The Ruins Box Set

by T. W. Piperbrook

  Looking back at his friends, Xavier asked, “Do you know where these wreckages are?”

  Noting the curiosity on Xavier’s face, Bray said, “I suppose I could remember. They landed where my friend traveled, a long way from here. I will warn you, it is not a short trip.”

  Xavier traded another look with his friends. “Still, that information would be worth something to us.”

  “I would accept a gift, if I was allowed,” Bray said with a grunt, looking down at his wagon. “But the guards would beat me if they found something I wasn’t supposed to have.”

  Another flash of anger sparked in Xavier’s eyes. “Perhaps another drink, then.”

  “Thank you, friend,” Bray said, as he accepted the flask and took another long swig. Making a show of pondering something, he said, “Perhaps there is something you can help me with.”

  Xavier’s reluctance returned.

  “I traveled with a few other friends, before I came here,” Bray lied, shaking his head. “They went in another direction. I was hoping for some assurance that they were alive.”

  Xavier looked carefully around. “There are many people in the forest,” he said evasively.

  “Of course. I was hoping if I described them, you might have some information.”

  “What do they look like?”

  “One was portly, with a large mustache. The other had a beard that came to his waist,” Bray lied. “My hope was that they ended up in a place better than this.”

  “I have not seen them,” Xavier said. “Which direction did they head, and when did you last see them?”

  “They headed east, a few weeks ago,” Bray said. “We were split up.”

  Xavier chewed his lip. He seemed as if he was torn between answers. Or perhaps he had figured out Bray’s motive. Choosing his words carefully, he said, “If your friends went west or south, they might have become a meal. But if they headed east, between the mountains, they would have found a path free from The Plagued Ones. There is less game for them to hunt.”

  “Over there?” Bray asked, nodding discreetly over the field of corn and in the direction of two distant bumps on the horizon.

  Xavier nodded. “Not as many animals lurk there. The Plagued Ones in this city like to hunt in the north, or to the west.”

  “How far is the pass?”

  “Less than half a morning’s walk.” Xavier flashed a cautious glance. “It is the path we take when we come to trade. It is safe from The Plagued Ones.” Carefully, he added, “If your friends made it that far, they might be safe.”

  The Yatari nodded, watching Bray expectantly.

  “Thank you for the reassurance,” Bray said to them. “Now, I owe you some directions.”

  Chapter 28: William

  Pillowy, circling clouds covered some of the morning sunshine as it filtered into William’s room, casting stripes of light over the floor.

  William sat at the edge of his bed, listening to Amelia’s footsteps getting closer. He started in on the hacking cough he’d practiced several times since she’d left the night before. The noise echoed across the room, bounced off the walls, and hopefully made its way out in the hallway. He heard Amelia pause before she knocked.

  “William? Are you all right?”

  He waited a moment before responding, “Yes. Come in.”

  Amelia peeked in on him with concern. William kept to the edge of the bed, holding his raw, red throat, irritated from his forced coughs.

  “You don’t sound any better than last night,” she observed.

  “I don’t feel too bad,” he said, making a face that showed otherwise. “I am ready to head upstairs.”

  Amelia didn’t seem certain, but she didn’t say anything as William slowly got off the bed, accompanying her to the doorway. Pulling in a heavy breath, he let out another brutal hack. This time Amelia stopped, shielding her face.

  More worry overtook her expression. “It sounds as if you might be getting a sickness. Those types of illnesses are easily spread to the rest of us.”

  “Spread?” William asked. “Sicknesses are a will of the gods, aren’t they?”

  “The gods.” Amelia laughed. “That is not the way sicknesses work. Humans get them first, and spread their illnesses to us. If we are together in the same room, more of us are apt to get sick. It might be a little easier for you to recover, because you are younger, but severe illnesses are a worry for us older Gifted. Our brains might be intelligent, but our bodies are still susceptible.” Taking a step away from him, she said, “It is probably better if you rest a little while today, away from the others.”

  William made a show of his disappointment. “I was looking forward to writing more letters today.”

  “There will be plenty of time for that later,” Amelia said, putting a hand over her mouth. “I will have breakfast sent to you here by the guards.”

  William held his stomach.

  “Are you feeling sick to your stomach, as well?”

  He nodded.

  “Probably an effect of your illness. Maybe you should skip breakfast. I will have the guards bring up lunch, when they come back with our second trip for dessert.”

  William put on a disappointed face.

  “You need your rest, to recover,” Amelia said. “You should try to sleep.”

  William nodded, maintaining his dejected expression as she opened the door and walked out. Before she left, he forced his way through one more loud, sidesplitting cough. He saw her wincing as she shut the door.

  And then William was alone.

  William listened to Amelia’s footsteps as she treaded up the same stairs, presumably going to The Library Room. For a while, doors opened in the floors above and below, as more of The Gifted headed to the eighteenth floor. A few conversed quietly. And then the building fell preternaturally quiet.

  William waited a long while, until after he heard the guards bringing breakfast to The Gifted.

  Only when they returned to the ground floor did he get off the bed.

