Dead Iron aos-1

by Devon Monk

  Heavy hands pressed down on his shoulder, guiding him into a chair. As soon as the tuning fork was taken off the wood and out of his fingers, the music died, not even an echo of it left in his ears or thoughts.

  He blinked. How long had he sat there, transfixed? Long enough that his eyes and mouth were both dry. The brothers were staring at him, curious smiles hidden in their beards.

  “Aren’t you an interesting man?” Alun murmured.

  Cedar glared at the tuning fork lying silent on the tabletop. “I can’t use something that strikes me dumb every time it sings a note.”

  The brothers exchanged a look; then Alun puffed his pipe and locked the lid of the box back down. “These forks are tuned to catch the trail of the thing you hunt. Most men only hear the old song faintly. You, Mr. Hunt, are apparently not a common sort of man.” He pulled a thin length of leather braid from one of his many coat pockets. He threaded it through the eye hole in the fork’s handle, then knotted it into a loop. “Maybe you shouldn’t listen quite so hard.”

  He held the leather braid out on the crook of his thumb. “Give it a try.”

  Cedar took the fork again. No music. He struck it, this time against his sleeve. He pressed the handle to the wooden box. Just one sweet tone rang out—a perfectly tuned A. The song, if it had been there, was faint as reeds in a distant wind.

  “Press it against anything the Strange have touched, and you’ll know which way that Strange has gone,” Alun Madder said. “The fork will be of little help with what you do when you find them.”

  Cedar pulled the fork away from the box. “Then we’re settled?”

  Alun chuckled. “We are most unsettled. That fork is a rarity. It cups a proper price, not just a palm of coin.”

  “How proper?” Cedar asked.

  Alun stared at the ceiling as if chasing math through the shadows. “The coins you tossed at my feet are a little lean for such a fine instrument. You’ll find no other to match it.” He looked back down at Cedar. “No other in this world.”

  “Name your price, Madder,” Cedar said. “Before the day burns down.”

  “The coins and a favor.”

  Cedar shook his head. “I won’t be holding to you for two favors. The coins alone.”

  Alun snatched the tuning fork out of his hand, fast as a thief. “Then our discussion is done.”

  “And what do you think will keep me from killing you here and now?” Cedar raised the gun, aimed it at Alun’s head.

  Cadoc rambled over to stand shoulder to shoulder with his brother. He tipped his head at Cedar like he was waiting for the joke.

  Alun puffed on his pipe. “What will keep you from killing me is that you have come to us today, out of all the days and years you’ve been in this town. You need this fork. And likely you’ll need other devices at our disposal to deal with the Strange. You are not a stupid man, Mr. Hunt. There’s that about you that makes me curious. I’d judge you for university learning. There’s not a man of this town who’d take the time to nod at your grave, yet you are going to great lengths to find a wee boy of no relation to you. Don’t reckon such a man kills another in cold blood, standing on the stones of his hearth.”

  Cedar lowered his gun. “Might not in broad daylight. Night might be a different matter.” He rolled his shoulder. His temper was strung too tight across his nerves. Being in the Madders’ presence, in the presence of things like the tuning fork, got his hackles up and made it hard to think straight this close to the moon. “I came for the fork.”

  “Yours. For coin. And a favor—on the same terms as the last favor: nothing that would harm the weak, women, or children.”

  “To be collected within the year,” Cedar added.

  Alun nodded. “I’ll agree to that term for this favor only.”

  Arguing with the mountain itself would have taken less time. “Done.” Cedar held out his hand.

  Alun and Cadoc Madder leaned forward and once again shook his hand simultaneously. When Cedar pulled his hand away, the tuning fork was in his grasp.

  “It can hang at your neck,” Cadoc said as Alun turned to one of the line of cupboards along the wall of the room, pulling out a brown bottle, a wedge of cheese, and a loaf of bread. “Nearer your heart, the better and the truer it will lead you to the Strange.”

  Cedar removed his hat and slipped the fork over his neck. He tucked it down beneath his coat, on the outside of his undershirt. The Madders might think it would be best against his skin, but he wouldn’t wear a device that near his bones.

