Fire and Lightning

The inside of the tavern was surprisingly big.

It was dingily lit by a fireplace, flickering candles, the red embers from pipes and tobacco-rolls. In a corner a suspenders-wearing pianist rattled out a jangling tune a on a battered honkytonk. There must be pushing a hundred people in here, drinking, talking, swearing, arguing, dealing cards, throwing darts, chucking dice, chatting poodo, their silhouettes shifting shadows on the walls.

“How are we meant to find one person in here?” said Nuthea. “It's too dark to make out anyone's hair colour.”

“Easy, princess,” said Sagar. “We ask.”

He swaggered over to the bar and gestured for the attention of the nearest server, a hulking man with a stained apron and scar over his right eye. Ryn and Nuthea followed.

“You,” Sagar said to the barman, “A draught of your best ale, now. We're looking for a man with purple hair. You seen him?”

“Nobody here like that,” said the barman gruffly. He rubbed a tankard with a cloth, not rushing to fetch Sagar's order.

“What?” said Sagar. “Don't play games with me. We've been told there's a man who frequents this tavern, name of Elrann. Purple hair. Where is he?”

“I told you,” said the barman, setting down the tankard with a thunk. “Nobody here who matches that description.”

“Cochobo-poodoo,” said Sagar. “I got my information from a reliable source. Listen, pal, I'm only in here because I lost my chief engineer in my last skybattle. That's right; I'm a feared skypirate—believe it. Now pour me my drink and point me in the direction of Elrann Luccanter before I put out your other eye.” He brushed the hilt of one of the swords at his side.

The barman leant both his hands on the bar, looked at Sagar for a long time, then let out a loud sigh, audible even over the chattering and clinking noises of the tavern. Then he turned round and pulled Sagar an ale, muttering something like “Bloody jumped-up skypirates...”

Sagar must be pretending not to hear him.

When Sagar had paid him for the drink, making a big show of flicking his gold piece onto the bar with his thumb like he’d done for Roldo, the barman pointed to a corner of the tavern, where at one of the long tables a number of people were drinking and talking animatedly. “Over there.

“Idiot,” Sagar said as he walked away.

“Tosser,” said the barman.

The three of them walked over to the long table, Sagar leading the way. As they approached and the sounds from the table grew louder, it soon became clear that the people seated at it were holding some kind of competition.

Specifically, two people at the far head of the table were engaged in a competition. Which is to say, they were both drinking tankard after tankard of ale (or whatever that brown liquid was) while all the rest of the men and women around them were cheering them on, placing bets on who was going to give up first.

“Drink! Drink! Drink!” chanted the crowd.

“Forty silver pieces on Elrann!” There it was.

“I'll take that!”

“Fifty on Saldor!”

“You must be crazy! Elrann never loses!”

One of the two competitors at the head of the table was an exceptionally well-muscled, shirtless man. His arms each looked like three fleshy balls fused together, and the six symmetrical squares of his abdomen glistened even at a distance. Detailed, intricate tattoos decorated his arms and chest, of a ship, a kraken, two crossed swords. But he was bald and had no hair.

The other competitor was a young woman of small build wearing a dirty set of blue work overalls and a pair of goggles currently pulled up above a heart-shaped face. Underneath those, she wore a bob of shocking hair, shocking enough to be seen in the firelight.

A bob of shocking purple hair.

The woman finished chugging down her tankard, then clanged it down on the table.

“Another!” she cried.

The onlookers cheered. She had a mad twinkle in her eyes and a wild grin on her face.

Eventually, tatoo-man—'Saldor’—finished quaffing his own tankard and set that down too, but with a much slower and wobblier motion.

“Mercy?” the woman said to him curiously.

The man swayed a little where he sat, ship tattoo listing left and right like it was caught on a choppy sea.

After a moment he breathed, "A...nother..." He said it like he was actually saying 'mercy'.