  William tiptoed to the doorway, listening, before retrieving the hairpin from beneath his bureau. Turning it in his hand, he swallowed. It had been weeks since he’d held it, and just as long since he’d considered using it.

  He was deathly afraid he might kill his friends with a mistake.

  But they might die, regardless. And if they did, he would never forgive himself for his inaction.

  Swallowing a nervousness that he feared would accompany him forever, William crept to the door and unlocked it.

  Chapter 29: Kirby

  Kirby balanced a piece of sheet metal on the workbench, picking up her shears. Nearby, Rosita completed a cut, tossing her finished piece into a stack. The pile of finished sheets they’d started this morning had grown to almost twice its size. A few times, other slaves entered the shops under the guards’ direction, taking away the completed piles. But there was plenty of time in between.

  That was the time in which Kirby was interested.

  Cutting the sheet in front of her, Kirby forced her way through a stubborn piece. Each sheet seemed to vary in condition. Every so often, she saw a sheet that contained some stain or smell she couldn’t identify. Most smelled of the decrepit buildings of which they’d once been a part, while others contained a hint of animal dung. One or two contained the crusted, dried skin of a carcass.

  “The traders don’t always clean the metal, before we get it,” Rosita explained, nodding as she saw Kirby picking at a stubborn brown spot with her gloves. “We’ve seen all types of things on them.”

  “I believe it,” Kirby muttered.

  “One time, we found one with what must’ve been a skull’s worth of blood, stained on the side,” Rosita said. “Another time we got a batch that smelled like The Plagued Ones. I think the whole shop smelled that day.” A thin smile crossed her face.

  A loud, rhythmic clanging echoed across the room, interrupting Rosita’s conversation. Kirby looked over to find a dirty slave working a small piece
of metal through a machine. Rosita returned to her work. The workers in the machine shops talked less, unable to compete with the constant sounds of the workers around them. Occasionally, a guard poked his head in, asking a question or making a demand, but otherwise the din was constant.

  Kirby noticed the guards mostly stayed out of the building, so they could talk and share jokes away from the noise of the shop.

  Finished with a long cut, she pulled a finger-width scrap from the end of the sheet and carried it over to the scrap bin. Peering in, she saw a growing pile that the slaves hadn’t carted away. She looked over her shoulder, watching the guards chat away.

  Kirby set the metal in with the others.

  She overruled a dangerous impulse.

  It was too soon.

  A loud laugh drew her attention to the doorway.

  A lumbering form stood among the other guards. A bitter taste filled Kirby’s mouth as she saw Ollie, holding up his hands in some lewd gesture. He glanced over, meeting her eyes. She quickly averted them. The memory of his stinking, sour breath and his roaming hands came rushing back. Her pulse pounded. He might come inside when he was through talking, pulling her away from her task.

  The moment she feared might be closer than she knew.

  Kirby kept her head down, clenching the shears in her hand as she cut with new vigor.

  She risked another glance at the doorway.

  The laughing stopped.

  The guards were on to some new, crude story.

  Ollie was gone.

  Chapter 30: William

  Alone on the stairs, William paused.

  Fear pierced his heart like a stake.

  Traveling down the stairs in the nighttime was fear-inducing enough, but traveling in the daytime provided its own set of worries. He had no cover of shadow, no place to hide, should someone discover him. The amount of time it took to unlock a door ruled out ducking into a room. He would have to go down three flights of stairs to get to Amelia’s quarters—three flights of quietly sneaking and hoping no one came out.

  Something else frightened him.

  Tolstoy’s room was on the way.

  Tolstoy was probably inside his quarters, poring over his books and his drawings, doing the gods knew what else. Perhaps planning more of his experiments. William’s fright became a sickening fear as he looked up and down the surrounding flights of stairs. The stairwell was quiet. He heard nothing, other than the faint hum of a machine from somewhere outside.

  William crept down the flights of stairs.

  Next to Tolstoy’s door, he listened for sounds—a footstep, a cough, or the slide of a chair’s legs across the floor. He heard nothing. He pictured the large, wooden desk on the far side of the room, with Tolstoy’s imposing figure occupying it. Tolstoy was so intent on his work that he was silent. Or maybe he wasn’t in there at all. That gave William a frightening afterthought.

  What if he encountered Tolstoy on the stairs?

  He ran through a stream of excuses.

  Amelia left the door open.

  I was looking for breakfast.

  I was coming to your room to ask you a question.

  No excuse seemed legitimate enough.

  He wasn’t supposed to be out.

  Soon he had passed the landing and was beyond the door’s sight. William breathed a sigh of relief as he crept past a few more landings and reached Amelia’s door. He paused, ensuring he heard no noise, and then worked on the lock.

  Finished unlocking the door, William swung it open slowly.

  Amelia’s room was empty. Unlike Tolstoy’s, which sported magnificent furniture and an impressive array of pictures and drawings, Amelia’s room was simple. The sheets were turned down on her bed. Several pieces of clothing hung haphazardly on her bureau, or dangled from drawers. She wasn’t as neat as he would have expected, from someone who appeared so ordered.

