Tinker's Justice (2 page)

“Eziel’s blood, kid,” Rascal said. “You want to go back under the nose of that thing? We’re trying to keep you alive.”

“Well, I’m trying to win a war,” Madlin replied. “We need the manufacturing, especially now that we’re getting reports that kuduks are showing up with coil guns. We’re not the only game in the deep anymore. We can’t keep up with kuduk factories, not without the goblins’ help.”

“Maybe it’s time we found something better than coil guns,” Cadmus said, his earlier anger fading into a tinker’s pensive view of the world as a puzzle that can be solved if only one had the right machine.

“Well, until we do, I’m heading back there,” Madlin replied. “And I’m going to take that dragon up on his offer of bringing my own stuff along. Be nice to sit on a chair made by someone who knows what it’s like to have hips. Even the things they’ve made custom for me are always too narrow.”

“As a baker, I apologize,” said Greuder. “Girth is the curse we share and spread.”

“Well, spread a little before I go back,” Madlin replied. “Goblin food isn’t the most filling.”

There was no proper day or night in the lunar base. Clocks might say what they will, but neither sun nor moon held sway in the rocky depths beneath the moon’s surface. It was easier to maintain a goblin schedule, even with the intra-world shifts in daylight hours. The
Jennai
had been offset from the inhabitants of Fr’n’ta’gur’s lair by some five hours, so Madlin had chosen to sleep where an early sunrise wouldn’t spoil her slumber.

When Madlin stepped through the hole into the hold of the
Jennai
, all her requested furnishings were there waiting for her, along with enough warm bodies to carry everything through at once. Rynn gave a nod of greeting—which was more than either of them needed—and shut the world-hole.

“All right, everyone,” Madlin said, taking charge of the workers who would be following her through into Korr. “This is a simple delivery. We get in; you place everything where I tell you. I stay; you leave. Don’t interact with the goblins. Don’t talk amongst yourselves. Don’t make eye contact if you can avoid it. We don’t want them learning anything about this world if we can help it.”

Rynn turned dials, and the viewframe swooped in low over the valley, headed for one of the smallest structures in the complex. Madlin’s house was built to her specifications, taller than a single-story goblin residence would need to be, and tucked away in a corner of the valley away from the flow of traffic that came and went at all hours. The insides were spare, just wooden walls, poured-stone floor, and three rooms. The main living area was a combination drafting room and hobby workshop, too small to make anything larger than handheld. Off to one side was a room with a goblin-made bed and a chest of clothes. The only other room was an indoor latrine, which Madlin had insisted on. It was an afterthought in the goblins’ architectural plan, so it had a separate roof and a second batch of poured-stone, delineated by a seam where older and newer batches met.

“I want every scrap of furniture from that place dragged outside and dumped by the road,” Madlin ordered. “Don’t worry about the bedding or the goblin-made clothes in the chest, just get it all out.”

The workers mumbled and nodded, eyes fixed on their targets. When the hole opened, they sprang into action. The goblin furnishings were the first things to go. The door was a tight fit for the bed and desk, but the flimsy goblin furniture flipped around easily in the hands of burly human workers, banging doorjambs and the ceiling, but doing only cosmetic damage to the house. Madlin’s instructions had included nothing that said they were to be gentle with the goblin craftwork, and the workers weren’t. She took satisfaction in hearing the crack of broken boards as the bed hit the ground—its days of teasing her with promises of more comfort than it could deliver were at an end. The same went for the chair with its contoured seat that tried to force her backside into a narrower shape than her body preferred. In their places came good, solid Telluraki craftsmanship, salvaged from the ruins of Tinker’s Island and brought via the lunar headquarters for Madlin’s use.
Finally, maybe this place will start to feel like home, and not a low-rent inn.

In minutes, the world-hole closed, leaving Madlin alone in a valley of goblins, surrounded by familiar furnishings. She took a deep breath, savoring the familiar scents of Takalish wood polish and the bleach from laundered sheets. Settling into a chair from her own workshop, Madlin could imagine away the rough-cut timber walls and pretend she was on Tinker’s Island.

The door opened. If goblins had any customs about knocking or announcing themselves before entering a home, they did not apply them to humans. “What happened here?” K’k’rt demanded. “All your things are outside and broken, and …” The tinker stared into the room, realization dawning when he saw the change in décor.

“Your dragon suggested I bring some things back to make myself more comfortable,” said Madlin. “This is what human comfort looks like.”

K’k’rt wandered the little house, poking his head around to inspect Madlin’s new things. He even looked into the bedroom. “I understood that you would be sleeping off-world from now on. Why the bed?”

“Why not the bed?” Madlin asked. “I might not go home every night. With a praise-to-Eziel bed here, I can get a proper night’s sleep without retreating to my own world.”

K’k’rt nodded slowly, still looking into the bedroom. “Good … good thinking.”

“What brought you here?” Madlin asked. “You the one they nominated to find out why I threw my furniture by the roadside?”

K’k’rt turned toward Madlin and blinked. Then he smiled at her and gave his familiar chuckle. “Not quite. I came by to see if you had come back at all. Fr’n’ta’gur wasn’t sure whether you would.”

