City of Air (Lost Cities Saga 1)

Something was wrong. Leona opened her eyes to a blinding glare and squeezed them shut again. Then someone said, "If Cherie does not wish to have breakfast before we depart it is no trouble to me, but I fear that she would have a hard time making good on any escape attempts on an empty stomach."

That was Mr Diamond.

Leona shot upright, pulling the covers to her neck and backing as far away from the door as she could manage. The man himself burst out laughing from where he stood with the djinniyeh. The djinniyeh did not, but walked to the bed and laid out a black-striped, dark yellow dress of a lighter material than the one Leona had worn the day before. Mr Diamond said, "Mr Tolliver would be mighty pleased if Cherie would wear this for our outing. As you will see, the people we have come to meet are of a certain standing in society, one can hardly greet them in rags."

Leona looked up to him to find that he was in a full three piece suit, hair neatly slicked back, guns nowhere in sight. He smiled at her and said, "Don't look so worried, Cherie. I'll be keeping a close eye on you. No one's going to think of trying a thing." Then he tipped his head to her and left.

Leona stared at the spot he had just occupied a moment, trying to regulate her breathing, hoping that he had not noticed anything odd the night before. The hum of energy from the hidden elemental beside her continued steadily. She gave its hand a reassuring squeeze and then crawled out of the bed to get ready.

Her breakfast was brought in while she was in the bath and with the djinniyeh's help she was quickly dressed with a little time left over to eat. It was nothing like Mrs De Four's or even the lavish meal she had been treated to the day before but there was apparently no time for anything better. Not to mention that keeping her hungry was a very good way of throwing a damper on her escape plans. Lord Aries need not have bothered though. As long as Generous was on the ship, Leona was not going anywhere.

Thus the djinniyeh led Leona down into the belly of the ship to meet Lord Aries and Mr Diamond for their excursion. Generous was there as well with Mr Miller, both sour-faced and scowling, though there was a hint of envy in the glare Mr Miller threw Leona's way. She turned away from him to smile at her brother, and then finally looked to the Lord Aries.

He was dressed in a fine wine-red suit with a dark-brown coat thrown over his shoulders, a cane in one hand and a top hat on his head. Over his other arm was draped a black coat and in the gloved hand, another smaller pair of gloves and a girl's bonnet. These he extended to Leona and said, "It's still warm out but the weather has taken a turn for the worst. Hopefully we'll be on our way before the downpour. Now, shall we?"

Leona squeezed her hands into fists and took a breath before stepping forward to take the proffered items. The djinniyeh helped her into them and then Lord Aries extended his arm. She hesitated again but only for a moment, then slipped her arm into his and let him lead them down the gangplank to the city below. Halfway down, Leona stumbled at the sight that greeted her. They had landed in a park much like the Queen's Park Savannah, with enough space to comfortably admit airships and race horses and picnics all at the same time. But this stretched much further than the Savannah and where that park was open, this one felt closed in by the buildings that towered like mountains above the treetops that bordered it.

Lord Aries chuckled a little but Leona ignored him, stepping ahead a little with eyes wide. The Slyphide's ivory exterior was a dull white under the grey sky. Leona counted two other airships heading to their landing strip and wondered if there would be room then looked around again and decided that there was, quite a lot of it too, and goodness how any park could be so big?

Then Lord Aries' tugged on her arm, Mr Diamond guffawed and Leona caught a glimpse of the djinniyeh's glare before she glanced over at Lord Aries. He was still smiling, which made her scowl, and he said, "As you will come to see, Miss Ruby, this world is far larger than the borders of your colony, of your Empire. It is arrogant of them and the Zodiac Society to think that they should have the run of it."

Leona said, "I don't care. I just want to go home with my brother."

The smile left his eyes and he said, "I told you before, this is your destiny."

Leona said nothing just stared back at him. He tightened the grip on her arm and started walking again, practically dragging her along. "Now come along. My title means nothing in the Union and our hosts are powerful, it would not do to keep them waiting."

They took a horse-drawn carriage through the park to the gates where there was a steam car and driver, human, awaiting them, dressed in a powdered wig and white-and-cream-coloured livery. He helped Leona and the djinniyeh into the car, bowed his head to Lord Aries and nodded at Mr Diamond, and then climbed into the driver's seat. Leona turned her face to the window and spent the duration of the entirely too brief ride trying to count the floors of the buildings they passed, all taller than she could ever have imagined and in far greater numbers than pictures had suggested.

