by Joseph Lallo
At the moment they had the lights very dim. It was a bit of a balancing act keeping the worst of The Thicket’s residents from getting too interested in a cart as it traveled. None of the creatures liked bright light, but that dislike could be expressed as fear and retreat or anger and attack, so it was better to avoid notice at all. Thus, it was best to maintain a speed just a bit faster than walking pace and keep the lights just bright enough to avoid trees.
The Thicket was nearer to the northern side of the fug than the south, so it was an icy mess during the winter. Now that they were solidly into the spring, the purple icicles had long ago melted away and the chill of the air had taken a swing toward muggy. Gunner still dressed in layers, reasoning the less of his body exposed to the fug the better. He was also currently “partnered” with the only other member of the Wind Breaker crew left behind when the rest of them headed off to Caldera, the surly one-eyed aye-aye known as Wink. A few extra layers of clothes were always handy when the creature was around, as Wink had little concern for what his claws dug into when he climbed up or held tight to someone. Presently the creature had perched atop one of the phlo-lights and was scanning their surroundings with his bat-like ears.
“You do any hunting, Gunner?”
“I do not,” he said, sweeping his eyes across the inky void.
“Why not? Seems to me a man with as much love for a good firearm as you would jump at the opportunity to put one to use.”
“The reasons such logic does not hold, at least in my case, are numerous.”
Kent waited expectantly. “This is a conversation, Gunner. To pass the time. It helps if you hold up your end and string together more than a sentence or two.”
Gunner grumbled. “I’m trying to focus on the task at hand.”
“We got one cart, barely any light, and are tracking a man who’s probably in the belly of a dozen different squirrels. It’s a snipe hunt, Gunner. The least you can do is stave off the creeping crazies. So we’ll try it again. Why aren’t you the hunting sort?”
Gunner clicked the sight from a long rifle hanging at his side and scanned the forest once more. Some time ago he’d worked out a combination of colored lenses that gave him a halfway decent view in the haziness of the fug. When this most recent check still turned up nothing, he turned to Kent. The grunt eased the vehicle over the arching roots of a tree, then glanced back at him. Finally Gunner relented.
“Up on the surface we don’t have anywhere to hunt. Simple as that.”
“Plenty to hunt down here. Just about the only people who come to The Thicket besides us are big-game hunters looking to bag some of these monsters.”
“Perhaps my time on the Wind Breaker has flavored this opinion, but I feel as though trouble has no difficulty finding me and giving me plenty to shoot at in defense of my life and livelihood. No sense going out looking for something that wants to kill me. In my mind, there are two reasons to fire a gun. To test it, and to encourage the creature I’m aiming at to discontinue its current behavior.”
“A bullet is awful discouraging, I’ll grant you.”
“So unless an animal is attacking me, I’d just as soon save the ammunition. And what’s the point of it anyway? What do you prove? An animal hasn’t got the mind for proper tactics, so all you prove by killing one is that you’re smarter than a beast, and all you prove by failing is that you’re stupider than one. There’s no challenge to it.”
“I think if you tried hunting the stuff in The Thicket, you’d change your mind about the challenge.”
“I very much doubt it.”
Gunner’s voice had a grumbly edge to it, a fact that did not go unnoticed by Kent.
“Something working on your nerves, Gunner?”
“Yes, Kent. Something is working relentlessly at my nerves.”
“Besides me, I mean.”
“You are, at present, nowhere near the top of my list of grievances.”
“Nice to be appreciated then. What’s at the top?”
“You’ve never been to Caldera.”
“I try to stay off airships if I can manage it. The air’s a bit too thin and dry for me up there, and that sun’ll roast a fellow.”
