Rebel Skyforce (Mad Tinker Chronicles) (3 page)

“Oh, who cares about them?” Kezudkan replied. “There are at least two worlds out there identical to this one, and there are ore veins ripe for the picking with no quibbles over claims and rights, no guessing, no geologists to hire. Gold, silver, platinum, diamonds, rubies, sapphires, all waiting for coordinates and a strong arm with a pick.

“I’ve seen it. The machine can take us there.”

Draksgollow stared for a moment, eyes flitting about. Kezudkan had seen the same from Erefan on occasion when he was puzzling something out in his head. It must have been a tinkers’ trait.

“Deal.”

Chapter 3

“Some folks like to take shortcuts through other people’s hard work. I have no sympathy when they get what’s coming to them.” -Cadmus Errol

The foothills of central Khesh were always cooler than the lowlands. The Dragon Fang Mountains gave up their winters slowly, and the pervasive chill of the glaciers seeped into the surrounding hills. Even once Madlin Errol and her companions found themselves north of the year-round ice, the rolling hills continued to present a favorable road over venturing into more heavily settled lands.

She had started her journey with a company of fifty men, armed with rifles. She returned from her business in the southern half of Khesh with only five plus her two new companions. Jamile was along as well, of course, but Madlin had ceased counting her some time ago. She had become like a puppy or a younger sibling—though Jamile was two years Madlin’s elder, her presence was expected.

Some part of Madlin believed that she was safer with the two Veydran twinborn for her protectors than she had been with fifty one-worlder riflemen. The rest of her worried that the two were a greater danger than anything that might threaten from the road.

Madlin rode with Dan in one of the middle wagons. Throughout the trip they had kept up a mutual pestering of one another. The boy warlock was every bit the brash adolescent when he wasn’t reminding her that he could reduce them all to ash if he sneezed too hard.

“I keep telling you, you’re not ready.”

Madlin gritted her teeth. “You last told me that two days ago, and I’ve been practicing. I’m ready for more.”

Dan put a hand to his forehead and rubbed his eyes. “Let me see if I can explain this better. Imagine I’m a butcher’s boy, or a stable-mucker, anything but a tinker.”

“A warlock?”

Dan gave her a condescending frown, but continued on. “Fine, a warlock. Imagine I’ve been tinkering on the side with mousetraps; good enough that I’ve even caught a mouse or two. Now, show me how to make a gun like yours.”

Madlin pulled her pistol from its holster and held it up between her and Dan. “There’s no way you could make this. This is worlds harder than rune-carving.”

“Piss off! You’re not talking about rune carving; you want to cast spells,” Dan said. “That’s harder than your steel-whittling.”

“How hard can it be, if a kid your age can do it?” Madlin clamped her mouth shut. She hadn’t meant for it to come out like that.

Dan glared at her, unblinking, unflinching. The only movement in his face was the slight flaring of his nostrils as he breathed. “Plenty,” he answered at length.

“Aether is dangerous,” said Dan. He turned and looked off toward the Dragon Fangs. “Those words and gestures form a pattern in your mind as you focus on them.” Dan held out a hand, palm upraised, and a shimmering sphere appeared above it. “With practice you can form the same patterns entirely in your head. Form them incorrectly and something unintended will happen.” The sphere exploded, and Madlin yelped, diving for cover behind a sack of pumpernickel loaves. When she felt no pain, heard no aftermath, Madlin looked up to find Dan smirking at her.

“That wasn’t funny,” Madlin said. She sat up and brushed her jacket clean of burlap strands.

“Magic’s not a funny business, but that doesn’t mean you can’t laugh about it. My uncle Rashan killed a lot of people with his magic, but he still jested with spells.”

“I just want to find a way to get my collar off.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s got to be pretty annoying,” Dan said flippantly. “Can’t you just tinker it off? Seems easier than asking me how to magic it off.”

“If I break the runes, the spikes on the inside will reappear and cut my head off. With the runes intact, I can’t so much as scratch it. I don’t know any way to ‘tinker’ around that. I need some sort of magic. Make it bigger so it can fit over my head. Make my skin hard as diamond. Isn’t there anything that can do that?”

Dan nodded. “Sure, you’d just kill yourself trying it.”

Madlin let out a beleaguered sigh and collapsed back into the wagon. She looked up into the canvas ceiling above and wondered what she could say to convince Dan to teach her.

“I’ve heard that heat makes metal expand,” Dan offered. “Can’t you get to a forge and just heat it up enough to pull it off?”

And melt the thing in the process? I’d burn to death before it got halfway hot enough.
She didn’t bother voicing her objection. She gave up and listened to the clop of horse hooves and turning wagon wheels as they meandered toward civilization.

“That kid’s as much a genius as he is an idiot,” Tanner said. He kept his voice low, mindful that eavesdropping from wagon to wagon worked both ways.

“What do you mean?” Jamile asked. She twisted in her seat, up front with Tanner as he drove.

“You’d think a boy that age would be all twistin’ himself up in knots to get on a girl’s good side, ‘stead of riling her every chance he gets.”

Jamile laughed. “You haven’t been around a lot of boys then, I imagine.”

“Naw, I guess not. Not since I was that age myself.”

“I used to live in a sanctuary overrun with children of all ages. Dan’s unusual in a lot of ways, but he makes a mule of himself the second he talks to a girl, same as any other. At least he tries to be the know-it-all, rather than beating up some poor defenseless lad to prove he’s a man.”

