Eagles and Swans

Ruthenia stood in an alley behind the train station with a pistol barrel between her eyes.

Its wielder: a boy, barely thirteen, mousy brown hair matted over his brow and rosy cheeks contorted in a grimace. The noxious scent of smoke hung upon the after-rain air as they stared each other down in a narrow beam of sunlight, neither one daring to budge.

“What do you want?” Ruthenia said, clenching her jaw. Every sound was clouded by the roar of blood in her ears, but she could still feel the rumbling of the train beneath her feet, the steam hissing, stirring birds into flight overhead, breaking the light in the alley. Her hand, slippery with sweat, twitched towards the pouch on her belt. “I have twenty argents.”

“Give it to me,” he growled, thrusting out a hand, but his voice broke and she saw that he was shaking almost as much as she.

While he made a poor attempt at an intimidating scowl, she forced herself to study the gun between her eyes. It was wood and brass, and she realised she knew its make—an Ordiva of some sort: Cerdolian, cheap, flawed. The engineering on this particular piece was amateurish, the metal warped and the pieces misaligned.

Ruthenia cast her gaze about. For something. A gutter, hanging from the eaves, just out of reach.

“That’s brass,” she said, fumbling with the crook of her umbrella which hung loosely in her hand. She took a step back, then a second. He followed, one step, then two. “You could’ve spent those aurs on a month of meals.”

“I...don’t buy my guns,” he replied, eyes flicking to the sides before he bared his teeth again. “I said give me your pouch!”

Ruthenia came to a stop beneath the overhang of the roof. “Did you get tangled up with a gang?” She let her umbrella dangle from her fingers. “I know where you’re headed. It’s not worth selling yourself to them. Find yourself a job and do something good.”

“Find a job! The kings won’t let me find a job!” he snarled, jabbing the weapon at her.

In a single sharp motion, so quick it was a whole second before the boy finally looked, Ruthenia flung her umbrella up in the air, its crook catching on the edge of the gutter. Then she grabbed the ferrule and yanked down, hard.

Rusty metal groaned. Metal brackets snapped one by one. With a creak the entire gutter tilted, and a cascade of rainwater tumbled down upon them both, leaves and all. The boy yelped and blocked the shower with his gun hand, failing to prevent any part of him but his face from being drenched.

He roared a straggly roar, and she lunged for his gun arm, twisting it. With a shriek he pulled the trigger—but it did not fire, merely clicked as the spark attempted and failed to light the damp gunpowder.

Finally Ruthenia grinned. She snatched the barrel and wrenched the Ordiva out of his hand, flicking it, clattering, to the road.

It took a moment for the sound to register. The boy's eyes went wide. And then she thrust him against the wall, a palm to his chest.

“Sure, the New Town's a dump,” she answered, pinning him to the wall with her forearm against his neck. He wheezed. “But that doesn’t mean you should take any old gun the gangs give you.”

“D-don’t report me,” he whimpered.

“To the police?” She shook her head, finally releasing the boy to dust her arm against her shirt. “I don't care for that. Just put that gun away if you don't know what you're doing with it.”

---

“Ever so timely, as usual, Ruthenia.”

By the time Ruthenia shot around the corner into the alleyway enclosed by the bank, the bakery and the train station fence, the tremors were finally beginning to desert her. The source of the call—a young man with pitch-black hair falling over his eyes—stood watching like a raven, his dark coat almost invisible within the shadow of the building.

“Den,” she hailed him. “I got caught up in some strange business on the way here.”

“An aggressive soap salesman?”

“Kid with a gun,” she replied with a glance skyward. “I could’ve died, or lost my money pouch.”

“Children of the poor are everywhere these days,” sighed Den. “The kings could do better for these children. They should, or they’ll bite back.”

“You think so?”

He shrugged. “Don't take my word for it, it's just what I've heard. Whisperings."

Ruthenia rolled her eyes. "It's been nothing but whisperings for half a decade now."

Wood clattered, making them both turn around. “Ruthenia!” a bright voice cut through the air from the haphazard stack of crates, a lid sliding, and Ruthenia had just those seconds to recognise the voice before her brown-haired friend clambered from behind it and leapt onto the paving, dashing towards her with a big grin on his face.