“Then you would hate the place. Caldera is a sun-kissed paradise. Warm every day of the year. Lush and green at any altitude. Delicious food, and plenty of it. Exotic women, and plenty of them. Most people from Westrim or Circa haven’t gotten more than a glimpse of the islands as they drift along the horizon, and only then if they went far out of their way to some of the fishing shoals in western stretches of the Near Sea. Right now, my crew is walking, probably barefoot on rose petals, right through the heart of that place. And I’m down here, talking to you, on a snipe hunt.”
“You aren’t a picnic to be around, Gunner, so don’t think you’re the only one who’s on a lousy assignment.”
“Splendid. I’d hate to be the only miserable one.”
Kent turned the wheel to follow a smooth bit of ground. “You suppose your crew is going to bring back souvenirs?”
“We’re traders, Kent. They are going to bring back wares.”
“The same stuff you usually sell?”
“If they don’t come back with something more than the usual fare, I am going to be sorely disappointed in the captain.”
“Anything specific you’re hoping for, then?”
“Nothing they can bring back.”
“Oh?”
“Cannons.”
“They sell cannons, do they?”
“No. But they have them. In abundance. Massive, hulking cannons. Ringing their islands. They must be things of beauty. I assume you know what trith is?”
“Do I? I keep a tidy nest egg of the stuff for my retirement. I’ve got almost half a pound.”
“In Caldera they’ve got enough of it to actually build things out of it. Fantastically strong stuff. And as best as I can figure, the only way they’ve been able to build cannons that would be any good at the distance they need to be is to make judicious use of trith. Imagine it. A cannon made with trith. The rigidity of the barrel, the sort of pressure you could build up… oh, to see one of those beauties fired…”
“Let me get this straight. Hunting is a waste of time, but you’d stay awake nights dreaming about the bits and pieces of a great big cannon.”
“I have a healthy admiration for well-made weaponry.”
“That’s one way to put it, I suppose.”
Gunner raised the sight again. After another slow scan he froze and gestured for Kent to stop the cart.
“What’ve you got?” Kent asked.
“Phlo-light. That way… it isn’t moving. Take us in slow…”
The grunt dialed down the steam and shifted their weaving path in the direction Gunner indicated. A steam vehicle wasn’t a stealthy way to get around. Slowing down, at least in the short term, was primarily achieved by venting proportionately more steam. This made for a lot of hissing and billowing clouds. But as they drew closer, it became apparent that stealth would not be a problem. Bits of clothing and bits of other things became visible long before they reached the light.
Eventually they came upon a thin ribbon of brilliant green light drifting up from a shattered phlo-light beside what was left of the man who had been carrying it. Kent grimaced and turned away. Gunner hopped down and inspected.
“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Kent said. “A man doesn’t rush out into The Thicket without a gun and backup and live to tell anybody.”
Kent slid into the gunner’s seat. Gunner leaned low. The fallen spy’s bag was torn open, but most of its contents were still intact. He unfastened its flap and held it up to the light, picking through its contents.
“I thought we’d found the fellow’s bag,” Kent said.
“I suppose he had more than one,” Gunner said.
“So what was worth dying for? Some ichor? Maybe a map to the place?”
Gunner revealed a
slip of paper. “There is a map. Not terribly detailed. I see some scraps of wood… This looks like a valve-fitting…”
“He was stealing spare parts?” Kent said.
“No, the wood has damage from some grapeshot. And the fitting is split. All of this looks like the parts discarded after a repair job. One moment… what’s this?”
He reached deep into the bag and came back with a piece of polished brass. It had a sharp, shiny edge, but most of it had taken on the faint patina of a piece exposed to the salt air.
“This is a bit of filigree, from the Wind Breaker,” Gunner said.
“You sure?”
“Look at it,” he said, holding it up for Kent. “Clearly decorative, no useful purpose to it. And it’s barely corroded at all. Someone was taking care of it. I guarantee Nita’s polishing rag has been across this a few dozen times. I thought sure the ship would look like trash with all of that stuff on it, but she found the time to keep it presentable. Come to think of it, this bit of wood here is from the Wind Breaker too. I still remember the trip she convinced us to take to find just the right stain to match it all.”
