Tan Skulks (A Wielders Novel Book 1)

by Max Anthony

  “Three,” said Skulks, “I sneak aboard their barge, carry her back to your very fast barge and then we come back to Hardened. Four, I pay you a total sum of four hundred Slivers for the use of your very fast barge and your back-breaking efforts to rescue my poor old addled crone of a great grandmother! Twenty-five percent up front.”

  As it happens, Skulks didn’t have four hundred Slivers just at the moment, but he could cover twenty-five percent. He’d cross that bridge when he came to it. His hopes rose as he watched the face of the first bargeman brighten in understanding.

  “Now I get yer,” said the man.

  “Well?” asked Skulks. “Do we have a deal?”

  “I’ll have to ask the boss.”

  “Boss?” enquired Skulks.

  “Yeah, the boss. We don’t actually own the Whimsical Ballerina.”

  “That would be his wife,” interjected the second bargeman helpfully.

  “I’d best go and speak with her,” said the first bargemen diffidently, from which Skulks assumed that she was a formidable woman. The bargeman left The Incompetent Dockmaster to speak to his good lady wife.

  “So then,” began Skulks after the first bargeman had left, drawing a set of etched knuckle bones from his pocket. “Who’s up for a quick game of Docker’s Standard Rules while we wait?”

  The wait wasn’t a long one, just sufficient for Skulks to win two-and-a-quarter Slivers from the meagre quantity they possessed. The first bargeman returned, in the tow of his wife. She was tiny and Skulks could see there was a sharp mind hiding within.

  “You’ll be the gentleman offering four hundred Slivers for the hire of my barge, are you?”

  “Yes, Madam, that will be me.”

  “I don’t go letting my barge out willy-nilly! I need to know that my Farance is going to get paid!” She looked over at the other three, who were clearly in awe of her. “And his men too!”

  “Madam I assure you that…”

  “Assurances don’t pay these men’s wages!” she interrupted. “I want to see the colour of your Slivers before I let the Whimsical Ballerina go three punts away from these docks!”

  “The colour of my Slivers is the most honest and eye-catching colour you could hope to see,” Skulks said. “However, you are correct to be wary of a stranger such as myself, who might talk a good Sliver, but lack the means to pay them.” He withdrew a purse, showing a mixture of Solids and Slivers. “I have here a little over one hundred and eighty Sliver equivalents. I have offered your men a total of four hundred Slivers, with a twenty-five percent deposit.” He assumed that the first bargeman had told her the details of their bargaining prior to her meeting him. The barge owner didn’t try to bully up the price. She knew it was more than fair and would have secured her barge even when there was no strike.

  “However,” said Skulks, “I am not in possession of the remaining Slivers.”

  “I knew it!” said the wife. “Another charlatan!”

  “Not so,” replied Skulks. “I have not been entirely honest with these men, though for reasons of my own, rather than a desire to hoodwink them. As you have called my bluff I will explain further. My great grandmother is actually twice-removed and a Rhultian princess. She’s seventeenth in line to the throne of Jingus and therefore never likely to ascend. Her needs are provided for by a substantial trust fund, held in escrow by the solicitors Murble, Murble and Squink, who, until recently, transferred her monthly allowance into an account under my control, that I may attend to her. However, my father-in-law, a known con artist and fraudster, has charmed my great grandmother, who thinks she has a devoted and much younger suitor and has now allowed her monthly allowance of four thousand Slivers to be diverted into his accounts. Once she marries, the contents of the trust fund will transfer wholly into the control of her new husband. I am determined that this will not happen.”

  The jaws of all four bargemen had drooped. The good lady wife had been following closely though.

  “So where do we get paid in all of this?”

  “I was coming to that,” said Skulks winningly. “My great grandmother is in possession of certain items of value. A diamond hairpin, an emerald tiara and several platinum rings. One of these platinum rings belongs to me, but she wears it on her pointing finger. I’m afraid to say that it’s etched with my name and address details to assist with the return of my great grandmother if she should ever become….lost.” Skulks managed to convey such emphasis on the word ‘lost’ that it was clear through expression alone that he meant she was known to be so incompetent with her drink that she often misplaced herself having imbibed too freely of it.

