Pilot: The Prime by the Cliff

Jay is approached by a lawyer while doing their job.

This is the second pilot within Pilot Season, where each week I will be putting out a new first chapter, followed by a poll to see which story I will continue as a serialized novel in 2025. Subscribe to be informed when the next pilot drops.

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

The carriage pulled to a sudden stop beside a golden field of wheat. Saul Keating jolted forward from the sudden end. A muffled voice called something from the front of the carriage, but Saul took his cane and slammed it down three times with enough force he wouldn’t be surprised to see it go through the thin wood beneath his feet, the universally understood signal to tell the driver to move on.

He hated hired carriages. If he’d had his choice he would have picked the company carriage, which was considerably better than this one: velvet seat cushions, oak flooring, proper curtains, as opposed to these moth eaten ones.

But alas, he had pulled the short straw, and the company secretary had arranged this one. “Fastest trip from city to field,” she’d said. But she hadn’t mentioned it was also the filthiest.

The driver called out again, and Saul gave the signal to move forward again, hoping the second time would drive it through the girl’s thick skull. Saul winced to think of her, the driver. She’d been dressed in filthy black trousers, a blue vest, and a flat cap that theoretically had once been cream colored. Not only that, but she’d smoked a thin pipe throughout their entire haggling conversation, blowing ghastly smoke up into the air and smiling like a skeleton. Pipes were a filthy habit. Cigarettes were the only way to smoke.

The door opened with a start and the girl looked in on him, grim faced.

“We’re here,” she said, gesturing out at the field.

“But...I…” Saul blubbered, his hand shaking as he pointed at the piece of paper held in one hand. “I said forty second-”

“Winseldown,” the girl completed. “I heard ya.”

She spit on the ground and the man winced back away from her, deeper into the carriage. He should have insisted on the company carriage. This one probably had fleas.

“This here’s Winseldown Road,” she said, pointing with her pipe back behind the carriage. Then she turned and pointed it towards the field. “And that there’s lot forty-two.”

She extended her hand for the money.

“I’ll...I’ll need you to wait,” he said, holding out a thin purse filled with the exact amount they’d agreed upon. He would not be fleeced.

She shrugged as she took the purse and tucked it into her pocket. “I’ll have to change the oil anyway.”

He stepped out and looked behind him at the carriage. He’d forgotten it was horseless. No wonder the trip had been so deafeningly loud, but, then again, it was the fastest way to get out here. And he was on a bit of a deadline.

“Very well,” he said, and stepped towards the field. He was not dressed at all for any sort of rambling through the wilderness. His vest was a herringbone grey, and his topcoat and trousers matched. His grey top hat he held in place with one gloved hand. There was a thin sheen of ash on the outside of the carriage, as one would expect having been exposed to the smoke and smog of the city’s machines, but he was completely clean; his walking stick doubled as an umbrella.

Saul stepped out into the field, and raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sun, as if that would help him look farther. He reached into his pocket for some sort of comfort, and was surprised to find something metal, and round meeting his hand. He pulled out his opera glasses, which he supposed would help. He raised them to his eye and was able to spot, just at the edge, a small figure standing at what seemed to be a cliffside.

He replaced his opera glasses, resigned himself to his fate, and began his walk across the field.

---

Jay clung to the side of the cliff, upside down. The wind hadn’t been particularly strong when they had been at the top, but now, as they held themselves in place, peering deeply into the hole their head hovered before, they could feel the tug of the wind, and the coolness from the river down below. Their feet were wedged between some of the rocks above, and they’d found perfect handholds on two ridges around the hole so they weren’t worried about anything more than the rush of blood to their face. They knew it would flush their cheeks and make them look even younger than they already were. They neither wanted, nor needed, help to look younger.

Jay let go with one hand and rubbed some silted dust from one of the rocks between two gloved fingers. If the cliffs had this much sand in it, it would be unwise to build anything more than a shack if Lemmings Steelworks wanted their building to survive a century or two.

