Tremble in the Dark: A Gwen Farris Novel (14 page)

Maybe
it really wasn't that different? Her tiredness was filling her with both doubt
and a strong urge to simply start beating people until they confessed to the
murders. It would work, if they used enough nails. Just run them through people's
finger with a hammer, until one of them confessed to the crime. Maybe it would
be all of them? Except, no doubt Martin Cordell, who was
clearly
going
to change his ways, and stop being half the asshole he used to be.

Her
head flared with pain that was nearly as severe as anything that she'd ever
felt, at least without being hooked up to one of the Westmorland training
devices. Both of the others looked at her, and seemed to be actually concerned
as she slapped both hands to her head and bit her lip, trying to keep herself
from screaming.

After
a minute, thankfully, the worst of it passed.

"Are
you well, Miss Farris?"

She
shook her head, but decided that if the man wasn't going to be a
complete
pain in the tookus she might as well explain it all to him.

"I'm
trying to learn enough magic to get along here. You know about, well, you
do
,
since you keep calling me Miss Farris. I'm not from here. We don't have magic
really, where I come from, so it's all new to me. Powering a world on the
efforts of human beings directly is incredible, but not what I'm used to at
all."

Martin
Cordell, Westmorland hating bigot, and man that felt he was less than others,
due to his own lack of magical power, leaned forward slightly, as if fascinated
by the idea.

In
fact he sounded like he was suddenly filled with awe.

"I
do know, of course. I can't imagine it. A whole world built without magic? Do
you live in mud huts and roast things on sticks to get by?"

That
at least got her to chuckle a little, which made her head hurt even worse.

"Nope.
In most ways this place is a bit
more
primitive than where I come from.
Not much. We have more of everything. We use, you know I haven't tried to
really explain fossil fuels to people here. There are things in the ground,
which can burn. Gasses and oils. We use a lot of that. We also use electricity
for a whole lot of things that you use magic for. Our cars, which are like
lorries, are a lot faster than what you use, and more people drive them. Our
planes, well those fly, but aren't like airships at all, and can travel faster
than the speed of sound. Even the ones that carry passengers can go nearly four
or five hundred miles an hour. So things are different that way. A lot of the
culture is too. I'm probably not a very good example of that though." She
yawned again, but the man didn't seem less interested at all.

If
she hadn't known better she would have thought he was trying to get into her
good graces by listening to her clearly mad tales of this mythical world she
was supposed to be from. Rather than scoff, he smiled, his clean shaved face
managing to seem more than a little friendly. Not leering at all, she didn't
think, which was good. If he tried that right now, she was going to have to be
rude and tell him
no
.

She
was engaged after all.

Plus
extremely sleepy.

He
asked another question, or at least made a statement that showed that he might
not really understand people at all.

"It
must be a paradise! All people are equal, and there's no hunger or poverty, I
bet."

She
looked at him, not really understanding him for a bit. It was like he wasn't
quiet working from the same place she was. Which, naturally, he wasn't.

"Why
would you think that? We're still people, even if a little different. All
people aren't treated as equals at all. Women are still treated like they're a
little less than men, even if it's slightly better than here, at least where I
come from. We don't have people looked down upon for having too much, or too
little magic, but we find plenty of things to get after each other over. Most
of them just as stupid as that, too. We fight over religion, politics, people
wanting to have lovers of the same gender and hundreds of other really moronic
things. Yes, I know that you have problems here too. Especially that thing with
the Westmorlands and the low magic people. The solution there is so obvious
that I'm really surprised that none of you have ever figured it out."

The
doors were shut securely, and even though she was willing to bet that there
were more than a few cars to the train, she could only see two others, one in
front of them, which she had to turn around to see, and one behind. One of the blue
and red clad porters was at each doorway, as if guarding them. Martin stared
directly at her, as if riveted, but Beth noticed that and nodded.

"I
bet this means we're the only passengers for this leg of the journey. There
should be hundreds of people, not
seven.
Most likely that downturn in
riders will be about the murders." She looked back at Gwen, but she didn't
know enough to really contribute yet. She'd never been on any kind of train
before at all.

"We're
about to leave. Does everyone have all their bags? We won't be able to turn
about if something is left, so we recommend a final check." This came from
the older white man, who had gold material on his uniform near the front and
the neck.

As
tired as she was, Gwen physically checked her bags, and then Beth's. As an
afterthought, she gestured to Cordell, who didn't seem to get it at first.

"Get
a bag count?"

"Huh?
I don't think they mean for us to
literally
do it. They're just being
polite." He sounded more like he wanted her to go on without interruption
than anything else, but seemed to get that
she
wanted him to actually do
the work. Standing he physically tapped all his bags, which, humorously enough,
got most of the rest of the riders to do the same.

"I'm
good." He said it a bit loudly as if it were a joke, but Beth followed
along.

"As
am I, and my companion."

The
University boy and the ferrety looking woman that had the awful friend went
next and almost as if he was about to laugh at the comedy routine, the salesman
fellow chimed in.

"I
have my two as well. It looks like we're all set then. If you will,
conductor?"

The
older man seemed more serious and gave a single nod to the man with the
mustache. Then he blew a single, rather high pitched, whistle and after a few
moments, the whole thing started to move, with only a little bit of clanking
from underneath. There was no roar of machinery, because it was magically
powered. Probably with a large crystal and impellor on the front to pull them
along. That was how airships and lorries worked, and the idea should hold for
something on tracks like this as well.