He hefted the bag up a little higher. It was sagging under the weight of all the stolen goods. Gunner’s expression was one of confusion mixed with mounting concern as item after item presented some tie to him and his crew. Kent’s face was more firmly and exclusively twisted by confusion at first, but the concern came charging in once he heard a rustle in the bushes over the sound of the idling steam engines.
“Gunner, I think it’s time to hop back up and get moving…” he said, eyes now sweeping the forest around them.
“There are letters here. And notes. Written from or to members of the crew.” His eyes narrowed. “Oh, now they’ve gone too far…”
The rustle became a creak, Kent’s eyes shooting up to the trees and his nervous fingers wrapping tight around the grips of the gun.
Squirrel, tapped Wink.
“Quick now, we’ve got company!” Kent said.
Gunner slung the bag over his shoulder and climbed into the cart, but the instant his feet hit the deck he was back to digging in the bag. Kent raised the lights to the canopy. A gleam of eyes and blur of fur confirmed one of the fug-squirrels had found them. Kent squeezed the trigger of the mounted gun. Steam routed into the weapon, and it devoured the chain of ammunition, launching a string of spikes into the canopy. The creature moved from branch to branch with astonishing speed, easily staying ahead of the stream of shots.
“Take the controls! Get us out of here!” Kent barked between bursts.
Gunner pulled a paper-and-brass cylinder from the bag and held it up angrily.
“They stole some of my hand-packed shells!” he shouted.
“Who cares about your bloody shells! How do you know that’s even one of yours?”
He swiveled around, finger tight against the trigger. The gun clanked hard against a brace that, Nita had learned the hard way, needed to be installed to keep a panicked shooter from blasting the interior of the cart. As he turned the gun and tried to figure out where the creature had gone, Gunner calmly replaced his rifle with a potent-looking shotgun from among his things. He popped it open and inserted the stolen shell.
The rustling now came from the branches directly above them. Kent fired blindly upward until the ammo chain ran out and his gun was reduced to stuttering uselessly. Gunner casually tossed him a fresh chain. He then braced himself against the railing of the cart, shouldered his shotgun, and took aim.
When he pulled the trigger, the blast was sufficient to cause the cart to rock backward. At first it seemed he’d fired well wide of the beast, overcompensating for its leap, but when it vaulted over their heads toward where the blast had struck, the pulverized tree branches were too damaged to support the creature’s weight. They snapped and dumped the ravening creature to the ground.
Gunner turned and, in a single smooth motion, plucked an oversize pistol from his holster, took aim, and fired. It did the job.
“There, you see?” Gunner said, perfectly calm. “Good, solid, powerful report. Tight grouping. Excellent distribution. That is a well-packed shell. Better than even fug factories could manage. I take pride in my shells. I almost have a grudging respect for the man for having the good sense to steal them.”
Kent was still visibly rattled from the close call. He glanced down at the now motionless creature. Gunner had done in two rounds what Kent had failed to achieve in two hundred.
“I think I see why you don’t think hunting is much of a challenge,” Kent said.
“Do you want the gunner’s seat or the driver’s seat? I think it’s past time we got back to Ichor Well to have a proper look over this stuff.”
“I think you’re better off with the gun.”
Kent stepped down and hopped into the driver’s seat. His hands danced shakily across the assorted knobs and levers. The wheels slung dirt, and he pulled a tight turn to head back to the relative safety of the ichor well as quickly as the vehicle could carry him.
“What do you think this all means?” Kent said.
“It means Alabaster is certainly in charge. And it means that his monomania has shifted from an ill-defined desire for fame and respect to a specific fixation on my crew.”
“I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes right now.”
“You are staffing a facility that has shattered the monopoly on several of the world’s most valuable substances. I would hardly put you in a position of peace and safety.” Wind ruffled the bag as Gunner resumed his analysis of the contents. His eyes turned back to the map. “There are a number of things about this map that concern me.”
