"Pardon me, General --"
"Captain."
"Pardon me, Captain, but I understood we were brought here to assist in the manufacture of a flying machine."
"Just so."
The boat-wright squinted over his tiny round spectacles. "Then why am I here? Why is this boat here?" The small man leaned close and ran his hand across the boat's rail. "Why, this is the
Luckless Jenny!
I refinished her myself, ten years ago."
Mug spoke up, loud and strident. "The
Luckless Jenny?
Oh, no. When were you going to mention that tidbit, General?"
"It's just a bloody name," growled the Captain. "Rename it. Anything you wish."
"You most certainly will not!" said the boat-wright, aghast.
"We most certainly will," replied Mug.
"Quiet, all of you," said Meralda. "There is no time for any of this. There are children up there, dying by inches. Now, gather around. Here is what I need."
She stabbed at the drawings laid out on her work-bench with her pencil. The carpenters and boat builder joined her, squinting and frowning. Meralda began to speak.
Mug wilted. "Captain," he said, softly, so Meralda wouldn't hear.
"Houseplant?"
"She's going to need wire. Copper wire. Every bit you can find. Start tearing down telegraph wires,
if you have to. But get as much as you can here as fast as you can."
The Captain scowled. "She didn't ask for wire."
"She's an optimist. Thinks her coils will fire up and work the first time she tries them."
"You believe otherwise?"
Mug rolled sixteen of his eyes.
"My Mistress sometimes fails to take into account the inherent cussedness of nature," he said. "These flying coils are something new. Have you ever seen any bright new idea come to life without a hitch? Ever?"
The Captain regarded the carpenters and boat builder. They were hovering over Meralda's drawing now, pointing and talking at once, but no longer frowning.
"The Telegraph Office will have a fit," he said. Then he brightened. "But half the lines are down anyway. I can have the lads roll up downed lines, and no one the wiser." He winked at Mug, who returned the wink in six shades of red.
"Back in a bit," he said, aloud. "Mage, send a runner if you need me."
Meralda waved, engrossed in her discussions.
Mug fixed three eyes on the nearest clock, and watched its hands go round and round.
By five o'clock in the afternoon, the carpenters had added what looked like stubby wings to both sides of the boat.
By seven, the wings supported a pair of long iron rods, and each was being painstakingly wrapped with fine copper wire while Meralda soldered and muttered at her workbench.
Just after ten, Meralda tested her flying coils for the first time, applying only a fraction of the electrical and arcane currents that would -- that should -- send them aloft. The rightmost flying coil immediately burst into flames, melting the copper wire in half a dozen places. When Meralda later remarked on how much extra copper wire she found lying about the Laboratory, Mug and the Captain merely exchanged quick grins.
By midnight, the carpenters were sleeping in shifts, the boat-wright was sealing the wire-wrapped cylinders with
a foul-smelling shellac, and Meralda was more than halfway through her third pot of strong black coffee.
There was a brief disturbance when Randall's Midnight Sweeper came shambling out of the shelves and
charged into the assembled carpenters, determined to sweep up the sawdust heaped on the floor
and heedless of the booted feet standing in the way.
Meralda just glared at the Sweeper until he bent in a stiff mechanical bow and withdrew, his glowing red eyes finally vanishing into the dark at the back of the shelves.
"I still don't understand how this boat is supposed to fly," said the Captain, as the carpenters returned to work.
"Mug, explain the coils --"
"No. Never mind. If you say it will fly it will fly. I don't have to understand it. I just have to know enough to pilot it."
Meralda nearly choked on her coffee.
"You? Pilot the
Jenny?
"
"And why not? I'm a Captain of the Royal Guard. This is a Guard rescue effort. Who else did you think would be flying this daft contraption?"
The boat-wright, whose name had been determined to be Mr. Pithnotty, assumed an injured expression.
"The
Jenny
is hardly a contraption, Captain," he said. "Flying or not. And I should be the one to pilot it. I am the only experienced boat handler here, you know."
Meralda wiped coffee from her chin.
"And I am the only Mage," she said. "Captain. Mr. Pithnotty. Do either of you know the relationship between electrical current, heat, and arcane fluid flow?"