“You alive?” Cornelius called out from the top of the cliff. He was standing by the cliffside, making an illustration of the countryside, but didn’t dare to lean over. He didn’t care much for heights.

“Of course,” Jay called back, “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, you know,” Cornelius replied. “If you died, I’d get a promotion.”

Jay chuckled to themselves. Cornelius didn’t really want a promotion. They paid him plenty to support his wife and three children, more than he’d ever made as an architect, which is where they’d found him. And besides, he had no interest in this aspect of the job.

Photo by Zhidong Cao on Unsplash

“That eager to see me fall to my death, are you?” Jay said, reaching into their pocket, and undoing the button that held their glowlight in place.

“Always fun to see something I’ve never seen before,” Cornelius replied.

Jay switched the device on with their thumb, launching a bright, blue flame from the top of the thin, copper tube and held it out towards the cave. Tiny green eyes peered back at them, blinking in the sudden brightness. Jay quickly shut the light and fixed it back in place.

“Speaking of which,” Cornelius said, “A horseless carriage just pulled up.”

“Oh?” Jay said. They looked back up towards their feet, and pulled hard on their handholds to make sure they were steady. A thin trickle of sand rained down, but nothing else.

“Looks like a dandy is stepping out,” Cornelius said. “Wearing a gray suit.”

“From the city?” Jay called back. They adjusted their grip on both handholds, and dislodged their feet, swinging down so their feet were just below the cave. They kicked their feet into two footholds they’d found earlier, and moved their hands so they were facing the correct direction again.

“Not sure,” Cornelius said. “Would Lemmings send someone to check on us?”

“They haven’t before,” Jay said, beginning the climb back up. They’d seen everything they needed to.

“True,” Cornelius said, and paused for a moment. “God’s body, he’s spotted us.”

“We’re not doing anything illegal,” Jay called up.

“He used opera glasses to see us,” Cornelius said in response. “And he’s wearing a top hat.”

“Ah,” Jay said quietly, almost to themselves. So it would be that type of a day.

---

As he got closer, Saul got a better view of the man standing at the cliffside. He had thin, wire spectacles over his eyes and wild hair that puffed out in every direction, except the very top which was bald and shiny. He had his topcoat off, lying at his feet, and he wore no vest, grey suspenders over a dark blue shirt contrasting with his rich, brown skin. He was engrossed in writing something, head bent forward over a pad of paper and his fountain pen scribbling furiously.

Saul paused for a moment, partially to catch his breath and partially to look over the piece of paper he held in two fingers. “Jay Dawning, 42 Winseldown Road.” He reminded himself, not for the first time, to use the royal pronouns when speaking to him. He winced. To them.

“Good morning!” he called, feigning cheerfulness and stuffing the piece of paper back in his pocket. He continued forward, and stepped gracelessly into a foxhole.

The illustrating man squinted over at Saul. “Good morning.”

Saul pulled at his leg repeatedly. “My Prime, I have news from-” He pulled again but his leg remained stuck within the hole. “It seems I am stuck. My Prime, perhaps I could-”

“What do you keep calling me?” the man said, looking at Saul with a small smile of amusement.

Saul winced internally and hoped that he hadn’t mispronounced the word. He’d only seen it written. “Prime,” he said. “Or perhaps Primé. I apologize. I thought you were already aware of your title.”

“My title?” the man said, crossing his arms. “You think I have a title?”

Saul paused again. “You are Jay Dawning, are you not?”

The man shook his head with a smile. “I’m not.”

“I am,” a voice called from beneath the cliffs, before a black-gloved hand gripped the edge of the rock and pulled the person attached up top. Saul knew as soon as he saw them that this was the person he was looking for.

Jay wore a blouse whose sleeves had been modified for cufflinks, and black leather gloves that they began to pull off, finger by finger, as they stood. A moss-colored vest was over brown suspenders and their trousers were neatly tucked into their black, workman’s boots. Their skin was a light tawny, with freckles scattered across it, and their black hair was tied to keep it out of their face as they climbed. Their eyes were a bright, flashing blue, the color of the sky before a summer storm and when they looked at Saul he felt, for one of the first times in his life, small and useless.

