“Half the work seems to be cutting those down to size and boring a hole down the center,” Aila remarked one day, tasting a small pinch of herbs, rolling them around on her tongue, her lips twitching before adding three more dried leaves to the mix from a small compartment. Draysky grunted, turning the hand drill, the cylinder creaking as the bit pressed deeper. “To me, seems like that’s the easy part.”
“Easy part?” Draysky panted. The long days as a ridger had a dual effect. While they enlarged his muscles, they also meant that he tired far faster at nights, his energy drained. Fortunately, with the extra income, they could afford two bowls of dinner for him each night, something his body now demanded. “Can’t you see my sweat?”
“Not physically easy, mentally easy,” Aila rolled her eyes, walking over. “Look, you said Aleman pays you extra for your lighters. That’s not because you carve them better than anyone else, is it?”
“Naw, anyone can carve them, but you can’t just make lighters out of normal sticks either. My runework and the paints are better.”
“Exactly! Look, you come down that mountain exhausted, then every day start carving until your fingers are ready to fall off, then finish up by painting. Think about how many more lighters you could make if you only painted them.”
“I told you, I can’t just make them from sticks,” he looked at her, unsure why she wasn’t following the logic. She’d seen him carving them a thousand times, and she was better at learning than he was. Even if he hadn’t become a ridger, Draysky had no doubt which of them would make the better doctor.
“Don’t look at me like I’m the stupid one! You make, what, four tin chits per lighter? And the average unskilled boy makes half that? Now, instead of you carving them, why don’t you just buy the other boys’ lighters, then sell them back to Aleman with better runework?”
“Huh,” Draysky stopped drilling, setting the tool down on the table. He massaged his thigh, bruised from a fall in the Grinder, as he thought. “Huh. And they wouldn’t need to add any runework either. Could probably buy them for one and a half.”
“Exactly!” she exclaimed. “Think about how many more you could make if you just had to paint them. And how much easier it would be on you after ridging. Physically, that is.”
Draysky looked down at the drill, then chuckled under his breath, placing it into his basket of tools. And there, the drill gathered dust after he spoke with Aleman the next day, working the numbers out with his sister before offering the deal.
“Getting too tired to make these,” grumbled Draysky, leaning on the door frame a little heavier than was necessary when Aleman came around, carrying his pouch of chits for Draysky. Aleman frowned, pretending he hadn’t heard Draysky as he inspected his handiwork.
“Ya know, working the ridge all day. Fingers are about frozen off when I get home. Last thing I want to do is pick up the drill. Gives me blisters when I work the pickaxe.”
“Draysky, Draysky,” said Aleman, as one of the lighters flickered to life under his touch. “If you won’t make me lighters, who will? Your father boasts you eat nearly triple rations when he comes around for his weekly glass of beer. Don’t think a simple ridger’s pay will pay for that every night, will it?”
“Hrm. Well see, I wouldn’t need to eat so much if I didn’t work so hard.”
“And where am I supposed to get more lighters from? The Keepers won’t even buy the other boys’ ones now. How about I bring you one of the other boys, and you teach him just what you do to make them your way?”
Draysky hid a smile, knowing that Aleman had already tried to strip down his runework and teach another boy how to compete. But the boy had the widths of the lines wrong, and had never changed up the composition of raydrop flower. Aleman had tried to hide his bandaged right hand the next time he and Draysky had crossed paths. Draysky’s grandmother had made the salve that he used for the burns, and his sister had applied it, meaning that Draysky knew the story before dinner the night of the incident. A lighter that had spouted coolfire like jelly, coating over Aleman’s hand and steadily burning for a solid minute. With exposure that long, even coolfire was hot.
“Can’t do that, Aleman. You know my grandmother, she’d probably poison my soup. I wouldn’t shit right for weeks.”
“A ridger now and you’re still scared of that tiny lady? Draysky, your axe is bigger than her! But what do you expect me to do? You’ve backed me into a corner here, Draysky. The Keepers buy more ale when they have their vaporweed, and your lighters keep them smoking it smooth.”
