Mad Tinker's Daughter

by J. S. Morin

  “No! We can’t leave this world to the kuduks—not now. We can fight them,” Chipmunk shook her coil pistol under Erefan’s chin. “Veydran magic and Korrish spark. Enough firepower to give us an edge, a lever to pry ourselves free of the kuduks.”

  Erefan batted the coil pistol away. “That’s just the recklessness of youth talking. The rebellion is a good way to get a lot of our folk killed. We’re going to have a long talk about that when we get—”

  “Not Tinker’s Island! Pick a remote valley here on Korr, somewhere to gather forces. Maybe one of those little human communes in Braavland. We send the schematics to Tinker’s Island to start building more of these machines, sneak off to our Braavland hideaway, and blow up the machine. You have dynamite, I believe.” Chipmunk wondered if Erefan had a contingency in case he hadn’t stumbled upon a few sticks of the explosive when he robbed Pick.

  “I already sent the plans through, and I was going to use the dynamite just as you guessed—once we’re safe on Tinker’s Island.”

  “There isn’t time to debate this. I derailed a thunderail and riled a whole nest of knockers on my way here. Just find us a spot and get us out of here before they have us under siege. I’m sure we could hold them off, but we’d have to leave some behind, and I’m not willing to do that.”

  “You’re not listening to me. I’m not taking us anywhere but home.”

  There was a grumbling among the onlookers, unsure what to make of the scene. Only the closest among them could even make out the exchange over the buzz of voices that filled the workshop. Chipmunk hopped up onto the low platform and stood in front of the frame where a view of the mines on Tinker’s Island showed.

  “My name is Chipmunk,” she shouted.

  “Your mother named you Rynn,” Erefan shouted back.

  “Yes, I got a nice, safe, kuduk approved name,” Chipmunk answered. She wasn’t speaking to Erefan, but to everyone in earshot. “A name for fitting in, keeping out of trouble, doing whatever I was told. Maybe some of you know me as Madlin Errol; those who do know that’s not how I am, not who I am. I wanted to think, to learn, to be free. I worked as a floor-cleaner, scrubbing up the muck of kuduk students who didn’t have half the brains I did. By night, I fought back. With friends who thought like I did, we scraped and clawed and poked the kuduks in the eye whenever we could. We started to sting them, and they clamped down. I got this for my troubles.” Chipmunk tore the scarf from her neck and showed off her collar to everyone in the workshop. “I see a lot of you have yours off, and I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life. Mine will come off someday too, but not today. Mine is runed, and if the runes are broken it will cut my head off.”

  There were gasps from the crowd, and she knew she was getting to them. “I can power the runes—I have to keep powering the ones in my own collar, or I’ll die. That’s how they’ve had all of us: we work for them, propping up the mechanism that keeps us in collars—even the freemen do it. So now what? You’ve found an escape? You’ve chewed a little hole in your cage and you’re going to run? What about everyone else out there?”

  Chipmunk pointed with her gun, gesturing vaguely “elsewhere” with it. “You settle down for a cozy life in some strange world. Some of you are already there in one form. Will you give up everything that makes you unique by only ever seeing one world again? You soldiers who came through, what did he promise you? Did he tell you about this world? Did he tell you that these collarless slaves here are the lucky few who get saved because they had the right friends? The people who might make it through this hole in the world aren’t one thousandth of one percent of the humans who need saving. Congratulations, you’ve just saved your boss and his best friends and condemned the whole rest of humanity to languish here in chains. They’ll round up freemen to make up for any lost slaves; don’t worry on that account.”

  “Any of you Tinker’s soldiers want to go back through, the coward hole is right here. As for you twinborn? I’m ashamed of you. Look at the potential we have here? We can make a real difference in this world. This gun in my hand, this gun is made possible by rune magic. I’ve met Veydrans, and they’re going to help me learn more.”

  “Rynn, get down from there,” Erefan shouted, as if he sensed an opportunity to break her rhetorical momentum. “I don’t know what contact you’ve had with Veydran twinborn, but that’s a mark against your plan, not for it.”

  “Speaking of plans, is that why you sent me away? So you could do this all behind my back?” She didn’t pause for an answer. “Sosha, pass those guns around.” She waited for Sosha to open the case and let the guns filter into the crowd. “Those are new and improved. They’re like a ship’s cannon in your hand. I killed ... I lost track, close to a dozen knockers making my way here. Tucker! Don’t pass that along, point it at a wall and fire.”

