Chapter 8: Chapter 8

The venerable professor was sitting in one of the few chairs left standing in the iguanosaur's belly. By the looks of it, he was not only fairly coordinated, but totally at ease, having a smoke from his pipe. The people immediately around him (including a couple of waitstaff) were kneeling and cross-legged on the floor, looking his way.

He turned and looked up at Jacob's face. "Prince Jacob!" he cried. Scrambling to his feet, he gave himself enough time and space to perform an appropriate bow. Then he rose and said, "It's an honor to meet you, wherever it may be."

"Likewise," Jacob said, but that was an understatement. Here was a living legend. If the reports were true, then Arcus Federline was one of the few people alive that Jacob truly respected.

He was middle-aged now, but looked as if he could be seventy. Years of preparing for those first aerial expeditions combined with the rigors of the skysailing life had been rough with a man who had once been strong. Yet he'd been earthbound for almost a decade, if Jacob recalled it right, and the Known World's Fair had brought him back after a long absence.

The professor got up with a long sigh. The crowd protested and booed. "Ah, you've heard the best part already!" the professor yelled, waving them off. He noted to Jacob, "I was telling them about the mutiny again. It's only been told a thousand times." But he seemed playful about it.

Jacob pulled himself out of the iguanosaur, hopped down to the floor, and was about to help Prof. Federline down when he realized he had a perfectly good maid beside him. Might as well put her to use. He had her take him slowly by the arms and back.

"Hello, mister!" Pip said. "I don't recognize you on sight, but if Jacob knows you, you must be a big name somewhere!"

"Arcus Federline," he said when they were all down to ground level, keeping it simple and brisk. "I saw you together in the entry hall. Congratulations. Let's hope it lasts."

Well, that was marginally more polite than what Malcolm had said.

"Let's find some privacy, chat, stay a while," said the professor.

"There's privacy here?" Jacob asked.

"Ah, sort of. Follow me."

They stayed close to the wide, swooping back wall of the exhibit, where the tropical foliage was at its thickest. This was absolutely not where they wanted to have their conversation, though, since sounds and rustles of sweet lovemaking were subtle but, nonetheless, all around them.

Prof. Federline was leading them to a closed and shuttered cafe in the back of the exhibit. Its tables and chairs were available, but even they weren't popular except among a couple of exhausted employees off to the side. Next to the cafe area, the crowd was as strong as ever.

"Almost there—oh, hello, what's this?" Federline paused at a twinkle in the leaves. He raised his hand to feel a hanging bit of jewelry, a silver chain necklace slung over a seemingly random branch.

Pip silently held her hand out. Jacob chose not to acknowledge her.

"No, I think whoever owns this will be back for it in about five minutes," said the professor. "Oop—"

Swoop. A kestrel, the tiniest of falcons, perched on the same branch and dropped a second necklace right next to it. Ruffled its feathers and flew away again.

"Oh!" Pip cried, both hands at her mouth. "That's so cool! It's probably stealing, though."

"It sure is," the professor said, and he pointed to the crowd that the kestrel had just flown back to.

Taking a second look, they realized that the jewels weren't just over here—they were scattered, like stolen stars, on tree branches closer to the crowd. Standing on a podium in the middle, covered in layers of necklaces and bracelets, was a falconer with his glove and bird raised high.

Federline sighed and shook his head. "Don't let 'em do this to you," he murmured as if the falconer were right next to him. They watched as the kestrel swooped off again, snatched a tiny handbag without even being noticed, and returned to home base.

Jacob had virtually no reaction. So the revelry at this party had convinced a humble falconer to steal people's stuff as a party trick? Fine, what's it to him?

He had his own shit to take care of.

"So tell me, professor," he said once they'd hit the cafe tables, "about this artifact I've brought with me."

"Hold on. Did Malcolm tell you about the person who...?"

"He did. Just didn't have much detail."

"I saw it too, we saw the same thing. I was focusing entirely on the hand with the needle—that's all I saw."

"Nothing special about the hand?"

"...Feminine. I'd say that."

"It wasn't gloved, was it?"

"No. Bare."

