Whenever he paused, Miss Bizen would turn and rattle it off in Cathayan; Master Adept Farawase would incline her head, and the State Department man would bow and go on to the next person. The adept didn’t seem too interested in the governor or the mayor or any of the other dignitaries, but she gave the State Department man a sharp look when he got to Professor Jeffries, and I thought she was paying much closer attention when it finally came down to Lan and me.
The speeches that came next took even longer than the introductions, even though all of them boiled down to “Welcome to Mill City. We hope you like our town. Have a good time while you’re here.” The idea seemed to be that if the Cathayan master adept wouldn’t stay in Mill City, they’d drag out the time she was there for as long as they possibly could. Finally, it was all finished and we got into the carriages for the parade to the ferry.
Since we weren’t particularly important people, Lan and I were in a closed carriage at the end of the line. I was just glad they’d put us together, so I had someone to talk to while we waited.
“Do you think all of them are magicians?” I asked doubtfully.
“They must be,” Lan said, half to himself. “A normal Cathayan circle has at least ten people. Adepts can handle twice that many, and a master adept can work with multiple circles. At least, that’s what Professor Warren —” He stopped short. Professor Warren was the man who’d died when the Hijero-Cathayan spell had gone wrong at Lan’s college.
“Maybe they couldn’t all leave the Confederacy for so long,” I said. “Or maybe she didn’t figure she’d need all of them. It’s not like she’s going to be damming up a river or cutting a road through a mountain while she’s traveling.” Hijero-Cathayan spells are mostly large-scale; you didn’t need ten magicians at once to light a cookfire or seal up a storage barrel. Cathayan master adepts handle the biggest spells of all, the kind that only a double-seventh son could cast on his own.
“What is she here for, anyway? She can’t have come all the way from Cathay to look at the medusa lizards, but they apparently didn’t think the Settlement Office needed to know about anything else.” He sounded a mite disgruntled.
“Trains, the State Department man said.”
Lan looked at me in disbelief. “Trains?”
I shrugged. “The Cathayan Confederacy is building railroad lines all across their country, and they want the best trains they can get to run on them. They came to the U.S. because they’d heard that the Rationalist engineers have made a bunch of improvements to the engine, and they wanted to seefor themselves. I don’t think they really believed that a bunch of folks who don’t believe in using magic would come up with anything good.”
“Who else would?” Lan said. “The Rationalists may have loony ideas about magic, but you can’t deny that they’re brilliant when it comes to machines.”
“Well, I guess the Cathayans know that now,” I said. “That was the new express train they came in on.”
Lan nodded absently, like he’d already moved on to thinking about something else. “I wish I could talk to her,” he said wistfully.
“About that spell?” I said, meaning the one that had gone so wrong the year before.
Lan nodded. “The Northern Plains Riverbank College doesn’t have anyone who’s really studied Hijero-Cathayan magic, and I … don’t want to write anyone at Simon Magus. I need to know what went wrong.”
“But you know —”
“I mean exactly what went wrong,” Lan said. “But even if I could wrangle some time to talk to her, I’m not sure she could tell me what I need to know. Translating technical questions can be a problem.”
“Why don’t you write to William?” I suggested. “There have to be people at Triskelion who can answer your questions.”
Lan squirmed and looked away. “Maybe I will,” he said, and I knew that he
The speeches that came next took even longer than the introductions, even though all of them boiled down to “Welcome to Mill City. We hope you like our town. Have a good time while you’re here.” The idea seemed to be that if the Cathayan master adept wouldn’t stay in Mill City, they’d drag out the time she was there for as long as they possibly could. Finally, it was all finished and we got into the carriages for the parade to the ferry.
Since we weren’t particularly important people, Lan and I were in a closed carriage at the end of the line. I was just glad they’d put us together, so I had someone to talk to while we waited.
“Do you think all of them are magicians?” I asked doubtfully.
“They must be,” Lan said, half to himself. “A normal Cathayan circle has at least ten people. Adepts can handle twice that many, and a master adept can work with multiple circles. At least, that’s what Professor Warren —” He stopped short. Professor Warren was the man who’d died when the Hijero-Cathayan spell had gone wrong at Lan’s college.
“Maybe they couldn’t all leave the Confederacy for so long,” I said. “Or maybe she didn’t figure she’d need all of them. It’s not like she’s going to be damming up a river or cutting a road through a mountain while she’s traveling.” Hijero-Cathayan spells are mostly large-scale; you didn’t need ten magicians at once to light a cookfire or seal up a storage barrel. Cathayan master adepts handle the biggest spells of all, the kind that only a double-seventh son could cast on his own.
“What is she here for, anyway? She can’t have come all the way from Cathay to look at the medusa lizards, but they apparently didn’t think the Settlement Office needed to know about anything else.” He sounded a mite disgruntled.
“Trains, the State Department man said.”
Lan looked at me in disbelief. “Trains?”
I shrugged. “The Cathayan Confederacy is building railroad lines all across their country, and they want the best trains they can get to run on them. They came to the U.S. because they’d heard that the Rationalist engineers have made a bunch of improvements to the engine, and they wanted to seefor themselves. I don’t think they really believed that a bunch of folks who don’t believe in using magic would come up with anything good.”
“Who else would?” Lan said. “The Rationalists may have loony ideas about magic, but you can’t deny that they’re brilliant when it comes to machines.”
“Well, I guess the Cathayans know that now,” I said. “That was the new express train they came in on.”
Lan nodded absently, like he’d already moved on to thinking about something else. “I wish I could talk to her,” he said wistfully.
“About that spell?” I said, meaning the one that had gone so wrong the year before.
Lan nodded. “The Northern Plains Riverbank College doesn’t have anyone who’s really studied Hijero-Cathayan magic, and I … don’t want to write anyone at Simon Magus. I need to know what went wrong.”
“But you know —”
“I mean exactly what went wrong,” Lan said. “But even if I could wrangle some time to talk to her, I’m not sure she could tell me what I need to know. Translating technical questions can be a problem.”
“Why don’t you write to William?” I suggested. “There have to be people at Triskelion who can answer your questions.”
Lan squirmed and looked away. “Maybe I will,” he said, and I knew that he