by J. S. Morin
Rynn shrugged— the most polite reply she could manage while she pulled the last meat from a chicken bone with her teeth. She dropped the bone on the floor. The tavern dog, a brown and black mongrel, appeared as if by prescience and snatched it up, disappearing once more into some dark corner of the room.
“I heard Pick was gonna be back tonight,” Rynn said as soon as she’d swallowed. One of the alemen had refilled her stein; Rynn’s credit was good at the Chug.
“You got any threes?” Tabby asked. Rynn looked down to discover she had two of them. Rather than hand the threes to Tabby, she flung all her cards face up in the middle.
“Forget it. You win.”
“What’s the matter, Rynn?” Tabby asked. There was a mothering look that Tabby got at times, and this was one of them. It made Rynn feel their age difference all the more keenly.
As if I could actually tell you. I wish you were twinborn so I’d have someone to talk to. It seemed petty even to Rynn, but Madlin’s mood had carried over. Madlin’s clothes were of the finest quality, their comfort only limited by purpose, not material or the skill of the artisans who made them. Rynn wore undyed wool that was patched more often than it was replaced. Why should she care that Madlin was stuck wearing dresses because her father had ordered her other clothes not to be loaded onto the Darksmith?
But she did care. It burned in her, and ale just fed the fires.
“Nothing,” she answered after a long silence. She took a long pull at her stein to silence both herself and Tabby’s prying.
Neither said anything for a long while. Rynn liked that Tabby knew enough to leave her alone to wallow in dark moods from time to time.
“Hey Chipmunk, buy me a drink?” Buckets asked, sliding into a seat next to Rynn. No-Boots followed close behind and took a seat next to Tabby.
“Don’t you think Rynn’s a bit old for you, Gravin?” Tabby asked. Rynn snorted into her ale mug despite trying to ignore the comment. Buckets and No-Boots weren’t old enough to grow a proper beard between them; Buckets didn’t even have a paltry attempt like the wispy tufts that No-Boots sported.
“And call me Rynn when there’s folks around,” Rynn added.
“At least you have a cute name,” said No-Boots. “I should get a new one. I mean, I’ve had boots of my own for years now. Seems sorta unfair... ”
“You want a cute name?” Rynn asked, smirking.
“No!” No-Boots replied quickly. “I mean, cute’s fine for you, being cute and all. I want something tough, like Piston, or Legbreaker.”
“I knew a Legbreaker once,” Hayfield called over to them as he approached. He chased No-Boots out of his chair and sat down beside Tabby. Rascal followed close behind, pulling up a chair from one of the other tables. “He was bigger than me even back in my playing days—played blocker on the Steam Rats when I was a rookie. Real nasty piece of work.”
“Looks like you’re stuck as No-Boots for a while,” Rynn joked.
An aleman came by and dropped off drinks for everyone. If Rynn’s credit was good, Hayfield’s was unlimited.
“You heard anything from Pick?” Tabby asked Rascal. Rascal was always the first to find out such news.
“Yeah, matter of fact. Barmy twerp stowed on thunderails all the way out to Glenwood Sky, if you can believe it. Just sent word on the long cable that he’s on his way back. Day or two at most now, I’m guessing. Never like clockwork when you’re stowing.”
“How much did he get?” Buckets asked, eyes gleaming with pre-spent gold. “Them Grangians is rich as jewelers.”
“How should I know?” Rascal replied. “It was a cable, not a letter; you pay by the word and Pick’s cheap as twine. Besides, not like he tapped it out himself; some kuduk had to read it and code it, and another had to uncode it.”
“He better have rung the bell on this one,” Rynn said.
“Why’s that?” Hayfield asked.
“I’ve got plans for that money.”
Rynn hated dragging everyone down to her workshop, so she didn’t. Instead, they met later at one of the rebel safe-rooms that popped up around Eversall Deep faster than the Judicial Enforcement Division could chain them shut. The one she had taken them to was a disused water treatment station for a section of mine that was shut down due to a recent accident.