Squinting, Jacob pointed a thumb at Pip and asked Federline a question with his eyes. Federline shook his head.

"Thank you, professor. I'll take care of it. For now, though, give this a look." He held out the golden ball—cradled in his hands, though, in case the kestrel might see it.

Federline studied it with great interest.

"You want to feel it?"

"I don't have to. This is a material from the sky islands."

Despite himself, Jacob was stunned for a moment. Holding something from the sky was nothing new, nothing special—there was land here just like there was land on the water. Yet, to hear it from a hero...

"Is it some kind of alloy?"

Federline chuckled. "Would you call an insect's carapace an 'alloy?'"

"...You mean it's organic."

"Like everything up here," the professor said with a vast sweep of the hand, "it has a funny story. We were traveling on Kittrick when we stumbled across a half-buried yard of just this gold stuff, scattered. We didn't find it balled up. We found it as scraps, tiny little scraps. Again, just like insect parts. When we studied it under the microscope, we confirmed it—the molecular structure is strikingly similar to bits of the shell of a millipede."

Even if it'd come from roly-polies, there was no way, then, that it'd show up in a sphere like this. Not unless the shape was made, manufactured.

"Can you talk about the purpose behind this ball, professor?"

"Mm-mm. I'm sorry, I have no idea. It might've been made by explorers recently. But I'm sincerely impressed that anyone would have this. Whatever golden carapace parts from that site weren't kept and preserved in places like this museum, or in the locket of Captain Kittrick's sweetheart, were looted or just plain thrown out on accident.

"And there may well be more, in the depths of Kittrick, but the material is more brittle than you'd think. I'd ask you to try throwing that ball if I didn't know for sure it'd break."

"Interesting..." Jacob said. "You know where I got it from?"

"Where?"

"I'm asking you, non-rhetorically. Because I don't know either."

"I found it on the floor," Pip said.

Jacob gestured to her while showing the professor his glummest expression, meaning, See?

"Maybe some workers here put it together!" the professor cried, partly joking but not totally. "Prince, that's a mystery you have to solve. God knows I've got enough already."

"You don't think the mutineers might've done it?"

He paused to think.

The word "mutineers" concocted a fantasy in Pip's head. She whispered to Jacob, "Who are the mutineers?"

Federline had heard her very easily, and he answered, "That's the story I was just telling for the thousand-and-first time back in the iguanosaur! Want to hear it again?"

Jacob interrupted, "Uh, with all due respect, could you please summarize?" After all, anyone who knew anything about Prof. Federline knew it already.

"The Third Expedition ended with a huge uprising that'd been a long time coming. Alzenians, Ittanoguans and Niorrans on the crew all came to blows thanks to the war going on at the time—were you born yet?"

"During," Pip said.

"It was a rough time," he said, a sympathetic understatement. "To make a long story short, someone used a grudge against Captain Kittrick as an excuse to ravage the whole ship. I didn't take sides. I just tried to save as many good crew mates as possible."

In Federline, Jacob saw humility, bravery, and a constant undercurrent of good cheer—all things he himself was not, but all things that stirred a love he thought he'd lost after childhood. This guy could've been reading scribbles on a napkin and the young prince still would've listened eagerly, rare wonder in his eyes.

Pip didn't really get the big deal, but she thought it was neat that he fought pirates. That's what it sounded like, at least—mutineers, pirates...

"I don't mean to dig up too many old tragedies," Jacob said, "but I'd also like to ask: what other mysteries surround the sky islands? Besides the usual. Things they don't want common people to know about."

"Or royals?" Federline said, raising an eyebrow.

"There must be something. I'm especially interested in information connected to magic and the system—assuming you have it."

Magic was considered separate from the system—since magic only affected the outer world, while the system affected inner, mental worlds. Only then could those system-touched individuals tamper with the universal fabric.

The professor took a good look around, making sure that nobody was out snooping. All he saw was the kestrel whirling in the air above leaping bodies and outstretched hands, showering pearls out of a bag.

He leaned closer to Jacob and Pip just to be safe.

