The Aeronaut's Windlass (The Cinder Spires, #1)

by Jim Butcher

All ships made their own individual sounds during a dive, though no one was sure precisely why. Grimm’s midshipman’s tour had been aboard a destroyer named the Speck. It had howled like a damned soul when it stooped upon a victim. Other ships wailed like enormous steam whistles. Still others took up a regular pounding rhythm, like the beating of some vast drum. Once, Grimm had been aboard the light cruiser Furious, which literally boomed out enormous snarls as it charged to combat. But his ship outdid them all. When Predator sailed into war, she sang.

Creedy nodded, looking slowly around them. “Sir?” Grimm paused. “This ship’s shroud . . . it’s extremely powerful for a vessel of this size.” The young officer hadn’t actually asked the question, but it hung unspoken in the air between them. Grimm didn’t like prevarication. It complicated life. But though he thought the young officer was a decent enough sort, he wasn’t ready to extend that much trust. Not yet.

“But I’m not a warrior,” Bridget said. The cat looked at her for a moment and then leaned his head forward to rub his little whiskery muzzle against her face. “There are many kinds of war, Littlemouse.” “What is that supposed to mean?” she asked. “That you are young,” the cat said. “And less wise than one who is old. I am wiser than you, and I say you should go. It is obvious. You should trust a wiser head than your own.” “You aren’t any older than I am,” she countered. “I am cat,” Rowl said smugly, “which means I have made better use of my time.”

“I am not a child,” she said. The cat looked around speculatively and then turned back to her. “Rather than do your duty, you are hiding in the darkest corner of the darkest room in your home. This is very wise. Very mature.”

Grimm nodded thoughtfully. And then, quite quickly and with no restraining gentleness whatsoever, he slapped Commodore Hamilton Rook across the face. The smack of the impact echoed down the empty corridor. Rook reeled back, stunned by the fact of the blow more than the force of it, and stared at Grimm with wide eyes. “Predator is not property,” Grimm said in a calm, level tone. “She is not my possession. She is my home. Her crew are not my employees. They are my family. And if you threaten to take my home and destroy the livelihood of my family again, Commodore, I will be inclined to kill you where you stand.”

“You have questions, I answers. Shall we see if they match?” “Please,” Grimm said. “I appear to be your guest. Have I you to thank for caring for me?” Ferus’s shoulders sagged in evident disappointment. “Apparently they do not match. I was going to say strawberries.” His lips compressed and he shook his head. “You aren’t very good at this game, Captain.”

“The heart of democracy is violence, Miss Tagwynn,” Esterbrook said. “In order to decide what to do, we take a count of everyone for and against it, and then do whatever the larger side wishes to do. We’re having a symbolic battle, its outcome decided by simple numbers. It saves us time and no end of trouble counting actual bodies—but don’t mistake it for anything but ritualized violence. And every few years, if the person we elected doesn’t do the job we wanted, we vote him out of office—we symbolically behead him and replace him with someone else. Again, without the actual pain and bloodshed, but acting out the ritual of violence nonetheless. It’s actually a very practical way of getting things done.”

Truth does not become untruth simply because its existence upsets the scion of a High House.”

“Littlemouse,” came Rowl’s voice from behind her. “Remember who you are. This creature wants to take it from you. Do not let him.”

Victory isn’t about the quantity of what you know, Benedict had assured her during the past days, but the quality.

when one most wanted to panic was when one most needed to think clearly, so despite the falling stone, Gwendolyn Lancaster stood quietly.

“Captain,” Creedy said. “You’re wounded. You shouldn’t go.” “Nonsense,” Grimm replied. Creedy ground his teeth. Then he turned to Kettle. “Mister Kettle?” “Sir?” Kettle asked. There was, Grimm thought, a certain amount of skepticism in the honorific. “As our dear captain is determined to put himself in unnecessary danger, I am tasking you with the personal responsibility of watching over him. I don’t want you more than a step away from him until this is settled. Clear?” Kettle’s expression relaxed, and for a second something almost like a smile graced it. “Crystal, sir.” “Bah,” Grimm said. “I could order you not to do so, you know.” “What’s that, sir?” Kettle asked in an overloud voice. “I couldn’t quite hear you. My ears, the explosions, you see, sir.”

“Industry and determination, Mister Kettle, can transform the difficult into the routine,”

“Well,” Albion said, “I know how tired you both must be, so sit, sit, and I’ll be as succinct as possible.” They sat, while Lord Albion rested a hip against the edge of his desk, looking down at them with calm assessment clear in his eyes. “I’m afraid you made a serious mistake today.” “Sire?” Grimm said. “You proved yourself extraordinarily capable, Captain,” Albion said. “I can hardly let something like that go unremarked.”