After
a bit everyone went back to what they were doing before, except her, since she
was enjoying the ride, or trying to. They didn't move very fast, but after
about five minutes they seemed to be traveling about the speed they were going
to. It was around twenty miles per hour.

That
explained why the trip was planned to take a while, didn't it?

The
man across from her didn't ask any more questions for a while, but finally,
just as she was about to lose to the idea of sleep, and her eyes close on their
own, he cleared his throat.

"What's
the answer?"

"Uh,
forty-two?" She had no clue what he was talking about, and the man
blinked, but Beth saved her, explaining.

"You
mentioned that you saw something about the Westmorlands and the low magic
people that we might have missed?" She seemed interested too, but to Gwen
it was so obvious that she actually wondered if they were playing with her for
a minute.

"Oh,
right. Well, it's pretty clear that what the low magic users are actually doing
is responding with hate toward high magic users, of which they see the
Westmorlands as being the easiest target. The largest single group of that kind
to attack. What they actually
want
though, is greater opportunity and freedom.
Which, really, they should have. The Westmorlands are in the same boat though.
You all have a common goal, and if the low magic users would start trying to
rally around them, instead of tear them down, they could easily be turned into
a cause that would allow greater rights to be brought about for everyone, as
well as more opportunities." She waved, keeping Cordell from talking.
"I know, it seems odd, but as rough as you have it, not having a lot of
power,
they
have it worse. The Westmorland children... Do you know how
they're trained?"

Beth
stiffened, since it was a state secret, but Gwen figured that she could
probably say a little without it giving away how it was actually done.

Martin
looked at her as if she were stupid.

"Of
course I do. They're selected as youths and given the best opportunities for
schooling and training, due to their natural advantages. They have the best
tutors and situations at all times, and this is all paid for by the taxes and
tariffs of the common man." He was clearly getting ready to build up into
a moralistic hate rant, about the supposed privileges of the evil and monstrous
Westmorlands, when she nodded, as if agreeing.

She'd
seen that trick used on a law drama once, to good event. It actually kept the
man from starting into his speech, which was no doubt quite well rehearsed.

"You
have that last bit right. And the very first part. Children with no families
are tested and the very strongest of them put in the program. Absolutely
everything else you said is wrong though." She looked at Beth, who was
shaking her head no, but went on anyway. "I won't tell you how it's done
exactly, since I don't know all of it, but they let me try some of their
beginner's programs. These are believed to be light and easy things for them.
Literally things that they use on children under the age of ten."

She
wanted to either get up and pace or go find a bed, which she was assured was a
thing on these kinds of trains, since it took so long to go from one place to
another. That wasn't going to happen yet, clearly, so she soldiered on,
noticing that everyone else was listening to her. She could feel their eyes,
but didn't really care at the moment.

"It's
torture, Martin. I don't mean that it's a
little
hard, or difficult, or
socially awkward either. I mean, they use pain inducing devices that make you
feel like you're dying, that are worse by far than being stabbed in the heart,
which as you may remember I've had done to me so I know what I'm talking about,
and the Trainers use that to force them to do what they're told. The little
training that I've done is... Pretty close to barbaric. I've
killed
people that I wouldn't let that be done to without a major reason. Not
Debussey, but others in her group. I don't think I can explain it properly, you
have to actually do it, to truly understand. We can set that up for you, I
think. I don't mean that as a joke either. If you undergo some of those
training sessions, maybe you'd think differently about the Westmorlands.
Actually, I
know
you would."

Bethany
looked at her and actually went white lipped.

"We
aren't allowed to talk about that." She had to hiss this from between her
teeth, clearly very distressed.

"Right,
sorry Beth. But, you see Martin, the Westmorlands, they
aren't
the
pampered elite. They're your
slaves
. The slaves of the Western Kingdom,
left nearly without rights and privileges. If you got that word out correctly,
and got your people to see it and move for them to have rights, everyone else
in the Kingdom would find things changing pretty fast. When the least entitled
group is raised up, everyone else will float upward with them. I've seen it
happen. It takes time, but it's real, and it works."

For
some strange reason, Cordell didn't call her stupid, suggest she was lying, or
even that she was just befuddled from licking her Westmorland masters under-parts.
He just settled back and took several slightly distressed breaths of his own,
nearly matching Beth.

"That...
It isn't what we've been told. It's all about training and..." She could
see the wheels clicking in his head. "Their...
special training
. We
just always assumed that it was some kind of rare privilege. No one told us
anything about that. Is it really that bad?"

Next
to her, Bethany was looking nearly ready to pass out, having gone completely
white now, with deep sweat stains blooming from the armpits of her blue
uniform.

Gwen
looked at her friend, feeling bad for putting her in that kind of a state. She
was in pain, but this was, Gwen figured, about the most important thing she
could do for Beth. Maybe
ever
.

"It's
worse than what I said. I don't know all of it. I can't tell you about that,
but I'm almost certain that if you, Martin Cordell, famous hater of
Westmorlands and all they stand for, could see what was done to them in your
name, you'd stand outside the gates of the King's new palace and demand they be
set free." She looked at the man, forcing herself to ignore the soft gasps
from the other two women who were straining to hear her. She wasn't being
quiet, so it wasn't exactly their fault, was it? "The big problem there is
that for most of them it's already too late, and they'll remain as they are
until they die. The best you can hope for is making their lives a little less
miserable now."