“You tell me. I swear, if I have to work that drill one more time, I’m tossing it into the Grinder. Here, let me see one of the other lighters. They can’t be that bad.”
Aleman handed over one of the sticks already in his basket, and Draysky sighed as he looked it over. It was that bad.
“You’re lucky this even catches. I wouldn’t expect fire to be coaxed out of it at all.”
“Sometimes it don’t.”
“Not surprising. See this line here? Way too thin. And this, what are they painting on here? Ratios are all off. This is abysmal. Woodwork isn’t too bad though—I could touch a few of these up if you wanted. Not free, of course, but cheaper than my normal ones.”
“Ugh, by the time I pay you, then the others…” Aleman’s voice trickled off, as the business sense that had kept the tavern running despite years of Keepers trying to cheat him out of a meal started to take over. “But wait, hold on, how about this? How about you just paint these lighters? That can’t be that bad, could it?”
“Huh, I suppose it wouldn't be that rough,” Draysky said, his voice level, practically feeling his sister’s smile bore into his back from where she watched at the window. “You’d have to get me the lighters, though. Hrm, I’d paint them for two tin chits each, I suppose.”
“Of course, of course. How many do you think you could do? If you didn’t have to carve them, think you could do fifteen a day?”
“Oh I don’t know, fifteen is a lot,” said Draysky, but his heart beat faster. Fifteen lighters was three times as many as he currently completed. At that rate, he would be making nearly the same amount producing lighters as ridging. He need not have feared being noticed—Aleman’s own thoughts were rushing ahead to if every lighter was high quality, how he’d be making at least fifteen extra chits per day himself, without risking more of his own burned hands.
From that day onward, Draysky returned from ridging to find a stack of carved wooden cylinders waiting for him just behind the door. His grandmother smiled slyly from her bedroom door as he spent the evening painting, carefully tracing the mark of the two runes she had taught him along the length.
“Clever, clever,” she said, an approving look resting on his sister, her hands resting on the straps of her apron. “You, Draysky, now you need to make runes that look like they’ve been drawn, not coughed up onto the wood.”
“Can’t fool me now, grandmother. I already make the best Aleman can find.”
“And I run faster than most babes, but how many races do you see me running per week? This is shoddy work. Here, you must learn better if you want me to be proud.”
She sat next to him, guiding his wrist with each stroke, chastising him when the stroke speed was off, or the homemade ink bubbled upward to deform the surface. Then she pulled down the two ingredients that his sister regularly provided for him, now that he spent his days in the Grinder.
“This raydrop flower, you must draw it with the grain of the wood. The deeper it seeps in, the better, and the longer that the lighter lasts. When you draw, you leave your mark upon the wood. Do you notice how some lighters stop working when the wood has yet to be fully burned?”
Draysky nodded—it had been something he had picked up, and his method of revising it had been to draw the runes on twice. But Aleman and the Keepers failed to notice—after a few drinks and some vaporweed, few lighters were used up before they were lost.
“When you make the rune and breath
e upon it, a piece of you is left behind with it. When the lighter fails, that piece has faded away. The farther that rune is from the center of the wood, and the more shoddy the rune, the quicker the fading.”
Draysky nodded, taking her advice, the new method just as quick as the old once he adjusted. Every day that followed, fifteen more chits found their way into the well. Only one year after Draysky became a ridger, his father gently shook him awake at night, taking him out into the brisk air before hoisting the chits up the well.
“It’s all here, Draysky,” he said. “That’s it, our entire debt. Enough to pay our way out. But we’ll need to wait until winter passes to travel, and we’ll need coin to sustain us after we part from the outpost. Six more months, then the Silver Keeper should return. Then we buy our freedom.”
When Draysky slept that night, he dreamt of forests and oceans. Only interrupted once by the sound of gnashing intruding deep into his sleep, and fiery lines that sprang to life just beyond his vision. A rune, the lines too blurred to make out, but burning into the inside of his eyelid to fade with the coming dawn.
