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Eumela’s tavern, The Bull and the Frog, welcomed all travelers who entered the city through the South Gate, which meant it had less customers than if it stood near the West Gate, but still more than enough to make a business. Next to it, you could find Filel’s workshop, where you could fix your car if needed. Inbetween these, all in the same building, stood the door that led to the house of the husband-and-wife duo of owners of the two enterprises.

At the moment, the workshop was closed, but Kal heard noises from behind its massive door: it wwas probably about to open for the day. He entered the tavern and sat at the bar.

He looked around: for a moment, he thought he was the only one inside, but from his position he saw the Old Man was there as well, sitting on his usual chair in a corner. Kal didn’t know his name; those few times somebody mentioned him they always called him just “the Old Man”. As far as he knew, he lived somewhere south of the city, along the river. He earned his living as a fisher and a hunter. Once in a while he came to town to sell pelts and offered the tavern some of the game he caught; in exchange, Eumela cooked him some nice dish that was almost certainly better than anything he ate normally.

«Good morning.» Kal said.

The Old Man’s answer was little more than a low-pitched mumble. Kal didn’t expect anything more: he was a man of few words. That hollow-cheeked face, on which the boy had never seen a smile, framed by a thick and unkempt gray beard, tended to scare most people off, especially children: Kal knew that because he too had been scared of it. But with time he had understood that despite his looks the Old Man wasn’t a bad person.

Less than a glassturn later, A door behind the bar opened and there was Eumela Eremina, the owner of the tavern, holding a dish with bread and cheese on a plate.

«Here you go.» she said with a smile, putting the dish on the table in front of the Old Man.

He once again answered with an unclear mumble, but Kal was pretty sure he heard a «Thank you.» somewhere in there.

Eumela went back behind the counter and turned her attention to the boy: «Woke up early today, Kal? Or you’re coming from the night shift?»

«The second one.» he answered.

«Then it’s on the house.»

The woman was already heading for the kitchen, but Kal stopped her: «No, I can pay.»

«You sure?»

Only then Kal looked into his pockets and realized he had no money on hand.

The hostess retreated through the door she had entered from, with a hearty laugh: «Don’t worry. It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last!»

Kal just sat there, feeling a little embarassed. That woman had always had a soft spot for him, probably because he was one of her son’s friends, but he tried his best to not take advantage of that.

When Eumela came back, the Old Man had already finished eating and had left, without a word.

«Here you go: lowbread with milkpaste and honey!»

Kal took a bite off the flat disk of bread: he felt the acidity of the paste spread over it, and the sweetness of the honey that softened it. Ever since he was a kid, it had been one of his favorite foods.

«Very tasty. Thank you.» he said, once he finished.

«I know you’ve always liked it. You and Mak have similar tastes.» Eumela replied, smiling.

«Is Mak already up?»

The woman’s smile turned in an exasperated frown: «I’m not even sure he went to bed yesterday. He asked his father to have some time in the workshop and then…»

She was interrupted by a bout of ecstatic laughter coming from the other side of the wall behind her: whoever was laughing like that had to be extremely satisfied with something.

The laugh was folowed by a high-pitched excited voice, that Kal recognized as belonging to Mak: «Yes, yes! …No. No, no no NO!»

After that, there was a loud metallic crash, that made the walls shake.

Mak’s voice turned into an anguished cry. Another voice, lower in pitch and calmer, replied to him: «I told you it wouldn’t work.»

Kal recognized that one as well.

Eumela snorted, then she turned her neck to the door behind the counter and roared: «Makar! What on Earth is happening there? Please tell me you didn’t break the Watch’s tetracycle! I swear, if you put us in trouble with one of your dad’s clients again I’ll…!»

«Is Ark there with him too?» Kal had already stood up from his chair, trying to take a peek at the scene on the other side of the door. Curiosity had gotten the best of him.

«Eh? Ah, yes, I think he is…»

«Can I go see?»

Eumela hesitated for a few instants, probably pondering the options. Then she said: «Fine. And if you manage to convince my son to get out of there, I’m offering you lunch and dinner for free as well!»

Kal didn’t care about the offer, but nevertheless he smiled as he walked through the door.