"Hyder!" Ruthenia cried back. Gordo’s head appeared where Hyder’s had been, beaming widely.

Hyder tackled her with a hug and then released her almost as vigorously. “What’s the hurry?” she laughed.

“I missed you,” he said. Then his eyes widened. “Is it ready? The key!”

“Right here,” she replied with a smile, fishing about in her pocket.

“Let me see it.” The hiss had come from inside their makeshift bathroom stall, jury-rigged from crate lids and metal scraps. Ruthenia felt her stomach clench. Tante didn't seem in the mood for pleasantries. “You’ve kept us long enough.”

“I've taken as long as it needs,” she snapped back at the voice behind the crates. “Here.” She slid the fishbone key out of her pocket and raised it on her palm. The others went quiet.

“Shiny,” murmured Hyder. He snatched it and held it up to his eye.

“I wanna see it,” added Gordo, extending a meaty hand in his direction.

While Hyder and Gordo snatched the key back and forth from each other, Tante finally deigned to emerge from the shadows. He stalked into their midst, and did not waste a moment acknowledging anyone else's presence.

“Let me have a look,” he muttered, swiping it out of Hyder's hand to a loud protest. The straw-haired knifeman twisted it about in the light. “This is what we’ve been waiting for? Is that all?”

“It's a key, what did you think it'd look like?” she muttered.

“Give it back here, Tante," Hyder said immediately. "I’ll be done as quick as possible, and then we'll have lunch.”

It took a while in their frantic bickering for anyone to realise that Hyder had decided to move ahead with the plan. One by one they turned, only to find him making odd tugging and pulling gestures around his head, as if to enwrap an invisible piece of cloth around it.  Pieces of his face shimmered and faded to be replaced by another. Shaggy brown hair was obscured by waves of combed blond; expressive grey eyes turned narrow and green.

All at once, he was no longer Hyder: he was the Arcane King’s younger brother, Aleigh Luzerno.

“Well, someone’s studied the portraits well,” remarked Den, walking a circle around their friend as he Masked his rags into a palace waistcoat. Ruthenia smiled. The resemblance was perfect, right down to the supercilious squint of his eye.

The Masker returned a smirky grin, one that looked decidedly strange on his new face. “Do you like it?” he answered, putting on the snooty accent that all the golden-haired Arcanes had. He rolled the Arcane Prince’s eyes and stuck his tongue out. Everyone was soon bent double laughing.

“These Arcanes sure do dress themselves nicely,” chortled Gordo, tilting left and right to study his friend’s new countenance.

“That’s what makes them Arcanes, innit—velvet, frills, and underwear on too tight!” answered Hyder. But it was the Arcane Prince saying these words now, for all they cared, and everyone was soon laughing and slapping the boy on his back.

The uproar faded as the Masker began a final verbal run-through of the procedure with Den, fiddling with the fishbone key as he went. Ruthenia smiled as the metal pins slid in and out. It would not function as intended here, no. But slide it into a lock, and it would work magic.

Den clapped Hyder on the back. “Put on your best show,” he said. As the Masker departed onto the street, Ruthenia sniggered, trying to imagine what the Helika Morning Herald would come up with this time.

---

Arcane Prince Flirts with Toileting Man: A likely case of out-of-body experience, say experts

Second page, Helika Morning Herald, 14th July 491.

This morning, Arcane Prince Aleigh was reported to have broken into a toilet cubicle in Helika Station and made advances towards the toilet-goer inside.

The victim, Feldon Jayle, was in the middle of his essential activities when he was alarmed to see the door unlock by itself—moments before the Arcane Prince allegedly entered and began to engage in suggestive speech.

‘He came in and started asking me if I wanted to “have fun back in the palace”—I didn’t know what to do,’ describes Jayle, 21, nervous from the experience.

Upon questioning later that afternoon, His Highness denied rather vehemently having performed either of these acts. The rest of his family, as well as His Majesty, King Hazen of the Ordinary, also readily backed him up, claiming he was ‘at an advisory board meeting’ and did not leave his seat at all during the time of this alleged happening.

