In this glimpse of the past the mysterious Verandi arrive at the Sheer and Alecto is not sure what to make of them.

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The Men With Strange Shadows

Alecto

The counterweight rose fast—too fast. “Look out below!” Alecto called. He scrambled for the safety switch but the foreman pulled him back.

“My Lord! It’s too dangerous!”

“Get off,” Alecto snapped, shaking himself free. He ran, ignoring the shouts all around him.

The cable rattled as the lift plunged down, reaching speeds of near-freefall. Iron screamed. Far below, as Alecto sped across the avenue, he could hear the answering cries of the citizens who were clawing to get away from the runaway elevator.

He sprinted in between the whirling gears at the top of the shaft. Sparks flew off the metal. The automaton he’d built to regulate the counterweight rocked back and forth on its pedestal. Without its guiding hands the crank handle spun out of control. There was no panic in that painted face, but its music box ran in quadruple time as it moved, high-pitched and frantic.

Alecto vaulted over it, no time to spare. He grabbed the toothed safety switch, counted once, and slammed it home.

Corresponding locks all down the shaft likewise shunted into place. Screeching like an oncoming train the heavy lift sheared off the safety notches for several feet before a third bar brought it to an abrupt stop. The entire structure swayed in its bracings. Clanging traveled up the iron and vibrated through Alecto’s arms and teeth. He leaned against the switch, gasping.

“Lord Baron!”

Sore and slightly numb, he remembered to let go and stand tall. By the time that the foreman and his engineers appeared around the corner, Alecto was already inspecting the automaton’s failsafe.

“My Lord—thank the stars you’re all right.” The foreman took off his cap and mopped his brow. “All those exposed workings, I thought perhaps…”

Alecto did not look at him. Everything hurt. His back and shoulders burned, and his chest ached from the exertion. “Get me my tools,” he said in as even a tone as he could manage.

“Yes, my Lord.”

“And foreman?”

“My Lord?”

Alecto heaved a sigh that did nothing to ease the pain. He threw the other man a look that would have melted cold glass. “Do not disobey me again.”

“Understood.”

Alecto sent men down to the Viridian Trespass to take the lift off its tracks so that repairs could be made to the shaft. Engineers hooked themselves into the bracings and swung out across the open air between the towers, one line of cable rope the only thing that separated them from a fatal mistake. Even from his position at the top Alecto could see them adjusting the counterweight, adding to it, making notes as they did so. He received his tools within short order and got to work himself.

The district of Sunsgate, the highest in the Sheer, spread out all around him. Broad avenues paved with pale granite and lined with marble columns branched off in every direction. Enormous mansions stood tall and regal above street. Golden domes and whitewashed facades threw back the glittering summer light. Delicate bridges arced up and over, connecting each of the rock towers. Spiral staircases and wide steps led down into the districts of Copperlight and Hadria’s Kiss, turning from there towards Whiteport, the healing sanctuary of Mur Physik, and Octavian’s ongoing opera house.

A lane of lifts had seemed like a good idea at the time. Anyone who lived farther up the city would need to be able to receive goods and supplies that were purchased at the Pride or at Skyman’s Wharf. The mechanics of creating those lifts, however, was proving to be a challenge.

“Fracking piece of junk,” Alecto cursed under his breath. “It should be simple; lift box weight versus counterweight. Why, even Octavian could do it, empty-headed child that he is.” He changed out a few gears, tinkering until he could fit a new escapement in place of the old one. Time ticked away as he worked, morning drawing into afternoon, afternoon slipping into evening.

The long fingers of night spread themselves across the city, shading shops and apartments from the brilliant fire of the sunset. Behind each tower, deeper in the Sheer, the shadows stretched away. They consumed the districts one by one until only the factories, the bathhouses, the wharf, and the lucky flats that lined the cliff’s edge faced the dying light.

Soft, precise footsteps alerted Alecto that he had an approaching visitor. “Go away,” Alecto said, not bothering to turn around. “Can’t you see that I’m busy?”

The footsteps stopped. Their owner stood still and said nothing.