Chapter 17: Draysky
“Damn it.”
Draysky cursed when the tip snapped off his pickaxe, the brittle metal shattering after a particularly forceful swing. The day was cold, the wind howled with a vengeance, and the steel stuck to any source of moisture. He’d been reckless; he knew more pickaxes shattered in the deep cold. And that day, after returning from the Grinder, its bellow following him down the mountain, Draysky headed to the Keepers’ store.
The pickaxes came from the south, brought by the Keepers along with the nails, the tools, and any other metal—at the outpost, transporting the necessary fuel for a blacksmith would be prohibitive for any metalworking. These items, along with anything else that could not be found at the base of the shale mountain, including spices, firewood, grain, most meat, and wax, were controlled by the Keepers’ hand. Even Aleman, who held a second, smaller store at the back of his tavern, purchased most of his goods from the Keepers at a bulk discount. And his variety was far less than what they offered.
“Credit?” asked the Keeper at the counter as Draysky entered, the blast of warm air from the furnace in the back toasting his cheeks.
“Credit,” confirmed Draysky, walking to the pickaxe section, though his mind flitted back to all the chits in the well, as well as his extra income from selling lighters. Then his father’s voice resonated in his memory as a warning.
This wealth we have must be kept a secret. If we are seen using it, spoiling it with drink or fine food, or new clothes, others will quickly become suspicious, the Keepers first among them. To the outside world, we must appear as if we are barely getting by—as if even the most minor purchases are a struggle. Always pay with credit, under terrible rates, and never be seen with cash in hand. And barter as if your last meal depends on it.
At the shop, six pickaxes remained. With a week until the next shipment, the majority of the wall pegs were stripped clean, and those still hanging had been passed up by dozens of ridgers. All except for one, five times the price of others. The metal was polished to a fine sheen, and the wood was without knots or splinters interrupting its length. Black fabric was wrapped along the handle to prevent blistering, there was a hook clipped to the end for sliding down the rappel rope, and a rune was etched into its head. Despite all this, it was a mere half the weight of the others.
Draysky’s hand hovered over it, thinking how it would pay for itself in a few weeks if it never broke, and he could carry an extra ration of water. It would even be a wise investment.
But it would draw stares.
So with a grimace, he selected the middle cheapest one—sturdy, but not fancy, its primary issue an angry knot at the end of the hilt. He’d need to smooth that out at home with his lighter making tools, else it would grind into his palm with every swing.
“Two minutes,” said the Keeper as Draysky removed it, and he hurried up to the front. One more minute, and he would exceed the limit of time allowed within the shop without a fee. After that, it was a tin chit a minute- and if he left without buying anything, it would be a full iron chit next time he wanted to enter the shop. Too many ridgers took advantage of the heat on the inside and would otherwise loiter. Only the most senior of Keepers was allowed the shop’s comfort, the head of all the other Keepers at the outpost. Weris.
“Forty iron chits,” said Weris as he pulled out a notepad with a length of charcoal. “In addition to sixty iron chits already on the balance under your name alone. A payment of twelve irons required by the end of the month as interest.”
“I can do eleven iron chits now,” Draysky said, fishing out the appropriate chits and dropping them on the table, where they scattered and rolled to the far edges. All small denominations, none over a single half day of work, and the Keeper scowled as he counted through the mess, removing an extra tin chit for his time counting. As he worked, Draysky stared over his shoulder, his curiosity piqued by the open door of the storeroom behind. There a small shelf bore four of the tuning forks that could sense crystal, along with a mortar and pestle, lumps of crystal, and chisels that cluttered a workbench. On the wall behind, a dozen of the Keepers’ spears hung, their points glittering, some with small runes etched into them in various colors down the length. There were other objects, too—glasses of multiple sizes and odd shapes, mixing bowls of various hammered metals, and a book stained with powders open on the center of the table. And on the shelves, stone like pebbles glittered, contained within jars, twinkling and shimmering.
