Eagles and Swans
Chapter 34: Transmissions
Helika Morning Herald, Monday, 9th October 491.
Secret Plot Uncovered! Investigations into most recent flight machine case reveal connections with prominent inventor Titanio Calied
The discovery of blueprints of a flight machine and ongoing operations to build it have shaken Astra's capital. Six suspects have been identified, among them the famous inventor, Titanio Calied.
Last week, workers within the Legars mansion began to suspect their employer of illegal dealings. One servant within the Legars household claims to have overheard meeting room conversations in which his employer and his guests negotiated the prices of steel and brass.
“I’ve never known [Legars] to be a machinery enthusiast,” says one witness. “I had every intention to mind my own business, but I found this suspicious, in combination with the fact that he spent long hours missing from the mansion.”
Police were tipped off on the matter, who then conducted an inquiry, entering Legars' property near Palace Street on the Fourth of October. Inside a safe in his study room, the investigators found two folders of receipts and accounts, all undisclosed. These receipts documented almost fifty separate purchases with raw metals factories based in Sonora and Aora over the past two years, the total amount traded exceeding a hundred thousand aurs in worth.
The police then uncovered blueprints which strongly suggested that a flight machine construction project was in the works. Legars refused to disclose any details on the matter.
“We were horrified to see such damning evidence against Mr. Legars,” says His Majesty, Arcane King Aligon. “He has been dismissed from his role with great prejudice.”
The ex-secretary of the royal family was later arrested and taken into police custody. He refused to confess to any of the above deeds, nor to disclose the location of the alleged machine or the names of his collaborators. However further investigations were conducted on Sunday, revealing more related documents, including contracts and journals bearing the names of Titanio Calied, Sharmon Aldo, Ruthenia Cendina, and brothers Sef and Sandro Mora.
According to these documents, Calied was the mastermind behind this illegal flight machine construction outfit. Having recently come into the limelight when he played a key role in elucidating Lilin’s role in the ongoing weather crisis, Calied is once again in the public eye under decidedly less savoury circumstances.
His assistant, Cendina, was also noted as an active participant in the project. She is the daughter of famously controversial scientist Lita Kyril, who was executed in Year 485 on the grounds of spearheading a similar mechanical flight project.
Collaborator Aldo was a reputed fine artist whose primary job was as the chief chemist of paint and dye company Illume. The brothers Sef and Sandro are 14 and 15 respectively.
At the time of writing, all are being detained in the Helika Police Unit Building, where they will be interrogated this afternoon, before the official court proceedings.
This legal case has reignited debate over whether the law on mechanical flight should be abolished. It is based upon a line of the Holy Script stating that flight is sanctioned by Ihir and must at all times be practiced by holy means. Rebels and activists have fought for the complete revocation of anti-flight laws, although both kings continue to adhere to tradition.
It is not likely that these laws will be revoked anytime within the next week, during which Legars and collaborators will be put on trial, and if sentenced, may suffer up to lifetime imprisonment.
It all happened in a whirl of paper sheaves. Places in the sky, marble floors and old designs in ceilings and murals. When Ruthenia walked on the swirly marble of the floors, she saw reflections of herself inside, reflections of a person she didn’t quite know anymore.
They sat in the benches while file after file of damning evidence was read for the court. Hundreds of pages of receipts, correspondence, and journal entries, showing beyond a doubt that the four of them—Titanio, Eldon, Sharmon, Ruthenia—had gone about this project for years, in secret, with full awareness of the law. Even Eldon's best lawyer wore a look of quiet defeat as he mounted his flimsy case.
There was no outcry of surprise when the judge declared that Eldon, for his crimes, and his refusal to comply with searches, would be sentenced to twenty years' jail, and the other three to equivalent years in house arrest.
Ruthenia had slept in the guest room throughout the weekend. Maybe it was the comfort of stony walls, safe from the whims of the wind and noises through the cracks.
Every meal had been a struggle to swallow, her fingers so cold that she'd hardly felt the bread in her hands. The usual noises no longer pervaded the air: nothing but the crackle of static in the living room, like an erratic breath, trembling.
*
On that drizzly Monday morning, marsh birds were calling through rain, no doubt building their nests at river bends where no one would find them. The wheat was drenched, and Tanio's turbine continued to creak in the howling gales.
In these last hours, they sat by the crackling radio, hiding behind his cushions as if the fort they formed would protect them from the law. Fragments of mundane news punctuated the minutes. They heard their names, tossed through the fuzz of noise.
And at ten o'clock, there were two knocks on the door.
They glanced at each other. At peace and at one with his fate at last, Tanio rose from his sofa. Before she next blinked, he had arrived at the door.
“All persons are to take up permanent and unyielding residence in the property owned by Mister Titanio Calied as registered with the Ministry of Residence and Construction from today until the Ninth of October, Year Five Hundred and Eleven." I will be thirty-six then. "All necessities will be provided for by guards and servitors, stationed at all entryways to each residence. All persons are not permitted to move beyond a hundred-foot radius around the residence, or transact objects with visitors. All visitors will be checked thoroughly, both before entry and after exit. All messages entering and leaving the residence, both on paper and on Threads, will be vetted. If rules stated herein are breached, all principals are liable to be transferred to the Helika Prison and suffer a sentence equivalent to the remaining duration in years.”
Ruthenia did not struggle or protest when she was escorted into her shed. She stumbled through into the dark of her own room, and unfamiliar men outside began dragging the doors shut. The light in her window dimmed as another storm cloud passed in front of the sun.
