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He walked backward until he felt the carpet beneath his feet.
The creature jumped off the bony jaw into the grass. The eyes—they were mirrors. And the skin... It seemed human, but the hands were sharp-edged, like cut glass, with silver fingernails. Yet the strangest thing was the face. It seemed to be a hundred faces in one. It looked as though a silver plate were being exposed repeatedly, every photograph slowly emerging from the previous one. Fascinating. John had never seen anything like it. This creature of glass and silver seemed to come from his world and time, rather than this one. No, it looked like a mixture of both, something he’d always dreamed of, but all his attempts to combine magic with technology had always failed. This one also seemed to have some problems. The face looked scuffed, and leaves were growing from the glassy shoulders.
The creature was approaching him. It? She? Yes, it was definitely a she, as beautiful as a painting. She had now settled on a face. Of course, he wanted to run, and this time it seemed more than reasonable. And he was standing on a flying carpet. Say the words, John. But even his mind was paralyzed, which didn’t happen often.
“Hello, John!” The girl stopped in front of the carpet. “Or shall I call you Isambard? What a strange name.”
John almost reached out to see if the skin was warm. The breeze that had announced her had been warm.
“You can call me Sixteen.”
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Her face changed again. Rosamund. A sick joke. But who was making it?
“A good idea. Take the carpet, John.” Sixteen didn’t have Rosamund’s voice, but hers sounded almost as pleasant. “The horse lords in these lands don’t think much of engineers. Your profession means the end of their way of life. If they find you here, they’ll stick your head on a pike and let the eagles feast on your eyes.”
Sixteen was very convincing. John scanned the horizon for riders. Sixteen what? Were there fifteen others, or was she the sixteenth model?
She reached out. Being touched by her did not feel good. He felt like mercury was coursing through his veins. Sixteen no longer had Rosamund’s face. The new one looked scarier, but at least it didn’t make him feel so guilty.
“Kneel.” She sounded impatient. Her fingers ran over her scraped cheek. Something was sprouting there, like a gray scab.
John dropped to his knees.
The carpet was already stirring. Sixteen whispered the words Jacob had used to wake it. The wet grass had made the carpet damp. It rose with a lurch.
“Where to, John?” Sixteen called. “West? East? North? South?”
She was now barely visible. He could see the grass through her limbs.
John held on to the carpet’s edge.
“Southeast! Alberica!” he shouted.
Yes. The New World. It was different on this side. Different alliances. Three nations, a war of independence that had been only partly successful, and apparently there was another war brewing. What more could Isambard Brunel ask for? They were going to fight over his services, and the longing for progress was so much stronger there than in Varangia, where the Tzar couldn’t come up with a better use for him than to have him shot!
John had always struggled with languages more than with numbers, but Sixteen’s pronunciation of the magic words was even more perfect than Jacob’s. The carpet flew a wide arch and then faced the wind head-on.
John would’ve liked to ask Sixteen about her maker. Someone must have made her. There’d been an emptiness in her glass eyes—no soul, if there was such a thing. Fascinating.
The Dragon skeleton had already vanished behind the horizon.
One day he would explain everything to Jacob.
Everything. One day.
Different Paths
Orlando was leaning against one of what had been the Dragon’s wings. The bones behind him spread out across the grass like an ivory fan. There were still a few goose feathers stuck to his clothes, but even without these, Fox could tell from the look on the Barsoi’s face that he’d seen what had happened.
It had happened.
Yes, Fox.
A dream so often dreamed, a wish so often wished. Under Orlando’s eyes, Jacob’s touches turned to pitch and gold on her skin. Nothing made her happiness more real than his pain. Jacob left them. He disappeared between the Dragon’s ribs, sparing the other man the sight of him.
Orlando forced himself to smile.
