by J. S. Morin
She closed the hatch just before the workshop shook with the blasts.
Fishing in her pockets, Rynn found the goggles Naul had been working on. They didn’t fit over her spectacles, so she took those off and donned the goggles in their stead.
Darkness.
Lazy, good for nothing ...
Chipmunk left off her recriminations as guilt over Naul crept back in. She touched a finger to the runes, and with nary an effort, activated them. The world of darkness faded into amber clarity. She reached up and ignited the runes on the hatch, fixing it in place such that the knockers would have to batter it down to follow. Before she had a chance to forget, she made sure to activate the second set of goggles.
Chipmunk hefted the two cases of coil guns and headed off.
The service level was strictly utilitarian. The laundry chute from the washroom emptied into a cart parked next to a sliding metal door. When Chipmunk pulled the door open, it revealed a tunnel with push-cart rails. Stepping in, she slid the door closed behind her and followed them.
Dawn broke quietly in the east. What havoc lay in her wake, Chipmunk could only imagine. She sat huddled beneath the rusted husk of a scrapped grain harvester on the northern edge of Grengraw Sky. Some fanciful part of her mind wondered whether Naul would show up at any moment and ask if he could still come along. If he did, she hoped he had thought to bring breakfast—she was famished.
Chipmunk kept her eyes to the sky. She’d switched back to spectacles when the sky had brightened to the east, but it was the west that concerned her. Jamile—if she was successful—would be coming from that direction. If Jamile never made it... Chipmunk would look for the next thunderail to stow aboard.
Her stomach churned from both the lack of food and fragile nerves in the aftermath of her escape. Except that it wasn’t an aftermath quite yet. She could only hope that she had left enough confusion in her wake that no one would know where to look for her. She touched her collar and trickled aether into it. She had lost the count of how many times she’d done so.
With nothing else but worrying to keep her occupied, Chipmunk opened up the cases and began disassembling the dynamos from the coil guns. The improvements she’d made with Dan’s help rendered spark generation moot. The runes made the spark without any intermediary technology. Chipmunk found the possibilities fascinating—and dangerous. There were no complicated calculations involved, and little in the way of equipment required to carve them. If only the effects were more easily predictable and measured, she could see runes improving many of her designs.
By the time the sun had broken over the eastern horizon, Chipmunk was bored again. The guns lay back in their cradles, tucked in with their detached dynamos—all but the one she had taken as her personal weapon. It had no dynamo; its cradle was the makeshift holster in her tool belt.
She considered taking her boot off to check on her wound, but she didn’t want to see. The ache was dull and constant if she left it undisturbed. She tried to imagine it scabbed over, the bandage merely tinged with blood, but she suspected far worse.
If only she could talk to Jamile, and find out where Sosha was. Napping proved impossible; she couldn’t force herself asleep. Her survival instincts told her it wasn’t safe. Her hands jittered and her every muscle was ready to spring at the slightest noise. Dan’s magic might have done the trick, but she simply wasn’t exhausted enough to overcome her anxiety.
Where are you?
She gave up on Jamile a dozen times, but could never force herself to stand up and walk away from her lookout post. A bird would appear in the sky, and Chipmunk would mistake it for an airship. Each burst of hope reminded her how badly she wanted to be found, to be whisked away, to be saved. Again she idly refilled the aether in her collar.
When finally an airship did appear in the western sky, highlighted against the steel grey clouds and blackened smog, she thought it was another trick of her eyes. Another false alarm. But this time it wasn’t. It was bearing east, on a heading to take it south of her.
The thunderail line.
Chipmunk knew at once how Jamile had found Grengraw. Now she had to figure out how to get Jamile to notice her. She needed something to signal with, something to catch the sun and draw a pilot’s eye. Her outfit was chosen to be inconspicuous, all drab greys and brows. The cases were lightsteel with a matte finish, but they were the best reflectors she had at her disposal. She jumped to her feet— regretting it instantly as one foot screamed in protest—and waved one of the cases above her head. There was too little sunlight, and the factories pumped too much smoke into the sky; the cases couldn’t reflect enough light to flash a signal.