The boat builder shrugged. The Captain snorted.
"I don't need to know the science," he said. "Just tell me how to steer it. We can't go risking Mages when there are Captains a few years from retirement about, Meralda. You're worth ten of me and you know it."
"Finally, something the good Captain and I agree upon," muttered Mug.
Meralda glared and shook her head. "Captain. Mr. Pithnotty. I am touched by your bravery and your concern, but this is my craft, and I will pilot it, or it will never go aloft."
"We can burn that bridge when we reach it," said the Captain. He glared at the goblin-clock which peeked out from behind a stack of papers on Meralda's cluttered desk. "Which we'd better reach soon, if we're to argue about this at all."
Meralda nodded. "I'm an hour from connecting the holdstones and latching the batteries." She turned suddenly. "Mr. Pithnotty. I'll need a chair of some kind. With arms."
"And a strap!" cried Mug.
"And a strap." Meralda considered her drawings. "In fact, we'll need four other seats as well."
The boat-wright frowned. "She's a row-boat and not a frigate, beggin' your pardon, Mage Ovis. Chairs will make her sit too high, turn over too easy."
"She's not going in the water," said Mug, waving his leaves. "Airship, remember?"
Grumbling, the boat maker consulted the carpenters, and Meralda returned to her workbench while high-backed oak chairs worked with Tirlin's lion-and-griffon crest were taken from the Great Hall and secured to the
Jenny's
narrow hull.
Meralda pulled one workman away, and helped him build a wooden box at the rear of the
Jenny.
Meralda ran a pair of thick rubber-coated cables through two openings in the lid, and began to fill the box with heavy glass batteries, which sizzled and hissed as she moved them.
Forty-five batteries, thought Meralda. That's all I have. If my estimates are correct, they will give me ten hours of flight time. Perhaps eleven. But certainly no more.
"Mistress, what of the holdstones?" asked Mug.
"They'll go at the fore, beneath the pilot's chair." Meralda pushed hair out of her eyes. "I've got two dozen charged here, and I've sent to the Airship Guild for another two dozen."
"That's ten hours in the sky. If everything works according to plan."
"Yes."
"Mage," said the Captain. "Hold on a moment. If the
Sammi
has been drifting with the storm, she's probably made thirty knots or better for the last twelve hours. Which puts her three hundred and sixty miles away, give or take. For you to catch up before it's too late, the
Jenny
here will need to make better than a hundred knots an hour."
"Much better," said Meralda. "A hundred and twenty-five knots, at the least."
Mug did not speak.
"Meralda, is that even possible? The fastest airship can't do more than thirty knots, I don't care what those blowhards at the Guild claim."
"Airships move with fans. My coils manipulate gravity itself. We'll be falling forward, Captain, accelerating at will in level flight. My main concern is not achieving a hundred and twenty-five knots, but holding the craft to that."
"Houseplant. What did she just say?"
Mug stirred his leaves. "When you drop something, say a hastily-rebuilt rowboat with a history of tragic demise, it goes faster and faster each second it falls."
The Captain frowned. "Really?"
"Really. So picture the
Jenny
falling sideways. In just a few minutes, she'll be going so fast the wind will start tearing things off."
"Mug. Stop. I can control the speed. We won't always be accelerating. But you do have a point. We'll need a windscreen or some sort. Perhaps a thick window-pane, fixed here, in front of the pilot's seat."
"With respect, Mistress, on paper you can control the speed. Which is why some brave young Army airship pilot should fly this thing."
Meralda muttered under her breath as she gathered an armful of holdstones from her workbench and hurried toward the
Jenny.
"Going to be impossible to keep her on the ground," whispered Mug, to the Captain.
"Difficult," replied the Captain. "Not impossible."
"Two of the clock," sang the goblin-clock on Meralda's desk. "Two o'clock and all is well."
"That leaves her six hours," said Mug. The clock began to sing again, but slinked away instead at Mug's dozen-eyed glare.
By four in the morning, the
Jenny
was done.
Done, and her flying coils removed, and hull and coils wrestled out of the Palace and into a small, tidy courtyard surrounded on three sides by soaring Palace walls. The remaining side of the courtyard faced the street, which was empty and dark save for a single leaning, sputtering gas-lamp.
