by J. S. Morin
A world-hole opened, and a lone figure stepped through. There were murmurs, but the delegates were too wary of the power gathered around them to draw unwanted attention to themselves. “My name is Madlin Errol, the Mad Tinker, as my father was before me. I have gathered you all here tonight to deliver a message. The time for vengeance is at an end. We have warred, and through ingenuity and cunning, we have devised a means of plunging three worlds into perpetual war, with no hope of safety, with no peace of mind without the annihilation of our foes. We gather beneath the Veydran night by means of this very device.” Madlin raised her arms to the sky.
“What safety is there, when an army could be camped in your bedchamber? What peace when a lone soldier with a gun can kill a king? What hope does victory hold when all that you hold dear dangles by a thread? Tonight I offer peace.”
Questions erupted then, as the translators caught up with what Madlin had said. She understood a few, but most were garbled by the din of voices or by dint of language. “What peace can I hold forth, you ask? Why should there be peace at all, when you have at your disposal the means of such effective war? I offer you the warden’s peace. The tinkers have out-thought you this time. We hold the upper hand and we intend to play it. Those who would think to kill me here and now need only remember that it is not my hand that holds the gun to your heads.”
Rynn stood at an open world-hole, the control console of the secret base’s world-rippers within her reach. Madlin had made one key modification before her departure: a timer. With the flip of a switch, the machine would activate thirty seconds later. But Rynn was not watching the world-ripper; its controls were already dialed in, its target ready. She watched through her twin’s eyes, waiting for the right moment in Madlin’s speech, and it had arrived.
Taking a deep breath, she closed the switch. An arrangement of gears set into motion, a motion that would take precisely thirty seconds to complete. Rynn glanced to a corner of the secret base, where Cadmus Errol’s body lay covered in linens.
“Goodbye, father,” Rynn whispered. It harkened back to the ancient traditions of the Korrish humans, spoken with reverence in the teachings of Eziel. The funeral pyre was an extravagance in a world with little wood. Even the rebellion, so enamored of Eziel’s reborn elegies, had not taken up the practice. But Rynn and Madlin had one fit for the Mad Tinker.
Rynn shut the world-ripper that allowed her to reach into the secret base. She found herself once more in a lunar headquarters that had long since stopped being a secret among the rebels.
“I don’t know if I hope it works or not,” Jamile said quietly.
“We’ll find out soon enough.” They were both there in Veydrus: Madlin speaking, and Sosha translating for a Takalish governor.
Amid curses and threats, kept under tight control by rebel soldiers with coil guns, Madlin shouted over the cacophony and managed to continue. “You ask what right I have. You ask who am I to tell you what you can or can’t do. You boast of your magic, your armies, your entitlements. I ask you to look to the sky, and witness the wrath of science unleashed!”
Madlin raised both hands to the sky, hoping that her estimate of thirty second had made for proper dramatic timing. She hoped there would be something worth seeing at all. This whole mess could have gone very poorly if not …
There was a flash, and Madlin felt a wave of relief. A tiny orange plume jetted forth from the surface of the moon. It worked! Let them see that I can blast a crater in the moon, and see what they …
But that wasn’t all that happened in the night sky. A shadow slashed across the surface, irregular and jagged, but thin. It spread like cracks in broken glass, and Madlin’s breath caught in her lungs. The moon above Veydrus had shattered, and the pieces were drifting apart. She stared up in mute horror at what she had done. The world-ripper had been positioned a hundred feet below the lunar surface on the visible side. It ought to have been enough for a spectacular show if the machine worked as she had envisioned.
Most of the audience was struck dumb as well. A few muttered prayers were heard, and more than one delegate was brought to tears. Madlin had some expectation of what was about to occur, and even she needed several moments to collect herself.