With a frustrated sigh, Chipmunk hefted both cases and set off east, trying to predict where the airship would land.
She got a good look at the airship as it sped past: a two-seater liftwing with a single propeller. It buzzed by just higher than the smokestacks; she hoped Jamile had worn a breather cloth. It cleared Grengraw Sky and set down, brushing against the ground and bouncing, once, twice, a half dozen times, wings wobbling dangerously close to the ground. Each bounce carried it farther and farther away from Chipmunk, who trudged on with her load.
The airship slowed to a halt with its propeller still spinning.
Turn around. Come back for me. Turn around! But the airship stayed in place. Chipmunk saw Jamile climb out of the seat and stand on the edge of the pilot’s compartment, waving her arms over her head.
Yes, I bloody well see you in your giant flying noisemaker! So did everyone else in Grengraw.
Chipmunk saw the smoke rising before she saw it emerge from the Grengraw Sky city limits: a steam truck, Enforcement Division logo emblazoned on the side.
Chipmunk tried to hurry, but her foot protested, insisting that it would rather split open and begin gushing once again rather than bear any greater strain. Instead she stopped and set the two cases down.
The optics on the coil gun were as clear as distilled water; she’d used the sight to watch for Jamile’s airship. Now she used it to get a closer look at the knockers heading for Jamile. She counted four, including the driver. They would reach Jamile much sooner than she could, even with a healthy foot and no load to carry.
She took aim at the boiler.
A nut just smaller than a half-inch ball bearing streaked across the scrub-grassland outside Grengraw. It missed the boiler, but struck one of the knockers riding the truck. Chipmunk shrugged; it wasn’t a bad result for a miss. The optics were wonderful, but they hadn’t been calibrated. She compensated and fired again, tracking the truck as it bounced along the uneven ground.
The second shot punctured the boiler. The vessel burst and the knockers scattered. Through the sight, she could see they were armed with scatterguns and headed her way.
Chipmunk heard the propeller of the airship speed up. She spared a glance and saw that Jamile had finally thought to idle along the ground and come back for her. She was looping around well wide of the knockers.
The knockers fired their scatterguns. Chipmunk felt a few pellets pelt her, but from that distance they might as well have been thrown. She was impressed that they’d even hit her. She stood waiting as the head-knockers closed in, crouching low in their cumbersome trench coats. The lack of calibration and the smaller targets made hitting them at a safe distance possible, but risky. Chipmunk kept the gun held generally in the knockers’ direction and knelt to open a case.
Twisting the dial, she threw one of the dynamos as far as she could, though the knockers were well out of her reach.
The resulting explosion sent the knockers scrambling for cover behind the disabled vehicle.
Chipmunk kept watch on them as Jamile finished her loop and brought the airship close by.
“About time you made it!” Chipmunk shouted over the droning of the propeller.
Jamile’s twin, Sosha, slowed the engine, leaving it at idle, and the propeller noise dropped below deafening levels. “Sorry!” She jumped out of the cock
pit and rushed over. Ignoring the gun, she crushed Chipmunk in her arms.“We made it!”
Chipmunk disentangled herself from the celebratory embrace. “Not quite yet. Help me load up these—what happened to your hair?” Chipmunk couldn’t help noticing that Sosha was bald.
“Keeps the lice away,” she replied as she grabbed one of the cases. She followed Chipmunk to the airship. “Why are you limping?”
“Cut it on some glass.”
Sosha grabbed Chipmunk by the arm and stopped her. “We need to get that checked. You shouldn’t be walking on it.”
Chipmunk pulled her arm away. “Walking was a key part of my escape plan. We can look at it once we’re safe. I’ll stop walking on it when we’re aloft.”
Chipmunk climbed up onto a wing and opened a hatch behind the rearmost of the two seats. The compartment was stuffed full. “What is all this?”
“A picnic lunch, my medical bag, and a few changes of clothes.” Sosha climbed up behind her.