  Tucker—or rather, his twin whose name escaped Chipmunk’s memory—did so, and the crack of steel embedding itself in the stone had people covering their ears. The cloud of dust rose as loose rock crumbled free of the ragged hole. “We’ve got twelve of those, and they’ll put a half inch ball bearing through three inches of iron. That’s what I built them to shoot, but you can put just about anything made of steel or iron in the barrel and fire it just the same. I killed one kuduk with a screwdriver.”

  There were mutterings in the crowd as she lost their attention momentarily to the coil guns. Two more experimental shots were fired.

  “That’s about enough—” Erefan began, but Chipmunk shouted over him.

  “WE HAVE AN ARMY!” That got people’s attention back. “If anyone wants to abandon us, now’s your chance, speak up.”

  “Rynn, this isn’t—”

  “Not you! You shut up!” Chipmunk pointed the gun at him and Erefan blanched. She quickly pointed it down at the floor. “I’m not hearing anyone.” Chipmunk waited a moment to be sure. “Fine then. We’re staying.”

  Erefan set his jaw and closed the switch, staring Chipmunk down as the world-ripper tore a pathway to Tinker’s Island. Chipmunk jumped down from the platform and grabbed for the switch, but Erefan held it closed as Chipmunk threw her weight against it. The switch crackled with arcs of spark as Chipmunk briefly separated the contacts, but Erefan was too strong for her. The dynamo sputtered as it slowed and sped to keep pace with the pull of spark from the machine.

  “Someone get over here and pull her off. She’s going to break it.”

  Break it. The words echoed in Chipmunk’s thoughts. She aimed her gun at the controls and fired. Sparks sprayed from suddenly shorted connections. The image in the frame went dark.

  What did I just do? She hadn’t thought, she just needed to win. For a brief moment, her father was the enemy. He hadn’t wanted the machine broken, and it was her first reaction.

  There were screams and curses from the crowd, but they soon grew silent. There was a weight of history in the air that demanded attention. The vocal voices demanding answers died away as the silence grew contagious. They stared at Chipmunk.

  It was quiet enough that Chipmunk could hear her own breath. Her father stood behind her, looming over the machine as if in mourning, his argument lost in catatonic dismay. The gun in her hand felt heavier than it had a moment ago, not from any fault in the runes but from the strength draining out of her as her resolve wavered. She examined the gun, holding it up and glancing from it to the ruined machine and back. It had been so easy.

  All around the room were men and women with guns. Errol-made rifles gleamed in the spark light of the workshop, their steel barrels the finest human craftsmanship that Tellurak knew. Kuduk-made coil pistols scattered throughout the crowd—her own design—promised even greater destruction. There was only one answer she could see.

  Chipmunk drew in breath enough so that all in the workshop and those packed outside waiting would hear her. “We have an army. There are more guns in this room than in the rest of Eversall put together. There are humans across Korr fighting back against kuduk rule. They’re scr
atching at our captors: an annoyance, not a threat. We will hurt them, we will drive them back, and we will spread the word across Korr. This is our home. Today we start taking it back!”

  A few men and women in the audience cheered. Then others joined in.

  Erefan stood at the controls of the ruined machine, staring down at the lifeless controls. “Rynn, what have you done?”

  She stepped down and spoke only loud enough for her father to hear. “I grew up,” she said.

  A long fuse had allowed Chipmunk’s army to fan out into Eversall before the explosion detonated Erefan’s world-ripping machine. They pillaged the stores and homes of the kuduks, stealing supplies and freeing slaves wherever they found them. Many of the slaves fled down the thunderail tunnels, especially west into the inhospitable plains where life would be hard, but be theirs to control. As for Chipmunk, she had another plan.

  “Everyone who’s with me, head for the aerodrome! Spread the word.”

  Her soldiers advanced like a wave, sweeping up the stairshafts and chasing kuduks into hiding. There were casualties as the knockers and the tiny garrison that the Ruttanian Army kept for administrative purposes fought back. But numbers and Chipmunk’s coil guns put them well at advantage.

  When they reached the aerodrome, it was nearly deserted. Half of Eversall Sky was devoted to airship storage, maintenance, construction, and transportation services. There were just two aging vacu-dirges left. The rest had been evacuated by their crews.