"There's a lot about the mutineers, actually," he said, hands raised as if framing the scene. "Everyone knows—well, your kind young maid probably doesn't—about how the mutineers died plummeting to earth. That or in flames." Even when talking about old enemies, their betrayal, he had mourning in his voice.

Jacob nodded, but Pip was struck in the heart. Not hard, but a soft strike is still a pain. Strangers she'd never known had died bizarre deaths distant from everything they called home.

"But some of them escaped." The last word was a hissed whisper. "They live on an uncharted island. Mark my words, though: that island would have been charted by now if investors believed it had any magic crystals worth a damn, and if people weren't getting scared of what the mutineers landlocked there could do."

"Really, though?" Jacob said. "We have magic. By the sound of it, we have much more than they do."

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"Well, it's partly political. You might be forgetting who was on that Third Expedition. Gregor Perry—if he came back, the whole Pryce affair would open up again! Loads of unsolved cases blowing up again, crime rate going up, more unrest in that whole peninsula."

Jacob nodded knowingly, and Pip wished she'd brought a drink, not just a long-since-devoured plate of barbecue.

"But the other part is magical, just not the way you're thinking. At this point, a new generation is coming of age on that island, and we think—this is based on lab studies, but we think—the children might be novaborn."

Jacob's eyes twitched a bit wider. "That's a word like 'dynaborn' and 'friaborn,' right?" All words for those whose bodies produced natural magic. Words that used to only describe bats, dragons, bahamuts. Monsters.

"Exactly."

"'Novam,' I've seen that before, but..."

"It's light magic, essentially. A simple combination of the other three."

Jacob couldn't help but rub his forehead in disappointment and defeat. He should've guessed that...

The professor briefly noted the possibilities of having, in your veins, on your person at all times, the ability to command flashes of light harsh enough to blind. The chilling possibility that a novaborn, well trained, could even produce illusions. The craft that could be hidden in war. Entire floating cities, on the scale of this skyship, concealed.

"Oh!" he said abruptly at the end. His mind had flitted from one train of thought to the other, and Jacob suspected he didn't often get the chance to share these things with genuinely interested outsiders. "The angel that fell in Talway, something funny about that."

Ah, another, even more well-known story. Pip raised her hand as if she needed permission to speak. Then she spoke, ignoring her own need for permission. "That's another thing Yates was there for!" she exclaimed. "When they opened that show around the angel, he saved up wages for months and months just so he could pay it a visit!"

Jacob inwardly winced. The 'angel' was a hoax, so that anecdote had to have ended badly. Supposedly, a meteorite had crashed on the outskirts of Talway, and inside that meteorite was this perfectly preserved, stony mummy of a human with wings in its back. Nope, no way was it a human figure with taxidermied wings, despite all the suspicious, stitchlike markings where they connected.

The prince asked, "What'd he think of it?"

"He prayed to it, got over a bit of his grief," Pip said matter-of-factly. "He tells everyone the trip was well worth it."

"That's..." Jacob restrained himself from saying "sad" when he realized he wasn't sure what the professor made of it. The unsavory words of Sir Huxley popped into his mind: "The common folk must be allowed their dreams," or something condescending like that...

"That's a prescient story," Federline said. "You know, that traveling show was dismantled recently."

To Jacob's surprise, Pip's bottom lip quivered.

"But the reason is because scholars wanted to analyze the corpse more fully. I'm good friends with those scholars, so I'm in a position to know—Yates was right. Or close. He has the best guess of anyone. Those wings are made of organic material, and there really are nerves connecting them to the body."

Jacob discovered that his own mouth was open. Closed it. He realized he didn't know what to say.

Then don't say anything, Jake.

"And they're wondering if the system would..."

The professor cut himself short as the noise of the exhibit died.

The commotion was low and hushed now, suddenly. They could actually make out the animal roars on the intercom.

The three of them stood up, taking the professor's lead. His angle at the table had allowed him to see the momentous sight Jacob and Pip were only now taking in. Pip almost hollered the cheeriest "hello" she'd said so far. She opened her mouth, closed it.

King Dune and Queen Daintiz. The only king and queen who'd accepted an invitation aboard. The path cleared for them and their magnificent, yards-long trains of sumptuous, peacock-colored velvet. The staves they carried were purely ceremonial. Everyone was all too aware that they carried more powerful weapons at all times, instant blades constantly sharpened.