“Can we lose the clothes?”
“Why, what’s in the cases?”
Chipmunk looked out at the kuduks, who seemed as if they might take advantage of her distraction to approach the airship. She fired a shot and hit the truck, keeping them momentarily at bay.
“Victory,” Chipmunk answered.
“You’ve got more of those guns?” Sosha asked. “You know I’d rather not—”
“The clothes or the medical bag. I’m too hungry to leave the food.”
“The clothes.”
Chipmunk dumped a duffel bag over the edge of the airship, leaving room for both cases. Sosha started to climb into the pilot’s seat, but Chipmunk grabbed hold of her belt. “Where you think you’re going?”
“You’re not flying this thing, Madlin,” Sosha replied. “I’d have been here an hour ago if this thing wasn’t willful as a five year old with a fever.”
“But I—”
“This isn’t an invention, Madlin. I know how to use it better than you do.” Sosha removed Chipmunk’s hand from her belt and climbed aboard. Chipmunk eased herself into the passenger’s seat and buckled the harness.
“Here, take these.” She handed Sosha a pair of the dark-seeing goggles. “They’ll help keep the wind out of your eyes.”
“I had a pair,” Sosha replied, fishing under her seat.
“These are better.”
Sosha turned up the engine and the propeller whizzed to a blur. The airship shook, then lurched, then sped and bounced along the wild, untamed scrubland, jolting them to the bones at each bump. The ride smoothed as the wings gathered enough wind beneath them and the airship took flight. They veered away from the knockers and their scatterguns, heading west.
“Turn us around!” Chipmunk shouted as loud as she could.
Sosha turned in her seat, causing the airship and Chipmunk’s stomach both to wobble. “What?”
“Take us to Eversall, not back to Fairmorn. Let them think we went west, then double back.”
Minutes later, Sosha pulled hard on the controls and the airship banked until the wings were plumb to the ground. Chipmunk glanced to the side to see the ground directly below, while physics, which her mind understood but her guts rejected outright, forced her down into her seat. She found she wasn’t hungry anymore.
Sosha set them on a course east, heading for Eversall.
Chapter 24
“I used to wonder why the kuduks never keep pets. They complain about the smell of animals, but that isn’t it, I realized. They have humans.” -Madlin Errol
The world-ripping machine hummed and crackled as its wandering vision surveyed a mountain of lifeless rock. Peering across an unfathomable distance and seeing another world had become routine. Erefan jotted notes in his log book, glancing occasionally at the circle of rock visible through the porthole to the other world. He had made a subtle adjustment, which let light through even when the bridge between worlds was otherwise closed. With the throw of another lever, the window would open wide and allow passage between; he would be able to put a hand on that stone, or knock bits of it free with a hammer. That was what Kezudkan wanted: to take select bits of those mountains to Korr and make himself rich. Erefan’s own plan was far more ambitious.
A spiteful smile tugged at the corner of his lips as he heard footsteps on the stairs. The heavy, irregular gait with the accompanying clack of a cane meant it could be none other than his owner and patron.
“Erefan!” Kezudkan shouted across the workshop. “Erefan, get over here at once!”
Erefan smoothed his features back to their accustomed expression of annoyance at being interrupted. “What is it?” he asked, as he stood and stepped away from the machine. There was no need for subterfuge; he had been surveying just as Kezudkan wished.
“I’ve had a bit of ill news, and I must attend to it.” Kezudkan looked not quite himself. Few humans can tell the mood of a daruu by facial expression. The rocky features and lack of subtle tics made nuance difficult to detect. But Erefan had studied his patron. He knew the glassy look in his eye meant worry, the particular furrow of his hairless brow spoke of gloom.
“I promise not to work myself to death while you’re gone,” Erefan replied deadpan.
Kezudkan gave a single chuckle and favored Erefan with a grey-toothed grin with no feeling in it. “You won’t have me around to protect you from yourself for a few days. Look after the workshop. Anything you need, put on my credit—within reason, mind you. I expect the survey done by the time I get back. Don’t turn the thing on for real without me here.”
