The bells had fallen silent. Everyone in the Blue Keep knew what was coming. The walls were manned. The airship was ready to take flight. All that was left was the waiting.
And for Shae, a visit to Aro Lanser, to try to convince him to leave.
Even from the doorway, Shae could see that the workshop full of strange metal parts and pieces was more of a mess than it had been before. Closing the door behind her, she made her way toward the table he’d been working at before. Alumen parts were everywhere.
“Aro?”
She heard a clang from farther in the back, a rattle of dropped metal. “That you, Shaesara?”
Shae weaved her way between piles of strewn debris, heading toward the lumicker’s voice. “It’s me. Did you hear the bells?”
Around a corner, she spied him. He was on his knees, sifting through parts on a lower shelf. He looked tired and sweaty, but he was completely absorbed in his work.
“Did you hear the bells?” she repeated.
Getting close now, she could see he had a tiny metal gear in his fingers, and he was carefully comparing it to other gears of similar size. “Hmm?”
“The bells, Aro. Did you hear them?”
“Oh. Of course. Yes. Distracting.”
“It’s an army of alumen,” Shae said. “No one has seen anything like it.”
It appeared that he’d found the part he wanted. He grinned over at her in victory. “So I’ve heard—the army, your plans … Think you could help an old man up?”
Shae took hold of his hand and helped haul him to his feet. He staggered for a moment but caught himself on the shelf. It rattled in response. His eyes were even more sunken than she’d thought. “Have you even slept since we got here?” she asked.
For all his age, he suddenly looked sheepish, like a child caught out of line. “Well, I’ve just been working, and—”
“Aro—”
“Now, now, don’t be lecturing your elders.” He abruptly cheered up and gave her a friendly wink. “I may not have slept, but come see what I’ve done.”
The lumicker led her back to his work table, talking as he did so. “You know, I’ve taken countless crystals out of them over the years. Pulled them apart bit by bit. So you’d think putting it all back together wouldn’t be hard. But it really is. Seems the soulglass needs a specific system around it. It’s like a person, I suppose. Take away an arm or a leg, for instance, and a person can live just fine. But take away vital organs, and they can’t.”
Shae thought back to what she’d seen him working on when she’d first visited the shop. “So that’s why you started with a head?”
He paused to quickly rummage through an assortment of boxes with wires sticking out of them. After a moment, he picked one out before continuing on. “Exactly. I thought I’d just route power from the crystal to the head. But it wasn’t that simple.” They reached his work table with its scattered parts and tools. He set the newly scavenged pieces down, and he organized them in a fashion that, from Shae’s perspective, had no organization. There was a cloth in the middle of it all. He lifted it, exposing the soulglass that she’d pickpocketed from Marek. The smoke inside the crystal seemed to coil up like a threatened snake. “See, the soulglass is the heart of the aluman. It’s what gives it life. I’ve figured out that the better thing to do is to start with that and move outward.”
“Only add to it what it needs to work.”
“Right,” he said. “Well, only add what we need to work.”
“So, like, a way to hear.”
“And, hopefully, a way to communicate.”
Among the parts on his table was one of the metal heads. It had no jaw that she could see. Neither had Asryth, though the stories were that she’d been able to talk before she’d been attacked and nearly destroyed. “Wait. How do they speak?”
Aro’s mustache went crooked in a familiar grin; then he pushed through his parts before he found a silver box the size of his hand. It had a black circle on one side. “Lumickers call it a ‘speaker,’” he said. “Not a terribly creative name, I know.”
He handed it to her. The circle, she saw, was a rubber ring. And the round material it framed could flex and move. “This makes sound?”
“That particular one is broken. But yes.”
Shae shook her head and laughed at her own expense. “I don’t understand how any of this works.”
He shrugged. “Can’t say we really understand, either. We know the what, but not the how—if you catch my meaning.”
“I do.” It was fascinating. But it also wasn’t why she’d come. She set the strange object down. “Listen, Aro, the attack that’s coming—”
“Ah, yes,” he said. “Is it true that you and Kayden will take to the airship?”
“Kayden wants to bomb the mountain slopes and send the snows down on them.”
The lumicker nodded, then smoothed his mustache with his fingers. “It’s a good plan. He’s a smart man, that lad.”
“So, what will you do?”
He spread his hands over the table as if the answer was obvious enough. “Make this work.”
“They’ll be here soon, Aro.”
“I know. But I’m close. I just need a little more time.” He sat down at his stool and started to fit the gears he’d brought with a bundle of them that was already there. “I’m sure this will work. And if Kayden’s avalanche fails, if the lumick defenses here fail, this might be all the chance we have.”
“Do you think they’ll fail?”
“Do I think what will fail?” he asked over his shoulder.
“The defenses.”
He paused, seemed to chew on the thought. “Hard to say. As you said, no one has seen this before.”
“If they fail, can you fix them?”
“While we’re being attacked?” He shook his head. “No. If they fail … well, everyone here will die.”
“That’s what we thought too,” she said. “And that’s exactly why you need to come with us.”
He stopped what he was doing and looked up. “Come with you where?”
“On the airship,” Shae said. It was her turn to gesture to the table littered with parts. “You bring what you need. Finish it there.”
“My tools are here.”
“And they can be there. Listen. If the worst happens, you’re no good here. But on the airship … well, there might be more time.”
Aro seemed ready to instinctively object; then he saw how serious she looked and thought about it for a moment. “I suppose I’ve got most of the pieces ready to go. I could finish gathering them up. Haul it up and meet you there.”
“Quickly. There isn’t much time.”
“Of course. It won’t take long.”
“Good.” Shae smiled, genuinely relieved that Aro would be with them. “I’ll try to send someone to help.”
“No need. Though, if you could, I’d appreciate it if you carried something ahead for me.”
When Shae agreed, he stood and pulled off his work apron. Then he weaved his way through the shelves to the door of the workshop. His familiar long coat and his wide-brimmed hat were there, as was the holster for his boltgun. He quickly put them all on and opened the door.
It was bitter cold outside the workshop, and getting colder by the minute as the sun set.
Aro walked to his lumicker’s wagon. But instead of going to the door in back, he went to its side. There, he crouched down and reached for the belly of the wagon, the long stretch of wood between the large wheels. As she watched, his fingers found latches that she could not see. He moved them, and a long panel fell open.
The thing inside looked like a boltgun—the same grip, the same shining silver tube—but it was three or four times as long as the one he had in his holster. Aro carefully pulled it out and checked that it was in good working order. A thin leather strap hung down between its grip and the end of its barrel. When he was done, he held the strap open for her shoulder. “If you don’t mind carrying this to the airship, I’d be obliged.” He smiled as she took it up. “If things start before I get there, do use him well.”
“Him?”
The lumicker shrugged, once again looking a little sheepish. “I named him.”
“Do I dare ask?”
He grinned. “Perle’s Eyes.”
“Pearl Eyes?”
“No. Perle’s Eyes. As in, Someday-I-Will-Put-A-Bolt- Between-Rumin-Perle’s-Eyes.”