Tinker's Justice (34 page)

Sounds of battle seemed muted and distant. It might have been Davlin’s imagination, but the ship seemed to be tilting. If he didn’t worry that he would need every last one before this was all ended, he would have taken one of his spare ball bearings and set it on the floor to see which way it rolled.

Footsteps sounded in the hall. They weren’t the trampling stampede of a charge, nor the tentative steps of someone whose skulking had failed to go unnoticed. It was a brisk stroll. The footfalls were neither hard nor heavy; someone slight of build in soft-soled boots approached. Davlin hoped that it was Sosha. He worried for the safety of the only doctor aboard.

The footsteps stopped short of the door. “I see you in there, waiting for me.”

Davlin’s blood went cold. It was Dan’s voice. “Eziel, forgive us and grant us the mercy of your intervention …”

“I bet you have those guns of yours all pointed and ready for me,” said Dan. “Well, let’s give this a go.”

As soon as a figure appeared in the doorway, Davlin and his men opened fire. Shot after shot thudded into flesh, but the human in the doorway didn’t fall. It was one of their own men, a corpse hung in the air by foul magic. A crunch and shriek of steel drew Davlin’s eyes to the wall. Stuck through was a foot of blade, piercing the bulkhead like an awl through leather. As soon as it disappeared back through the wall, Davlin fired, counting on the coil guns to puncture the steel and still be lethal on the other side. But it was too late. The hole where the sword had been belched fire. The last thing Davlin heard was a spiteful laugh at his expense.

“He’s going to be here any time now,” said Tanner. He crouched behind the control console of the rear-portside world-ripper, alone with the
Jennai’s
best hope of stopping Danilaesis.

“Of course,” Anzik replied. “He knows he cannot control the ship so long as the world-rippers are in Korrish hands.” He sat cross-legged on the floor beside Tanner, his demeanor no different than ever.

Tanner shook his head. “I don’t get it. How can you be calm? Dan’s gonna be here any minute, and you’ve got the same old trap laid out for him. Ain’t you worried he won’t fall for it twice?”

“Not very,” Anzik replied. “The variation is minor, but the juxtaposition of weaponry will be unexpected.” Anzik twisted the coil gun in his hand, looking it all over. “He won’t expect the same trap, simply because he expects that I would know better. Thus, the appearance of the same trap will distract him momentarily, and a moment is all I will require.”

“And we’re hidden back here? Completely?”

“Danilaesis will be blinded by the obvious.” The false Anzik paced the room, muttering to himself and flexing his fingers to limber them for spell-casting. Tanner spared the decoy a glance, and had to admit that it was convincing.

Tanner drew his blade, the soft scraping against the leather of his scabbard quieter than their voices. “Don’t mind if I keep this out, do you? Just in case?”

Anzik twitched a smile. “It is unnecessary, but I welcome the sentiment. Should anything go wrong, I don’t expect you will stand much chance against him.” He perked up, turning his head in the direction of a blank wall. “He’s coming.”

Tanner had never been gifted with aether-vision. Just being able to scrape a shielding spell together had pushed him to his limits. Anzik had shown time and again that he was ever alert to the aether. Danilaesis had a brilliant Source by all accounts, and Anzik could see him coming through the bulkheads.

It was minutes before Danilaesis arrived, minutes spent with a quickening heart and a sweating brow. When the warlock entered the room, Tanner could hear the strut in his walk. He looked down and checked the time on his stolen pocketclock.

“I can’t believe this,” Danilaesis said. “You’re going to fight me yourself? Just like that? I would have thought you’d—” something must have occurred to the warlock just then. A blast of lightning in the room made the hair of Tanner’s arms stand on end. “Gut me! Where are you, you rotten, lying illusionist?”

Anzik didn’t answer with words, but sent a shot from his coil gun in reply. Danilaesis was thrown against the wall by the force of the shot, but his shielding spell prevented the ball bearing from piercing his flesh. The blow dazed him, however, and the blade-tooth sword fell from his limp grasp. Before the warlock recovered his wits, Anzik emerged from hiding and took careful aim.

“This ends your war,” Anzik said. But before he could pull the trigger, he stiffened. Whirling, he turned toward Tanner, mouth agape and a look of complete bewilderment on his face.

Tanner was already moving, he batted the coil gun out of Anzik’s grasp and ran him through. There was a brief flare of resistance from the Megrenn sorcerer’s shielding spell, but the runed blade Tanner wielded pushed through it. As Anzik collapsed to his knees, Tanner slid his blade free and cut off the sorcerer’s head. Though the chest wound would have been fatal in short order, there was no killing too quick for a sorcerer. Even as he swung his blade, Tanner noticed smoke rising from Anzik’s body as he tried to fight back, but failed to concentrate to control his aether.