“That could have been the homeland of any of you,” Madlin said, hoping no one noticed the tremor in her voice. “That could have been the whole of Korr, or Tellurak. If you persist, this is the weapon you will face. These are my terms: The humans of Korr are free from this moment. They will be evacuated via my machines, to the destination of their choosing. There will be no further use of the machines known as world-rippers by any other than my own organization. We will find violators and they will be eliminated. There will be justice for the Human Replacement Project. The kuduk tinker known as Ganrin Draksgollow will oversee the dismantling of the project he had created. He will be under constant surveillance for the remainder of his days, and will take part is no further activity relating to the development of world-ripper technology. All existing machines will be turned over to Errol Company or destroyed utterly.”
Madlin looked out over the stunned delegates. Only the demon appeared amused. “These are my terms. There is no negotiation. You will be returned to your homes, except for Mr. Draksgollow, who will be coming with us. Good evening.”
A world-hole opened and the new Mad Tinker vanished through it.
Chapter 27
“The clearest message we have from Eziel is this: the preservation of mankind. Do what you must, whether fight or flee or hide, to give our kind the best chance to survive.” – Pious Rascal
The engine of the steam wagon chugged and puffed along. Madlin had been thinking for months that she ought to replace it with a fully rune-powered model, but she had grown fond of the little mechanical beast. Its iron-studded wheels bit into the turf as it climbed the hillside. As she crested the rise, Madlin pulled down the binocular attachment for her spectacles and surveyed the area. It seemed decadent, owning land that she had never seen. Most of Tellurak was populated by common folk who would never rub two stones of their own together.
The valley was overgrown with tall, wispy grasses and thorny bushes, but it was still easier than dealing with tree cover. At her side, Jamile looked through a spyglass—one of the ones they had brought for the delegates of the Final Peace meeting but never needed. “It’s pretty down there. Seems a shame to disturb it.”
“Everywhere’s pretty to you,” Madlin replied. “But we’ve got a thousand people a day coming through from Korr, and no place to put them. Well, plenty of land, but no places in it. Blast it, you know what I mean.”
There were chuckles from the back of the steam wagon, where the surveying crew rode. There were six of them, a mix of Korrish and Kheshi. The Kheshis were locals, who knew the land. The Korrish knew how to measure it properly.
“Go on,” Madlin snapped, “Get to work.” They knew she wasn’t cross with them; they had worked with her on five city sites previously. “I figure we’ll run the new thunderail line down that valley pass, cutting the hillside back. We’ll cross the brook over that way. Base the layout sketches on that and measure accordingly.”
“Yes, tinker,” they replied in rough unison. Madlin had cured everyone of calling her “ma’am” as soon as decorum allowed, following the war. She had retired officially, though officially only Rynn had held rank. Madlin’s new title was Mad Tinker, which was less an epithet than an honor, as far as she was concerned. The title had passed down from Cadmus, but she had no idea who she would pass it on to. She was not yet twenty, though she felt at times that her life had run twice that long. A side effect of being twinborn, she supposed. There would be time one day for home and family. For now, she had a country to build.
“You coming?” Madlin asked as she hopped down, her boots sinking in the soft soil.
Jamile smiled. “I’ll watch from here, if you don’t mind.” Jamile had been keeping off her feet more and more of late. The swell of her belly was all the reason she ne
eded. Madlin had been surprised when she realized that Jamile was carrying a child. Never had she noticed Jamile taking an interest in men, or at least none in particular. Wartime passion, she supposed—ill-considered and fleeting. The father was a mystery, and one Madlin felt better left alone. She had a strong suspicion that the child was Kupe’s, and a scandal was the last thing Prime Minister Kupe and Lady Charsi needed. Kupe was swimming upside down as it was, trying to lead where everyone showed him.
“Well, you take it easy, then,” Madlin said. “We’ll be a couple hours. I’ll try to stay in shouting distance in case you need anything.”
“You’re not nervous at all?” Jamile asked, wringing her hands.
“Why would I be nervous?” Madlin said. “This place is tame as a milk cow.”
“Not that,” Jamile replied. “The other thing. You know.”