Psychology experts have suggested that this is an instance of an out-of-body experience, during which the soul leaves the body in the person’s semi-unconscious state, and moves about independent of it. The person’s mind would register such an activity as a daydream.

More investigation will be carried out at a later date. The royal family has requested that the rest of the case be kept private. 

Clang went her wrench, spinning across the ground and banging against another plate.

Ruthenia was laughing so hard she was going dizzy. She wiped an imaginary tear from her eye, and continued to bang a fist on her thigh, gasping for breath between loud guffaws.

The giggles continued to come intermittently as she set back to work on the train engine in the little work shed that was her home. The sky shone blue through the two windows, reflected in the glass dial coverings. She laughed as she drank out of her metal flask.

Ruthenia made good enough speed that school had only just begun by the time she’d finished work. Even with tunnel winds in her favour today, the trip would take her twenty minutes. But twenty minutes wasn’t late, to her. Not particularly.

With a sigh, she tossed her screwdriver into the toolbox, and snatched up her bag and umbrella from the rack by the door, stretching her arms with a yawn. She pulled on her shoes and stepped out onto the patio to drink in the spring breeze.

"Ruth!"

She gritted her teeth. “What?” she shouted, turning to the plank bridge that swung between her home and Tanio's, a hundred feet over a river.

Halfway across said plank bridge stood the very blond inventor himself, fingers curled around the rope handholds. He brushed hair out of his eyes, waving a paper packet at her as he inched across the bridge. “Lunch!” he sang, setting foot on her wooden patio. Sighing, she held a hand out.

“Lunch” was a soggy paperbag that reeked of the sea. Trying not to wince at the smell, Ruthenia flipped her bag cover open and flung it inside.

“I hear your feedback, Ruth!” said Tanio, “and I assure you, it’s not burnt this time. You’ll know it when you taste it!”

“Thank you,” she answered, waving him away.

Out of the smallest pocket of her bag, she pulled her flight goggles (really a pair of work goggles fitted with rubber) with a flourish, giving them a twirl around her finger for good measure before tugging them over her eyes. Others would simply Weave the wind out of their eyes. She, however, was not good enough of a Weaver to do that, so she made do.

It took Ruthenia a solid minute of scrabbling at the air before she finally managed to get her grip on a bundle of Thread. She gritted her teeth as she did, wondering if they were right, if she was a terrible Weaver because she wasn’t praying hard enough, if she should consider placing an offering at a shrine someday.

Then she sniffed. As if she’d ever pray to Ihir for anything, after all He'd done.

It was another full minute before Ruthenia managed to get her umbrella levitating stably—which she celebrated with a pump of her fist. Leaping aboard, she kicked at the porch floor—and off she shot into the cloud-dusted blueness, leaving the smallest home on Beacon Way behind.

*

The mile between home and the gate road was all green farmland, rippling on in an endless quilt across the countryside between here and Baytown. She’d seen the workers before, leading flightless plough cows across the earth. The floating houses cast shadows across the fields of young stalks; watermills rattled in the current, their tall windmill counterparts creaking out of tune.

Ruthenia soared past the mills and ploughs, skimming low over the wheat fields to watch her own shadow dance across them. Far ahead, the entrance to the gate road resolved into visibility, a circular hole that gaped at the intersection of four fields, marked by a daffodil-yellow signpost that read:

GATE 28 (WEST WIND TUNNEL)

The gate roared wide beneath Ruthenia, howling with wind. With a yell she snapped a bundle of Threads so her flight swung into a dive through the mouth.

The sunlight lifted from her skin. Cold Thread light swallowed her whole. Hand flailing in fright, she managed to tangle the Threads back about her mount just in time to swerve back onto a horizontal path. She blew out a long sigh, though her tongue quickly grew dry. One of these days that dive would kill her.

As the granite tunnel reached level, a distant loud howl entered earshot. Ruthenia felt the thrill run across her skin while the pressure built up behind her.