He found himself in the entrance corridor to Eumela’s house. Right in front of him, another doorway, symmetrically opposite to the one he had entered from, led to her husband’s workshop. He passed through this second doorway, and was welcomed by an unusual sight.

All the windows were shut, leaving most of the room covered in shadow. A large, partially disassembled tetracycle stood in a dark corner, as if abandoned. At the foot of the tall pillar in the center of the room, under the dim light of a small lamp, Mak was bent over with a control band around his large head. He was apparently looking intently at the underside of a small vehicle he was lifting with his strong arms, but that vehicle was of a kind Kal had never seen before: it looked like a large metal disk, surmounted by a rough handrail and something similar to the handlebar of a dicycle, but it had no visible wheels.

«There’s the issue! All of this quadrant is misaligned!» Mak shouted, clearly talking to himself more than to anyone else, as he pointed to some place on the disk.

The underside of the object was a grid of dozens and dozens of small circular holes, from which small white beads peeked out, like many little jewels.

Kal knew what those were, everyone knew it: force crystals. You could see them on the back of every car and there was one inside every mikra and dolikos. He wasn’t an expert, but nevertheless he knew that about ten of them were enough to move a big dicycle. And yet, at a rapid glance, under that weird disk there seemed to be a few hundred. What was all that energy needed for? And why under the disk, on the side that was apparently meant to face the ground?

There could only be one single answer.

«Are you trying to make this thing fly, Mak?»

He was unprepared for the surprised yelp of the other boy, combined with the sound of the vehicle suddenly left falling back to the ground.

«Kal!? What are you doing here? How long have you been here? What… what time is it?»

Now that he was looking at Kal, Kal saw that Mak looked extremely tired: his curly hair had grown disorderly and there were dark circles under his eyes.

«Time to go to sleep, I think.» he told him, compassionately.

«Go to sleep? No, not now. I’m almost there…» Mak brought an unesasy hand to his temple.

«Listen to him, for your own good.»

Kal jolted up, before he remembered that when he was in the tavern he had heard a second voice, then he turned: as he expected, Ark’s slim figure had suddenly appeared to his right.

Mak had been startled only because he was tired, otherwise he would have noticed Kal long before Kal spoke. But Ark was different: that young man had a great talent for not being noticed unless he deliberately revealed his presence.

As usual, his face showed no expression, something Kal was very well used to. He noticed he looked less tired than Mak. In one hand he was holding a book, but this too was usual for him.

«Not you too, now!» Mak replied to his other friend. «I just need to open the thermal plate here, realign the quadrant and then it will work!»

«It will not. The quadrant misaligned because the plate is defective. Furthermore, probably the crystals aren’t spread enough and they interfere with one another.»

«The plate can’t be defective, maybe you just didn’t assemble it correctly! And crystals can’t interfere with each other if they’re all the same size! I cut them personally!» Not even a sleepless night could keep Makar Fidelid calm when someone doubted his ability.

«You cut them in the dead of night, while you were tired and sleepy, under the light of that one single lamp.» Ark said, pointing at it.

At this point, Mak was fuming. The armband he wore on his right wrist immediately became a large wrench.

Kal watched him start to unscrew the panel on the underside of the vehicle he had been working on, but as he could no longer resist his own curiosity he then asked Ark: «Is he really trying to build a flying machine?»

«Yup.» was the curt answer he got.

That had been Mak’s childhood dream, everyone knew it. He had inherited from his father both his talent and his passion for machines, but not his natural ability to keep his feet on the ground, in more than one sense. Even now that he had a job in the workshop, clearly he had still got all of his ingenuity and his willingness to experiment.

«And the noise from before was…»

«An attempt at takeoff.» Ark continued the sentence for him.

Kal was used to his friend’s untalkativeness, but right now he didn’t have the patience to humor him; so he gave him a look that clearly said “Tell me more, please.”

Ark resisted for some time, then he continued: «It worked, for a few moments. Then the defective plate buckled and a few crystals got out of alignment, so the thing started to spin out of control.»

As funny as the mental image of a huge spinning top suspended in midair was, Kal understood that such an accident could be very dangerous, especially considering the magnitude of forces involved. The fact the worshop had suffered no damage was a miracle in itself.