There were also far more steam cars and carriages, creating a cacophony in the streets that almost hurt to hear. Some travelled at far greater speeds on streets wider than houses than Leona thought wise, horns blaring and engines roaring. The people too, there were more them, most of who were white and finely dressed and some of who were not. More than a few were dressed barely better than some of the freedmen she had left at home and there were very few that she could identify as magicians. It made her feel that Lord Aries' little party was going to stand out quite apparently here and if word got back to the Empire they would all be hauled away for treason. Lord Aries was simply too bold.

At last the carriage left the busy main street for a quiet neighbourhood where the buildings—homes, all of them, she was stunned to discover—sat further back from the road. Some of them too, suggested that their inhabitants were magicians, with great sculptures of stone or metal gargoyles or maidens that moved as Leona looked at them. Lord Aries said then, "The wealthiest families in New Amsterdam often keep magicians to maintain their gardens. Imagine that, the cheek! However, our hosts from House Garnet are magicians and its head, Mr Charles Garnet designed much of the city you see around you. It is for this reason that he is called the 'Chief Architect of New Amsterdam'…if they only knew."

"Which one is his house?" asked Leona, looking out the window. They were approaching the river, or so it appeared, and Leona could see a great stone bridge in the background. Supposedly it connected this island, Manhattas, to another, larger one and the neighbourhood of Breucklin.

The carriage stopped before he could reply and the driver hopped out and opened the door for Leona and the djinniyeh to disembark. The djinniyeh went first and Leona followed, stepping onto a gravel path that crunched underfoot. Her mouth fell open.

The Garnet family tower, for that was what it was, a multi-storeyed building made of steel and glass and stone with a great clock off to one side, a magnificent external spiral staircase on the other and, most startling of all, steel constructs that lined the roof and drive path. They thrummed with energy, even from this distance, and Leona wondered whether they would chase her if she tried to run. They certainly felt as if they would. The entire structure looked as if the tower had grown right out of a mansion, bursting through the roof on a path to the sky like a tree chasing sunlight.

The djinniyeh led her around the steam-car to where Lord Aries stood with Mr Diamond. The magician greeted her as they approached, "Right, and here is our host now. Good day, Mr Garnet."

Leona turned to look just as a man appeared at the top of the stairs. He was tall with dark hair and a thick moustache and piercing bright grey eyes, broad shoulders and arms that were made for swinging an axe. He looked over them a moment directly in the eyes, gaze hard, before walking forward with hands outstretched, grinning broadly and said, "Your Lordship, James, how wonderful to see you again!"

"Charles," said Lord Aries. "At long last, I thought that we would have never made it."

"As did I," said Mr Garnet. His expression had softened some but not quite enough to meet his eyes in the manner of someone eternally suspicious of the motives of others. In Leona's opinion he was not suspicious enough. The steam car pulled away behind them, heading off to the unseen garage leaving a great silence in its wake. There was no one else about in the street though Leona could hear dogs barking somewhere in the distance.

The two men met in the middle with a hug and firm handshake and then Lord Aries turned back to the group gathered in the driveway. With a hand raised in their direction, he said, "My travelling companions: Mr Diamond, whom you have met before." The two men exchanged a nod. "Noor, my assistant, if you will." Another brief nod though the djinniyeh curtsied. "And the young lady I wired you about, Miss Leona Ruby."

Instead of nodding, when Mr Garnet's gaze fell on Leona he stepped away from Lord Aries and walked the rest of the way down the steps to her. He looked her over from head to toe, arms folded and a knuckle to his chin and then walked right around her before stopping where he started. Leona met his gaze and willed him to see that she was not afraid. It was a lie of course, she was very afraid. For what reason had Lord Aries brought her here for this Unionist to study her like some curiosity he was going to buy? He moved very much like the high-born ladies in the colonies at the shops going over a piece of fabric or some china. All he missed was the overheating companion, the dress, gloves and parasol. Finally he turned to Lord Aries and said, "A bit darker than I expected considering you said she was kept in the house. How old is she?"

"Fifteen, not old enough to have her Exhibition but under the circumstances we can make an exception," said Lord Aries.

Leona flashed Lord Aries a questioning look, wondering again what they had to do with the Head of House Garnet. The man was not a magician but he had a bearing that made him feel as strong as one anyway.