---

“It’s like we thought,” Jay said, dropping their gloves onto their top-coat which lay at Cornelius’ feet. They’d deal with the lawyer after they dealt with business. Work was more important.

“The miners could carve a foundry into the side, but,” they counted out the reasons why it would be a bad idea on their now-naked hand, “There’s too much sand in the rock so it would disintegrate over time, there’s a bat-cave down there so they’d disturb the nearby farm, and with the way the ore patterns look, it seems as though it would dig into the same area they need for the mine.”

Photo by Wojciech Dąbek on Unsplash

Cornelius scribbled all of this down. “How would killing bats affect a farm?”

“They’re good for pest control,” Jay said, bending over to grab the canteen of water by their topcoat and taking a long swig. “We’ll have to talk to the neighbors and see if they’d be willing to sell.”

Cornelius nodded without looking up. “Do we have a budget to negotiate with?”

Jay shook their head, swallowing their second sip of water. “We’re not there yet. We have to see if they’re willing to sell first before we offer anything. We can do that without a budget.”

“My Primé,” the lawyer whined, “Could your servant-”

“It’s pronounced Prime,” Jay said, finally surrendering a second glance towards the lawyer. He had stepped into a foxhole, and seemed to be trying to pull himself out. “And Cornelius is not my servant. He’s an assistant land assessor.”

“And I’m not paid to pull fools out of holes,” Cornelius said, before loudly ripping the paper from his pad and stowing it. Then, he pulled a copper beetle from his pocket, the clockwork gears clearly visible as it fluttered its wings. Cornelius pressed ever so gently on the head of the automaton with his right index, and the wings flew up, revealing a small, empty carapace. He placed the folded piece of paper within, then pressed the head once more and the carapace closed, holding it securely in place. He threw the beetle into the air and it fluttered its wings again before zooming off, in the direction of the city.

Jay glanced at the lawyer as the man’s face purpled. This man was probably high-born and Cornelius wasn’t, meaning he was probably angry over being called fool, even though that’s exactly who he was. Jay sighed.

“Here me, sir,” the lawyer began. “I-”

“Cornelius is paid to see things as they are, not as they seem to be,” Jay said, and pulled a pocket watch from their vest pocket, snapping it open to check the time. Forty-minutes past ten. “Anyone who can walk through a field of wheat and step into the only hole for a mile without even glancing around to notice that taking three steps to the right would free their leg is a fool.” They snapped shut the watch and looked Cornelius in the eye. “We have twenty minutes, and this seems to be family business. Do you mind?”

Cornelius held up his hands in surrender. “Not at all, not at all.”

When Jay glanced at the lawyer again, it seemed he’d followed their advice and took three steps to the right, pulling his leg free. It was covered in dirt up to his shin, and couldn’t possibly have been cleaned this far from the city, but he still shook it, until Jay approached and he fell within their shadow. He looked up at them.

“My Prime,” the lawyer said, bowing lowly.

Jay rolled their eyes and, out of the corner of their eye, caught Cornelius grinning. “God almighty, what could you possibly want?”

“I have news,” the lawyer said, still refusing to look at Jay. “From Derrin.”

“Oh?” Jay said. “Another marriage proposal? Or, better yet, my mother insisting I return home and take my rightful place?”

“Your rightful place,” Cornelius said and jerked his head towards the cliff. “Probably not hanging by your fingertips five-hundred meters above the ground, I imagine.”

The lawyer looked up now, aghast. “How dare you speak to their Magnificence in such tones? And it is decidedly not their place to-”

“It decidedly is my place,” Jay said, firmly. “I was the one who decided it was necessary to climb down the cliff and so I was the one to do it. My parents may be happy ordering others to do the things they consider beneath them, which is pretty much every activity under the sun, but I am not. What is your news, whoever you are?”