The twin rows of Thread lights in the ceiling ended just a few yards ahead. Hunching low, she gripped her umbrella tight and hurtled down the remaining length of the gate.

She shot into the West Wind Tunnel perpendicular to the current. At once a sharp gush of wind slapped her side, tossing her like a paper doll into the flow of the underground airway. Air roaring about her ears, she clung on with all her might as she made the great arc into the flow, pulling her body as close to her fluttering umbrella as she could while the whooshing air continued to throttle her.

The Astran Wind Tunnels were as wide as a cathedral was tall, arching overhead and curving below, cradling a thin river in its base. Tarnished pipes striped the walls, among which other gates intermittently opened, pouring other commuters into the stream. Empty round windows passed overhead, circular beams of light streaming through, setting the water below aglitter.

The trickle was low today, but when summer bloomed in full vengeance, she knew it would flood to at least quarter the tunnel’s height. On good summer days, she sometimes verged the surface, watching the carp swirl among the reflections, in their own secret city, foraging in discarded metal and lost jewellery. The gale continued to take her westward, and her watch ticked where it hung from her neck.

Eventually Ruthenia shot out of Gate 53 about directly south of the Central Circle School. She landed on top of the Northern Tower about twenty-five minutes past noon and flung the goggles off her face, jamming them into her bag.

She sauntered across the landing platform, to be greeted at the marble entryway by Mr. Nychus. The brawny man only shook his head as he always did, baton slung over his shoulder, and gestured for her to enter. With a nod and a “good day”, she dashed off down the stairs and into the hallway that led straight to her classroom.

Ruthenia burst into the room as Mrs. Arina was reaching the climax of another lecture, looking like a raptor ready to rip its prey in two. The blackboard was a battlefield of white chalk numbers, at the centre of which was scrawled a question on lift and drag calculations.

The woman’s hand hung in midair. “Miss Cendina,” she said, blinking as her brow furrowed.

“Good afternoon,” Ruthenia answered. “May I sit?”

“No,” the Physics teacher said. “Do you know what time it is?”

“Twelve-thirty.”

"And what time were you meant to arrive?"

"Twelve."

“Do you understand how that is a problem?”

Ruthenia shrugged. “I don't know. I don’t need to be here.”

A mutter tided across the room. She caught glares from the right side. Ms. Arina seemed to reel momentarily. “Cendina! Apologise!”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry I'm late.”

“You’re sixteen, Cendina—how do you expect to flourish in Astran society, the filthy scrap you are? Did your parents never educate you in good conduct?”

Oh, Ihir, now she’d done it. “No, they never did!” shouted Ruthenia, a hot lump of anger rising in her throat.

Every conversation in the room was simultaneously extinguished. 

The two stood, glaring and bristling, waiting for the other to explode first.

Mrs. Arina drew in a breath through her teeth, and let both hands fall. She jabbed the stick of chalk at the board. “You are excused if you can solve the question on the board.” She jabbed the chalk expectantly in her direction.

Ruthenia’s eyes leapt to the question at the centre of the swirl of numbers even as she swooped the chalk out of Arina's hand. Consider a glider with trapezoidal wings, of the dimensions shown in the diagram...

Rolling the chalk between her fingers, she worked away at the numbers in her head even as she strode up to the board. She wiped a section of the scribbles away with her palm, coughing at the dust.

As she wrote, the stick of chalk clicked and scraped, suddenly the sole noise in the room. As she drew the double-underscore marking the end of her solution, she caught Ms. Arina’s eye again, cocking her head to a side. “Am I excused?”

Her pause ended with the inevitable. “Well, yes,” she murmured, looking at least somewhat appeased. “Back to your seat, Miss Cendina. Now, do the rest of you understand the solution?”

While the class gave a collective murmur of “no”, Ruthenia shuffled through the gap behind her classmate Calan's seat, and sank into her own chair.

“Great work,” said Alacero from her left, making a fist in encouragement.

On her other side, Calan only groaned. “Talent is wasted on people like you,” he said.

“Glad you think I'm talented,” she replied, upending the contents of her bag onto her desk.