Rynn had cross-shorted the spark lights to steal power from a restaurant a layer up, bathing the dank chamber in washed out light and shadows from a maze of pipes. The floor was metal grating, and from far below there was the rushing sound of water passing beneath. The air was dank and smelled of stale wastewater. Long corridors ran off in four directions, each lit at intervals.
“That’s everyone,” Rynn said as Tabby arrived. They were all dressed for mischief, with clothing to cover eyes and faces should knockers stumble onto them by chance. Sooner or later someone would notice the power draw on their system and come to investigate, but it was the sort of inquiry that ought to take hours, if not days, to trace.
“I’m guessing you’ve got a new toy,” Rascal said. He was wearing breather cloth over the lower half of his face—a sensible precaution against the stink. “Let’s see it.”
“You’ve got no sense of drama, do you?” Rynn asked in reply. She had on a long, heavy coat that protected against the chill of the wet air that wafted through the corridors. It also concealed the aforementioned toy. Rynn reached inside and pulled out her latest device.
No-Boots let out a long whistle, Tabby looked wary, and Hayfield waited with his arms crossed for her to explain it.
“Nice. Work any better than the last one?” Rascal asked.
“What’s the thing on top for?”said Buckets.
Rynn held the coil pistol and turned it every which way, showing them all sides of it. It looked like a miniature version of the rifle she had derailed the trolley with, but the barrel was much shorter, wrapped with the wire she had stolen from Professor Hurmbeck.“That’s for aiming. I salvaged it from a pair of opera glasses,” she said, pointing to the opera glass on top, affixed via a hinge and adjustment knob. She had mounted the cylindrical housing of the runed dynamo under the barrel, running parallel. The spark wires running from the dynamo were twisted together with the leads of the coil. A carriage hanging off the back of the barrel was filled with ball bearings, pushed forward by a spring.
“Chipmunk, I know you squint when you aim, but maybe it would be easier gettin’ some spectacles,” Hayfield suggested.
“I see just fine,” Rynn insisted. “This thing has more range than you’re used to though. I tweaked the sight until it was lined up perfectly. You see it in this eye-piece—you put a hole through it when you pull the trigger.”
“Prove it,” Rascal said, playing along.
Rynn found a locked toolbox and dragged it into position, making a few minor adjustments. She then climbed atop it.
“What’s she doing up—” Buckets started to ask, but was cut short by an elbow to the ribs.
“Cap it,” No-Boots said. “Just watch her.” Both boys did just that.
Rynn stood looking down the row of spark lights in one of the corridors. She raised the pistol to eye level, holding it in both hands. It was heavy—far heavier than Madlin’s eight-shooter—and more than she could hold steady in one hand. It took her a moment to get the shot lined up just right.
She pulled the trigger.
The whole corridor went dark. Whatever noise the coil gun made was lost in a chorus of shattering glass that echoed in the water treatment station.
Tabby jumped. Buckets ducked behind Hayfield. No-Boots let out a whoop.
“Not melted?” Rascal asked.
“Won’t do that anymore,” Rynn replied. “I took the adjustment out once I worked out a good setting. Also kept the recoil from breaking my wrists.”
“So this is what you need your cut of the loot for?” Hayfield asked. He came over to Rynn, and she handed the coil gun to him.
“Most of the parts are scrap. It’s not free, but I
can scrounge a lot of it. The dynamo needs lodestone though, the more refined the better. That stuff isn’t cheap.”
“How far in hock did you go to pay for that thing?” Rascal asked. He cocked his head and gave Rynn a skeptical look.
Rynn blinked. “What? No, I didn’t borrow money to make it. I need the coin to build some for you girls.”
Buckets’s face lit like a spark bulb. “I get one of those?”
“Yeah, with guns like that we’ll show the knockers who’s foreman down here!” No-Boots clenched a fist and thrust it in the air.
“That’s the idea,” Rynn agreed. “No more running every time we get found.”
“No.”
Everyone turned to look at Tabby. She stood with her arms crossed and an expression cast in bronze. “This ain’t what we are. Chipmunk, you can go playing tinker all you like, but don’t drag the boys into it. And don’t think I can’t see a gleam in your eye as well, Rascal. We’re bandits, thieves. We steal because we can’t get by on the scraps we’re allowed from the layers above. We ain’t killers.”
