by Eric Vall
I wanted to see if I could make them identically, so I made another one while the Ignis Mages cooked the ore in the forge for me. When I dropped the second track, I was happy to see that it was exactly the same as the first.
So, I could make these rails fairly easily and carry them with only a bit more strain, but could I make enough?
The mathematics of it boggled the mind. Based on my little experiment, I had promised the King of Illaria sixty miles of train track laid every day. If each track was seventy-eight feet long, that was about sixty-eight rails per mile. Actually, one hundred and thirty-six, because I needed two tracks side by side.
I had two.
I dropped my head back, and a deep groan rattled out of my chest.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, this was going to be a shit ton of work.
If I was going to do what I promised and lay out sixty miles of track a day, I needed over eight thousand tracks ready to go, and that was only going to get me to day one. In my head, I tried to figure out a way to short cut this, but no.
I had no choice but to be a track-building machine.
For the next four days, that was my life.
Get up, get dressed, walk to the foundry, create tracks, have a break for lunch, create tracks, have dinner, create tracks, go to bed. I felt the strength in my magery increase each time I used my powers to craft a track and levitate it to the stacks, but still, at the end of each day, I felt like I had run a marathon.
Cayla and Aurora took turns massaging my muscles each night, and any other time I would have taken advantage of the two beauties as they caressed my body, but I was so tired after the long days that I typically passed out five minutes into the massage. Then I would wake up the next morning so sore I could barely move, but somehow, I dragged myself from bed every day.
I wished I could say I relied solely on my strength of will, but really it was Stan that woke me up by patting at my face each morning and tugging at my eyelids until I sat up with a prolonged moan.
But in the end, it was all worth it.
I needed eight thousand tracks to get through the first sixty miles, and when the sun set on the fourth day, I found I had created twelve thousand.
I stumbled back to my house with an exhausted and dopey smile stretched across my face. The Flumen Mage Quidnu had pulled up a burbling spring in the courtyard of my house, and I sculpted the rock up around it to make it a real fountain. I dragged myself over to it, shed my clothes, and slipped in naked. I felt almost too tired to move, so I just floated there with my eyes closed until Aurora and Cayla came and found me, patted me dry, and took me to bed. I couldn’t have felt more drained, but I was also excited because, with the first supply of tracks done, it was time to move on to something more interesting.
The next morning, I got up with a ton of ideas floating in my head. It was time to start on the locomotive next. When I thought of trains, the Chicago “L” was most familiar to me from my old commute. Hard to imagine it wasn’t so long ago that trains and cars were what I saw daily instead of mages, half-elves, and kings. I wouldn’t want to go back for anything, but I was happy to have those memories and images to draw on now for inspiration.
I began from the inside, and the first item I created was a Stirling engine. In the past, I had found that the first time I made something, it was a real struggle, particularly if I didn’t quite know how it was all supposed to work. My first simple gun took me days to perfect, but once I had it down, I could almost let my power take over and create new ones in a few minutes. Since I had created a Stirling engine already when I first made Bobbie, I hoped this would be the case. To my relief, the liquid steel molded itself almost by reflex as I concentrated on the images of the pistons, cylinders, and flywheel.
I had some upgrades in mind as well. This wasn’t going to be a pure Stirling engine like the one I made for Bobbie, but something more powerful and versatile, closer to a gas engine from earth, but without the need for gasoline itself. What I needed were gears that could turn forward and reverse since a train on tracks couldn’t exactly make a three-point turn to go the other way.
It took most of the afternoon, and several false starts, to create a functional gearbox, driveshaft, and differentials that would attach to the engine and the gears to the rail. It was a laborious process, but fun. It reminded me of being a little kid playing with Legos but on a giant scale.
The wheels were cut to fit perfectly to the track, then the gears to the wheels, the transmission to the gears, and finally the transmission to the engine. It required precision, and I made plenty of mistakes, but finally, with a pull of a lever, I could switch from forward to reverse and back.