  “Tucker, think you can captain one of those?” Chipmunk asked. A hundred of her followers filtered out onto the poured-stone expanse.

  “Worth a try,” he replied. “But these things are grounded for a reason, wouldn’t you think?”

  “You’ve got the two best tinkers in Korr right here. Father, can I trust you not to take the airship for some half-planned scheme of your own and just let Tucker follow me?”

  Erefan glowered at her. “I don’t know what spell those Veydrans taught you to win the hearts of my twinborn.”

  “It’s called courage, and I thought I learned it from you!”

  “Whatever’s wrong, it’s nothing I can’t fix, I’m sure.”

  “Take Sosha with you. She can power the runes, which by my guess is all that’s wrong with it. The kuduk who bought me was trying to bid on contacts like that; there aren’t a lot of rune-tenders for jobs that big.”

  “You sure you’re up to it?” Erefan asked.

  “Yeah, that part the Veydrans taught us. We can communicate ship to ship through Sosha, too, since we’re together in Tellurak.”

  “Did you manage to buy that mine?”

  “Did you ever really care?”

  “Of course!”

  “Then yeah, and I’m on my way home now. Now’s not the time, but we need to talk.”

  The vacu-dirge was a travel luxury enjoyed frequently by wealthy kuduks. If the need was great, less fortunate kuduks could scrape together enough funds for a trip as well, when thunderail was not fast enough, or when overseas travel was required. Daruu passengers were all but unheard of, and few daruu went aboard save those that empowered the runes of the vacuum pumps. The ships were equipped with overnight accommodations for hundreds and dining facilities the equal of the nicer restaurants in a city the size of Eversall.

  For the first time in the history of Korrish aviation, not just one, but two vacuum-lift dirigibles took flight without a single kuduk. Airships meant to hold two hundred kuduks in spacious style were packed with over five hundred humans apiece. They set sail in the skies for somewhere where the kuduks would not be able to find them. They would gather their strength and spread their message to the people of Korr.

  The Human Rebellion had begun.

  * * * * * * * *

  The second book of Mad Tinker Chronicles will be out later this year!

  Stay up-to-date on my progress, and when the book will be released. Also be the first to hear about bonus content by signing up for the J.S. Morin mailing list at jsmorin.com/updates

  Other Books by J.S. Morin

  If you enjoyed Mad Tinker’s Daughter, why not go back to the beginning, and experience the journey of mundane scribe Kyrus Hinterdale who discovers what it means to be Twinborn—and the dangers of getting caught using magic in a world that thinks it exists only in childrens’ stories.

  The Twinborn Trilogy is available for sale on Amazon

  Get started with War-Bringer, the Prequel short story, for free on Amazon

  Buy Firehurler, Book 1, on Amazon

  Buy Aethersmith, Book 2, on Amazon

  Buy Sourcethief, Book 3, on Amazon

  Buy the Twinborn Trilogy Collection, with all 3 novels (Firehurler, Aethersmith, and Sourcethief), on Amazon

  Support the Mad Tinker Chronicles

  If you enjoyed Mad Tinker’s Daughter, please consider leaving a rating & a review on Amazon or Goodreads. It's like leaving a tip for your author, but free!

  Connect with me online

  On my blog at jsmorin.com

  On Facebook at facebook.com/authorjsmorin

  On Twitter at twitter.com/authorjsmorin

  About the Author

  Born in New Hampshire in 1977, J.S. Morin found himself captivated by the wonders of fantasy novels at a young age. He was introduced to the genre via the works of R.A. Salvatore, Ed Greenwood, and Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman. He loved exploring other people’s worlds, from Shadowdale to Hyrule. He also quickly found Dungeons and Dragons to be a creative outlet for stories, characters, and new worlds of his own creation.

  His other passion was for building and designing things, and when it came time to choose a career, he went down that road. A Mechanical Engineer by day, he spends his evenings with his wife in their New Hampshire home, enjoying the simplicity of life in a quiet state.

  By night he dreams elaborate dreams of visiting fanciful worlds, performing acts of heroism, and solving intriguing puzzles, which inspire him to craft stories that he hopes will help shape the lives of the next generation of fantasy readers. He hopes to avoid finishing growing up.