by J. S. Morin
Of course, Madlin held no illusion that the complicated series of piping and pressure vessels would do the least bit to stop the guts of Veydrus from vomiting forth and incinerating every goblin within miles. She rather fancied the idea that they would try. The whole project was thought out well enough that it could be used by the precocious creatures as a plan of action. She had even taught them enough that there was a chance they could build most of the components. With their primitive metal casting and their downright savage machining, she doubted they could build a residential steam heater safe enough that she’d stand anywhere near it.
But given the chance that the plans would come under scrutiny, Madlin double-checked her arithmetic. One of the key components of any lie was that it was consistent with itself. She could not recall who taught her that tidbit—lying was not on the list of courses for any tutor she’d ever had—but it had stuck with her.
The numbers swam before her eyes after hours of staring. It came as a relief when a knock at the door told Madlin that her escort had arrived. The jangle of chains and a tug at her neck was a reminder of the collar she was soon to be rid of. Whether her escape worked or the dragon killed her, she would not sleep with cold steel around her neck one night longer.
When her guards opened the door, she was surprised to find K’k’rt in the company of four priests. “Time to go,” he said. There was a melancholy in his voice that carried a sense of dread.
He thinks he’s bringing me to my death. Madlin had assumed that there was a strong possibility that the plans for Raynesdark’s protection were the last thing the dragon felt he needed from her. She was a toy to him, a speculative investment that had proven more an annoyance than a profit. Or perhaps the dragon just didn’t like the idea of having a human around. Since she didn’t intend to hang around long enough to ask the question, Madlin accepted that she would never know for certain. That K’k’rt believed her lifespan measured only minutes long meant that he shared her trepidation.
“I get an honor guard today?” Madlin asked, gathering up the sheets of paper that described her plan.
“The chief geologist, his assistants, and the interim governor for Raynesdark will all be in attendance,” K’k’rt said. “Of course, your shipment of weapons is ready as well.”
The bloody dragon wants my father to watch me get killed. Wonderful. Of course, it was convenient as well. The dragon’s spite would make the presence of a second world-hole that much less obvious. Rynn would be able to sneak her out as soon as Anzik destroyed the collar. The Megrenn sorcerer had assured Jamile that it would be an easy task for him. As she walked down the tunnel to the dragon’s lair, Madlin wondered how many viewframes were following her. She resisted an urge to turn around and smile to them.
A nervous trembling welled inside Madlin as she entered the cavern of Fr’n’ta’gur. It was already lit, and there were goblins around the periphery. No doubt they were the officials and dignitaries that K’k’rt had mentioned. Madlin’s guards brought her to the edge of the precipice overlooking the dragon’s treasure hoard. The sea of gold coins disappeared into the gloom at the back end of the cavern, where Fr’n’ta’gur’s breathing hissed like a bellows. The only point of solace in the room was the neat pile of crates holding her promised weapons.
K’k’rt announced her, calling into the darkness in his own language. She only made out the goblin version of her name: Md’ln.
Fr’n’ta’gur rumbled a response, his voice an earthquake. Coins sloshed and jingled as the great dragon approached. The chains at Madlin’s neck rattled as her guards cowered and bowed. Bile rose in Madlin’s throat, but she fought it down, gritting her teeth as she watched the reptilian head emerge from the darkness.
“Madlin Errol of Korr,” Fr’n’ta’gur greeted her. “You have been given three days to show me the way your world has stopped the great volcano. Because of my infinite generosity, you had two days longer than you should have needed. Now, you will prove your worth and show the plan that will allow me to keep my new city.”
Madlin realized that she had crushed the pages in a fist. She knelt and began smoothing the crumpled papers on the floor, turning each of them to face the dragon. Looking up at the maw looming over her, Madlin tried to slow her quickening breath before panic swept her away. Not long now…
What she had expected the dragon to do with the plan, Madlin couldn’t say for certain. She had considered that she might have been required to recite the findings and explain the plan, or that one of the geologists might have been called forth to examine Madlin’s work. One eventuality that she had not anticipated was that Fr’n’ta’gur would peer down and read the documents himself, but that was precisely what it appeared he was doing. The slit in his reptilian eye narrowed on the side closest to Madlin and twitched back and forth. Even with her spectacles on, Madlin would never have been able to read her scrawled handwriting from fifty feet up, let alone in the dim lighting of the dragon’s lair.