More cheers. The tankards were re-filled and the competitors lifted them to their mouths once more, tilted their heads back. The woman took to her tankard lustily, gulping down the ale . The man hesitated at first, but then looked at his competitor and shakily tipped his drink into his mouth, keeping his eyes fixed on her. Their throats each bobbed as they drank.

Ryn looked at Sagar. “I think you've found your engineer,” he said. Mum. Dad. Cleasor, Ryn thought. Get engineer. Repair ship. Find General Vorr. Get General Vorr. Kill General Vorr.

Sagar just stood still, brows knotted, mouth open. He looked like the very foundation of his world had been ripped away from underneath him. No, you don't know how that really feels, Ryn thought. I'm the only one here who knows how that really feels.

The woman finished her tankard and set it once more on the tabletop, far faster than the Saldor and than Ryn would have thought possible. She wore multiple metal necklaces under her blue overall which peeked out around the back of her neck, and multiple metal bracelets on each wrist which clinked when she set down her drink amidst the noise of the tavern.

Saldor took even longer to catch up to her this time, but eventually he finished drinking too and practically dropped his tankard on the table.

“Mercy,” said the woman. This time she said it as an instruction.

The man was swaying again. But he held up a finger, as if to object.

The people at the table went quiet for a moment, craning forwards to hear what he was going to say.

“Mmmmmm...” said the man.

He let out a long belch and fell sideways off his chair onto the floor.

The woman held her tankard on top of her head. “I win again! How much do I get this time?”

A huge cheer went up from the table, followed by whistles and shouts.

“Come on, pay up, she won!”

“I'm not paying you! She must have used some kind of trick!”

“It's no trick, it's just Elrann!”

“I want my fifty silver pieces now!Not my problem your boy can't handle his drink!”

“Come on then, Skycaptain," said Nuthea. “Ryn is right. This is clearly your engineer.”

Sagar blinked, then shook his head, his eyes coming back into focus. “We’ll see. Damned Roldo playing tricks on me…” he said, and strode up to the table, still holding his tankard in one hand. Ryn and Nuthea watched from a few paces behind.

“Hey!” Sagar said to the woman. “Are you Elrann?”

The other folk around the table were still talking and arguing, pushing and pulling coins back and forth, but the woman raised her gaze at the brash question. Her eyes narrowed a fraction but retained their twinkle. She was still smiling.

“Half the tavern’s chanting my name,” she said to Sagar. “I think it’s safe to assume that, yes, I’m Elrann.”

“But you’re a woman,” Sagar said without missing a beat.

“Last time I checked,” said the woman. One of her purple eyebrows crept up higher than the other as she inspected Sagar, and then Ryn and Nuthea standing a little way behind. “Why? What’s it to you?”

Sagar snorted. “There must have been some sort of mistake. My informant at the docks told me to come here and look for an Elrann with purple hair who’s a first-rate engineer.”

Elrann smiled even more widely. One of her teeth was made of silver. “Well, you found me. Guilty as charged.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Sagar. “This must be some kind of joke. Engineering’s a man’s profession. A woman can’t be an engineer.”

Sagar’s tankard exploded.

It just shattered with a loud pop, bits of broken ceramics falling around him on the floor, ale instantly drenching his hand and breeches so that he was left holding only the handle.

The whole tavern went quiet. Heads turned as people looked over to see what had happened.

From the table where the girl sat, still with a wide smile on her face, a tendril of black smoke snaked up. On the tabletop at its source was a small bronze cylinder with a handle protruding from the bottom which the woman grasped.

A pistol. Another thing that Ryn had only heard about in stories and tales. Until now.

“Can a woman not do that, either?” Elrann said into the quiet.

The tavern collapsed into laughter.

Eventually it wound down and the customers went back to whatever they were doing before the interruption, and the noises of the debauchery resumed.

Sagar’s face had turned almost as purple as Elrann’s hair. When he spoke, it was through clenched teeth.

“You are the engineer,” he said.

“If you hadn’t worked that out by now then you’d be pretty damned stupid,” said Elrann.