild hall was in the city of Keel, nestled in the center of The Skeleton Forest, where they needed weapons to fend off all manner of beast. Stopping all trade from the Revolvers would basically be a death sentence for a city that lived in constant fear of wolves, bears, and the endwig.
Cries of reverie from the street brought Arianna’s attention back to her purpose: get them out of Ter.5. She’d let the anomaly surrounding the trade routes remain just that, simmering in the back of her mind until she had some explanation for it.
The port authority safe provided a sufficient distraction, pulling her mind fully back into the present. It was complex enough to be a challenge, but not enough to annoy—ideal, really. She lifted some of the tariff and taxes funds. Not so much that it would be immediately noticed or prove detrimental to the running of the port, but a tidy amount sufficient to grease a captain’s gears enough that he’d take on three extra crew.
Locking the safe behind her, Arianna scanned the room, comparing it to her mental image of its appearance when she entered. One or two things showed small signs of having been moved, but only to eyes that were looking for inconsistencies. People only saw what they wanted, and there should be no cause for suspicion until their vessel was well out to sea.
She closed and locked the window, slipping back into the night through the front door. Come morning, the port authority would be none the wiser of their late night guest.
When she returned to the inn, there was talking on the other side of the door; Florence’s laughter gave her pause. Arianna had felt guilty the moment she’d proposed the notion of navigating through Ter.4 with Flor’s old comrades. The young woman’s mental collapse had been poison more potent than any Arianna had ever drank. So to hear laughter now… it fit a gear in the mechanics of her heart back into place.
Her expression fell at the resonance of Cvareh’s voice. “I can tell you that Dragons wear much less than even that on Nova.”
“What about modesty?” Florence asked.
“What about it?”
“Having everything so… on display all the time. Wouldn’t that make people nervous?” she ventured timidly.
“Why would it? If anything it displays our physical prowess and discourages duels.”
Arianna opened the door with a disapproving glare in Cvareh’s direction. He looked up at her, barely stopping short a dramatic roll of his eyes. Arianna’s fingers twitched for her daggers but remained at her side.
“You’re corrupting my pupil with your tales of Nova,” she seethed. Florence had a clever mind, too curious for her own good, and she always saw the best in people. Arianna knew that just a taste of Nova was likely to leave the girl wanting more, no matter how many times Arianna told her that Dragons were not to be mingled with.
“I think it’s fascinating.” Flor smiled.
And that was what kept her from sewing Cvareh’s mouth shut. He had begun to endear himself to Florence. No matter how much Arianna hated him, she wanted Florence to smile even more. So she would do as she’d always done with Florence. She’d linger in the shadows, hovering in a place not even the girl could see her. She’d give her pupil the freedom to spread her wings, fly, be curious and inquire, experience the thrill of feeling on her own. Florence would work with the fear of falling because Arianna believed that fear was necessary to grow, but she’d always be hovering nearby, ready to pick up the girl if necessary.
“If architecture and fashion are corruption, perhaps Loom could use a bit more corrupting.” Cvareh’s mouth curled upward and his lips spread.
The expression was strange. He wasn’t baring his teeth at her. Their points remained hidden behind his bottom lip. It was…a smile. A Dragon smile. It unnerved her endlessly.
“We need to move,” Arianna announced. “First, Flor, I need the grease pencil.”
“You’re going to do it?” Florence blinked.
“I’m out of options. Our prior disguises aren’t going to work where we’re going.”
Florence was clearly curious, but she produced the grease pencil kit from her bag. Arianna sat at the stool, passing the tin to Flor to hold like a mirror. Florence stood patiently while her mentor collected herself. The mark would wash off; it was not a tattoo. But every time she put it on her cheek, it felt like forfeit.
Arianna shifted her feet, her coat draping over her thighs. She swallowed the lump in her throat, pulling her cheek taut with her left hand and steadying her right. Her hand was skilled from thousands of hours of schematic creation, and it moved smoothly over her ashen colored skin as she penciled in the symbol of the Rivets.
Coat and harness resumed, she was again the White Wraith: more than Fenthri, more than Chimera, more than Dragon. She cast aside ethical whims and personal grudges. She was the extension of her benefactors’ will, and she would work for them even after they were long dead.