  “But most importantly for you, good lady and for these splendid gentlemen at this table, my great grandmother is also carrying with her a purse containing her entire month’s allowance. Four thousand Slivers.”

  Skulks’ tale was so utterly implausible, yet so fluently delivered that the wife of bargeman Farance found herself being gradually drawn in by his melodic patter.

  “And so, and so,” she stuttered, “when you rescue your great grandmother you will use the contents of her purse to settle the remainder of our agreement?”

  “Precisely!” said Skulks. “I shall reach into her purse on the spot and count out exactly three hundred Slivers into the hand of the designated gentleman, who I assume would be your husband Farance?”

  The Whimsical Ballerina’s owner was looking dazed now.

  “Sir,” she said, “before we shake on the deal, might I know your name?”

  “I am known as Juffin Ti Lamplax. Pleased to meet you.” He proffered a hand.

  “Jane Fiddlestacks,” she replied, shaking the hand.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  With a deal done, the four bargemen left The Incompetent Dockmaster to prepare the Whimsical Ballerina for launch, a process which would take less than an hour. Tan Skulks counted out one hundred Slivers to Mrs Fiddlestacks, whom he liked and decided not to rip off. A resolution like this one was unusual for Skulks, but it did happen on occasion. However, Skulks was flighty by nature and though these promises to himself were made with the best of intentions, it wasn’t uncommon for him to become distracted by something newer and shinier or simply forget about it until a later date, at which point he might be eight hundred miles away and on the roof of a merchant’s house, surrounded by grim-faced household guards.

  Leaving the tavern, he entered one of the many dockside baker’s shops. The man behind the counter looked down in the dumps. He’d invested many years of his savings into this shop, moving from one of the quieter streets where business was slight, but steady, to the Upriver Docks, where it was accepted wisdom that baked wares would fly out of one’s front door as quickly as one could get them out of the oven. He’d opened the Happy Pie Shop only a few weeks before the strikes started and after a few days of discarding large quantities of unsold pies and cakes, he’d had to cut his production by eighty percent and sack his assistant, an eager young baker called Horace. The owner’s mood wasn’t helped by the work of a practical joker who had climbed a ladder in front of his shop recently and scrawled the letters ‘un’ in front of the shop title.

  Today, the unHappy Pie Shop became the Slightly More Pleased Pie Shop, as Skulks walked out of it with over sixty Slivers worth of fresh produce. Loaves, sconey cakes, plate pies, pasties and wrapped sandwiches were put in a bag for him, which he slung over one shoulder before crossing the dockside road with a dozen inquisitive seagulls circling overhead. Without waiting for an invitation, he hopped aboard the Whimsical Ballerina with a dexterity the bargemen had not expected and told them he was ready to depart.

  This close to the sea, the Ten Dams River was wide and flowed slowly. The river was perfect for commerce as it hid few hazards. It was not prone to flooding, nor enormous surges. There were no rock-strewn rapids or waterfalls, at least not for a few hundred miles upriver. In general, if one left Point A on the river, intending to reach Point B, one had a realistic chance of arriving at
Point B in the same good health as one had left Point A. Furthermore, if one then decided that actually one would like to proceed to a further point, C, then one’s chances of safe arrival remained acceptably high. However, at the precise moment Tan Skulks leapt aboard his barge, the chances of having one’s purse stolen while in transit on the river rose significantly.

  The vessel upon which he found himself was unremarkable. It was perhaps twenty-five feet long, with a small cabin, wherein one or two crew members could take a nap. Its beam was seven or eight feet and its draught shallow. Although it was called a barge, it did have two stubby masts, positioned so as not to reduce the carrying capacity, and short so as not to capsize it. The sails were little bigger than a couple of large sheets. They weren’t the chief method of propulsion, more of a helping hand.