Tanner’s eyes widened and he gave an exaggerated shudder. “Wouldn’t want to be around for that. I could end up the poor defenseless lad, if he was lookin’ to knock someone around.”

Jamile smiled and bumped a playful shoulder into Tanner’s. “Oh, it’s all bluster.”

“Don’t get me wrong, kid’s got nerves of stone, but he’s got a temper, too.”

“He seems to respect you, at least,” Jamile said.

Tanner chuckled and shook his head. “He needs me ‘til he’s old enough that fellas will take him seriously by himself. He knows he can’t go around buying ships and hiring coinblades looking like ... well, looking his age. Ain’t like he’s some old nutter of a sorcerer going round lookin’ like a kid, he’s just a smart kid is all.”

“So what, he turns sixteen or eighteen and burns you up like a cinder?” Jamile asked lightly, still smiling from her earlier amusement. Tanner glanced over at her. Jamile always seemed to be smiling or joking. She had warmed as quickly as the weather as they’d ventured north, but Tanner couldn’t get a read on her. Madlin was plain enough to judge: hotheaded, stubborn, demanding—a spoiled rich girl who was willing to dirty her hands a bit, but still a child at heart. Jamile seemed a decade older: composed, mature, patient. She carried herself like a woman too, unlike her friend.

“What is it?” Jamile asked, catching his eyes lingering on her.

Tanner blinked and looked away. He returned his attention to the road. “Nothin’. Sorry. Just don’t need remindin’ that I’m a dead man if he ever gets drunk and mad and I say somethin’ that crosses his mind wrong.”

“He wouldn’t ...” Jamile said. Tanner raised an eyebrow. “Would he?”

“I know he don’t look like much, but that kid’s got nerves like a headsman. They got to him young; killin’ don’t even rile him. I killed plenty in my time, and I never sleep right the night after. Usually it’s me or the other guy, and I can’t help wonderin’ when it’ll be me on the wrong end.”

“A lot of children put on a brave face, but they still get nightmares about things like that.”

“Oh yeah?” Tanner asked. “How often do our kind get nightmares?”

Jamile straightened, and Tanner knew he’d made his point. Twinborn saw another world instead of dreaming; Jamile and Madlin saw the world of Korr, while Dan and Tanner split their time with Veydrus. There was no place for nightmares.

“Well, surely it must still bother him,” Jamile protested.

“He’s a warlock, sweet-thing,” Tanner said, shaking his head. “Being from that other world of yours, you don’t know the half of what that means.”

Madlin woke with a start when an elbow bumped her cheek. It was a nap she hadn’t intended to take. The darkness had passed in an instant, since Chipmunk was asleep in Korr; she had no awareness of either world. Her first look was to the sky outside, to judge how long she’d slumbered. In the process she noticed Dan snoring next to her. His had been the elbow that jostled her awake.

“Get off me, you oaf,” Madlin said as she shoved him onto his side and freed herself from bodily contact with the boy. Dan’s snoring continued.

It was late afternoon, with a reddened sky and long shadows bidding welcome to sunset. The monotonous clop of hooves and the gentle roll of the wagon threatened to lull her back to sleep, but she resisted the temptation.

Rummaging in the wagon’s supplies, she found a meal of salted pork strips and some ale to wash it down. Madlin watched the young warlock’s face while she ate, wondering at the mischief he was undoubtedly up to in Veydrus, awake in the middle of the night. There was no other explanation for him sleeping through her rough handling.

Shortly before sundown, the lead wagon stopped. The driver of hers followed their lead, as did the two wagons behind them.

“What’s going on?” Madlin asked. It was her place to call the halt of a day’s travel. All of them but Tanner and Dan were in her employ.

“Couldn’t say, Miss Errol,” the driver replied. “Want me to head up and ask?”

“No, you stay here. Keep your rifle handy.”

Madlin hopped down and checked that her pistol was loose in its holster. A yawn snuck up on her unbidden, and she muffled it with the back of her non-shooting hand. As she walked to the lead wagon, she idly touched her neck where a collar would have been if she were Chipmunk.
Stop that
, she chided herself.

The caravan had arrived at a low stone bridge spanning a stream. There were guard houses on either side, and a chain struck across the span, barring their way. An official in a red coat with gold buttons was arguing with Tanner as Jamile looked on.

“That’s not going to happen,” Tanner said, waving his hands in front of him. Madlin was comforted to see that he didn’t have a weapon in hand. The official appeared to be unarmed.

“I’m afraid I must insist, sir,” the official replied. The man moved to step around Tanner, but Tanner sidestepped and interposed himself between the official and the wagons.

“Can’t let you.”

“Tanner,” Madlin called out as she approached. “Your Kheshi’s gotten a lot better of late, but you should let me handle this.”

“Are these your wagons, lady?” the official asked.

Madlin looked the man over. He was paunchy and his straggly moustache had streaks of grey in it: a bureaucrat, not a guardsman.

“They are. What’s the trouble?”

“Lady Emskarl insists that all goods brought into her lands be inspected,” the official replied.

“And I told him it was none of his rotten business,” Tanner said.

“Is there any kind of toll?” Madlin asked, ignoring Tanner.

“It depends on the cargo you carry. Consider it the cost of protecting your valuables, while you enjoy Lady Emskarl’s protection.”

Madlin surveyed the guard posts and the far bank of the stream. “I don’t see her around here,” Madlin said without returning her attention to the official. “When will she be joining us? We’ve got room in the wagons, of course. Hope she likes salted pork, because we’ve got it by the—”