Fr’n’ta’gur grumbled something and one of the goblins from the side of the chamber scurried over and scooped up the plans. “It shall be done as you suggest, Madlin Errol of Korr.”
Madlin gaped up at the dragon. It worked. Once the dragon began his examination, Madlin was sure the creature would see her sham for what it was. Instead, she might have spared her own life. “Thank you, Mighty One. May my people have today’s delivery now?”
“Of course,” Fr’n’ta’gur said. Madlin thought she heard a hint of amusement, a suppressed chuckle, in that monstrous voice. “You may signal them. They are watching.” The dragon’s lips parted in a grin of obsidian-black swords.
Madlin held up a hand and flashed a series of numbers: three, three, two, four.
“That’s not the signal,” Kaia said from her seat at the world-ripper controls. The main chamber of the lunar headquarters was packed with all the residents, as well as a dozen soldiers that had been brought in for help during Madlin’s extraction. They stood poised at the two auxiliary world-rippers that normally ran the river through the middle of the room.
“It is today,” Anzik replied.
“Greuder, pull that lever!” Cadmus shouted across the chamber. He held a lever on the console of his own world-ripper at the upstream end of the river.
Greuder reached for a matching lever on the downstream control consoles. “What’s this even—?”
“Now!” Cadmus ordered. The two men pulled their levers in unison. The workings beneath the dials clicked and whizzed as machinery took over the operator’s function. “Open the hole.”
“C-C-Cadmus, what are you doing?” Greuder asked. His world-ripper was aimed at the head of Fr’n’ta’gur. The dragon had brought its head level with the viewframe as soon as it had arrived.
Cadmus opened his own world-hole, this one aligned perfectly with the barrel of the World Ender Cannon.
Madlin ducked for cover as the dragon’s head jerked forward. Peeking up, she saw a world-hole open in mid-air, level with Fr’n’ta’gur’s head. Her guards were none too pleased with her sudden action, and jolts of spark wracked her body. Through the pain and spasms, she managed a laugh.
Right beside her, a second world-hole opened. On the far side, Rynn stood with a coil gun. Two clicks. Two dead guards. A squad of soldiers swept in and formed a perimeter. Just inside that wall of military humanity, a third world-hole opened, and Anzik stepped through. He hurried to Madlin’s side and put his hands on the sides of her collar. With a sizzle of boiling steel, the collar felt away to clatter on the stone floor.
Above, there was a rush of air, an intake of breath like a sea storm. Fr’n’ta’gur’s mouth opened, but it was Cadmus’s voice that Madlin heard.
“That was my daughter you stole!”
The cavern shook before Madlin even realized what had just happened. Fr’n’ta’gur jerked backward, his neck wobbling. The ancient dragon toppled, his vast bulk dropping limply toward the cavern floor. Soldiers grabbed Madlin under the arms and hoisted her
through the world-hole before she could think to protest.
A dragon is armored unlike any other creature. Its scales are harder than the finest steels, impervious to flame or heat of any sort. Arrows and swords turn aside without scratching it. The leathery hide beneath is sturdier than chain, tougher than an elephant’s hide, and can dull a blade before it would slice through. But a three-foot diameter steel sphere, propelled faster than a rifle bullet, tore through Fr’n’ta’gur front to back in a fraction of a second. If there was time for one final thought to pass through the great beast’s mind before it met its end, it would have been one of utter perplexity.
Madlin turned to watch as her rescuers piled through the world-hole, taking refuge aboard the Jennai from the cataclysm wrought by Cadmus’s shot. She saw Anzik step through the other world-hole, taking another few of the soldiers with him and unleashing a blast of lightning from his fingertips toward foes outside her range of view. The last thing she saw before Anzik’s world-hole closed was a lone, elderly goblin taking Anzik’s hand and being yanked through.