"Very well then. It is quite warm out; let us go in for tea. I had the cook prepare us a proper Empire lunch," said Mr Garnet, turning to lead the way into the mansion.

Lord Aries, following, smiled and said, "Oh thank goodness. I've been among savages for far too long…"

Leona watched them go and then turned to look at the djinniyeh. The creature's expression had not changed but the fire in her eyes seemed to burn just a little brighter for a moment. It disappeared as quickly as it had appeared though and she started off after the magician. Leona watched her go, felt the beginnings of sweat trickle down her back. There was no visible sun but she could feel the humidity in the air, clinging to her face and hair. The djinniyeh stopped and turned back to look at her. Lord Aries and Mr Garnet went into the house oblivious. Leona took one last look around her, at the quiet, empty street of towering mansions and hurried up the stairs after the others.

The three young women, the "girls" Mr Garnet had mentioned, would greet them in the sitting room, a large, long room on the first floor, attended by polished steel construct butlers that made Leona choke a little on the air she breathed. The Misses Garnet, Lavender, Rose and Orchid, were all three of them magicians. They were only a little older than Leona, dressed in white, gauzy Greek-inspired dresses, their long wavy dark blond hair tied back from their faces with golden headbands and loose to their waists, their grey eyes bright and faces pale and dusted pink. They were pretty in the way of the fairies of old paintings and, like their father gave an air of something to be feared. They greeted the guests with small smiles and then looked back to Leona as their father had done and the eldest, Lavender said, "How clever of House Ruby to find such a way to survive. Who would think to search for a fallen house amongst the freedmen?"

Leona caught herself before her confusion showed but only just and she thought one of the girls might have noticed. Unfazed, Lord Aries said, "I was so fortunate to find her. To have someone from such a fine lineage reduced to a life of servitude to a far inferior magician, noble though his origins, I could not allow such a travesty to continue. The Empire simply never knew what it had."

Mr Garnet looked over at Leona again and asked, "Does she know anything of their artefacts? Did they manage to save anything other than their bloodline?"

Lord Aries cast his gaze to the floor and said in a low voice, "I'm afraid not. But what a bloodline! She has a younger sibling who is a Tinker. He has been working with my crew…well you shall see his work later. I think what I suspected of House Ruby must be true: they interbred with the other houses, selecting only the finest stock to augment their bloodline as if they were breeding thoroughbreds."

"Thoroughbreds?" asked Mr Garnet. He did not look truly convinced of this. There was a slight lift to one of his eyebrows, a widening of his eyes, and a few quick, barely concealed glances at Leona again.

"Yes, thoroughbreds," said Lord Aries, nodding, apparently not noticing the other man's scepticism. "There is much talk in magical circles that the fall of the Order was less as a result of the political machinations of allies and enemies and more at the hands of some of its members. House Ruby had held control of the Order for over two centuries, nineteen decades longer than it was supposed to by the time of its fall. They had allies and enemies at all levels of the Empire. They were practically more powerful than the monarchy itself. They did not gain that power overnight. They had been plotting their rise to power for a very long time and now I have no doubt that they also were planning for their fall. How else would they have disappeared so completely into the freedman population so far removed from their home in Alba?"

Leona could barely believe what she was hearing. So this was the plan then: present her as the "Lost Heir of House Ruby"? How long did he think they could carry out this charade? And what exactly did he tell them of her power? Did these people know that she was an aether magician?

"Well in that case we simply must have a demonstration. After dinner, in the parlour," said Mr Garnet.

Leona looked over to Lord Aries who bowed at Mr Garnet's suggestion and said, "It would be our pleasure." Then he gave Leona a serious look, a warning.

She looked away from him to Mr Garnet and said, "I will do my best."

"Wonderful!" said Mr Garnet, smiling at her. Then he turned to his daughters and said, "Girls, I have much to discuss with His Lordship. I will leave Miss Ruby in your care. She shall be the star attraction at tonight's dinner theatre."

Leona's brow furrowed in her confusion. Dinner theatre? But the man had already turned away and was leading Lord Aries off to his office, leaving her and the djinniyeh with his three daughters. She listened as the men's low voices grew softer and softer, swallowed up by the walls of the cavernous house the further they moved. Then the doors rolled shut, guided by pulleys on a track, and silence filled the room.