“Can you have them leave me alone down here if I promise to come up for meals?” Erefan asked.
“Fine. Fine. As you will.” Kezudkan waved a palsied hand in dismissal as he turned to depart, his thick fingers quivering noticeably.
Erefan watched him go. He didn’t ask where Kezudkan was going or why. He knew. Kezudkan was leaving for Kupak Deep to visit his ailing sister. It would take him two days by thunderail just on the outbound trip. As the workshop door closed, Erefan couldn’t contain himself any longer. He raised his clenched fists overhead. Last I ever see of that daruu oaf!
It had been worth all the troubles he had gone to in arranging the poisoning of Kezudkan’s sister. Daruu were damnably hardy and Erefan doubted that many kuduk doctors would even consider poisoning to be a possibility worth investigating. Hydrofluoric acid was uncommon even among chemists, and was lethal to both human and kuduk. Somehow he suspected that Kezudkan’s sister would live through her ordeal. Either way, Kezudkan was going to be gone far longer than Erefan planned to remain.
The cot in the corner of the laboratory looked inviting. Erefan poured himself a cup of wine, slogged it down, and set about napping his way to Tellurak.
Cadmus awoke in an easy chair, surrounded by twinborn agents and the sound of their snores. He eased himself out of the chair and crept from the room without waking anyone. They had matters of their own to attend to, spread all across Korr. The halls were quiet once he closed the door behind him; his footfalls disappeared into the carpet. He noticed that his spectacles were smudged, and when he took a cloth from his shirt pocket to wipe them clean, he found that his hands were shaking.
Cadmus Errol was not one to be easily intimidated, but the enormity and complexity of his plan was daunting. Still, the two most important elements were accounted for. Kezudkan was away from the estate. The alternative plan of killing the cantankerous old daruu had been sorely tempting, but Cadmus hadn’t wanted the workshop to become a battleground. There was too great a chance of equipment getting damaged.
But then there was Rynn.
The girl was capable of so much, yet she continually found ways to prove herself incapable of the simplest tasks. Ninna had reported that Rynn had been collared and taken west, and that Jamile’s twin was going to bring her in after a rescue. Cadmus would have felt better about Rynn’s plan for escape if it hadn’t been another one of her plans that had gotten her taken by kuduks in the first pla
ce. He hoped there was more to it than Ninna had relayed: “Rynn has a plan to get free, and Sosha will pick her up in an airship.”
Cadmus hadn’t asked whether the girl knew how to fly an airship. He knew she didn’t. Erefan had been a technical clerk at the patent office, and that was the most responsibility he had ever heard of a human being given. No one would entrust an airship that cost sixty thousand tenar to a human, let alone a young human woman.
Cadmus ran a hand over his face and put his spectacles back on. There was nothing he could do to help without knowing precisely where Rynn was. He had to trust that she would reach Eversall in time, either directly or by returning to Ninna and Greuder’s gathering point.
If I was Rynn, what would I be planning? It galled him that he couldn’t answer that question. The girl’s thought process was alien to him. He chalked it up to glandular differences, but it made predicting her no easier. If it were him, he’d have gone back to Fairmorn.
By the time Cadmus finished the walk to the old iron mines he had managed to push thoughts of Rynn aside long enough to rehearse his speech. A buzz of conversation from inside the warehouse ended when he rolled aside the towering wooden door; it slid easily, balanced on bearings and counterweighted to keep from binding. Inside, five hundred men in drab grey uniforms scrambled to arrange themselves into rows and columns. Cadmus waited for them to finish and pulled the door closed behind him.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” Cadmus said, raising his voice to carry to the echoing depths of the cavernous main chamber. “This is the night.
“For months now, you have trained without knowing why. I have kept that information from you because it was of the utmost secrecy and of the highest implausibility. Had I told you, you would have wondered, you would have questioned whether I was as mad as they say. I don’t like mysteries or surprises. I don’t make promises lightly. I don’t ask you to believe anything. I will show you.