Rynn’s viewframe returned to just an image, so Madlin could not hear the great crash as Fr’n’ta’gur slammed to the cavern floor, his body hitting the sea of gold and his head slamming to the clifftop floor not far from where Madlin had just been rescued. The impact smashed the crates containing the day’s delivery of coil guns, but that wasn’t something that Madlin was going to worry about just then.
Across the Jennai, the word went out. The squads waiting at their world-rippers sprang into action. Human rebels swarmed into the goblin manufacturing site, coil guns clicking madly. The warehouse’s magical rune defenses were blasted to rubble, along with the doors they protected. Workers streamed in and out of the world-holes, reclaiming all the goblin-made weaponry that had been stored. There were still hundreds unaccounted for in the hands of the goblin armies, but all other weapons were taken back aboard the ship.
In under an hour, the valley that Madlin had helped to build lay in ruins. The World Ender Cannon was reloaded and fired five more times, leveling buildings five or more at a time. The goblin penchant for order had laid the valley out in a convenient grid that the weapon tore into with an angry tinker’s glee.
Madlin looked on from the main cargo hold of the Jennai, where the ship’s first world-ripper had been sent to examine the dragon’s lair. All the officers of the rebellion who were not at the lunar base were there. It was the sort of event that histories spoke of, and none of them wanted to miss it. The roof of the cavern had partly collapsed, but the majority of the structure remained intact. The goblin priests had all either fled or been killed. The dragon lay motionless, eyes gaping toward the viewframe. The hole where the World Ender Cannon’s shot had exited its body was hidden on the far side of the corpse.
The world-ripper had enabled it all, but Cadmus’s cannon had done most of the work. It was a grotesque, inefficient solution, but Madlin had to admit that it had worked. Seeing the beast dead on the floor of his own lair gave a hollow sense of satisfaction. If only all the kuduks could be lined up in one place and shot with a single cannon …
A horrible, sickening thought crept into Madlin’s head. The world-ripper could be a better weapon than Cadmus had ever imagined. There was a place where all the kuduks were gathered together, a place where they could all be killed with a single shot: Korr.
A page in Madlin’s mind drew the first lines of a sketch, a sketch of a device, a device that would kill them all. Pieces of concepts floated, yet to be placed: a river brought to a moon, a turbine turned by a waterfall, the carcass of a creature impervious to fire.
“Gather a work crew,” Madlin ordered. She addressed no one in particular. “I want samples of teeth, hide, and scales, and I want them cleaned of blood and in my workshop by morning.”
“What are you thinking?” Sosha asked.
“Creatures like this don’t exist in our world, and I think we should learn what we can from it. Plus, I think I might like a trophy to remind folks what a tinker’s vengeance looks like. Maybe we’ll mount it’s skull on the front of the Jennai.”
“That’s disgusting,” said Sosha, aghast.
Madlin rolled her eyes. “I was joking. I just want to study it, that’s all.”
Rascal. She remembered at last. It was Rascal who had taught her to put together a proper lie.
Chapter 18
“Put two men who hate each other alone in a room and they might kill one another. Add a third that’s done them both wrong, and they’ll be best friends for as long that third man lives … which won’t be long.” – Rashan Solaran
Jamile watched as Anzik crossed the main chamber of the lunar headquarters, exiting in the direction of his quarters. The sorcerer did not acknowledge her or Madlin as he passed, and did not give any indication of interest in the viewframe as it opened onto the Kheshi countryside of Tellurak’s southern hemisphere. Madlin kept the dials moving, sweeping across verdant valleys and uncut forests. Khesh was heavily populated, but unlike the corresponding regions of Korr, there was still unspoiled land left to expand even further.
“What do you think?” Madlin asked. She kept her attention focused on the machine.
“I think he could help us,” Jamile replied, staring down the corridor after Anzik.
