Cradle, Chadom

  Eyes followed Aprilia as her carriage trundled through the streets of packed earth through Cradle. Some smiled when she met their gaze, while others looked away.

  Her eyes met Emma’s, standing by a window of the hospital. Her former friend looked away and stepped back. Aprilia’s gaze turned to her hands. She wanted to tell the driver to stop, but didn’t.

  Not long ago, she would have been one of them; anonymous, unremarkable. Choosing Jack had made her an outcast. Now the looks were different. Many looked at her with deference, and the rest with something much sharper. Calculation in few, resentment in some and hatred in others.

  She didn’t know if it was because of the expensive dresses she wore or the way she now carried herself. She had resented Lothar’s lessons at first, seeing how they alienated her from the rest of the Cha. Each lesson learned had driven a wedge between her and the people she belonged to.

  But they were not willing to treat her as their own, and someone had to interact with nobles Jack would bring back.

  So she had finally accepted her fate. The company of her family and friends, few as they were, would have to be enough.

  The jostling of the carriage on the rough track brought her attention to the present. She would have been fine riding the back of a cart like everyone else, but Lothar had to have an open-top carriage built for her. She had to admit, sitting on the cushioned seats and enjoying the view as the Bay approached was a nice way to travel.

  The sea breeze greeted her, carrying the scent of salt and smoke.

  What unfolded in front of her was no longer the pristine view of empty shoreline. Tents dotted the horizon and faint smoke curled upwards from the remnants of kitchen fires. The clang of hammers, scrape of chisels and screams of saws grew louder, as the town under construction came into view. Dozens of women and older children hauled wood and stone, while craftsmen raised the skeletons of buildings from packed earth, shouting instructions over the din. It wasn’t a village growing over time, but Jack’s plan taking shape.

  As she dismounted from the carriage and approached the beach, more work under construction appeared. The dockworkers from Aldersthron had already driven in thick piles into the sand, laying the bones of proper docks; orderly and enduring. The Cha’s crude lash-ups of rope and driftwood were being dismantled, discarded like a child’s imitation.

  Another ship from Nanon had joined the one already in the harbor. As she walked toward the dock, a boat pulled away from it and returned with a single passenger.

  “My lady,” Jaklen said as he jumped onto the sand, bowing with an exaggerated flourish and a wink.

  She took the manifest from his hands without comment, though her mouth twitched despite herself. She wondered if he learned his mannerisms from Jack, or was the world big enough for two personalities like theirs?

  Unfurling the piece of parchment, her eyes scanned its contents.

  Copper.

  So much copper.

  Ingots of money, each as heavy as a woman. How many coins could be made from them? There were a few other metals she didn’t know much about.

  The sight of the tube came to her mind. The brass ‘vase’ that spewed smoke and destroyed anything in front of it.

  She exhaled to focus on the present. There was a lot of thread in the shipment. Different kinds.

  Boats began unloading the contents of the new ship. Strong men struggled to lift the crates. It took hours for everything to be transported back to the shore on their small boats. Aprilia kept looking at the skeletons of the boats some of the new craftsmen were working on. Once finished, they would make Cha’s vessels look like toys.

  Men grunted as crates holding ingots of copper, zinc and tin were loaded on carts. The leaf springs bent under the weight, but held. By the time they had transported it all to the industrial district, most of the day was gone.

  The roar of the tall waterfall filled the air, constant and overwhelming. The smoke of the furnaces rose nearby. The district had the beginnings of a palisade around it.

  The noise of massive hammers rising and falling, saws screaming through timber, and furnaces roaring as they squeezed metal out of stone, all powered by Powerfall, never stopped to amaze her.

  A large building had now joined them. It housed a machine unlike anything she had ever seen. Jack had dubbed it the most precious object in Chadom, soldiers guarding it day and night.

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  The machine that makes other machines.

  The guards stepped aside to let her in.

  Inside, Jack’s Ducklings were arguing, the three boys and two girls, bickering among each other, gesticulating wildly, while poor Aramid sat quietly to the side. If they didn’t pair off within a year, she would eat her new dress.

  She tried politely coughing to gain their attention. When that didn’t work, multiple times, she went back to the voice she used as a teacher.

  “Children!”

  Six heads snapped around. Even Aramid looked frightened.

  “Another gift from His Excellency has arrived.”

  She moved aside to let the men bring the crates inside. Everyone crowded around the first one as they removed the cover. A chorus of awed noises filled the room as eyes fell upon the contents.

  Kovar sauntered in, eyeing the crates suspiciously. He bent his large frame to join the gawkers. His jaw fell as his eyes found the shiny copper ingot lying within.

  “How many like this one?” he asked her.

  “Many.”

  He exchanged a look with Aramid. “You know what this means.”

  “The big one,” Aramid murmured reverently.

  Something passed between the craftsmen, that no one else caught, except Aprilia.