  Skulks reintroduced himself to all of the bargemen, insisting they call him by his first name, Juffin. He found out their names also: Farance, Chunky, Bert and Scram, the latter two being brothers. Pushing away from the docks, Chunky, Bert and Scram grunted with effort as they dipped long poles into the water. They were stripped to the waist and Skulks saw that each was only slightly less broad about the shoulder and back than an ox. It was arduous work propelling a barge and Skulks thought he would not have enjoyed it. There was a slight breeze blowing upriver, so once they were pointed in the right direction, Farance left the tiller and hauled up the sails, using a rope which he tied off around a peg. Their pace picked up noticeably as the wind pushed them gently forwards against the slow flow of the river.

  After half an hour, the barge had passed the outskirts of Hardened and was surrounded by rolling countryside, though on one side it was possible to discern where the Million Trees Forest had once grown proudly before iron-headed axes had cut down large swathes of it. Knowing that he was going to have to pick up one of the spare punting sticks shortly and lend a hand, Skulks delayed the inevitable by striking up conversation with Farance.

  “Good men, these,” he said, indicating the trio of bargemen straining against the river’s flow.

  “Some of the best,” responded Farance. “We’ve been crew for ten years now. All four of us.”

  “Times are bad now, I hear.”

  “It’s not what we want, but a man’s got to stand up for himself. Can’t have them bastards in the Chamber Council keeping us poor.”

  Chunky spoke up, syllables grunted out through his application. “Word out there is that barging from High Domes to Needle gets another eight Slivers a day, with a five percent bonus for a timely delivery. Except we’re not allowed to barge that route. We work for Hardened and get a one percent bonus from the cargo owner.”

  “That sounds most unsporting,” agreed Skulks-Juffin. “Who told you they get paid so much more upriver?”

  “Bargemen Together. Our union. Then we had a vote. No more work until we get a fair day’s Sliver.”

  From the back of the barge, Scram provided his input, “The Chamber Council are tight bastards, right enough and I’d tell them to their fat faces if I got the chance! How can a man live on a beggar’s number of Slivers when a man in High Domes is living in the lap of luxury on his five percent bonuses and his extra eight Slivers a day? I’d buy me a racehorse if I was on that sort of wage!” He stopped, panting slightly for breath. Scram didn’t normally speak this much.

  Skulks shook his head inwardly. He could see that the bargemen were being taken advantage of in the same way as the woodmen were. There appeared to be a coordinated effort to interfere with the daily life of Hardened, interrupting its commerce, proclaiming the coming of the Rat God and also murders, the latest foiled attempt being on a mass scale. He hoped that Lunder would provide some answers. With this thought he bowed to the inevitable and took up a punting stave. His quarry would still be a few hours ahead of him.

  Skulks heard a couple of muffled chuckles as he tested the weight of the pole. Standing next to the starboard rail, the slightly-built Juffin Ti Lamplax dipped the pole gingerly into the water, testing out the depth. He pushed smoothly and firmly, without apparent effort, but all four of the bargemen detected a surge as they picked up speed, Farance having to make a correction on the tiller. Skulks pushed again and once more the Whimsical Ballerina clave the water, the bargemen themselves having to pass their own punting staves quicker through their hands to keep balance.

  Smiling serenely, Skulks turned around. “This seems like jolly good fun!” he told them, pole once more descending into the clear waters of the river.

  “Blimey!” said Bert. He’d been brought up well and this was a forthright utterance from him. “They must eat a lot of meat over in Jingus, do they?”

  “Vegetables, mostly,” replied Skulks, his voice unaffected by the effort of pushing the barge. “Quite a lot of lettuce.” At this disclosure, all four bargemen resolved that henceforth they would purchase the largest, crunchiest lettuces they could find to complement their lunchtime pork pie sandwiches.

  As the day progressed, the bargemen rotated between tiller and pole, in order to rest weary limbs. Meanwhile, Juffin Ti Lamplax poled the water with metronomic precision, stopping only once to eat four sandwiches and three pasties. Looking up at the others, he shrugged as if to indicate that neither love nor money had been able to buy him a lettuce.