Bobbie had about a two-hundred horse-power engine. That was more powerful than any motorcycle I had dealt with on Earth. To move two hundred thousand pounds of iron rails, the engine on my train would have to be bigger.
When the engine was finished, it was nearly five times as big as the one in Bobbie.
As I let my magic recede, I took a step back and admired my newest creation with a broad grin. Then I turned to my blue-haired lover.
“Aurora, will you show her how it works while I work on the rest?” I asked, and the half-elf eagerly agreed and took the gray-haired Ignis Mage aside to show her how to create a continuous spark to power the engine.
“If you don’t need me, I’ll head down to the mine and see if I can’t find some more gem dust for the windows on your train,” Haragh said as he stepped up beside me.
“And on my bike,” I reminded him with a grin. “Remember, you just put a small windshield on the back of the sidecar, but she needs big ones in the front and on the main body.”
“I ain’t forgotten,” the half-ogre chuckled as he headed down into the mine.
My next step was a little familiar from my work with Bobbie, though the scale was very different much like the engine had been. I needed to create the wheels to connect to the rods to connect to the engine’s pistons. So, with a push of my power, I lifted the last of the liquid iron and crafted six feet tall driving wheels.
I took a moment to admire my work glistening in the morning light, and then I heard a low distant rumble. For a moment, I thought it could be thunder, but that made no sense. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the sound was clearly not from above. It was below.
Before my mind had even processed that, I felt the ground tremble under my feet. When I used my Terra magecraft, I consciously communicated with the element of rock and earth, and now it felt like the stone had called to me. It told me something was wrong, very wrong.
The mine.
I spun around, and Aurora with her extraordinary sense of hearing looked at me with alarm. We both dropped what we were doing, and together we ran out of the factory structure just a few feet to the entrance of the mine. A cloud of dust rose up to meet us, and we coughed violently in its wake.
As Aurora and I tried to shield our eyes from the dust and debris, the rumbling continued together with the sound of panicked voices.
“They’re trapped, calling for help!” Aurora gasped as we took off down the tunnel.
Dust continued to swirl out of the dark mine around us, and all the torches had been extinguished. Aurora lifted her hand and created a small ball of white fire, but before she let it float away, I grabbed her hand.
“Keep it near us and if you feel it growing, extinguish it right away,” I said quickly as my heart pounded in my ears. “They might have opened up a pocket of natural gas and created an explosion.”
As we continued down the tunnel, barely able to see our path with just the one light, I reached out with my powers to test the integrity of the rock surrounding us. It was mostly solid except for the few minor fissures I could close with a slight push of my craft. When we reached the first cavern, I could hear the voices of the mages more clearly. It was a horrible sound, a mix of screams of fear, pain, and cries for help.
The floor of the cavern was strewn with rocks and boulders which had falle
n from above. Again, I sent my power around me to find where the stone was weak and on the verge of collapse, and I repaired it quickly.
“Help is on the way!” I shouted. “Stay calm!”
My voice echoed eerily through the empty cavern, and I hoped the mages heard it. They continued to yell, which helped direct Aurora and me on our path to them. At first, it sounded like the sound came from behind a wall of crumbled stone, but then I realized this was a tunnel they must have started, which had completely collapsed, so they were trapped on the other side.
I began from the top as I used my will to ease the rocks and boulders toward us. At the same time, I tested the strength of the surrounding tunnel. The last thing I wanted was to remove the only things that kept the shaft as open as it was. Once I was satisfied it was reinforced, I took Aurora’s hand and stepped back. She gave me a look that said she understood what I was about to do.
I reached for my power and sent forth a wave into the pile of rock. The smaller stones were pulverized instantly to dust while cracks and fissures quickly ran over the surface of the larger boulders. In a minute, they too disintegrated, but all they revealed was more rock in the tunnel.
I groaned. This was a massive collapse, and it wouldn’t be cleared quickly.