«I guess Mak wanted to be the one on board, while you uncovered the inhibitor.» Kal pointed at the spherical object on top of the pillar in the center of the room. It was another force crystal, about as big as his own head. He had never paid the technical explanations much attention, but he knew that bigger crystals inhibited smaller crystals, allowing, people such as a mechanic, for example, to work with them without the risk of an energy discharge.

«You’re halfway right. Yes, Mak was the one on board, but I didn’t do anything. He had the readiness to immediately shut the thermal covers on the plate, so the machine just fell to the ground like a boulder.»

A dry snap told the two of them that Mak had opened the disk. They say him rummage around inside it for a moment, then he drew something out and turned toward them, holding in his hands two small white crystals.

«Here, look!» he said to Ark.

Kal looked as well. They were teardrop-shaped, round at one extremity and pointed at the other.

Mak shook both hands, emphasizing his point: «They’re identical! They’re all perfectly of the same size! Satisfied?»

Kal got closer to the opened-up disk. Seen inside the machine, the crystals appeared to him like many little jagged teeth sticking out of an oval surface, gray and opaque, aiming at the sky. Above them there was another oval surface, full of little indentations.

«Mak.» He called his friend and pointed to an area of the lower oval. «Is it normal for this part here to be bent like that?»

Mak looked where he was pointing: «Of course it’s not, it got damaged in the fall. But it’s not a problem, All it needs is some hammering and it’ll be fine.»

«Huh. This one too?» This time Kal pointed at the upper oval.

Mak opened his eyes wide, got closer and examined the area Kal had pointed to and then remained silent for a long time. Something told Kal that in this case it would not be fine with just some hammering.

The young man’s following gestures confirmed Kal’s feeling. Mak put his hands in his hair and let out a pained groan as if somebody had stepped on his foot.

«The crystals’ push deformed the plate! But how!? According to my calculations it shouldn’t have! I had the alloy made to my specifications!»

«I had told you, Mak.» Ark intervened: «That plate is defective. It happens, sometimes.»

Mak groaned again, his arms falling limp on his sides, but right at that moment there was a loud, forceful knock at the large door of the workshop.

«Open, in the name of the Law!» said a voice that sounded all too familiar to Kal.

Mak shivered and gave a worried look to the tetracycle in a corner, then he gulped and opened the door.

As Kal had suspected, the disgruntled face that appeared beyond it was unmistakably his colleague Elef’s.

The young decarch of the Watch stormed into the workshop without waiting for Mak to open the door all the way. Two other men followed him, but Kal didn’t recognize them: they must have been assigned to him only recently.

«What is happening here, Mechanic?» the decarch spoke, looking at Mak. «A concerned citizen told us of a great ruckus coming from the inside of this establishment. Who is committing public nuisance this early in the morning?» Kal was sure Elef had noticed him, but apparently his old friend had opted to ignore him.

«N-Nothing is happening, just a small accident, nobody got hurt.» Mak fearfully answered.

Elef approached him with a threatening look, and said: «You must have misheard me, mechanic Makar Filelid. I did not ask if anyone got hurt. I asked “who is committing public nuisance”. The sun has risen barely three glassturns ago. The citizens are still in the process of waking up. Do you know that provoking loud noises outside of working hours is a criminal offense? And what is that contraption?»

He had turned his gaze to the (potentially) flying machine.

For a brief moment, a joyous glint appeared in Mak’s eyes: Kal was certain he was about to start a long and excited description of his invention.

However the decarch continued, without waiting for an answer: «Another one of your idiocies. Where is our tetracycle?»

The excitement in Mak’s eyes turned into terror. The boy was paralyzed, but Elef had no difficulty in finding what he was looking for even without his help. And once he did, he became furious.

«We entrusted it to you five days ago!» he exclaimed, while his two subordinates nodded in unison. «How come is it still in this condition?»

Mak tried to answer, but once again the person he was talking to wasn’t interested in having one. «Instead of working on what you’re paid to do you waste your time with useless rubbish? Don’t you understand you’re undermining the city’s security? We need that car!»

Kal did not feel any need to object, not yet at least: despite how dramatically he was putting it, his superior was fundamentally right.

But as Mak tried to utter an apology, Elef continued: «You really have no idea what is about to happen, do you? But how could you, after all? You’ve always been just a big, dumb simpleton. There’s a reason you remained a civilian instead of entering the military.»