“Tanner, what the bloody blazes are you doing here?” Danilaesis asked, rubbing the back of his head as he retrieved his sword. “And you just stole my revenge.”

“Kick him or something, but get moving,” Tanner replied. “I can’t be seen talking to you. As far as anyone knows, this is Kadrin blood.” He held up his reddened blade to make his point.

“I don’t understand.”

“Your father had a plan,” Tanner said. “It involved a free airship, an imperial pardon, and paying back that inhuman sorcerer for murdering you.”

“Madlin played a part in that,” Danilaesis said. “I’ve still got to—”

“She’s not aboard right now, and I don’t know where Rynn is. But she’s not important. We finish up, and we get out of here alive.”

“Let no enemy live once he has offered violence,” Danilaesis quoted. “Or in this case, she.”

“And look where that got Rashan in the end. Go on, move.”

Another Tanner, in another world, leaned with his back against the wall of the hold of the
Mirror’s Trick
. The weight of the blade in his hand was familiar, as was the blood that dripped from it. Jadon lay dead in his bunk.

Footsteps pounded down the stairs from the deck. “I heard the commotion,” Stalyart said. “Is it done?”

“Almost blew my shot,” Tanner said. “Got to him a few seconds early, put Anzik on his guard. If he’d been a proper warlock, I’d be dead over there. But I saw the smoke; he tried to burn me and got himself instead.”

“So, we have ourselves a ship,” Stalyart said. “With Kadrin blessings and no one in Megrenn the wiser. Excellent.”

“I ain’t feeling too excellent right now,” Tanner replied. He wiped his sword on a clean part of Jadon’s blanket, then returned it to its sheath. “I’m gonna go find me a drink, and it’s nothing to do with celebratin’.”

The other Tanner, aboard the
Jennai
, was on his own now. He could get drunk enough for both of them.

Cadmus kept his feet quiet as he could on the floors of the stone tunnels. Strange rumors persisted about the daruu, that they were so in tune with the stone that they could know a man by his footsteps a mile away, simply by feel. In all his years with Kezudkan, Erefan had never been able to say for certain if they were true. But in this place of daruu legend, he gave those legends fair consideration.

Gederon was less careful, leading the way. They had been going for far longer than Cadmus had expected. Despite not finding Kezudkan, neither had they run into any other daruu. He had warned the lad not to run them into anyone, but it surprised him how long they had gone unnoticed.

“Stop,” Cadmus ordered in a harsh whisper. “I recognize this tunnel. We’ve gone ‘round in a loop.”

“What? N-n-no!” Gederon protested. “We’re al-almost there.”

Just then a world-hole opened behind him. Cadmus turned to see Greuder at the controls, beckoning urgently. Kupe and Charsi were watching from near the viewframe. “Come on Cadmus! There’s been an attack. We need you!”’

“I trust you all to handle things,” Cadmus snapped. “I’m just one man, and no warrior. I’m so close now! Close that thing before I put a bullet through it.”

Greuder gave a nervous chuckle, despite his obvious distress. “You couldn’t bring yourself. Kupe, go drag Cadmus back here. His brake lever’s snapped off.”

Kupe gave Greuder a nod and hopped through the world-hole without hesitation.

Cadmus didn’t hesitate either. In one smooth motion he took aim and put a shot through the spark line that fed the viewframe.

Kupe spun and looked back, but there was no world-hole any longer. “What’d you do that for?”

“Kaia can fix that in under an hour,” Cadmus replied. “That ought to be plenty of time. Stick close, and don’t hurt our guide. His life is what he’s getting in return for a meeting with his uncle.”

The
Jennai
was listing dangerously. It had grown worse progressively as Rynn and K’k’rt waited by the world-ripper. A few of the rebels had reported in. There had been world-holes opening around the ship, spiriting away the wounded to the lunar headquarters. She was far past worrying that it was no longer a secret. Madlin had an even more secret locale, and look at the good that was doing them. She had outsmarted herself with her preparations, with the assumption that having only Rynn able to retrieve her would be security enough.

Now, Rynn’s life was measured in minutes. Danilaesis was loose somewhere on the ship. The reports of magic being flung about and a boy with a sword spotted among the invaders removed all doubt of that. He would be looking for Anzik—who by fortunate coincidence was aboard and able to help defend the ship—and for Madlin. On the one hand, Madlin was safe from the rampaging madman. On the other, he knew full well that Rynn was her twin, and would treat her accordingly.