“I’m opening it up on the other side!” I called to the mages. “Can you try on your end?”
“What do ya think, we’re idiots?” It was Haragh’s familiar gruff voice. “What do ya think we’ve been doing?”
“Okay, okay, I just wanted to be sure,” I yelled back.
It was comforting to know that at least Haragh was all right and in his usual sarcastic mood. At any other time, it might have made me laugh, but I felt nothing but resolve to get the mages freed.
The process was painstaking, but there was no safe way to speed it up. I had to test the strength of the surrounding stone, reinforce it if necessary, smash through the stone to clear the tunnel one or two feet more, and then repeat. It was a test of my stamina to keep my power in a continuous flow like that, but I couldn’t take a break.
I could hear on the other side rock as it was pulverized and as the sound grew louder, I knew we were closer to meeting. Finally, the last of the stone between us was broken, and I could see Haragh and a group of mages, their dirty faces streaked with blood and sweat.
“Where are the others?” I asked immediately.
“This way,” the half-ogre barked as he led me further down the tunnel.
We entered into a large natural cavern, and I immediately saw five injured Terra Mages were being tended to. Three of them looked serious. There was a young man whose blond hair was slick against his face with blood and dust, and he clutched at his chest as he coughed and spit up blood. Beside him, a woman knelt down sobbing in fear and pain as she held a blood-sodden cloth to her head. And to her right, the middle-aged man whose kind eyes I had met when we built the village sat propped against the wall, his leg twisted at an unnatural angle.
Aurora grabbed my arm, her green eyes filled with worry.
“They need a healer,” she said quickly. “I’ll go to the Oculus and bring Shoshanne back.”
“Take Bobbie,” I agreed, and while she hurried away, I turned back to the mages. “All right, let’s head up while you guys tell me what the hell happened.”
As I knelt down to help prop up the mage with the broken leg, I noticed something scrawled on the wall. It only took me a moment to place it, but when I finally did, the air stilled in my lungs.
It was a symbol similar to the ones I had seen on Abrus’s amulet, on the Bandit Boss, and branded onto the flesh of the basilisk we had fought. Cayla had told me she had seen it on bewitched men and beasts in Cedis as well.
It was the sign of the Master.
This mine collapse had been no accident.
Chapter 6
By the time I heard Bobbie’s engine and knew Aurora and Shoshanne had returned to Magehill, we had all the injured mages out of the mine. Old Quidnu had been busy using his Flumen magery to create a fountain in the foundry and a freshwater spring near the depot, so we were able to get everyone clean and hydrated.
However, I found myself distracted as I wondered what really happened in the mine. Could it be that one of these mages who seemed so enthusiastic about the project actually worked for the Master? Maybe more than one?
I trusted Haragh, but I couldn’t voice my concerns to him just yet. Instead, I asked him to take me through exactly what he had seen.
“Everything was going just fine,” the half-ogre grimaced as he lifted a mug of water to his lips. “Near as I can tell, they were doing everything just right. Digging a little, stabilizing the tunnel, pulling out the ore and putting it in the cart. I was mostly collecting gem dust, mind you, so I wasn’t paying too much attention. Then all of a sudden, everything started to shake, and rocks were falling down all over. Everyone was just too panicked to even try to use magic to stop it, just too afraid of getting crushed. Most of these mages had never really left the Oculus before. It was dark too, ‘cause the Ignis Mages lost their concentration on their fire, so everyone was just running around, screaming in the dark. Don’t mind tellin’ you, I nearly pissed myself, too.”
“We need to make sure that doesn’t happen again,” I said with a frown. “I can only imagine what this has done to morale with the mages. It’s one thing to drop your books and go work in a mine for the prospect of giving something good to the kingdom. It’s another thing entirely when you’re in the dark with rocks dropping on your head.”