Leona looked over at the three sisters again, realising then that yes, their dresses did look more like costumes, as if they had been interrupted in the middle of a performance with word of visitors, and then around the sitting room. Despite its name, the long room only had a handful of sofas and a chaise longue for sitting. There were floor-to-ceiling windows covered by thick drapes along one wall and a great mural that stretched to the ceiling on the other, depicting a scene from what looked like a fairy tale. Three great chandeliers were suspended above them and one long rug was spread across the floor beneath and on opposite ends were great stone fireplaces decorated with carvings that looked as if they had leapt from the mural. The room was also filled with music from an unseen source. Leona doubted she had ever been in a room so grand, for not even the ballroom at the governor's mansion looked like this. She squeezed her fists amidst the folds of her skirt and tried to ignore the way it made her feel small and dirty, a stain on pristine fabric.

"Have you ever been to the theatre?" asked someone.

Leona shifted her gaze back to the three sisters. Three pairs of eyes stared back at her, waiting for an answer and she replied, "Yes, Master Opal took me to a performance of The Tempest."

"Air magicians have a great love for the theatre and the arts. They say it is because our element is only noticeable when it is absent or in the midst of something spectacular. Are you an air magician too?" asked one of the girls. This was the middle child, Rose.

"No," said Leona. "A water magician."

"Water magicians are said to be healers. Are you training to become a healer?" asked the youngest girl, Orchid.

"No," said Leona.

They waited for her to give them another answer but Leona had nothing more to add. Yes, it was unnatural for a water magician to not gravitate to healing but Leona was not a water magician alone. And besides, it was not as if these things people considered "natural" to magicians really applied to anyone who was not freedman. Non-freedman magicians could be anything they wanted. Well, she supposed that she could too, but that was largely because she had an extraordinary power they supposedly had not seen for hundreds of years.

"We're going to rebuild the West City," said Rose, eyes bright.

Again they waited for Leona's reaction, though she could not imagine what that would be, and so she asked, "You know where it is?"

"But of course, all descendants of the members of the Order know where the cities are. Well except your John Opal," said Rose.

Leona suppressed the urge to snap at them to ask, "You have seen it? You have been there?"

Rose shook her head, smiling, and said, "Not yet, but we will soon. We were just awaiting your Lord Aries."

"But he is a fire magician," said Leona.

"Yes, he is," said Rose, nodding. "But he is the only one willing to lend us his support. Imagine that, an Imperial magician helping Union magicians."

"Our city will be like nothing like you've ever seen before," said Orchid, the youngest.

"A place where air magicians from all over the world will be able to realise the full potential of their abilities," said Rose.

"And for non-magicians too, like the Tinkers, and those who have special talent in the arts. We will see through the White Tiger's dream," said Lavender, the eldest.

Leona looked over the three sisters, noting the strange half-smiles on their faces, as if they were all smirking, and thought that they sounded just like Lord Aries. It also did not look as if they knew why he was really helping them. She said, "Ambitious."

Rose's half-smile widened into a true one and she said, "We have learned well from our father. Do you know that he controls the majority share of steel production and construction in the Union? In fact, he has recently completed negotiations to expand into the Confederacy."

"And it will be Garnet steel that rebuilds the West City," said Orchid.

"Father has already drawn up the plans. Would you like to see them?" asked Rose.

Leona glanced back to the door through which Lord Aries had disappeared with Mr Garnet, decided that there was nothing better to do, and said, "Sure."

The sisters led her and the djinniyeh back out into the entrance hall then up a grand curving staircase to the left. Leona could not help but marvel at the view of the city through the walls of the glass sections of the house, though it did not appear that their neighbours could see them within. Then they went down another long hallway lined with more doors than Leona thought possibly necessary and finally entered the last one on the right. It opened to a cavernous, circular room that went up two storeys, with slick marble floors, book-lined walls with ladders to reach the higher shelves, and a balcony on the upper floor with a small sitting area and frescoed ceiling depicting a scene from some classical mythology. There were desks and tables for working, across which were spread great scrolls, teetering stacks of books and many quills, pens, pencils, maps, and various drawing and measuring equipment.

Leona stopped beside one on which was mounted a great globe on which someone had circled in possible locations for the Five Cities. According to the cartographer, the West City lay somewhere between the American continent's northern and southern tips; the East City could be anywhere between Siberia and the southern tip of Bharata; the North City in the frozen waters of the northern polar region; the South City was somewhere in southern Africa or the prison colony of Australia and the Central City, that place that Lord Aries desperately wished to find was either buried in the Mediterranean Sea or North Africa. No wonder people had spent their whole lives searching for the lost cities and never found them, the areas that they could possibly be were far too large for any realistic hopes of discovery. Or at least, not without the efforts of generations of explorers.