The carpenters and Mr. Pithnotty hammered and spoke. Within moments, Meralda knew she'd be either airborne, or looking very foolish, or both.
I could be making history, she thought. If I’d only had more time.
"Still time to call this off, Mistress," said Mug, from his bird-cage. "No one would blame you, not the least tiny bit."
I wish I had a hairbrush. If I live through this, I'm going to keep a hairbrush handy, in case I need to make history unexpectedly again.
She turned and faced the workmen. The Captain helped them hammer the coils back into place, and then they stepped back, mopping sweat and whispering to each other.
A carriage clopped by on the street outside, its driver whistling tunelessly. From within the carriage came laughter.
The carriage passed. The courtyard fell silent, and Meralda grew acutely aware of the many stares directed toward her.
"Thank you," said Meralda, through lips gone suddenly dry. "However this turns out, you've proved yourselves heroes. There's no finer crew of craftsmen in all the Realms."
Mr. Pithnotty mopped sweat from his red face. "You can't just climb aboard and set sail, begging your pardon. You've got to christen her first, you know. Bad luck if you don't. Bad luck indeed."
"I christen thee the
Lucky Jenny,
" said Mug, from his cage. "May your voyages be easy and your landings soft."
"That's hardly proper!" began Mr. Pithnotty.
"It shall have to suffice. We have four hours." Meralda put Mug's cage gently on the ground. "This is just a brief test of the coils and controls," she said. "I won't take her more than a few feet off the ground. Still, it's best if you wait here, with the Captain."
"Much as I'd prefer that, Mistress, I should be aboard with you," said Mug. "I can keep watch on the coils, the regulators, the batteries, the holdstones, and the gauges at the same time. Unless you've got a set of extra eyes in your pocket, I don't think you can do all that, can you?"
"This could be dangerous, Mug."
"All the more reason I should go. Just a brief test of the controls, you said. A few feet off the ground, you said. Did I misunderstand?"
Meralda shrugged and lifted Mug's cage over the
Jenny's
rail, resting it behind the slanted glass wind-screen. Then she clambered aboard herself.
The Captain motioned the workmen back.
"Keep her knee high," he said. "This is no time for heroics."
Meralda pulled a pair of leather goggles out of her pocket and pulled them down over her eyes. She pushed her hat down firmly on her head, and tightened the chin-strap she'd added as the workmen struggled to get the hull through the doors.
"Stand clear," she said.
I wish I could think of something momentous to say.
"Here we go."
She threw a pair of large knife switches. Sparks hissed and flew.
The
Jenny
began to hum.
Mug's many eyes spread out, turning themselves on the
Jenny's
mechanisms and bank of dials and gauges.
"Looks good, Mistress," he said. "Currents are just where you predicted."
Meralda swallowed hard and pushed a lever half an inch forward.
The coils buzzed like angry bees, and the
Jenny
leaped skyward, falling in reverse.
Mug shouted numbers. Meralda clamped her jaw shut against the scream that very nearly escaped. She fought to keep her hand steady, to ignore the awful sensation that she'd fallen from a high place, and was still falling, despite rising up and up and up...
"Mistress!" shrieked Mug. "A hundred feet! And rising!"
Falling, falling, falling...
Meralda blinked behind her goggles, opened her eyes, and relaxed her grip on the ascender lever.
The dials showing current to the lifting coils fell. The
Jenny
slowed, still rising, but not at a breakneck pace.
Meralda let out her breath and gently let the driving coils have their first taste of arcane current flow.
The
Jenny
dove forward, launching herself at the horizon as a rush of cold wet air flew past.
Meralda laughed. The wind tore her hat away, and the strap caught at her neck. Her hair was loosed from its bun and her coat flapped behind her like a cape and though her body felt as if it were now falling forward, Meralda let out a wordless shriek that was half terror and half sheer delight.
"Mistress!" shouted Mug. "Have you taken leave of your senses?"
Meralda eased the
Jenny
into a wide, gentle curve.
"We're flying, Mug! We've done it!"