“You sure about that?” Rynn asked. She looked to Hayfield and his braided beard. She turned to Rascal, who gave a sheepish shrug.
“Dammit, child! Don’t you read the papers? The knockers never figured who did that trolley knockover. They hanged some poor nuggets who had nothing to do with it. Needed someone to blame; it’s elections coming soon, and Mayor Karbiken can’t look like he’s got a deep runnin’ wild with rebels.”
“I ain’t hearing a reason not to arm ourselves better,” Rascal said. He spread his hands, one to Rynn, one to Tabby, as if trying to bridge a gap between them.
“We bloody them, they take it out on ours,” Tabby said. “Our own kind’s blood on our hands? That what you’re after?”
“They bloody us whenever they feel like it,” Rynn countered. She held up her coil pistol. “They need to have someone push back—hard—or they’re never going to let us be. Freedom is the power to take control of our own lives. I can build us the means if you have the will to use it.”How could Rynn explain what she had seen in Tellurak: humans ruling the world, walking free everywhere, with no kuduks, no daruu, and no collars around their necks. Somewhere in the depths of Tellurak’s history, there must have been a similar fight, which the humans had won. Korr needed champions to give humans that same freedom.
Tabby shook her head. “Thieving is one thing, but I can’t be a murderer. Buckets, No-Boots, come along. I’m the closest thing either of you’s got to a mama, and I ain’t letting you two throw your lives away. Rynn’s too old to listen to me anymore, looks like.”
She took the two lads each by the arm and towed them away from the maintenance station. Buckets turned his head, looking back at the others as he allowed himself to be led away. No-Boots yanked his arm away before they disappeared from sight.
“I’m staying with Chipmunk,” he proclaimed.
“So, we’re down to four?” Rynn asked as No-Boots rejoined them.
“It’ll be five,” Hayfield said. His voice was somber. If anyone had killed his share of kuduks, it was Hayfield; there was no questioning his resolve. “Pick won’t blink. He’d trade his mum’s ashes to get a gun like that.”
“So would I,” Rascal added.
“I think I did,” Rynn said. She hung her head. “It’s her I got the magic from to light the runes. She’d hate this.” She straightened up. “But this is our world. We, the living, need to fight for it.”
Chapter 7
“Humans fare poorly on their own. We are the weakest of the great beasts. We rely on one another for survival.” -Cadmus Errol
The rhythmic thumping of the Darksmith’s engine pervaded the ship. It felt steady, reliable, safe. So long as the engine kept churning, they were fine. With just a hint of light peeking around the window curtain, Madlin could almost imagine she was in Rynn’s little boiler room apartment. Why that should make her feel safe, she couldn’t say.
Soft footsteps on the floor beside her ended the illusion of Korr at once. With a scraping of metal rings on a rod, the curtain was pulled aside. The small round porthole let in the mid-morning sun. By that circle of light, Madlin saw Jamile standing barefoot, wearing a plain white shift that set off her dark skin. She stopped to look out at the Katamic Sea. Jamile looked so innocent and wide-eyed, Madlin thought. Madlin had watched her each morning of the voyage, and Jamile never appeared to grow tired of the view.
Madlin got up from the bed and joined her at the window. With the cramped quarters, it took all of half a step. Being Cadmus Errol’s daughter had not gained her any favors on the pragmatically built vessel. But being the only two women aboard had gained them a cabin that slept four all to themselves. Their luggage occupied the top bunks while they slept in the bottoms. Jamile was the taller of the two, so Madlin slipped in front to see out the porthole.
“What is it you see when you look out there?” Madlin asked. To her eyes, it was the same desolate, blue-grey expanse of unending water, which they saw every day since leaving Tinker's Island. They were making no stops. The Darksmith took a course no wind-reliant vessel would dare; they would see no other ships. There would be nothing to see until they reached Kheshi waters.
“The world is so big. It just keeps going and going. How far is the horizon? How many miles have we steamed? How deep is the water below us? It shames tiny creatures like us that fret across it. What worries could we have that truly matter?”
