“Forfeiture of all assets,” Zibya repeated, the words tasting like rust. She crumpled the parchment into a tight ball, the red wax seal cracking under the pressure. “They want the skyship.” Bodasht peered over her shoulder, his spectacles glinting in the dim light of their workshop. He held a small, articulated arm, precisely measuring the splintered edges where Zibya had torn the notice. “The legal parameters for ‘forfeiture’ are broadly defined but typically include any innovative prototypes. Given our current production schedule, this would specifically target the skyship and its associated drive train.” Tzik-Tzik, perched on a stack of discarded cogs, let out a brassy hiss. A loose screw, dislodged by Zibya’s earlier rage, tumbled past its snout. The iguana snapped it up with a metallic *clink*. “The skyship is the *only* thing that matters,” Zibya growled, kicking a stray wrench across the floor. It skittered under a workbench. “They won’t get it. Not if I have to turn this entire workshop into a slag heap.” Bodasht adjusted his grip on the measuring arm. “A slag heap would render our vessel inoperable, thus achieving the same outcome as forfeiture through different means. I recommend against such a course of action.” “Just the front half, then,” Zibya muttered, a dangerous gleam entering her eyes. She stalked towards a wall covered in various schematics, pulling down a blueprint of the facility load points. “Strategically placed charges. Enough to make a statement, not enough to damage the main assembly bay.” Hours later, as the first rays of dawn bled across the polluted Qart-Zab sky, the Grand Shipyards began to stir. The rhythmic clang of distant hammers mixed with the grinding of gears. But the commotion at Zibya and Bodasht’s workshop, ‘The Spindrift Bay,’ was far from ordinary. A phalanx of bailiffs in polished brass armor marched towards our soot-stained doors. Behind them lumbered two massive iron crushers, blocky automatons with battering spheres for hands and treads instead of feet. Lord Hadraba, preening in an extravagant velvet coat, rode atop a gilded sedan chair carried by four sweating porters. Next to him, perched precariously on a smaller, equally ostentatious chair, was Yisharra, dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. “Oh, Lord Hadraba, my heart just aches for them,” Yisharra simpered, her voice carrying across the quiet dawn air. “To think, Zibya has fallen so low. It’s truly a tragedy that her poor slipway must be… *reclaimed*.” Her gaze, however, locked onto our yard with sharp avarice, giving the lie to her quavering chin. Hadraba puffed out his chest. “Indeed, dear Yisharra. A necessary measure. The High Wardens will not tolerate such… *disruptive* elements within their purview. And that dreadful airborne contraption! Pure folly!” Zibya watched them from a high, narrow window, a small detonator clutched in her hand. Bodasht stood beside her, his calculations already completed. “Their approach vector is consistent with standard siege protocols. Minimal collateral damage to neighboring berths is anticipated from their initial assault, assuming no unexpected countermeasures.” “Oh, there’ll be countermeasures,” Zibya promised, a wild grin spreading across her face. “Big, fiery, *unexpected* countermeasures.” As the iron crushers reached our front gates, their weighted iron globes already beginning to swing back, Yisharra let out a particularly loud, feigned sob. “Such a pity! All those lovely inventions… gone!” “They’re not gone, Yisharra,” Zibya’s voice boomed from above, amplified by a concealed speaking tube. “They’re just… getting a new entrance!” She slammed her thumb onto the detonator. *** The front half of The Spindrift Bay did not merely explode. It *blossomed*. A controlled, concussive bloom of fire and twisted metal, precisely engineered to shear away the first twenty paces of the outer masonry. The main doors, the guard barracks, the reception area — all vaporized in a spectacular ballet of pyrotechnics. Metal beams shrieked as they tore free. Timber splintered. Clouds of soot, dust, and superheated steam erupted, coating the approaching bailiffs in a gritty, black rain. The automatons, caught