The sisters had stopped beside another table, this one beside a massive crescent-shaped window. Leona left the globe and joined them as the youngest sister unrolled a scroll to reveal what at first looked like a grid and then, on closer inspection, became the blueprints for a flying city.

There were great sails for wings, massive turbines for the engines, a tremendous bulbous region that was possibly a balloon. Atop the balloon was a platform on which there were many little buildings, trees, a garden, train tracks, a complete cityscape. The buildings were nothing like Leona had ever seen though, for rather than the rectangular blocks of New Amsterdam, the buildings had curved edges and unusual shapes. One object looked like a giant carousel. Another was a ship. Yet another seemed to be a reproduction of the Crystal Palace though this was nothing like the images Leona had seen in Master Opal's books. This was to be the new West City then, how it reminded her of that adventurer's descriptions of the flying city of Laputa, but would it ever actually fly?

Leona looked up at the sisters, thought about it for a moment and then said, "This is amazing."

The sisters settled for their smug half-smiles, though their eyes shone. Leona looked back at the blueprints and wondered at the idea that someone had designed an entire city and drawn it, including information about building sizes, the materials required and even counted the number of people it could possibly hold. "West City, population: 10,000," she read off of the side.

"It is our duty as air magicians to restore the West City to its former glory, and even more so to remake it better than before. Isn't it beautiful?" asked Lavender.

Leona looked back at the map again, noticing now a spire that rose from the centre of the map, towering over the city. "What's this?" she asked.

"That is to be the home of the Chief Architect," said Rose.

At Leona's puzzled look she said, "All of the cities are headed by a leader, under the authority of the guardian elemental spirit. The West City belongs to the White Tiger and is headed by the Chief Architect; likewise the East City is headed by the Archmage and their council of magi, the North City by the Matron and the South City by the Fuhrer. We could not rebuild the city without the Chief Architect for the White Tiger works through him allowing him the power to construct things like a Tinker." She wrinkled her nose a little and added, "It is why you should be a Healer. It is an ability innate to all water magicians to heal because their guardian spirit has made it so."

Leona said nothing and looked back down to the map, then something occurred to her and she asked, "Tinkers aren't magicians and they have the same power."

The three sisters giggled and Lavender said, "Oh, but that's where you're wrong. Tinkers are air magicians; they just haven't accessed their powers yet."

Leona stared at them, but before she could answer, the doors opened behind them and Lord Aries said, "Ah, there you girls are. I was wondering where you'd run off to with my little apprentice."

Leona turned and stepped away from the table, inexplicably feeling as if she had been caught doing something that she should not. Lord Aries though, was smiling and continued that way until he stood with her and said, "What have you girls been up to? Oh, are those the plans? Wonderful, let us have a look."

The sisters stepped back as he went to the table and spread the scroll further, using four thick books to keep it spread flat. Then he took Leona by the shoulder and guided her to stand with him and said, "Look at this, Miss Ruby. What do you think of it?"

She glanced up at him, surprised that he would want her opinion but he was smiling encouragingly and she looked back down at it and repeated what she told the sisters, "It's amazing."

"Yes, it is," he said. "Decades of work and research have led to this. See how they intend to make it fly? See how they have prepared for its protection? These little pods and tubes here are actually little airships that will defend against potential attackers. These sails and winged spires will power the city through the sky. And here, this spire, the home of the Chief Architect…here, my dear Miss Ruby, at its heart will be the true power of the West City, once we find it: the Book of Earth."

She glanced back up at him, surprised, and he said, "Yes, that is why we have come here, Miss Ruby. We are to help Mr Garnet and his lovely daughters retrieve the Book of Earth. And since our special gift allows us access to things other magicians cannot, it would be remiss of us not to help."

"And we shall find it, and forever after you and Miss Ruby shall be welcome in our city," said Mr Garnet.

Leona turned to find him beaming at them, his eyes almost glittering. It was clear he did not suspect Lord Aries of ulterior motives. What a fatal mistake. Then Lord Aries squeezed her shoulder and she realised that he expected her to say something. Obviously not what she really wanted to, so she cleared her throat, forced a smile on her face and said, "It will be our pleasure, Mr Garnet."