As I spoke, I saw Aurora and Shoshanne as they left our house where I kept Bobbie parked. I couldn’t help but notice that Shoshanne no longer wore the long gray gown and cloak of the Order of Pallax, but the white robes with silver at the hemline of the Aer Mages. She didn’t wear it short like Aurora wore her mage robes, so it was just as conservative, but it was a change that suited her.
This was no time to discuss fashion, though. No time to waste even with a hello. Shoshanne showed none of her shyness or fear she had exhibited as she explored the world and her new identity as a mage. By her direct and calm demeanor, I was reminded of how she had been when I first met her as a healer in the castle of King Davit.
“Has anyone lost consciousness at any time?” Shoshanne asked as she walked up and immediately examined the Terra Mage with the crushed ribs.
“I don’t think so,” I replied, “but I would ask the other mages who were present just to be sure.”
Shoshanne nodded in acknowledgment, and I let the healer do her thing while I took Aurora aside.
“I found the Master’s runes in the cavern,” I muttered in a low voice as I bent my head toward hers. “The cave-in was a deliberate act of sabotage.”
Aurora went stock still and turned her wide emerald eyes to me.
“You think one of the mages works for the Master?” the half-elf asked with a worried frown.
“For all I know, one of the mages could actually be the Master himself,” I grumbled, but then my face broke out in a grin. “But look at the other side, this is actually good news.”
“Mason Flynt, how could any of this be good news?” asked the Ignis Mage as she cocked an incredulous eyebrow at me.
“The Master doesn’t like our train project,” I said with a quiet chuckle, “and that means we’re doing something right.”
Aurora shook her head but allowed herself a small smile. “Oh Gods, only you could find the bright side in finding out we have a dangerous traitor in our midst.”
“That’s one of the reasons you love me, isn’t it?” I asked with a wink.
“Gods,” Aurora chuckled with a roll of her eyes. “You know it is.”
“Okay, then, we’ll put a pin in this discussion for later. For right now, we need to go see how bad morale has become,” I said as I steeled myself to show confidence, which is what I figured the mages really needed to see at that moment.
“You can’t tell them about the Master just yet unti
l we know who the saboteur is,” Aurora murmured as we walked together, “but you can tell them the truth, that you care about their safety and that this project is important. That’s all you can do.”
I sighed and nodded in acknowledgment.
The mages outside the mine had the bedraggled appearance and nervous energy of sewer rats. Most had washed the blood and dirt from their faces by then, but the blood and dust on their once pristine white robes had become wet streaks of red and muddy colors. They chattered with each other anxiously but quieted down and watched with bloodshot eyes as Aurora and I approached.
“Ask anyone who mines for a living, and they’ll tell you it’s dangerous, dirty work,” I spoke up as I addressed the mages. They turned to look at me in unison, and I lifted my chin. “Accidents happen, and we need to learn from them. Let’s talk about how to improve the process, so this doesn’t happen again. That said, if anyone is too frightened and wants to leave, well, you know the way. The only thing I would say is that we need you, the whole kingdom and beyond. I can’t do this by myself, despite my power and my huge ego.”
That brought smiles and a few laughs out of the mages.
“Booyah!” shouted the kind-faced middle-aged mage with the broken leg.
I shot him a thankful grin as I continued. “Keep an eye on each other. All it takes is one little slip-up, and everyone’s lives are in danger.”
“Enough talk, Defender Flynt,” Haragh shouted from the crowd. “Let’s get back to work!”
A round of cheers went up from the other mages, and I blinked in surprise.
I didn’t expect such an enthusiastic reaction from the mages as all the uninjured ones joined Haragh and returned to the mine. It wasn’t as if they were cheerful, which would have been too bizarre, but they knew the risks better now and were prepared. I guessed Haragh had been right. The mages of the Order had been dying for some kind of purpose, and they had found it here in the mine. I just hoped that my suggestion that they keep an eye on one another would make it harder for the saboteur to act again. I wanted to find out who it was quickly, but I knew that reacting poorly right now would just play into their hands. I needed to bide my time and keep my eyes peeled.