  “You do believe in the Strange, then?” he asked quietly, putting his hat back on.

  Cadoc shrugged one heavy shoulder. “Wish that I couldn’t.” He paused, looked at Cedar like he was peering right through him. “You’ll wish you didn’t one of these days too, Mr. Hunt.”

  Alun set the food on the table, and handed Cadoc and Cedar a cup.

  “A toast,” he said. “To the finding, the killing, and the keeping. Luck to you in your search for the blacksmith’s boy. May strong gods favor you.”

  “Strong gods,” Cadoc echoed.

  The brothers drank. Both watched him from over the tops of their cups. Cedar sniffed his drink. Moonshine. He swigged it back in one shot. It plowed a hot path down between his ribs to his stomach, and left the taste of pine sap in his mouth.

  “I’ve had enough of gods, strong and Strange,” Cedar said. “But I thank you anyway. Afternoon, Madders.” He stood from the table and started across the chamber. “If you’d open the door, I’ll be on my way.”

  Just as the words left his mouth, the door to the chamber opened. Cedar glanced back at the brothers to see if they had somehow devised a way to trip the lock from a distance.

  “Ho, there, those within,” Bryn, the middle brother, called out. “Is there room for two more?”

  Cedar did not want to involve himself any more than he had to with the Madders’ business. Seemed that each time he crossed paths with them, it cost him more than he wanted to give. Meetings with the Madder brothers were best done two ways: quickly and infrequently.

  He did not expect to see Mrs. Jeb Lindson walking out of the shine of day into the deeper lamplight of the room.

  She wore the same dress as this morning, but had put on a silk bonnet that made her brown eyes wide and warm, and cast her lips in a soft shade of pink. She’d been riding, that was clear, and the wind had tugged some of her fine blond hair out from under her bonnet, so that it fell in a gold curl against her cheek. He found himself entertaining the thought of what her hair would look like unbound, spilling around her bare shoulders—yellow as sunlight and soft as silk. Then wondering if her skin, white as moonlight, would be softer still, beneath his hands.

  Mrs. Lindson folded her fingers over the bag on her wrist and gave him a calm look. He glanced away while adjusting his hat, buying up time to brush off the thoughts and heat that she stirred up in him.

  She was lovely; that was plain sure. And every time he set eyes on her, he was reminded of feelings he never thought he’d own again. Feelings he’d only ever known with his wife.

  “Hello, Mr. Hunt,” she said. That calm greeting of hers held a dark fury, a desperation.

  “Ma’am.” Cedar stopped fiddling with his hat and schooled his features. The brim had brushed against the goggles still fitted on his head and made his forehead itch.

  “Have you reconsidered my offer?” she asked. Her words caught deep in her throat, as if wedging between sorrows before finding their way out.

  Cedar said nothing. He’d given her his answer. It wouldn’t change. He couldn’t entertain so much as the idea of looking for her man’s killer until he gave the lost boy a chance to be found alive first. “I’m sorry. No, ma’am.”

  Mae Lindson dropped her gaze. “I see.” When she looked back up at him, he could tell the woman had made a decision. There was death in her eyes. “Then I wish you the best, Mr. Hunt.”

  Sounded like she wished him the best grave, or the best hanging
rope.

  “Didn’t know this was going to be a proper social,” Alun said, “or I would have washed up a few more cups.”

  “I’ll be on my way,” Cedar said.

  “Now, now, we wouldn’t think of it, Mr. Hunt,” Alun said. “Come sit with us a spell longer. I’m sure Mrs. Lindson would enjoy the company.”

  Mae didn’t look to him, but Cedar suddenly realized the situation from her angle. She was alone, possibly unarmed, and in the home of three men who had locks that could seal a person away in the mountain until the world wound down.

  And even though the day burned on, and little Elbert’s time grew shorter and shorter, he wasn’t possessed of the kind of morals to leave a woman alone with the miners.

  He tugged Wil’s watch out of his waistcoat and glanced at the time. There was still a good seven hours of daylight ahead of him. He’d be able to cover a fair bit of ground before the moon came up. And if the silver fork led him lucky, he might yet find the boy.