His stern, authoritarian tone now had a tinge of authentic anger, as if he had taken personal offense to what he had seen.

Kal decided it was time to say something: «Alright, alright. That’s enough, Elef, he got the message…»

«You will address me as Decarch Eleutar, watchman Kalos!» Elef interrupted him, his voice rising suddenly to almost a screech.

Then he turned his attention back to Mak, hissing: «You are under the impression that I will turn a blind eye to this because we are friends. And so you convinced yourself you can afford to neglect your duties. I need you to understand this: even if we grew up together, I am not going to tolerate your perennial dumbness at all. Not in a situation like this.»

Mak kept his head low, without saying anything. To someone who didn’t know him, he might have seemed to be about to start a fight, but despite his size Mak was a timid and meek soul: he could never hurt anyone. He just wasn’t the best with words, unless the topic was machines. Because of that, most people considered him dimwitted and treated him accordingly. He had gotten used to it and took no offense.

However, Elef wasn’t “most people”: Elef knew him, he knew Mak was anything but “dumb”, and yet he was still insulting him like that.

«Now you get to work on the tetracycle and you fix it by sunset. Am I clear?»

Mak began nodding in wordless resignation, but suddenly a new voice made itself heard.

«He’s been awake all night, let him go to sleep. If you actually want a job well done, at least.»

Ark, who had been silent until now, had fixed his indecipherable gaze on Elef.

As soon as he saw him, Elef bared his teeth.

«Now I see. You are the one behind this, are you not? Mechanic Makar, now you see he consequences of the bad company you keep What is a coward like you doing outside the safety of his house, hmm?»

He moved toward him, with the clear intention of intimidating him, but Ark’s expression did not change in the slightest.

«The work will be done well. Otherwise…»

«“Otherwise” what, Elef? You’ll punish him? You’ll throw him in the dungeon? So you’ll be both one tetracycle and one mechanic less. What a great result.»

Elef was speechless, as his face turned purple with rage.

«I-I won’t accept this tone from a draft evader, Artor Deutarid!» He finally said, almost screaming.

At that point, for the first time since the conversation had started, Ark visibly frowned.

«You know that, don’t you?» Elef continued, seemingly calming down now that he felt he had the advantage. «Dodging the draft is a crime against the Principate. Had anyone else committed it, they’d have been arrested and sentenced to prison. You were only spared because of your name!»

Kal felt the air in the room become heavy. Elef had a different tone than when he was speaking to Mak: the emotion in his voice now was genuine hatred.

He tried to step between the two, but Elef froze him with a glance.

Then he turned to Ark again and continued: «Makar, I can forgive: all things aside, we are still friends. You, however… our friendship ended when I discovered what kind of spineless piece of garbage you are. I will not allow you to make more trouble than what you’ve already made. Get out of my sight. Immediately.»

Unlike Mak, Ark didn’t lower his gaze. Though his indifference was now tinged with unease, the young man kept looking at the decarch straight in the eyes.

And as he did so, he opened his mouth to speak.

«Didn’t you hear me?» Elef insisted.

«You got one thing wrong.» Ark said, pronouncing each word slowly, «I was never your friend.»

Before Kal could make a move, his superior had materialized his sword, grabbed Ark by the collar of his kamisa and pushed him against the wall, pointing the blade at his neck. Even the two subordinated with him had been caught by surprise and hadn’t been able to stop him.

«You…!» Elef looked like an animal, with bared teeth and eyes opened wide. «This is my chance! I won’t let you ruin it!»

Ark though had his lips curved in a soft smile.

«I have no idea of what chance you’re talking about, but you’re the one ruining it.»

Elef uttered a confused “Huh?”

«Remind me, Decarch.» Ark continued, calmly, as if there were no weapon a few fingers from his throat. «How do you call what you’re doing right now? “Excessive use of force”? Or maybe would “Abuse of power” be more fitting?»

Elef’s hold loosened a little as his wrathful expression turned to horror.

Ark went on: «You do know that it is a crime even for a watcher to attack any citizen without due provocation, do you? And as you said before, thanks to my name I’m not even just “any” citizen. You should be more careful. Expecially when you’re in front of one, two…» he looked to each of the persons present in turn «…three, four witnesses.»