  In spite of his earlier misgivings about the life of a bargeman, Skulks found himself warming to it. Theirs was a simple life, free from worry and with few burdens. It seemed to Skulks that physical monotony was far more agreeable than the monotony of filling in records and ledgers in the Chamber Building. Still, each to their own, he thought in one of his more philosophical moments. Perhaps he’d take a year or two away from his normal routine and spend his days punting up the river with a barge full of tree trunks and spend his nights drinking mugs of Cow’s Piss with the woodmen. He sighed happily.

  By mid-afternoon, the bargemen were positively in awe of their passenger. They would have normally tied up somewhere for an hour’s break, but Skulks’ ceaseless toil brought out the bravado in them, pushing them to greater efforts. After all, it was well known that theirs was a very fast barge. In fact, the fastest barge on the whole Ten Dams. By now the path of the river had brought them well into the Million Trees forest. The other bank was rocky and mostly clear of trees as it started to climb upwards at the foothills of God’s Spine. Skulks had been watching the forest side carefully for the jetty where Foreman Y’Prout had cast a magical net upon him. There was no barge moored there now as he’d expected, for it wasn’t yet dark.

  Evening fell and though Skulks would have preferred to continue, Farance declared this to be impossible. The bargeman was petrified to think what his wife would say if she found out he’d run her beloved barge aground, or worse, drifted too close to the banks and hit a submerged rock that they’d been unable to avoid at night. Skulks himself was unconcerned by the lack of daylight, but didn’t want to risk a mutiny, just when he was starting to like his crew. If Tiopan Lunder and Heathen Spout were ahead of them, they’d be a lot less far ahead than they had been when they set out. A sudden thought worried Skulks: what if Lunder were using some sort of magic to propel his boat? Maybe he was already in High Domes. Unable to do anything about it, Skulks brushed the notion aside.

  Farance found them a suitable mooring point, forest side of the river. He jumped ashore and used a heavy wooden mallet to drive thick metal stakes into the ground, one fore and one aft. The bargemen hauled the barge close to the shore side and tied it up securely for the night. Had they been carrying cargo, they would have slept aboard, with one man on guard. There were few robberies, but it was best to be safe. Tonight, however, they would sleep on the bank, setting a fire and unrolling blankets. Skulks, of course, had no blankets, so Scram located a few spares from the small cabin and threw them to him underarm.

  It was too early for sleep and talking was renewed.

  “So this strike of yours?” Skulks began, thinking he knew the crew well enough now to probe a little
further.

  “What about it?” asked Bert.

  “Well, I have a friend. More of a family acquaintance really. He’s a woodman. Natter, they call him. Garrulous Natter.”

  “Never heard of him,” said Farance.

  “Indeed, and nor would I have expected you to,” replied Skulks, “for he is just one woodman amongst many woodmen. And you are bargemen.” They nodded, as if he’d just shared with them an exceptionally intricate logical process.

  “This Natter,” continued Skulks, “tells me that some of the bargemen are indeed working. In the same way that some of the woodmen are working. All hush-hush, like.” Glances were exchanged across the fire.

  “Yeah, well. A man’s got to make a living somehow,” said Chunky.

  Bert continued. “There’re a few barges get the word. Through the union. A bit of wood to move every now and then, you know? It pays top Sliver.”

  “And has the Whimsical Ballerina ever, you know, got the word?” asked Skulks. “I only ask because it seems to me that a man wanting to earn a living should be careful when he gets the word. In case the little bit of wood turns out to be something more than he’s expecting.”

  They were starting to lose track now.

  “What do yer mean?” asked Scram.

  “Well, if I was a man looking to earn a living, I’d be asking my union representative why this top Sliver work was only available when there was a strike on.”

  There were a couple of shrugs. “Maybe someone’s rich enough to pay what they need to.”

  “Indeed, but why would the union representatives control this hush-hush work? If I wanted to have some hush-hush wood moved I’d certainly not go through a middle man. I’d find a barge and ask some worthy gentlemen, such as yourselves, if you could do it for me.”

  “I see,” spoke Farance. “But what exactly are you getting at Juffin?”

  “I’m just saying that if I was a man with mouths to feed, I’d be very interested in whether or not my elected union representatives had any financial interest in ensuring I stayed on strike. I’d be asking myself if any under-the-counter payments were making their way into the pockets of these same representatives.”