Smoke and Iron-Legends of Silva-Book 1

Sailing in the Clouds

The clouds were like the wind and the fire. They saw as much as they did, but far more. The vaporous veils that rolled across the sky, saw the city for what it really was. Buildings lining streets that twisted back and forth, winding themselves around and through each other. Till they resembled the tangled strands of a yarn ball, looping into knots that would take forever to unravel. The river that divided the city in half, stately mansions, the imposing palace, and Silverguard barracks to the east. While the smoke encoated factories, drab gray brick and wood houses, and ports clogged with ships, laid to the west.

Again the city was divided, another branch of the river cutting the west part in half. A boundary of stone canals connecting the merchants to the ports, and the gangs to a tempting hunting ground of fine houses and exotic goods.

High above these boundaries of water and stone could be seen, a physical division of the wealthy and the poor. Beyond these structures, light could be seen from each flickering streetlamp and window. The light blazing in the crumbling homes or simple buildings of the west, while it flickers in the dark shadows of the gilded mansions of the east. Even on the cloudiest of nights the light could not be hidden in the taverns and gambling dens, but it does where the great homes lay quiet and dormant.

The clouds obscuring the streets from the mansions' front stoops, and leaving a fine mist upon the window glass. Clouds that hide the dark star speckled sky from sight, and the ship prowling through the gray veil of damp and cold. Its hull, white as a fox's winter coat and sleek as a seal swimming through ice filled water. Its great bulk, made for ferocious storms, gliding through the air. Like the tyrant king's flimsy little crafts, manned by his mages kept under the eyes of ever watchful guards.

The great ship slows to a stop, as a figure of black darts through a door into the mansion below. Then, another one follows, one of silver finding their way through an open window. Above, the clouds hide a pair of sea blue eyes. Their owner smiling, longing etched on her face as locks of copper whip round her head.

"Hmm, which one, which one are you?" she whispers to the cloudy night.

Suddenly, sparks of silver light flash from the now closed window. A slim shadow falling on the floor of a bedroom. The woman's keen sight picking out the silver figure's form.

"There you are, at long last," the woman says, joy filtering onto her sea worn face.

"But, who is your friend I wonder?"

Pulling out her spyglass of bronze, copper, and glass. The woman looks closer, and finds something astonishing. The figure of black now stares down the one in silver. A flare of gray moonlight shining on the mask upon their face, and the ice blue quality of their eyes.

"Well, well, well," the woman drawls, closing her spyglass and turning to her friend.

A woman with hair dark as tar, and skin the color of burnished wood.

"The oracle was right, silver and ice are here at last."