  Her heart clenched.

  More weapons.

  She pushed down the fear rising within. The aftermath of the Battle of the Bog had been terrible enough. Hundreds of dead bodies thrown in mass graves like refuse. The stench of blood and fear in the air. Jack and Lothar’s terrible faces.

  All that death, and it paled compared to wars that had been fought within Nanon. And now that realm, a thousand time bigger than Chadom, was under threat from an even bigger power. She refused to imagine the scale of death and destruction that was going to happen.

  But better that people on her side do it to the Zoranions than the opposite. It’s not as if they were the aggressors.

  Those words tasted like ash. She swallowed the bile rising within. She might not ever stand on a battlefield, but she was going to contribute in her own way.

  “Are you all right?” Kovar asked, noticing her expression.

  “Yes,” she said, shaking off the foreboding, then turned to the young ones.

  “There is also a lot of thread with the shipment. Different kinds and color. Why is it marked for you five?”

  “The Supreme Leader entrusted us with building it,” Fennar said, chest puffed up.

  “Building what?”

  They pointed to one of the rooms.

  Once everything had been stored and accounted for, she let them show her their work.

  The teenagers’ workshop was chaos, strewn with tools, hammers, nails and pieces of wood lying everywhere. At its center stood a cuboid wooden frame, with two layers of threads stretched taut in between.

  “A loom?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Fennar said proudly. “But wider. Faster.”

  “You built it yourself?”

  “Master Jack gave us a sketch, had us meet a weaver, then told us to figure the rest out.”

  She walked around the machine. It was twice as wide as a traditional loom.

  “How will a person weave thread through cloth so wide? They will need an assistant.”

  “That’s the secret,” Tobin whispered out loud. “They won’t. This design uses a .”

  “Flying shuttle?”

  “Let me show you,” Fennar said excitedly and sat down. He pulled a cord and the shuttle rocketed towards the other end, unbelievably fast. He pressed a foot pedal and the threads switched. Smiling, he pulled the cord again, and the shuttle flew back

  It then bounced off the frame and leapt into the air.

  Aprilia recoiled in alarm as it whistled close to her head and cracked against the wall. She picked it up from the floor.

  It had pointy ends.

  She exhaled. “You are going to take someone’s eye out with this.”

  “It’s not finished yet,” Fennar said defensively.

  Frida, the tall girl with brown in her hair, whacked him on the back of the head.

  Aprilia stifled a chuckle and gave the shuttle back.

  “Obviously. Still, be very, very careful. It is an amazing achievement,” she said despite herself. Jack had planted the seeds of advancement in the minds of these brilliant youngsters. Change was now inevitable, with or without him.

  Her heart ached.

  “No one else is working on it?”

  “Master Aramid checks on us every day and sends an apprentice when we need help.”

  Aprilia decided she would have to talk with Aramid about his liberal ways. The teenagers were lucky that none of them had lost an eye.

  “You are creating the future of Chadom here,” she said with genuine admiration. “Just be careful not to maim yourself in the process.”

  The teenagers nodded emphatically, which wasn’t good enough for her.

  After asking Aramid to have a trusted adult supervise them at all times, she decided to take a look at her father’s work.

  As she approached the kiln, thin smoke was escaping from its chimney, probably a remnant of a recent firing.

  The wooden gate creaked as she turned the door.

  “Father?” she said out loud.

  He came out, covered in sweat and grime.

  “Pumpkin, what are you doing here?”

  “I came to see how you were doing.”

  “I’m doing very well,” he said, with a wide smile on his face.

  “You’ve had a breakthrough, haven’t you?” she said softly, trying to tease it out of him.

  He lifted a cup to show her.

  “I haven’t figured out the color, but look at the finish!”

  She took the earthen cup in her hands. It had a hard, glossy surface, just like the expensive tableware Jack had sent.

  “It’s amazing, isn’t it?” he said proudly. “This downward draft kiln is quite something. It didn’t take me even two weeks to figure out how to put on an even glaze. Soon we’ll all be eating like nobles!”

  She smiled at his enthusiasm. At least there were some adults whose work had nothing to do with death and destruction.

  Back in Cradle, she decided to walk back to the castle. As she was walking on the main road, surrounded by almost finished insulae, the screams of a woman reached her ears. She ran towards it, her guard running after her. By the time she had come close, it had stopped. She found herself facing the hospital, again. The cries of a newborn filled the air. Emma’s face appeared through the window, covered in sweat, a crying infant in her arms.

  Aprilia exhaled.

  Chadom was changing.

  Growing fast, sharpening and preparing, even without Jack.

  She missed him fiercely.

  She prayed he would be back soon, to help her make sense of the future they were accelerating toward.

  She hoped it would be a peaceful one, where the newborn would never experience the horrors the Cha had faced.

  That he would never have to wield the weapons they were building.

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