Alecto rose and dusted off his hands. He put away his tools with care, taking his time. Whoever it was could wait. Already it was almost too dark to see by, even here in Sunsgate. Lamplight just wasn’t the same and so he left a string around the cylinder he had been installing, to mark his place for the morning. He glanced back over his shoulder and paused, one hand halfway to his toolchest. Close by, uncomfortably close in fact, stood a strange man that Alecto had never seen before.

The man cut a lithe figure between the twin cloaks of sunset and evening. Gold bangles winked on his wrists, appearing and disappearing inside the wide sleeves of his carmine tunic. More jewelry, more than Alecto had ever seen on another man, swung from the stranger’s ears and glittered around his neck. A deep V in the front of his tunic revealed a robust sculpture of muscle. Windswept, raven-dark hair fell into his eyes as he bowed deeply. As he did so he flashed a sly, sharp smile. His teeth, all perfect, were very white against his burnished skin.

“Be off with you,” Alecto said, “or speak your piece. I don’t trade with Verandi gypsies.” He tried to step past but the stranger stepped to block his way.

“Lord Baron,” the man said, opening his hands. “I am Don Arren Capsair.” He purred through his words, not maliciously or with any ill intent that Alecto could hear, but as though each syllable was drawn in from a long way off. A thick accent impeded him not at all, and he continued, pretending not to notice the Baron’s deepening frown. “I come on business.”

Despite himself Alecto found that he was interested. Many proposals came across his desk each day from individual traders and merchants, all people who wanted to contribute something to the Sheer. He had never yet denied a one. “I’m listening,” he said carefully. In the distance by the fountain he could see more of Capsair’s people, men and women with bright clothes, olive skin, and hard eyes.

The Don gave another little bow. He was handsome and confident, standing at ease with one hip cocked. Rings of gold and silver caught the long dying light like flashes of fire as he gestured. “Baron Marquette is building a city, they say. He is taming the wild lands at the edge of the sea. But he cannot do it alone.” Capsair’s hand moved fast, no more than a blur as he tossed something small into the air.

Alecto caught it. He opened his hands. Cold and rough, the black lump of stone sat heavy in his palm. “But this is—”

“I have coal to sell.” Capsair grinned; the high ground was his.

“Where did you get this?” Alecto gasped. He turned the sample over and over. “How much is there in the seam?”

Capsair waved his hand as though it was nothing. “There is a peninsula to the southeast of your city. My people have settled there. We found this and more as we built the foundations of our homes, digging down into the earth.”

“Name your price.” Alecto walked with him until he could hold the coal up to the light. His fingertips caressed the almost-imperceptible grain. The quality was more than he had dared to hope for.

“None, my Lord.”

Alecto gaped. “I beg your pardon?”

Capsair set his hands on his hips and gestured to the silent group that had accompanied him. He moved as though everything he touched belonged to him, but when he stopped he was so very still that unless Alecto was looking right at him he couldn’t be sure that Capsair was there at all. “My people want to work. They want a home without wheels or keel. Let us build. Give us the land and the work to earn it; you will not be disappointed, I think.”

“You’ll need more men,” Alecto said, glancing at the Don’s entourage. It seemed so small. “Unless you each do the work of ten.” Alecto paused to think. Every way he looked at it, he couldn’t lose. Free coal, local labor. “What’s the catch?” he asked.

“Send your own as you will,” Capsair laughed, showing all of his teeth. “But the land would be ours.” In the dusk behind him, his shadow rippled across the ground. It moved even though he was standing still. Back and forth, betraying his eagerness.

It was too good a deal. Alecto stuck out his hand and the shadow of the arm that reached to grasp his was very thin indeed. He ignored it. “Then we’re agreed. How soon can you start to dig?” To hell with superstition; coal was coal.

Capsair shook his hand with a firm, unyielding grip. “Send your equipment to the wharf, my ships can take it from there.” He waved to the open air over the valley.

In the distance, glowing as they crossed the sinking molten crescent of the sun, a fleet of flying caravels sailed silently into port. Alecto swallowed the sour taste of old rivalry. Each easy gust billowed the canvas and pushed them forward. Beautiful and perfect, it seemed that Don Sornurr’s sailing ship had been successful after all.

The Baron turned away from the reminder that he had failed at the task that had brought him here. He shut off the notion that there was still something that he could not do, that he did not know how to do. “Come to the Reach,” he said instead, turning his attention back to Capsair. “Let’s talk business.”