It looked at the two women with a majestic, arrogant expression. Then it walked toward the Ogé jar, still crackling with the power of the lightning.
The two women knew they were witnessing something extraordinary and did not speak.
The stag stopped by the side of the Ogé jar, placed one foot against the outside, and then bent down as though to give the still crackling chain a kiss.
And a giant spark almost two feet long leapt from the top of the jar, striking the stag in the head. The long spark was like a flower made of fire, a spiderweb woven from luminous ether, a river with tributaries filled with star matter. Zomi and Théra closed their eyes. The light was brighter than the glow of a thousand suns, and they could not gaze upon the power of the gods without being blinded.
When they opened their eyes again, the stag was gone, and only a smoking patch of ashes in the grass next to the Ogé jar in the shape of the stag convinced them that it had not been a dream.
“Thank you, Lord Fithowéo,” the women whispered, knowing that they had seen a sign.
They had succeeded in bottling lightning, in capturing the power of the gods.
Théra and Zomi embraced each other, laughing, kissing, babbling incoherently. Though they were drenched and cold, the joyous heat of discovery coursed through them, irrepressible. They fell to the ground, entwining their limbs and pressing their bodies against each other as they undressed in the rain; the power that had lit up the heavens a moment ago seemed to burn through the lovers as flames of passion.
Between the heavens and the earth, there was no more fitting altar to love than that mountainside in the rain.
Now that they had a source of power that was adequate to the purpose, they still needed a reservoir large enough to store the power yet compact enough to be carried in the airships.
The scholars of Ginpen and Pan worked night and day, arguing, debating, sketching plans and experimenting with novel materials. Fantastic ideas and suggestions flowed to the marshal from every laboratory, but most were too outlandish to be practical.
The answer, in the end, came from the highest and lowest places at once.
With Empress Jia practically making the entire Imperial Treasury available to support the work of the researchers, instances of graft and corruption were inevitable. Two of the palace servants were caught smuggling jewels out of the palace for private benefit.
Their method of theft was both ingenious and ancient. To reduce theft, servants who entered the Imperial Treasury had to change into special formfitting clothing without the benefit of voluminous sleeves and folds that could conceal valuable jewels. They used specially made wooden trays that were too thin to contain hidden compartments. The idea was to reduce the chances of anyone who, when faced with mountains of pearls and towers of gold nuggets, could not resist the temptation to grab and keep a few things for himself.
But wherever money was involved, theft was inevitable. Datralu gacruca ça crunpén ki fithéücadipu ki lodü ingro ça néficaü, or “No fish could live in perfectly clear water,” as the Classical Ano saying went.
Two of the servants realized that while the clothing they wore had no pockets, there was one natural pocket with a sealable opening that was still available to them. The two servants had worked as butchers before entering the palace and were quite familiar with the capacity of the animal intestine to stretch and hold material.
And so, by practicing with marbles and coins and even chicken eggs, the two learned the art of inserting objects through the fundament and holding them within the colon for hours until they could be safely retrieved. In this manner, they stole many pearls and gold nuggets and even intricate pieces of jade from the empress.
They were finally caught, as most thieves are, because they overreached. One of the men simply stuffed too much into himself, and after the unwise choice of a large meal of stewed cabbage the night before, he gave up the secret in an explosive confession before he could get to the toilet.
The scandal, however, provided Miza Crun and the mathematical Kita Thu an inspiration.
An Ogé jar, when reduced to its essence, was nothing more than two surfaces made of channeling material separated by a thin layer of damming material. It could be in the shape of a jar, a plate, a bulb, or anything else.
Such as a long, flexible tube that could be twisted and coiled to take up as little space as possible.
The scholars turned their attention to the garinafin carcasses still being dissected inside their shoreside cave laboratory: Each garinafin’s abdominal cavity contained miles of intestines, coiled and wound up into a relatively small space by volume. The inner and outer surfaces of the intestines, by Kita Thu’s calculation, formed a reservoir large enough to store the silkmotic force to kill a garinafin.
But how could they coat miles of garinafin intestines with the appropriate channeling material, preferably gold?
The answer, once again, came from the world of crime. Rin Coda’s farseers had many connections to the underworld economy, and the best forgers of Dara were soon brought to Ginpen to collaborate with the researchers.
The two groups made quite a sight. On one side were the renowned scholars in silk robes, their minds filled with obscure mathematical symbols and laws of nature, their spines curved after years of poring over scrolls and tablets and codices, their speech peppered with high-minded aphorisms from ancient scholars. On the other side were the forgers in their workshop smocks, their minds filled with thoughts of profit and wealth and techniques for deceit, their hands and arms scarred from years of working with heat and acid and paint in the quest of giving base materials the appearance of something far more precious, their speech spiced with thieves’ cant and the grease of commerce.
Normally, these two groups would never have even shared a pot of tea, much less have much to say to each other.
But in a time of war, knowledge made interesting friendships. Soon, the scholars and the thieves were… well, thick as thieves. Both groups discovered that they were kindred souls interested in the pursuit of knowledge, albeit knowledge of different spheres. They complemented each other, like the Kana and Rapa varieties of the silkmotic force complemented each other, and, when put together, generated brilliance.
“I am certain that had each of you been born to scholarly families, you would have all achieved the rank of firoa,” said Atharo Ye as raised his cup to toast the thieves at an evening banquet.
A few of the thieves flushed with fury, but Gozogi Çadé, the leader of the thieves, gestured for them to be calm. She was well respected in the community as the inventor of the technique for marking the patina of bronze replicas of ancient antiques with the warp and weft of silk wrappings that had rotted away to give them the appearance of authenticity—a very valuable and widely imitated forging technique. “I am certain that had you been born to one of our families, Master Ye,” said Gozogi as she raised her cup in return, “you would have been an inventive and adroit forger.”
“Do you really think so?” asked Atharo Ye, and he blushed with pleasure. “There are so many interesting engineering problems in your field! I was thinking of an idea for how to make soapstone appear as jade that I wanted to get your opinion on.”
The thieves relaxed, knowing now that Atharo’s compliment was genuine, though they were speaking of forgeries. “Someday I will tell my grandchildren that I once consulted for the greatest engineer in all of Dara,” said Gozogi. After a pause, she added, “I’m glad, however, that you have a job and aren’t my competitor.”