Madlin frowned as she turned to Jamile, who stood behind her seat at the control console. “Forget him, I mean the land. The deep-dwellers will hate anything on the surface, but I think anyone from the skies would appreciate it.”
Jamile shrugged. “Sure. It’s pretty. But I mean, what if you sent Anzik to talk to Harwick? What’s the worst that happens?”
“No, it’s …” Madlin paused. Jamile saw it, the moment the question settled in and took root. The tinker’s gears started turning and Madlin gave that simple question serious thought. She waited for Madlin to determine exactly what the worst case would be if the two met. “I suppose there’s no harm if Anzik ends up killing him. There’s no way of telling, but I suspect Harwick is no match for Anzik. I suppose the worst case would be angering both of them enough that they turn against us together.”
Jamile snorted. “You really think that could happen? We have control of the world-rippers. We could do more damage to Anzik’s people than those Kadrins could, I bet you. We’re his best hope. And Harwick doesn’t seem the type to … well, I take that back, I suppose he does seem like the type who’d ally with his enemy for some other reason. But I don’t see Anzik going along with it.”
Madlin pointed to the viewframe. “This is a real problem, one we’ve got right now. We have more refugees by the day, and not enough safe places to put them. If you want to go convince Anzik to confess to murder, be my guest.”
“Why would I want to do that?” Anzik asked.
Jamile sat at the foot of Anzik’s bed, looking up at the sorcerer as he stood regarding her with the most puzzled expression she had ever seen him display. “Because he’s clever. He’s going to find out sooner or later, I imagine. Better to tell him yourself and be honest about why you did it.”
“I can only surmise that you have recently discovered his Veydran identity and that is what’s causing your increased concern,” Anzik said. He turned his back to Jamile, looking at the bare stone of the wall. “Who is he?”
“Kladriss Solaran,” Jamile replied. “We don’t know quite who he was, but he let his—”
“You mean Caladris,” Anzik corrected her. “At the time of his death, he was one of the Inner Circle, the group of sorcerers that rules the Kadrin Empire behind their puppet empress. Caladris Solaran was also the father of one Danilaesis Solaran.”
“Oh poo,” Jamile swore softly. She hung her head. “So there’s no way you could talk sense with him, I guess. Madlin’s going to have to get those books back, then.”
“Books?” Anzik’s head snapped around. “What books?”
Jamile swallowed. “Oh, that’s right. Double-poo. Madlin never told you about the books.” Anzik stared at
her, those oft unfocused eyes boring into her like the giant auger aboard the Jennai. “You’re … not going to hurt me, are you?”
“No.”
Jamile released a sigh that wasn’t quite convinced by Anzik’s reply. She drew herself to her feet. “Well, then I’ll just—”
Anzik stepped between her and the door. “I would, however, very much appreciate you describing the books you mentioned.”
Jamile sat back down. For a long moment, she stewed over just where to begin. Anzik waited, patient as ever. The impulse to call for help warred with Jamile’s resolve to get Harwick and Anzik to meet. Madlin would come for her, she knew, but what would Anzik do to her in the meantime. Of course, if she relented and told Anzik everything, he might help her—but then what would Madlin do to her?
“They’re old,” she began. It seemed like something that had to be gotten out of the way up front. “No one even knows who wrote them. Madlin and Cadmus can’t even tell what they’re written on, but it’s not any kind of paper anyone has seen. There are twelve of them in all, and they’re written in a language none of us can read.”
“But Harwick can.”
“Someone told Jamile that it was all written in a language that Kadrin sorcerers can read,” Jamile explained.
“Who told her that? Harwick?”
Jamile shook her head. “No, someone named Juliana. I have no idea who she was or …” She stopped. Anzik’s eyes had gone wide enough to fall out of his face. “What?”
“She’s alive?” he breathed.
“You know this Juliana, then?”
“She was thought dead, or so the Kadrins let us believe. There were rumors that Brannis Solaran survived his battle with Rashan Solaran and ran off with his lover. Neither of them has been seen since the last war. It was all speculation, as far as most credible accounts were concerned.”