in the blast wave, staggered on groaning gear trains. One lost an arm, its iron orb bouncing uselessly into a newly gouged crater. Lord Hadraba’s sedan chair toppled sideways, sending the panicked nobleman sprawling into a puddle of grimy oil. Yisharra shrieked, her silk square sailing into the ash as she tumbled onto the slag heap, grime coating her layered silk gown. She looked less like a tearful victim and more like a soot-covered rat caught in a fireworks display. “My… my *face*!” she wailed, scrambling to her feet, completely ignoring Hadraba’s groans. Zibya emerged from the smoke, standing triumphantly on the edge of the newly created chasm. A river of burning debris, fueled by spilled lubricants and shattered timber, now separated her compound from the bewildered bailiffs. “A moat!” she declared, gesturing grandly with her sooty hand. “A trench of fire! Try to evict us now, you puffed-up bureaucratic slugs!” Bodasht appeared beside her, completely unruffled by the recent pyrotechnics. “The structural integrity of the remaining half appears stable. The calculated blast radius was accurate to within 0.03 meters. Fire spread is contained within the intended parameters.” Tzik-Tzik, perched on Bodasht’s shoulder, hissed at the flailing Yisharra, then snatched a freshly loosened rivet from the air. “This is… this is *vandalism*!” Hadraba spluttered, wiping oil from his face. “You’ll be imprisoned for this, Zibya! The Syndic will have your head!” “The magistrates can take a swim in the trench!” Zibya retorted, then paused. The blast, while dramatic, had also ripped away part of the floorboards. Beneath the scorched earth and smoldering timbers, a vast expanse of polished brass now lay exposed. It wasn’t just brass; it was intricate, etched, and glowing with a faint, internal light. Zibya dropped to her knees, brushing away ash. It was a map. Not just any map, but a colossal, clockwork cartogram of Qart-Zab, spanning the entire breadth of the exposed floor. Tiny gears shifted, lines of light pulsed, and then, slowly, a section of the map began to dim, its glowing filaments winking out. Bodasht knelt beside her, his expression shifting from detached analysis to intense focus. “That is… a topographic projection of Qart-Zab’s geomagnetic grid. And those dimming segments…” He traced a finger along the fading lines. “They indicate a critical energy decay.” Zibya’s memory was still a patchwork of holes, but the implications of the map hit her with the force of a iron ram. “The shipyard. It’s… it’s losing its charge, isn’t it? The magnetic fields that hold the floating islands… they’re collapsing.” Bodasht nodded without looking up. “Precisely. Without a stable magnetic field, the entire city of Qart-Zab will experience… a rapid descent into the Abyssal Current.” He meant it would sink. Suddenly, the stakes of the Royal Regatta, of our air-galleon, of everything, snapped into terrifying focus. Past-Zibya had not merely wanted to win. She had not aimed to loft a timber keel into the clouds for mere prestige. She’d been trying to *save the city*. “Our prototype,” Zibya muttered, turning from the collapsing map to her unfinished hull in the surviving drydock. “The sky-keel. It acts as an anchor for the current, doesn’t it? A mobile, aerial conduit to restore the magnetic currents.” Bodasht confirmed, “The diary mentioned ‘stabilization protocols’ and ‘field recalibration’ but lacked context. This map provides it. The Regatta is a deadline; the galleon *must* be launched before the decay becomes irreversible.” “But we don’t have enough time to build the propulsion chassis from scratch,” Zibya said, her mind racing, realizing the sheer scale of her past self’s gamble. “It requires too many rare alloys.” Her gaze drifted past the burning ditch, past the twitching automatons, to where Lord Hadraba struggled to his feet. His private dreadnought, the *Iron Serpent*, rested at the adjacent slip. Its massive, experimental turbine block, an illicit marvel of reverse-engineered brass, caught the morning sun. To finish her ship and keep Qart-Zab aloft, Zibya saw only one solution: slip aboard Hadraba’s ironclad and hijack that turbine.

The Magnetic Moat