  He tucked the watch back into his vest pocket.

  The Madder brothers had gone awful quiet. Alun and Cadoc stared at him like he’d just turned into a rattlesnake.

  The brothers took a step toward him and Mae Lindson. Bryn Madder, still standing at the mouth of the chamber, spun the big brass captain’s wheel and sent the door rolling on its hidden tracks.

  “Tell us, Mrs. Lindson,” Alun began, mild as church tea. “How is it we can assist you today?”

  “I am looking to buy a weapon to kill a man.”

  “What sort of man?” Alun asked.

  That, Cedar thought, was an interesting question. Most people would ask what sort of weapon she wanted.

  “A monster. A murderer. The man who killed my husband.”

  “You had your eyes on his killer?” Bryn asked as he sauntered over from the door. “Know his height, build, manners?”

  “No.”

  Bryn sucked on his teeth, disapproving.

  “Is there a weapon you prefer to kill men with, Mrs. Lindson?” Alun asked.

  “Something,” she said, “that will make sure even his soul can’t be found.”

  Alun laughed and so did Bryn. Cadoc Madder stared at Mae like a drift of snow had fallen out of a summer sky and landed right here in the middle of their dining room.

  “A gun, I’m thinking, will do enough damage to unbreathe a man,” Alun said. “Strong enough to break bone, stop a heart, unhinge the soul.” He gave her a tight smile. “And not so powerful that a lady will feel the weight of its burden.”

  “It will be no burden in my hands.” Mae stepped forward and touched Alun’s arm.

  His eyebrows shot up, but he did not pull away. Looked for all the world like he had suddenly been frozen in ice.

  “You will find me the weapon that will destroy my husband’s killer. The cost will be bartered between us. There are promises I can make you that are worth more than any coin.”

  Cedar took a step back. There was something in her words, a push, a power. It reminded him too much of the Pawnee god, and the curse the god had invoked. Fear, instinct, a good head for danger, made Cedar lift his gun, barrel tipping just up from the floor. He took a breath, ready to level the gun at her if need be.

  Mae Lindson let go of Alun’s arm. He exhaled like he was coming up from underwater. His face flushed red as a hot coal. “Keep your hands to yourself, witch. Our kind have no quarrel with you. But I’m not unwilling to reconsider my stance.” He turned on his heel and barked at his brother. “Bring the gun she wants, Bryn. I want her out of here.”

  Bryn scurried across the room and through the same door into the room Alun had entered to retrieve the tuning forks.

  Mae looked after him. Unconcerned. Calm, except for her fingers that tapped against the purse she held in one hand. At that motion, the clink of coins rubbed like spurs inside the purse. Between Cedar’s and Mae’s offerings, the Madders would be making a grand wage today.

  “Will the coin cover your price, Mr. Madder, or will other agreements be necessary?” Mae asked.

  “Agreements,” he muttered. “Curses, more like. And you of the white magic. What would your sisters say if they saw you bargaining for a gun?”

  “My sisters are not here, Mr. Madder, and I would thank you to keep them, and any mention of them, out of our business.”

  Alun opened his mouth, but Mae spoke first.

  “Please, Mr. Madder. Some mercy.”

  He paused, then clamped his mouth shut with an audible click, and stomped to the table. He filled the cup again and drank the moonshine like it was water, shifting his glower between Mae and Cedar.

  “You, Mrs. Lindson, are too quick to offer up such things that are in your power. And you, Mr. Hunt, are too reluctant to do the same. But when you both come to my mountain asking my favor, on the same bright morning after the full moon, it is I who sets the price.”

  He rolled the cup between his palms as if kneading his temper down to a soft lump. When he spoke again, his voice was even, controlled. Weary. “These times about us,” he said. “They can’t be escaped. There are dark things walking the soil, burrowing into the heart and marrow of the earth, and of the living. You have a part in this, Mrs. Lindson. I didn’t think so, but now, seeing you here . . .” He nodded. “You have a part to play.”