Ruthenia did not spend a minute resting.
Her plan had moved from her mind onto paper. She wrote on sheets on her desk, copying the Astra map from her Geography textbook and annotating important locations—the River Colura, Palace Street, the harbour of Centrelight, the Deeps beyond.
River. Flight. Ocean. Death. The rhythm of her plan chanted in her head, growing clearer and fiercer with every mark she placed with her pencil. Death. Death. Death.
At seven o'clock, apparently under Tanio’s instructions, her guards knocked on her door and called her out for dinner.
She shoved her plans away and gathered up her laundry in her arms. Her mind brewed as she crossed the rainy bridge, crouching to keep her balance, bowing under the rain.
She figured from the crackle of alien voices under his door that Tanio had yet to turn his radio off. Indeed, as she entered, she found him kneeling beside it, a man’s voice murmuring in the hollow brass. He raised a hand in welcome, but barely moved otherwise.
Dinner was porridge of rice, stale meat and preserved vegetables.
There was no time to wait for the boiler. She burst from the bathing room full-dressed with chattering teeth and her towel about her head.
“Ruthenia, get over here,” called Tanio when she appeared.
Ruthenia towelled at her damp hair and stumbled over. “What's going on?”
Her boss waved her over to his side. “There’s a programme coming on that may interest you,” he explained, gesturing at the radio. “In ten minutes.”
While she settled herself on the carpet, under the scrutiny of both Tanio and the guards, Ruthenia hugged her knees close. “What’s it about?” she murmured, not meeting the man’s eye.
He stared at the tuning knobs of the contraption. “There have been developments in the palace.” Ruthenia drew a breath and held it. In spite of the gloom that sat heavy, like a blanket, upon the room, Tanio managed a tiny smile.
The girl only tapped her cold fingers soundlessly against the carpet, as the words of reporters hissed and shivered on the Threads, and this solid, unfaltering voice was replaced by another.
The static was like the clearing of a throat. “Breaking news. There has been a dramatic falling-out within the Arcane royal family. The Arcane King has stripped his brother of his title and banished him from the Helika Royal Palace,” said the reporter.
Ruthenia’s eyes flew wide. “What?”
“This move follows the ex-Arcane Prince's refusal to repudiate his friendship with the recently-convicted Ruthenia Cendina at his family's behest, after the pair were seen together in public.”
She felt her face heat up, from shame or horror or both. She hid her face behind her knees.
“Mister Luzerno has been ordered to leave his residence in the Palace, and will return to his mother's estate in the Lantern District.”
The track broke, and the voices changed.
“I am disappointed to hear your decision, Aleigh. You have shown a ruinous lack of discretion that has no place in the advisory council. I promise you, if you should ever admit to your errors, then we would welcome you back with open arms.”
Ruthenia felt her insides grow cold at Aligon’s sun-bright voice, its veiled cruelty.
“We spoke Mister Luzerno shortly before his departure. Take a listen.” The track clicked. “Mister Luzerno, what prompted this shocking decision?”
A new voice came on the radio amplifier, and Ruthenia felt herself stiffen. Even buried beneath interference, she’d know it anywhere.
“I thought that rather self-evident: I did it because I am on her side.”
Her heart swelled with a storm of things she’d never felt before. More than the voice, it was the cutting wryness that she knew, impossibly composed even on national radio.
Voices were clamouring, begging for a word with him—but none could cut his answer short.
“She knows this country just as well as we do, from a vantage point that few of us can access—least of all my brother. She sees beyond the fog of pride and civility that blinds us all, kings and priests alike. She grew up among the troubles that we have always averted our eyes from. I believe she has the best of intentions for Astra, and I regret that the rest of the advisory council cannot see this. The meaningless death must stop.”
“This has come as quite a surprise to the public, considering you have effectively chosen your friend over your family. Do you have personal reasons for doing so?”
“Perhaps. Ruthenia is one of the only people in my life who has ever treated me like a human being. When my brother threatened to disown me over her, I knew what I preferred.”
“Stop being an idiot!” Ruthenia cried out at the bell-amplifier, though she knew he wouldn’t hear a word. She was a hair's breadth away from tears. Something squeezed on her heart, anger and shame both. What happened to the act? Your pretences?
”Do you have anything else to say?” asked the reporter.
A pause. “Aligon, we grew up with everything in the world, and I was the first person you lorded over. You are a talented leader, and it would do you good to remember: you were elected to make change, not to protect the old way.”
She began tugging nervously at carpet fibres, fingers growing cold. She missed the last words of the interview. The radio clicked and the track switched once more. An unfamiliar voice telling unfamiliar tales drowned her friend's out. And then his presence—the warmth of knowing his existence persisted—was gone.
“It appears I have underestimated your skills in diplomacy,” said Tanio.
She glanced away. “All I did was make a friend.”
“Your ‘friend’ just publicly renounced his royal title in support of your crimes. Perhaps they are capable of changing after all.” Then he smiled. “Or perhaps he's just smitten with you.”
“Tanio…”
He sighed. “He would have made a lovely in-law.”
“Now you're just making me sad,” she murmured. For moments, the past week vanished from her thoughts. Here he was, same old Tanio, still teasing her despite everything. Perhaps his efforts to make this place feel like home had worked their way into her heart after all.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said as she rose to her feet.
“Survive your first night and you’ve survived all twenty years,” she answered. Then the guards marched into the living room, and pierced them with glares, until she had stood, towel wrapped about her neck, and trudged out of the room into the coldly swirling rain.