Levent smirked, but said nothing.
Slowly, Aenlilea turned and disappeared into the fog. He said nothing, and seemed to ignore the bag of coins that was still swinging in the air. I glanced at Rio, and Levent did not move.
After a moment the man reappeared. “Well, you gonna come look or not?”
I smiled, and followed the kin through the smoke. Navigating through the shop was treacherous, and it seemed to take a while to find Aenlilea again. I was impressed that the man seemed to have no trouble getting through the maze of worktables and treacherously stacked sheets of metal and gears. It reminded me slightly of my own home with its stacks of books and papers, but I tucked my arms to my sides. I did not fancy being killed due to a mechanic’s eccentric clutter.
I was completely turned around from twisting and turning through the shop, so when we were led into a huge greenhouse I was even more bewildered. In the center of the sunlit room was the strangest machine I had ever set eyes on. It was something only a crazy person or a genius would have the time, energy, or know-how to create.
My first impression was that it was a boat, a small boat, but a boat nonetheless. The wooden hull definitely could have been at home upon the water, though the front seemed to have been carved out and replaced by a set of thick windows. But that was not the strangest thing about this craft.
Aenlilea crawled inside and the whirring sound intensified. As we watched, a huge white cloth began to inflate on top of the thing, enclosed by a mesh skeleton. On either side of the growing balloon were two sets of wings, very reminiscent of what a dragon-kin was said to have.
I stared. This was a bizarre contraption, and I was not sure how, exactly, it was supposed to be useful for the kin. It appeared that it was supposed to fly, but how? I had heard of vehicles created by inflating a balloon with hot air and floating upon the wind until it ran out of air or was weighed down, but this was different. This vehicle had a vent on top and the wings seemed to be able to rotate.
“Uhm,” I said finally as we spotted Aenlilea standing proudly beside his beast of a contraption. “How does it work?”
“I could tell you, but it would be a waste of breath. Plus, it doesn’t exactly work at the moment, so whatever I told you would be false anyway. The ‘work’ must follow it actually achieving something.”