  He set his shoulders in a hard line, pulling his chin up. He somehow looked more noble, more regal, than a dirty miner who banged around inside rock crevasses, scraping for a nugget and spark. He looked like the sort of man who had not only fought in wars but had also led men into battle and on to victory.

  Cedar always knew there was something odd about the brothers, and now he had suspicions that they might be very closely tied to the dark things that burrowed in bones and walked this land. The Strange.

  “If I’ve a part to play in anything, it is for my own benefit,” Mae said. “And no other.”

  Alun pressed his lips together, something like sadness crossing his eyes. “I’d think two times before taking the weapon you asked for from this hill. If you want a life with joy left to it, leave the gun here and walk away from any involvement with myself and my brothers.”

  “There is no joy left for me, Mr. Madder. There is only death.”

  Bryn walked into the room, short-barreled shotgun held low in one hand, a box of bullets in the other.

  “Pity, that. Then this gun will bring you what you ask for.” Alun poured more moonshine, slugged it back, washing away the steely resolve of a commander and becoming once again a miner and mad deviser.

  Bryn held the gun out for her, butt first. It was the color of wet stones, gray and black steel, stock and butt, as if it had been hammered out of one piece of metal. But the glint of brass cogs, worked in a clockwork fashion all along the forestock, and the copper tubes that created a cage around the trigger with room for a hand and finger—much like the hand guard of a swashbuckler’s cutlass—gave the steel some relief. It was the copper tubes that most caught Cedar’s eye as he tried to reckon their use. Each tube lifted up from the hand guard, like the head of a snake, right behind the bolt handle. And atop each tube was a thumb-sized glass vial.

  “There is only one gun of this devising,” Bryn said. “Chamber the shot, and this lever will lock these gears into action.” He pointed at the gears. “A very small vial of oil within the gun will heat with the friction of the gears, fill the tubes, and send a gas into these vials, which is released on squeezing the trigger.

  “It will take some time for a full charge, but as soon as you can no longer hear it whining, and you see the needle of that gauge there on the stock holding on the red, you can blow a hole straight through the great divide.

  “These,” Bryn added, “are the shells.” He opened the wooden box and withdrew a cylinder as long as his hand, balancing it between two fingers. “A blend of mineral only we brothers know. There are only five bullets. That’s all we’ve made, and all we’ll ever make.”

  “All we’ll ever make,” the
other two brothers echoed quietly as if it was a vow that needed repeating.

  “This shot,” Alun picked up now that Bryn had gone silent, “this gun, will kill any man, woman, child. It might even kill things that walk this land dark and hungry, so long as the gun is fully charged. Might kill the things that had a hand in the killing of your husband.”

  Mae took the weapon without hesitating. She looked natural to the heft of the gun, determination setting her jaw as she pivoted and lifted the butt to her shoulder, sighting right between the center gap in the copper tubes. She lowered the barrel to the floor and inspected the box of shot. She nodded.

  “This is worth more than the purse I brought.”

  “That’s true,” Alun said. “The purse and a favor.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be here long enough to settle a favor,” she said.

  “Coin. And the favor, to be repaid whenever our paths should meet,” Alun countered.

  She considered it. “Done.”

  Cedar thought she might have agreed to almost any terms to keep hold of that gun.

  She held out the purse, and Bryn exchanged the box of bullets for it. He loosened the strings and looked inside. “Done,” he said.

  “Done,” Cadoc, to one side, echoed.

  “Done,” Alun pronounced. “Cadoc, see her out.”

  Cadoc gestured toward the door with the slightest bow. Mae looked askance at Cedar. If she was offering him to follow, or looking for him to challenge her on her fool quest for vengeance, he didn’t have the right to act on either request.

  “Good-bye, Mr. Hunt.”

  “Ma’am,” Cedar said.

  Mae walked with Cadoc toward the door. Cedar started off after them.

  “Mr. Hunt,” Alun said. “One last thing.”

  Cedar glanced over. “I think our business is done, Mr. Madder.”

  “All except one question that lingers with me.” He poured two cups of moonshine, holding one out in invitation.