  William didn’t pause on the threshold. Sneaking inside, he closed the door. On the far side of the room, he saw a small desk that looked to be about in the same spot as Tolstoy’s. It seemed as if she didn’t use the desk often—only a few closed books sat on its surface. Next to the desk, however, was a square box that resembled the one downstairs.

  Glancing over his shoulder, William tiptoed across the room, past the bureau and the disheveled clothes, and made his way to the box. He bent down, certain that he would encounter resistance and another lock he had to force his way into.

  The box was open.

  It made sense, when he thought about it.

  The Gifted had nothing to fear from each other. And they had little to fear from the guards. Locking their rooms was probably a precaution. High walls, a demon army, and vicious guards repelled their prospective enemies. The slaves were far enough away that they were considered no danger. No one could get to them.

  Until now.

  William opened the box, wincing at the small noise, and peered inside, finding a few small shelves. William frowned as he found an array of objects, no two the same. Taking great care to memorize the location of the objects, he pulled out a few and inspected them. William turned an aged, brown flask in his hand that looked like it hadn’t been used in many years. Next to it was a tiny bag in which someone might’ve collected coins, now empty. William paused as he recognized three letters on each item, all of which were different. He frowned as he noticed the symbols didn’t appear in Amelia’s name, or even his. Nearby were several strings of jewelry—metals that were in various shapes and conditions.

  William kept digging, sorting through things that looked as if they were keepsakes. He felt a pit in his stomach as he recalled the gun upstairs, and Amelia’s explanation of where she’d gotten it.

  Dead people’s possessions.

  William’s fear almost made him leave, until he spotted a small, metal tin sitting underneath a strange looking flask.

  He reached for the items, taking care not to knock anything over as he did.

  He looked at the flask. Shaking it gently, he realized it was filled with some sort of powder. A long tube sprouted from the top, containing some residue that looked like some of the black, ashen material he’d seen in the shells of the gun casings he’d used with Kirby.

  Setting aside the flask, he opened the tin.

  Inside were a handful of balls and some caps. He’d never seen the caps before, and the balls looked different than anything he’d encountered, but they might fit the gun he’d seen upstairs.

  It looked as if the objects went together.

  This must be what he needed.

  He had no idea how to use them, but he’d figure that out later. With a quick glance behind him, he emptied the balls and the caps into his pocket, replaced the metal box with the other keepsakes, and pocketed the flask.

  With everything else back in place, he snuck out the door.

  Chapter 31: William

  Back in his room, William caught his breath. His heart pounded so heavily he thought it might burst through his chest. But he’d done it. He’d found what he was looking for. He felt a burst of elation as he reveled in his accomplishment. But his success wouldn’t last long, if he were caught.

  William cocked his head, listening for the sound of fast footsteps. The Gifted might not have been in the hallway, but their presence was everywhere—in the smell of the wooden furniture in his room, in the walls, and in those ominous windows that contained the ashes of the slaves. Looking through the glass, he shuddered as he pictured those dead people forever trapped in the building, doomed to overlook the place in which they’d spent a life of enslavement. He wouldn’t be the same as them.

  And neither would his friends.

  With his breathing calmed, William fished the hairpin from his pocket and quickly returned it to its place underneath his bureau. Returning to his bed, he pulled out the small, round pieces of metal and the caps from his robe pocket, as well as the flask. He set out the balls and caps. Each ball had a corresponding cap.

  They must be
rounds.

  The rounds were just as magical now as they had been when Kirby had first given him a gun, all those months ago. Looking at them closer, his brow furrowed. The rounds didn’t seem as old as the gun. In fact, they seemed as if they had been preserved, or perhaps found later. But that made sense. He considered what Amelia had told him. The gun was several centuries old. Other rounds would’ve been expended over the years.

  Maybe she had stolen these rounds from somewhere—or someone.

  His eyes roamed over the balls with wonder.

  His face fell.

  William counted seven rounds and caps.

  Seven.

  That wasn’t nearly enough to kill ten Gifted. William’s heart beat in his throat, as he questioned his success. William had fired guns enough times to know that not every round hit a target. And sometimes, a shot wasn’t fatal. He might wound someone, without killing the person. The Gifted might have their wart-covered hands wrapped around his throat before he got a chance to finish what he started. Or they might kill him in some other, horrible way.

  Foiled plans.

  Staring at the small, metal balls, his heart sank. He had taken a risk with no guarantee of success. He recalled the condition of the keepsakes in Amelia’s quarters. He had been careful to replace them the right way. Still, even if she didn’t look at them regularly, sooner or later, she’d discover the items from the tin, and the flask, missing. And when she did, William’s would be the first name that came to mind.

  Who else would steal them?

  Amelia might not know the specifics of how he managed to get that ammunition, but suspicion would lead to discovery. And then William would die.

  William had the panicked thought that he should slip back out and replace them. But that came with an equal risk of getting caught. William swallowed, picked up one of the rounds, and turned it over between two fingers.

  He couldn’t get his mind off the antique, metal gun.

  He wanted it in his hands.

  He had gone too far in his plan to turn back now.