Madlin snorted. “You’re not going to buy me off with a few crates of my own guns. You’re stuck with me until I’ve got what’s mine.”

“You know … you and Fr’n’ta’gur have a lot in common in that respect.”

“Comparing me to your god?” Madlin asked, raising an eyebrow. “Isn’t that sacrilege?”

K’k’rt chuckled. “Even the dragons know they aren’t gods. They just get most of us to pretend, and spend their days surrounded by the most gullible of goblins.”

“The priests?”

K’k’rt nodded. “It keeps the hopeless ones out of the workshops and military, so it works out for everyone. So … back to work?”

Madlin nodded and stood, gathering her tool belt and goggles. “Back to work.”

That evening, Madlin found herself back in Fr’n’ta’gur’s lair. This time, the dragon loomed over a stack of fourteen crates, an improvement over the previous day’s delivery. Madlin’s hopes rose.
He’s going to follow through. This is going to work out.
Yesterday’s cries of deceit and treachery seemed like so much fear mongering. Her father had been hammering his own delusions into everyone else’s heads for so long that they were beginning to see conspiracies behind every door. The Human Rebellion’s bargain with Fr’n’ta’gur made too much sense for both sides for either to risk the arrangement by betrayal. One day that might change, and Rynn would be ready to extract Madlin at a moment’s notice—Rynn was at the controls of the
Jennai’s
primary world-ripper at that very second—but for now, things would continue as they had been.

“Your gift for today,” Fr’n’ta’gur grumbled. Madlin flinched anew each time she felt the dragon’s voice pound through her. It was a sensation she could never acclimate to.

“I take it there are eighty-four guns in total?” Madlin asked.

“Indeed,” Fr’n’ta’gur replied. “Summon your minions and carry them away.”

Madlin nodded and walked to the stack of crated coil guns. Any second …

The world-hole opened, and the workers spilled through in an instant. The dragon watched, but did not try to peek around to see through into Korr this time. Instead, he muttered something in a foreign tongue, neither Korrish nor goblin speech. Madlin felt a tingle all over her body and knew that the dragon had worked magic on her.

In a sudden panic, Madlin fled through the world-hole. Or at least, she tried. The hole became a solid pane of glass to her, too thick even for her body weight to shatter as she slammed against it. Spots swam before her eyes as Madlin staggered back. She reached up to check a wet sensation on her lips and found blood running from a broken nose.

“This time, she stays,” said Fr’n’ta’gur, twisting around to look into the
Jennai’s
hold.

Madlin pinched her nose shut to staunch the flow of blood, and watched the chaos through the world-hole. The crewmen had scattered as armed soldiers rushed in, coil guns at the ready. Rynn stood at the controls, one hand on the switch that would shut the world-hole, the other on the dial that would move the viewframe laterally in relations to the dragon’s position.

“By all means, attack me!” Fr’n’ta’gur proclaimed. “But your Madlin Errol will die if you do. She is mine now, and she may not pass your gate. You will continue receiving your weapons as stated in our deal, but any other disturbance from this device of yours, and she will suffer. My worshipers will find ways where she will beg them to stop, but leave her still able to work at her inventions.” The world-hole closed an instant later.

“Why?” Madlin asked, her voice nasal, her head swimming.

“Because you are going to make me far more than just the weapons you have shown me,” Fr’n’ta’gur said. “You are going to create everything I tell you to.” He finished by calling out in the goblin tongue, words that, for all her time in Veydrus, Madlin had yet to glean even the simplest meanings from.

A squad of goblins emerged from the hallway. Madlin tried to focus on them, but she could barely stand. She heard chains though. It was a sound she could never forget. The goblins surrounded her, crowding too close for her comfort. They pulled at her arms, sending shooting pains into her nose as she tried to hold it steady and shut. She tried to shake them off, but weaklings that they were, they outnumbered her. After a brief scuffle, they slipped something over her head, and she felt another tingle in the aether of magic working upon her, and then the far more concrete sensation of cold metal around her neck.

With blood dripping down her face, Madlin clutched at the collar, finding two eyelets with chains leading into goblin hands, but neither hinge nor clasp. It was Deliah all over again. She had been captured, collared. She pulled on one of the chains with both hands, yanking one of her goblin captors from his feet, but then a jolt of spark shook her body and she collapsed to the stone floor. Three more jolts followed, each sending a spasm through her every muscle. Fr’n’ta’gur spoke a brief command to the goblins, and the jolts stopped.

“They will take you to the healer, then to your new quarters,” said Fr’n’ta’gur. “In time, you will learn that you have received a great honor. I do not trifle with forces like your allies lightly. You are very valuable.”

The goblins holding the chains tugged Madlin to her feet. Thankfully, they did not object when she resumed quelling the flow of blood from her nose. Still reeling and unable to focus her thoughts, she allowed herself to be led from the dragon’s lair and up into the passages to the surface.

The journey to the goblin healer was not a long one. Perhaps two blocks filled with gawking eyes were all it took to bring her to a tidy, whitewashed building that smelled of antiseptics.
At least they seem to have some concept of medicine
. She had not run into any goblin medical personnel in the valley during her stay, so she could only guess that they were more primitive than Tellurak’s physicians. Once her handlers ushered her inside, she was only mildly relieved.