The lawyer bowed again. “Saul Keating, the first son of-”

“I don’t care,” Jay said. “What is the news?”

“I…” The lawyer straightened, seemed to struggle with himself for a moment, before deciding something: “Your Uncle died.”

Jay raised their eyebrows. Well, that was unexpected. “Which Uncle?”

“Karl,” the lawyer said.

They furrowed their brow as they tried to recall, and seemed to remember a man with papery skin and a grey mustache who liked to flip them upside down when they were a child. “On my father’s side?”

“Yes,” Saul said, fumbling as he pulled a cream colored envelope from his coat pocket. “And-”

“Why is this news from Derrin?” Jay said. “He lived here, in Okressa.”

“I-” Saul glanced around as if looking for somebody else to blame. “I don’t know, my Prime.”

Jay’s mind flitted through a dozen possibilities quickly, before recognizing that it didn’t matter. They wanted to solve the problem, but this wasn’t a problem they could solve. They could do many things, but reversing death was outside of their grasp.

“When did he die?” Jay said, and snapped their fingers at the lawyer. The man obliged without thinking, handing them the envelope, which they slit open with their finger and pulled out several pages.

“A week ago yesterday,” the lawyer said. “As you can see here, I-”

“Why wasn’t I informed?” Jay said, their blue eyes flashing towards Saul once more.

The man’s face paled in terror. Behind them, Jay heard Cornelius chuckle softly.

“I...don’t know, my Prime.”

“You keep saying that,” Jay said, then flicked their eyes down to the document itself: a bill of sale for some parcel of land just outside the city walls. “When will you know?”

“I will request the information as soon as I am able, my Prime.”

“Do that,” Jay said, continuing to scan the document. It seemed as though it was transferring the land to another royal within the city of Okressa and forwarding the money back to Derrin. “Or I will make my displeasure known. Cor, do you think-”

“Already done,” the man said, and another beetle flitted past them, no doubt taking an order to their favorite florist to make up a bouquet and send it to their now bereaved Aunt.

They folded the letter into a thin rectangle before holding it vertically, pointing towards the sun. “Now, what is this?”

“A-uh,” Saul blubbered. “A bill of sale?”

Jay rolled their eyes. “Despite all appearances to the contrary, I can read. Why do I have a bill of sale for what seems to be my Uncle’s property?”

“I-” Saul began to exclaim. “My Prime, I thought that-- what I mean to say, is-”

Jay sighed and handed the bill of sale back to the lawyer, who stared at the paper trembling between his fingers. Jay leaned forward and grasped the man’s chin with their hand, forcing him to meet their eyes. God’s body, did they ever hate dealing with landed Okressians. “The following questions will be yes or no. You will nod or shake your head. The will was settled without my being involved?”

The lawyer nodded.

“My parents hired your firm to complete the sale without discussing it with me?”

Again, the lawyer nodded.

“And if I sign this document, I will no longer have access to this land?”

The lawyer nodded a third time.

Jay let go of the man’s chin with another big sigh and pressed their eyes with the heels of their hands. Of all the things to deal with on this day. They let their hands drop from their face. “Cor, you’ll have to let Lemmings know we can’t complete the budget discussions with the neighbors. But we’ll come back tomorrow to finish the job.”

“Got it,” Cornelius said, and a third beetle flew away from the man’s open palm.

Jay leaned over to pick up their topcoat and began to pull it on, tugging carefully on the sleeves to make sure it fell just so. It wouldn’t do to look like you’d actually done a hard day’s work, especially if you actually have done a hard day’s work. None of the landed Okressians could ever forgive them that. “Now, Mr. Keating,” they said, fixing their flat cap upon their head. “If you’d be so kind as to show us to the carriage so we can be free of your company as quickly as possible, I’m sure we’d all appreciate it.”

---

If you’re curious as to my thoughts and feelings while I was writing this piece, click the button below to see my commentary, which goes live on Monday, November 18th.