“There are many things you have never done,” Rowl responded. “To be frightened of them is of no use to you.”

“Miss Lancaster, spirestone is heavy. Fire is hot. And the captain does his duty. No matter what it costs him. Understand?”

It was a well-known fact that humans became more addled than usual when running in herds.

“Do you feel you should walk the same path because so many have walked it before you came, miss?”

“Books, my dear,” Ferus replied. “Books.” Bridget blinked once. “Books do not have souls, sir.” “Those who write them do,” Ferus said. “They leave bits and pieces behind them when they lay down the words, some scraps and smears of their essential nature.” He sniffed. “Most untidy, really—but assemble enough scraps and one might have something approaching a whole.”

“Money is a madness, a delusion-illusion. It’s not made of metal, really. It’s made of time. How much is one’s time worth? If one can convince enough people that one’s time is an invaluable resource, then one has lots and lots of money. That’s why one can spend time—only one can never get a refund.”

Foresight, always foresight, it’s the first trait of any formidable person at all.”

A wonderful place, the mind, but if it has any kind of disappointing failure, it’s that it always attempts to put new things into the context of things which are already familiar to it.

The older you get, I should think, the more you will come to understand that the universe is very much a looking glass, Miss Lancaster.” “Meaning what, precisely?” “That it reflects a great deal more of yourself to your senses than you probably know.”

When we connect with our fellow mortal souls, something quite remarkable has happened. And perhaps one day, if we all work at it diligently and manage not to exterminate one another, we may even be able to see through one another’s eyes.” He beamed. “But for now, we’ll have to make do with making good guesses, I suppose.

“There, you see, sir?” Kettle growled. “What’s she doing here?” “Whatever it is,” Grimm mused, “I think we can safely assume it is unlikely to make our sleep more restful.” “Could be we have a problem with that new number three gun, skipper,” Kettle suggested darkly. “Maybe it goes off completely by mistake. Blows that bitch clean out of the sky. Terrible accident, sincere regrets, we all go to the funerals.” “Now, now, Mister Kettle. You know I would never condone such an action.” He glanced aside and added in a whimsical undertone, “At least, not when it could be traced back to Predator.”

“There are many, many kinds of strength. Fortitudo refers to something quite specific.” He poked a finger at Benedict’s biceps in demonstration. “Not this kind of brute power, not at all. It means something more—inner strength, strength of purpose, moral courage. The strength required to fight on in the face of what seems to be certain defeat. The strength to carry on faithfully when it seems no one knows or cares.” He swirled his cup and eyed Gwen. “And the strength to sacrifice oneself when that sacrifice is what is required for the good of others, even when one could offer someone else up instead. Especially then.”

“I’m afraid my cane is upstairs in the suite,” Ferus said apologetically. “It would have given me away. Without it, I can’t do anything significant.” “Go get it,” Gwen said through clenched teeth. Ferus opened his mouth and stared at Gwen helplessly, then waved his hands and said, “But . . . there are doorknobs.

“Are you insane?” screamed another patron, a younger man in another separate knot of younger men. “That thing will kill us!” “Oh, God in Heaven, man, do gather up your scrotum and fight!” Gwen snarled.

Master Ferus is . . . I do not wish to sound disrespectful, but the man is . . .” “One grip shy of a steering column?” Grimm suggested. “Ten degrees short of a compass? Aviating without goggles?”

too?” “She seems a pleasant enough child,” Grimm said. “But yes, presumably.”

“You saved us,” she said. “Of course I did,” Rowl responded. “I am without flaw.”

“I would knock down a Spire for you, Littlemouse.”

How can you get someone else to understand something for which they have no frame of reference?” “Yes,” Gwen said. Her throat tightened up again. “Yes. That’s it exactly.” “You can’t,” Grimm said simply. “You’ve seen the mistmaw. They haven’t.” Gwen blinked slightly at that. “I . . . Oh. Is that what that phrase means? Because I haven’t seen a literal mistmaw.” Grimm smiled faintly. “That’s what it means,” he said. “You can describe it to them as much as you want. You can write books about what you felt, what you experienced. You can compose poems and songs about what it was like. But until they’ve seen it for themselves, they can’t really know what it is you’re talking about. A few people will clearly see the effect it had on you, will understand that much, at least. But they won’t know.”