Madlin chuckled. “I’ll be fine. It’s science like we’ve never seen. Trust them.”
Rynn heard a beeping sound—rhythmic, steady, and oddly comforting. She opened her eyes and saw white. A white ceiling overhead, with a soft white light shining down. White walls with white panels, scrawled with words she couldn’t understand. She was covered in white sheets, and wore a white smock as soft as kitten fur. White wires snaked out from under that smock, running to white-painted machines with glowing displays—one of which made the beeping noise.
She was not alone in the room. She had three visitors. One was Sosha, her dark skin contrasting with the stark white all around, including the toothy smile that she gave. Another was dressed in a loose, pale blue outfit of matching pants and shirt. He carried a rectangular panel like a clipboard, but one face glowed with that same incompressible writing, along with some graphs. A loose cloth mask hung around his neck, a pair of laces dangling loose from it. Rynn’s impression was that he looked like a stage actor, with his perfect smile and coiffed hair, but it didn’t seem out of place for a doctor. The third in the room with them was a translator. The grey-haired woman had a kindly face and alert eyes, the sort of eyes that looked at things, not just passively taking them in.
“How do you feel?” Sosha asked.
“Thirsty,” Rynn replied. There was a peculiar taste in her mouth that she could not identify. Reaching for the bedside table, she drank from a little white cup they had left there for her.
The doctor said something. His language was lyrical and mysterious. “Do you have any feeling?” the translator asked.
Rynn shrugged. “Yeah, but that never meant anything. Let’s just have a look.” After waiting for the translation, the doctor nodded. Some things, it seemed, needed no translation.
The doctor pulled back the blankets and Rynn looked down. There, just below the knee, the skin turned fresh pink, like her tinker’s legs had been a scab that had just been removed. With an effort of concentration, Rynn wiggled her toes.
“They work!” Sosha squealed. She clapped her hands together.
“What else would you expect?” Rynn asked. “These people have medicine figured out. Blast it, they seem to have everything figured out.”
After an exchange back and forth in the local language, the doctor replied via translator. “Not everything, madam emissary. I’ve been fielding calls from the Ministry of Science, the Ministry of Defense, and no fewer than a dozen research universities, all wanting to study those runes of yours. The Ministry of Foreign Relations has been keeping them at bay, but they’ve been wanting to study your prosthesis.”
Rynn smirked. “They must think I’m some sort of witch.”
The doctor nodded. “You’re in little danger, of course,” he replied via translator. “Your activities will be monitored, both for the populace’s peace of mind and for your own protection.”
“As long as I can learn the science of your world,” Rynn replied, “you’re welcome to anything I know about mine.”
She felt like a card hustler. These poor folks of Olara didn’t know the shabby end of a bargain when they saw one. Tellurak would get the benefits of science a thousand years ahead of its time, and Olara would get floaty runes and mechanical replacement legs. But as long as they were happy with the bargain, who was she to argue. It wasn’t as if she had real magic to show them.
Chapter 28
“The distress beacon is only to be used as a last resort. Traveler’s Companion will not be held responsible for the consequences of frivolous use.” – Traveler’s Companion: Calling for Help
In a forested grove, the immortals gathered. They had taken their leisure among the mortal races, but one of their number had called them home. Now, beneath the stars and under the light of the cracked moon, they waited.
“You have to admit; I was right,” Kyrus whispered, grinning at his companion.
“Yeah, I feel so much better now that the Errol girl knows how to blast a planet to bits,” Juliana replied.
“But those kuduks never managed to wipe out their humans or replace them from Tellurak,” Kyrus replied. “They got the tinkers who knew how to build the machines and rounded them all up.”
“So now only one group controls inter-world travel.”
Kyrus chuckled.
“Fine, so we can do it too,” Juliana said. “But they’ve still got a weapon that could kill us. The mortals might not have realized how she did it, but we know what we’re up against. Do you think you could survive the sun?”