The king strode side-by-side with his wife. Though both were spectacularly beautiful, the queen's face had never been seen in full since the death of her mother two years ago. A deep-red hood of mourning shadowed her eyes.

Jacob, Pip, and Federline weren't getting up just to gawk. They were getting away.

Unless you were a fool, you knew that where kings and queens walked, there was guaranteed to be trouble. The system-granted ability to force anyone to do your bidding? That alone meant they were best avoided—except if you had specific business with them, in which case you had better show up and arrive early. And, naturally, insta-weapons and the supreme hubris that came with ruling Ittanogua made them that much more risky than princes and princesses.

So after they got the initial curiosity over with, the professor, the maid, and the prince with the hand desperately covering the maid's mouth moved to the furthest possible table.

They sat down, feeling that a crisis had been averted.

"Like I was saying," the professor said, his voice now fallen to a whisper, "we're wondering if a hybrid human might have been able to use the system."

Jacob's mind flared. Systems! Stick to systems and move away from the angels, he wanted to urge Federline.

"And—here's the top secret of all secrets. The one I wouldn't trust with anyone I didn't think had the heart of a true scholar." Subtly, he beckoned for Jacob to set his hand on the table.

"Um...and me?' Pip asked.

Jacob answered dryly, "Your prince hereby Curses you not to listen."

"Darn!" She clutched her heart. "Ouch!" She wobbled away with fingers in her ears, make-believing that her soul had just been drained (or whatever happened with cursed souls).

Prof. Federline's gaze hadn't left Jacob's eyes. "What's with her?"

They stared for an anxious, could-have-been-suspicious second.

Then they laughed.

Subtly, Federline gestured for Jacob to lay his hand on the table in an ultimate gesture of trust. With a second's reluctance, Jacob did it, not even hiding any friam inside. Then the professor gripped Jacob's hand in his own broad, wrinkled palm.

He leaned incredibly close. "I'm leading the study on the true nature of the command."

Oh.

Okay. That topic might be useful too.

Jacob's mind flashed back to the abnormality checker with his hands on the tube. The commands in their heads and mouths that activated magic. Trigger of all crystals.

And his brain was already alive with speculation. Imagine if the commands could be given by machines, the cosmic shifts if automation could—

"I've found there are two types," Federline went on, "commands directed at others and commands directed at oneself. The difference is"—he gave his free hand the slightest twist, as if turning a key—"like that. Hardly anything. A single word."

Jacob nodded, anxious to hear more, afraid to speak and disturb the professor's path.

"The most surprising part," he noted, "is how the grammar is so different from any known human language, yet the words are...they're like mashed-up cognates. They echo words we know."

...Oh no.

What was the professor actually talking about?

(And what would happen if Jacob dared to ask?)

Now his heart rate was accelerating. He needed to learn more, so he needed to play along—and draw the professor further out.

"For instance," the professor said, "you know the 'ti zhufra.'"

"Yes," Jacob said.

A too-long pause let him know that he was expected to share more.

"The incident."

The professor furrowed his brows in—distress?

"No, Jacob," he said. Then he withdrew his hand, turned away. "No, Jacob, I'm sorry. You didn't know it by now?"

Know what?

It felt like the ground was falling out from under him. Vertigo consumed him. He stared at the place where their hands had been, and then, with a sting of betrayal and a fire to know what else he'd been missing for way too long, he reached out and grabbed the professor's arm, just as he'd been rising to leave.

"You're wrong, professor," he said, grasping at straws to make him stay, to get more words out of him. "I just—have a lot on my mind. You were saying?"

"No. No, I shouldn't have."

The professor just kept shaking his head, looking down at his shoes. He started to sweat, and he only grew more cryptic.

"Please don't worry, I'll pretend I know nothing about it," he said, his tone growing more frantic.

Jacob's mind went in so many directions it nearly tore itself apart, one part wanting, stupid as it was, to escape and call for Pip—

A stab.

A scatter of blood.

The shriek of a kestrel.

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