“Not for you to be staring at, boy. That’s Keeper business. Keep those eyes to yourself.” Weris noticed his gaze, and Draysky dropped it suddenly, his attention returning to the credit sheet. Then Draysky was on his way home, his mouth watering as he passed the back of the store informally known as The Keeper Section. Only Keepers could afford those goods, stocked with dried fruits and meats, sweetbreads, and even some of his own handmade lighters. Now that he had left the warmth of the shop behind him, the knot on the axe had already started digging into his skin.
His feet thudded on the maintained stone paths between homes, his stomach aching as it reminded him his return would be a full half hour after dinner typically would be served. To distract himself, he thought back to the open door behind the Keeper, trying to recall some of the runes on one of the spear shafts. He’d thought he’d recognized one, due to the similarity of it to his lighters. He passed Burnby’s house, the man shoveling shale away from his foundation, nodding as Draysky passed. In the distance, songs played in the tavern, the chorus of drunken voices overcoming the ill talent of any musicians there. Then there was the crunching of his feet on shale—not just crunching, but gnashing that seemed to cut through the air easier than usual, as if he could feel it as much as hear it.
And the door to his home was open.
Draysky froze, staring, the moment as if out of a dream. In the middle of winter, as snow fluttered down around him and sunlight had fled, leaving the door ajar made for a waste of firewood so great his father would punish him for a week had he done it in his youth. But now, it wasn’t merely ajar. No, instead it was as wide as the hinges would allow, beckoning the snow to gather in mounds upon their floors and the wind to steal the heat.
Draysky’s brow furrowed as he moved closer, his pace quickening. Surely, his father must not yet be home. Perhaps his ever careful grandmother had needed another ingredient for dinner, and had left the door cracked open by accident, and it had swung open by itself. Or his ever mindful sister had forgotten to close it. He almost believed these thoughts and others that whirred around his mind as he stepped upon the threshold, and his hand closed over the door frame, halting as the normally smooth wood caught upon his gloves. Splinters clung to the stitching when he pulled away, ripping along the grain of the wood and dangling from his hand. Splinters caused by the three raking gashes obliterating large chunks of the door post, as if hacked away by a furious ridger’s pic
kaxe seeking crystal.
The room inside was empty, the embers still burning in the wood stove casting a red glow over the walls, sparks scattered across the floor like glowing eyes watching his approach. The wind whispered through cracks in the walls, tugging him forward, his feet still rooted in the cold shale and snow. The gust stripped the dust from his jacket, scattering it among the red, forming long, crossing lines on the stone. A pattern, almost, that glowed under ember light as a low rumble emanated from within.
A growl, reminiscent of the Grinder itself.
Draysky’s bones chilled as he leapt forward, heart rate skyrocketing as his boots caught on similar gashes to those on the door frame, scored deep into the floor, parting the stone as if it were snow. From within, there was a crash, accompanied by a shrieking scream, the house trembling down to its foundation and rattling the window shutters. Draysky lost his footing, veering right and crashing into a table, which still bore the herbs his grandmother and sister had been crushing to tend to Aleman’s sickly child, born only three weeks before, and refusing to nurse. The powders went up in a puff, stinging his eyes as bowls clattered to the floor, spilling their contents to smolder among the sparks. He scrubbed at his eyes with his gloves, his vision blurred, and stumbled toward the growl, pickaxe in hand held ready as he reached his parents’ room.
The door was not open, nor was it closed. Rather, it was blown away, two separate halves dashed against the far wall, the hinges still desperately clinging on. Dust swirled in the air like mud in a puddle, refusing to settle, so thick it formed a fog that stung his lungs with each breath. His muscles hardened, tensing, bones grating with every move, as if they were heavier, and he were plowing through a river of dust that weighed him down. Through it, he saw a figure—no, not a figure, a form—too large to be a person, and surrounded by crimson and the scent of iron.
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