suppose I was afraid that you would all be upset with me for not coming here before this,” he said, a little shyly. “You might think
I
thought I was too good for you, now that I’m the Ambassador. Or—something.”
She raised a hand and mimed a cuff at his ear. “Be sensible. Father’s a Herald, remember? Just because I don’t stick my nose into Court, that doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s going on. They’ve had you tied up with more meetings and business than any one person has a right to be burdened with, and we all knew it.
I made sure
everyone knew that.”
He relaxed at that. “I didn’t want you to think that I’d forgotten who my friends are.”
“Ha.” She applied herself to her meal with a grin. “You’ve been working, and we haven’t exactly been idle. Even if everyone else in Valdemar thinks that the crisis was solved,
we
know we only put it off for a while. We’re still trying to work out a solution. Master Levy thinks there won’t be
a
solution; he thinks we’re going to have to come up with one make-do after another, because he thinks that the problem is getting too complicated to actually solve in the time we have.”
“Do the mages know that?” he asked, feeling a chill.
More temporary solutions? Doesn’t that leave us open to mistakes and the results of mistakes?
“The mages know,” An’desha confirmed. “At the moment they’re trying to let their minds lie fallow while they track the current patterns of mage-energy for Master Levy’s crew to analyze. I think some of them are hoping that if they don’t
try
to think about a solution, one will spring forth from the back of their heads, fully formed.”
Natoli snorted but didn’t comment otherwise.
“Well, that’s not necessarily bad thinking,” one of the others pointed out. “I’m not talking about wishful thinking—it’s just that if you try too hard to put all the facts together, sometimes they won’t fall into place. Come on, Natoli,
you
know that even happens to us!”
“I suppose you’re right,” Natoli admitted grudgingly. “There
is
Cletius and the bathtub, for instance. It’s just that some of these mages are just
so
certain that they can vibrate their way to answers that it makes me want to drown them all.”
“Let’s talk about something else,” Karal urged. “Something that has
nothing
to do with mages or mage-storms or the Empire. What’s exciting?”
A red head at the end of the table popped up. “Steam!” he exclaimed.
“That’s
what’s exciting! There’s no end to what we can do with it! Who needs magic? Steam will save the world!”
“Don’t go too far overboard,” Natoli warned. “There’re problems with steampower that we really ought to consider before we have people riding all over in steam-driven carriages. You have to burn things to heat water, and that makes smoke, and what happens when we start putting more smoke in the air? There’s already a soot problem in Haven from all the heating and cooking fires.”
“But you won’t need heating and cooking fires if we heat everyone’s house with the hot waste water from the steam-driven mills and manufactories,” the other argued. “In fact, we should eliminate most of the soot problem that way.”
“Not if you replace every one of those cookfires with one heating the boiler in a steam carriage,” someone else put in. “Natoli’s right about that. We really need to think about what we’re doing before we launch into something we can’t stop.”
“Wait a moment,” Karal interrupted. “Steam
carriages?”
“One of the Masters came up with a water pump for draining mines that was steam driven, and someone else realized that the same principle could be used as the motive power for a carriage, by basically addingwheels to the whole affair rather than having a stationary boiler,” Natoli explained. She snatched a stick of charcoal out of someone else’s hand and began to draw on the paper covering the
I
thought I was too good for you, now that I’m the Ambassador. Or—something.”
She raised a hand and mimed a cuff at his ear. “Be sensible. Father’s a Herald, remember? Just because I don’t stick my nose into Court, that doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s going on. They’ve had you tied up with more meetings and business than any one person has a right to be burdened with, and we all knew it.
I made sure
everyone knew that.”
He relaxed at that. “I didn’t want you to think that I’d forgotten who my friends are.”
“Ha.” She applied herself to her meal with a grin. “You’ve been working, and we haven’t exactly been idle. Even if everyone else in Valdemar thinks that the crisis was solved,
we
know we only put it off for a while. We’re still trying to work out a solution. Master Levy thinks there won’t be
a
solution; he thinks we’re going to have to come up with one make-do after another, because he thinks that the problem is getting too complicated to actually solve in the time we have.”
“Do the mages know that?” he asked, feeling a chill.
More temporary solutions? Doesn’t that leave us open to mistakes and the results of mistakes?
“The mages know,” An’desha confirmed. “At the moment they’re trying to let their minds lie fallow while they track the current patterns of mage-energy for Master Levy’s crew to analyze. I think some of them are hoping that if they don’t
try
to think about a solution, one will spring forth from the back of their heads, fully formed.”
Natoli snorted but didn’t comment otherwise.
“Well, that’s not necessarily bad thinking,” one of the others pointed out. “I’m not talking about wishful thinking—it’s just that if you try too hard to put all the facts together, sometimes they won’t fall into place. Come on, Natoli,
you
know that even happens to us!”
“I suppose you’re right,” Natoli admitted grudgingly. “There
is
Cletius and the bathtub, for instance. It’s just that some of these mages are just
so
certain that they can vibrate their way to answers that it makes me want to drown them all.”
“Let’s talk about something else,” Karal urged. “Something that has
nothing
to do with mages or mage-storms or the Empire. What’s exciting?”
A red head at the end of the table popped up. “Steam!” he exclaimed.
“That’s
what’s exciting! There’s no end to what we can do with it! Who needs magic? Steam will save the world!”
“Don’t go too far overboard,” Natoli warned. “There’re problems with steampower that we really ought to consider before we have people riding all over in steam-driven carriages. You have to burn things to heat water, and that makes smoke, and what happens when we start putting more smoke in the air? There’s already a soot problem in Haven from all the heating and cooking fires.”
“But you won’t need heating and cooking fires if we heat everyone’s house with the hot waste water from the steam-driven mills and manufactories,” the other argued. “In fact, we should eliminate most of the soot problem that way.”
“Not if you replace every one of those cookfires with one heating the boiler in a steam carriage,” someone else put in. “Natoli’s right about that. We really need to think about what we’re doing before we launch into something we can’t stop.”
“Wait a moment,” Karal interrupted. “Steam
carriages?”
“One of the Masters came up with a water pump for draining mines that was steam driven, and someone else realized that the same principle could be used as the motive power for a carriage, by basically addingwheels to the whole affair rather than having a stationary boiler,” Natoli explained. She snatched a stick of charcoal out of someone else’s hand and began to draw on the paper covering the
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