“Besides that it exists?”
“The ichor well isn’t marked. Nothing resembling a road or path through The Thicket is marked. Nor could they be. We blindfold any new recruits for their journey in, and that’s the only way he could have gotten here. The only things marked are a handful of points outside The Thicket.” He hopped down from the gunner’s seat and held out the map for Kent. “Do these marked places match up with anything major?”
Kent spared a few glances. “Nowhere near any cities I know about.”
“Fair to assume they mark intended rendezvous points then. … Six of them, scattered all around The Thicket and labeled with dates.”
“Six of them. You suppose that means there were six spies?”
“That there was even one spy means I’d like to have a word with whoever was clearing your workers. But I doubt there were six. Alabaster may be an idiot, but even he would know the more spies, the higher the chance they’ll be discovered. This fellow represents one too many. Had he not been sent our way, we might still be unaware we’d been infiltrated.”
He returned to the gunner’s seat. “What is to be gained in this fixation? It is too much to expect him to be rational, that much is clear. But he knows where the ichor well is, and yet we’ve had more trouble with wildlife than follow-up attempts to take it. He was locked up by Ebonwhite, a man I feel certain would have gleefully released him for the simple mention of the location of Ichor Well. What is to be gained by keeping it secret? What are his plans?”
“He’s a loony. That’s reason enough to do anything.”
“He’s a loony who is clearly still capable enough to be dangerous,” Gunner said. He tapped the map. “One of these dates isn’t for another three days. That’s an appointment I don’t intend to miss.”
#
Back at the Graus estate, a meal that began in the early afternoon had continued well into the evening. Eleven courses had come and gone, along with nine subtly different types of wine and liquor served in varying amounts to the honorees. There had been two musical performances, a beautiful poetry recitation by Joshua Graus and an ill-advised one by Coop, a dance performance by Lita, and a few intermissions.
In that time the group had broken into smaller subgroups. Butch, mostly through exaggerated gestures, had been interr
ogating the servants and then the cooks on their ingredients and techniques. Coop was less a conversational companion to Joshua and Lita and more a court jester, serving as an endless source of amusement by his very nature. Meanwhile the deckhand was just happy to find someone who found him entertaining and didn’t trouble himself with why every sentence out of his mouth got a laugh, joke or not. Nita found herself pulled into this conversation or that, mostly to corroborate some claim or observation made by a crewmate that her family couldn’t quite believe. Lil was quieter than the rest, answering her share of questions but mostly enjoying her meal.
The most important pairing, however, turned out to be that of Mr. Graus and Captain Mack. They had spent the majority of the night in discussion interrupted only by the occasional bit of performance, food service, or protocol. The latest such interruption was the monologue preceding their last course. Mr. Graus had given speeches outlining the whole of Calderan history. There were tales of war and peace, and great leaders and terrible tyrants. Notably absent, however, was any mention of groups beyond Caldera. He now stood, arms spread to address the group, to deliver the final monologue.
“As we set out the final course, I shall relate to you the last great shift in our culture. Compared to the other chapters spreading back to the dawn of time, a mere blink of an eye has passed since the moment I now describe. It was one hundred fifty years ago, only a few generations. Your people, in the earliest versions of your airships, appeared on our shores. For a time, you were embraced. Calderans love nothing so much as a source of fresh inspiration. And you gave us much of it. We drank deeply of your stories and looked eagerly to your culture for innovation and novelty. But what we found was not entirely to our taste. It was ages since our last war among ourselves, yet you seemed as warlike as we had been at our worst of times. You have heard of great bloodshed already. The leaders of the time feared that should you and your people continue to influence us, your lingering thirst for war might return us to a time we’d gratefully left behind. The decision was made, for better or worse, to close our borders. A line of fearsome cannons rose from our shores like dark sentinels warding us against the dangers of the world across the sea. The perimeter battery. And so our cultures parted ways.