Elef dematerialized his sword and let Ark fall to the ground.

Then, after a few deep breaths, he snarled: «One day you’ll no longer have your dad protecting you.»

And after abruptly turning to Mak: «The tetracycle must be ready for tomorrow morning.»

He headed to the door of the workshop, but halfway there he stopped, pointed at the lamp hanging from the central pillar and shouted: «And for the love of Man change the water in that thing! Can’t you see the phosphorae are dying?!»

After that he finally left, followed by his two subordinates.

Mak quickly unscrewed the lamp’s bulb and then left through the door that led to his home.

Meanwhile, Ark had stood back up and unruffled his clothes. His expression was once again completely neutral.

«He wouldn’t have lashed out like that if he didn’t still consider you his friend.» Kal felt he needed to say that. He, Ark, Mak, Elef, Fyra and Agatha as well. All of them had grown up together. He had accepted that each would walk a different path one day, but he couldn’t stand the thought of a sour and abrupt breakup, not for them.

Ark said nothing. Kal tried to read whatever thoughts were brewing behind that face, but as usual with Ark, he was unable to.

«Do you… do you really mean to tell your father what happened?»

He asked him even as he hoped with all his heart to already know the answer. Deutar Artorid was a powerful man: one word from him would be enough to have Elef demoted, or straight up dishonorably dismissed from the City Watch.

Ark’s answer came in the form of another question: «Do you think I’m the kind of guy who does something like that?»

Hearing that, Kal smiled. That was the answer he was looking for.

Mak came back with the lightbulb visibly cleaner and filled with water, and screwed it back on its support.

«Alright, I’ll go to sleep now.» he said. «But first I have to tidy up the workshop.»

«I’ll take care of that.» Ark replied, «You just go.»

Mak gave him a surprised look, but before he could say anything Ark continued: «I know where the tools go, don’t worry.»

«N-No, it’s not that.» Mak said. «It’s… well, thank you.» he finished, with a tired smile.

«Don’t mention it.» Ark didn’t smile back, but neither Mak nor Kal expected anything more.

And Kal too felt it was time to go and get some sleep.

He bid goodbye to his two friends and took the way home.

---

He headed east up to the end of the row of buildings, then he turned north.

To his left he could see the Orchards, the one cultivated field inside the walls. The bean pods were slowly maturing on their vines. A few more weeks and they’d be ready for reaping. They contributed to less than a tenth of the city’s supply of food, but in an emergency they were nevertheless better than nothing.

About a glassturn later, Kal was finally home.

He passed the entrance trying to not make a sound. As far as he knew, the rest of his family was still asleep.

But when he got to the door to his bedroom, a greeting spoken in a low voice behind his back disproved that assumption.

«Welcome back.»

Turning toward the voice, Kal saw his sister Agatha standing in front of the kitchen. She seemed to have just woken up.

«Hi.» he said to her.

«How was the night?»

«I’m a little tired. Mom and Dad?»

«Mom is still asleep. Dad went to the Rook, he said that he’ll be busy all day.»

Kal found it strange: that day his father was supposed to have the morning off. He briefly thought back to the Exarch’s words, but he was just too sleepy for any deep reflection.

«Did you eat breakfast?» his sister asked him.

«Yeah, don’t worry. I’m gonna go sleep for a few hours.» he answered, smiling thankfully to her.

«Alright.» She smiled back then headed back to the kitchen, almost certainly to finish her own breakfast, interrupted by his arrival.

Kal got in his room, closed the door, got undressed and threw himself on the bed.

He let his thoughts wander aimlessly for a few deep breaths, then he fell asleep.

He wouldn’t wake up before lunchtime.

Afterword

I think this is a good time to launch this section.
Hello everyone, this is the author speaking.
Sometimes, at the end of the weekly chapter I’ll add something more informal like this, to share relevant information about this website and this novel, to answer publicly to questions you ask me that might be of interest to everyone, or to just jot down in written form some passing thought that came to me during the week, a right that I reserve with the promise of not abusing of it.
If there’s anything you’re particularly curious about, feel free to ask in the comments.
Anyway, I thank you for your attention and I hope to see you again next week.
And if you liked this chapter, tell your friends.