Kyrus shrugged. “I don’t expect I’ll ever have to. What quarrel have they got with me? Besides, I know a secret.”
“Oh?” Juliana asked. Kyrus wasn’t in the habit of keeping those, as far as she knew.
Kyrus leaned close and cupped a hand over her ear. “They don’t have a machine to do it.”
“But she said—”
Kyrus grinned. “They don’t need another. Sure, they could build one, but they blew that first one to ash and nearly cracked Tellurak’s moon in the process. But I like it, the threat of that thing will keep the peace, and since no one can find it, no one can ever be sure it’s gone.”
“Then how do you know?” Juliana stuck her tongue out.
“A good magician never reveals how he does his tricks.”
Juliana raised an eyebrow. It was a worse threat than anything she could have said.
“Fine,” Kyrus relented. “Illiardra told me. And don’t ask, because I have no idea how she knew.”
There was a small commotion among the immortals. The absent member of their order had returned—the one who had called them together in the first place. At first it was difficult to recognize Viyax, looking as plain and common as a Korrish human. But when he spoke his voice was the same as ever.
“Thank you all. You honor me with your attention,” Viyax said, projecting his voice to the far reaches of the assembly. He was dressed in coveralls stained with grease, and beside him was something about the size of a wine barrel, covered in a grimy cloth.
“Since when have you cherished anything else?” a voice called out from the crowd. There was good-natured laughter at the prankster demon’s expense.
“We gather tonight beneath a wounded moon,” Viyax continued, unable to prevent a smile from turning up his lip. He could not resist a good joke, not even when he was its target. “It made me think we are not so invulnerable. We have a new Tallax watching over us.”
“You overstate matters,” Illiardra said, her voice carrying clear across the grove.
“Do I?” Viyax asked. “When Tallax died, his threat died with him. This girl has left us in the hands of science, a force which bows to no single master. When the new Mad Tinker dies, some other will take up her cause, and if she is like the Korrish I have met, it will be a score of someones, not a lone successor.”
“What’s under the cloth?” Bvatrain asked. He had returned reluctantly from his visit to a land that had become a stranger to him. He made no secret that he wished to return.
Viyax grinned, his smile impossibly wide for his otherwise human face. “I built one!” He pulled the clo
th away to reveal a curious contraption beneath. Despite never having seen one before, any immortal who had read through the twelve books recognized it from the descriptions contained therein: a distress beacon.
“Really, Viyax, you think we need help from some unknown source?” Illiardra asked. “From the same ones who wrote of age elixirs and makeshift transference devices. From the ones who told me the names of plants and animals I knew from their first appearance in the world. From the ones who worried that they would get lost exploring. We need no help from the likes of them.”
“Aren’t you curious who would come?” Viyax asked. “If they are weak and foolish, they are harmless. If they are not, then we might ask succor of them.”
“You have to admit he has a point,” Kyrus said. Juliana elbowed him in the side, but didn’t speak against him. She ought to have been proud; Kyrus so rarely instigated trouble.
“Thank you,” Viyax said with a bow in Kyrus’s direction. “So good to see the youths among us looking for the novel solution. I don’t relish waiting out five hundred years of domination.” He pulled a lever and the machine sparked to life. It cracked with energy, whirring to a high-pitched whine. When the whine steadied, the machine warbled a series of gibberish sounds, like spark-powered birdsong. Then it went dark and silent.
The immortals waited. Patience was a trait widely admired among them. It became a test of wills to see who would weaken first and make some comment. Before the first of them broke ranks, the skies grew clouded. The stars vanished. The crippled moon disappeared behind a wall of heavy black stormclouds. Lightning struck the ground in their midst, and a man appeared as if carried on the bolt.
“What is this?” he asked. He had a deep, melodious voice, and spoke the arcane tongue that all present understood. He appeared human, though tall for the species. He wore a long, sleeveless white tunic, trimmed in gold and belted at the waist, leaving muscular arms and calves bare. His face was … familiar.