“But there’s nothing there,” Madlin replied. “It’s just unused space. Life happens in small places: in rooms, on ships, down in tunnels. The rest of the world is filler, like broth in a stew. It exists to fill the spaces between the good parts.”
The mention of a nice warm stew reminded Madlin of the chill in the cabin. She shivered. Madlin felt a pair of smooth, bare arms wrap around her, and Jamile pulled herself close. Jamile’s skin and the fabric of her shift were cool at first, but warmed quickly.
“Life happens wherever you let it,” Jamile whispered. Madlin felt Jamile’s breath tickle her ear. She cleared her throat.
“We make port today. I suppose we should dress and find something to eat.”
“Wear the green one today,” Jamile suggested. “I’ll help you into it. Not worries of freezing; it’s warm in Khesh this time of year.” She opened one of Madlin’s trunks and rummaged inside.
Madlin thought to argue, but as soon as she drew breath to begin her diatribe Jamile twisted around to face her. Jamile’s brow was lowered and her lips were pursed.
“We’re laundering that one you like when we make port,” Jamile said. “It’s starting to smell.”
Whether they called it breakfast or lunch, the late morning meal was the same boiled sausages, wrapped in bread. Whatever twisted mind had thought to bring tunnel-chow to Tellurak had earned Madlin’s enmity. She held her cards in one hand and one of the sausages in the other, and reminded herself that unlike the ones in Korr, this sausage had no rat meat in it.
“I give up,” Jamile said. She placed her cards neatly beside the others that had been discarded. She had yet to stay in a hand to the end.
“It’s called fold,” Madlin corrected her. She sat behind a huge pile of darshi coins, but it was not as large as when she had taken her seat at the game. Of the four players crowded around Captain Toller’s table, she still had the most coin.
“No, I mean I’m done playing. I’m not much of a gambler, it seems,” Jamile said. She pushed her chair back and moved to stand. Madlin caught her by the wrist before she could extract herself.
“It’s fine. Don’t worry,” Madlin assured her. “Cards come and go, just wait it out.”
“Aye,” Captain Toller agreed. “Luck is like the tide: if it’s gone, it can’t help but be on its way back.”
“I’m no fool,” Jamile said. She looked down at her feet. “You’re just looking to make easy money.”
“Make money?” Madlin scoffed. “Off this lot?” Madlin pointed back
and forth between Captain Toller and Powlo Hakaan, the other player in the game. Powlo was the expert foreman who would take over the mine once Madlin purchased it. In Korr, he was a slave foreman in a copper mine. “Sister, let me tell you, I’ve got more money on this ship than you’d see in a lifetime working for anyone but my father. If you lose every darshi you’ve got, you won’t go hungry, and I need more coin like I need extra teeth.”
“But—”
“Here!” Madlin took a fistful of coins and shoved them in front of Jamile. “This is about playing, not about money.”
“Speak for yourself,” Captain Toller muttered.
Madlin waved her hands up and down at herself. She wore the green dress that Jamile had convinced her to don. “Look at me in this getup. It’s not like I can putter around the engine room in this.”
“You could,” Powlo suggested. He gave a shrug when Madlin shot a glare at him that had “I have a gun in my cabin” all over it.
“This game is about the only diversion I can—”
To make a liar of her, the crank siren on the deck began to blare. Captain Toller was on his feet in an instant, bowling over Madlin in his haste to be out on deck.
“Pirates!”came the cry from the lookout.
Madlin, Jamile, and Powlo followed after the captain. Years of living in the far north had prepared Madlin for shivering while on deck, but the sea breeze was warm on her bare skin. She put a hand up to shield her eyes from the glare.
The crew bustled with energy, moving about the deck with a brisk efficiency that betrayed no panic. At the bow, a lookout guided a three-stage telescope to starboard. All the deck guns were manned, both the heavy anti-ship cannons and the smaller repeater rifles, which were mounted on towers fore and aft.
“Report!” Captain Toller ordered.
“Ship at one five off starboard, moving to cross our course,” the lookout shouted, still keeping watch through the telescope.