Rebel Skyforce (Mad Tinker Chronicles) (6 page)

With Jaffry Sutz’s ship relieved of its ore and Jaffry himself loaded with dreams of gold, Cadmus found himself light afoot heading into his afternoon meetings. What good was a miser’s fortune? There was a war to win in Korr, and the rebellion was poised on the fulcrum of disaster. The sooner he had a functioning world-ripper, the sooner Erefan’s forces would be safe. The realization that he could supplement his copper supply with silver, perhaps even lightsteel or other uncommon conductors, was a key worry hammered into a solution. Even the prospect of being cooped up in his office for much of the day couldn’t dampen his spirits—until the first appointment arrived.

The appointment book was filled with a motley cast of unlikely runesmiths. Beside the list of names and times were annotations as to the qualifications of each: a metal sculptor, a silversmith, three printing engravers, a scribe, two mechanics, and three twinborn who’d seen runes on a daily basis, one of whom worked on dynamos as an assistant cableman.

Cadmus’s interviews were scheduled in alphabetical order. The first man was Ronley Briarford, the silversmith. He had a craftsman’s handshake, firm and rough, an honest worker’s grip. When questioned about his qualifications, Briarford produced a sheet of silver and filigree tooling. Before Cadmus’s eyes, the silversmith carved his best
approximation of the runes on Grandle’s instruction page. Cadmus had seen the runes on Kezudkan’s dynamo and knew that Grandle’s engravings wouldn’t be functional, but they were a fair copy of what the man had seen. By the time Cadmus called an end to the interview, he knew he had at least one candidate who might carve working runes once he was shown a proper drawing of them.

The second interviewee was a mechanic from his rifleworks by the name of Abe Dakinshi. He was a Takalishman older than Cadmus by a dozen years, who had been working on firearms since before Errol Company was founded. He was a trigger specialist, capable of fashioning any part of a gun but selected to work on the painstaking details of the smallest, most finicky pieces. He used an awl and an old piece of steel to scratch his sample runes. Cadmus had known the man for years, and kept up an amiable chat to stave off the cringe-worthy sight of the man’s carving. By the end of half an hour, the man had butchered a handful of runes and caught Cadmus up on the health and tidings of his family.

A twinborn named Frent and a printing engraver by the name of Vander Heckleston failed to impress Cadmus in the least. He complimented them on their willingness to take on a new assignment, but cut their interviews well short.

Still behind schedule from Abe Dakinshi’s interview, Cadmus was tempted to cut the scribe from his roster of potential recruits. A steady hand was admirable, but pen and ink were a long shout from working with metal. A moment’s internal debate resolved that he should meet the man, just to be thorough.

When Erund Hinterdale sat down across the desk from him, Cadmus found himself intrigued. The scribe was tall and slender, the sort of build that few can maintain while working a manual trade. When Cadmus offered his hand across the desk, the scribe’s grip was iron-strong, though his skin was smooth as a prince’s. What struck Cadmus was the man’s ease. Even Abe Dakinshi, who had worked for Cadmus since Tinker’s Island was founded, seemed on edge in his interview. Erund Hinterdale lounged in his seat, respectful, attentive, but clearly nonplussed.

“You’ve heard what that job entails, I imagine, Mr. Hinterdale,” Cadmus said. It was a statement that left room for interpreting it as a question.

“Erund, if you don’t mind, Mr. Errol,” Erund replied. “And yes, I’ve heard a stray rumor or two.”

“I’m going to show you a series of patterns, and then you will copy them as best you can. What medium will you use?” Though Cadmus knew the answer, he had asked the other candidates, so it seemed only fair.

“Acid and steel,” Erund replied. He drew a piece of sheet metal from inside his jacket along with a thin glass rod and a stoppered vial.

Cadmus raised an eyebrow. “Interesting choice.”

Erund shrugged. “I can write them in pen and ink if you like, but I didn’t think that would prove much unless you were making this machine of yours out of paper.”

“Indeed,” Cadmus said. He handed Erund the paper. “Begin.”

Erund unstoppered the vial, letting an acrid scent waft into the office. He dipped the glass rod in the acid and shook a droplet back into the vial before it fell on Cadmus’s desk. With broad strokes, the scribe made copies of each of the runes on Grandle’s sheet, though far larger than those penned runes had been. A trail of vapors sizzled in the rod’s wake as the acid etched the steel. After a few moments, Erund produced a rag from his pocket and wiped the glass rod clean, then handed the metal sheet to Cadmus.

Cadmus held the steel up to the light, angling it to check the etch. It wasn’t perfect, but the lines were of more uniform depth than he had suspected. Held flat before him, the runes looked like they came from a Korrish school primer, formed large and perfect. A scratching sound broke Cadmus’s concentration and he found Erund had appropriated a fountain pen from his desk and was writing on the back of Grandle’s sheet of example runes.

“What do you think you’re—”

“Here,” Erund said. He handed the paper to Cadmus. The ink was still wet, but there they were: Korrish runes. “Let your other candidates work from these instead. It ought to make it easier on them.”

Cadmus had overlooked something with the distraction of the acid-work. The runes weren’t copies of Grandle’s; they were how the runes ought to have looked. He glared at Erund Hinterdale from below a furrowed brow. “How did you know to make these? Who else are you?” He was unaccustomed to twinborn showing up unannounced in his office.

Erund reached to a chain around his neck and pulled medallion from below his tunic. It was pewter, fashioned in the form of a letter “S” wrapped around a quill. “I’m also an expert scribe, or would be if I was still in Acardia.”

“That’s not an answer to my question.”

“Surely it is. I’ve come across alphabets in more languages that you can imagine exist. The Society of Learned Men has used my services to transcribe ancient works so that they can pore over them at leisure without exposing the originals to undue wear. These characters you showed me are ones I’ve seen before, though I couldn’t say what they mean.”

Cadmus leaned back in his chair and looked the Acardian scribe over. He was lighter skinned than most twinborn, pale as only Acardians and southern Kheshi are known to get, and with hair the muted brown of transmission fluid, he certainly wasn’t Kheshi by birth. Few Korrish were so pureblooded. Thanks to centuries of commercial transport of humans by the kuduks, geographic distinctions were shades of brown and tan. He had seen Acardian-looking Korrish only a handful of times, but they existed.

“Try another one,” Cadmus said. “I’ve looked for books with runes like these in them. They’re just not to be found, even among the Society of Learned Men. I believe you that you’ve seen the runes before; I couldn’t have made them prettier myself.”

Erund smirked and put up his hands. “You’ve got me. I was like you until about six years ago. Now, this is the only world I’ve got.”

“One-worlded, huh?” Cadmus asked. Erund cast his eyes down and nodded. “Where were you from? Who else were you?”

“I lived in a humans-only village outside Cuminol. I worked as a scribe, since I was one of the few who could read.” Erund glanced up as he spoke, but averted his gaze again quickly.

Cadmus switched to Korrish. “Who is the enemy of all humans?” Among freemen humans, it was a phrase taught to every child.

“Pardon?” Erund asked.

Cadmus repeated the question.

Erund squinted and put a hand to his ear. “I’m sorry, my ear for Korrish had gone soft. Who is what now?”

There was some glimmer of comprehension—or was there? Perhaps something in his tone had conveyed the heart of Cadmus’s question. Confidence schemes were an art that Cadmus had never patronized, but he knew the principles: skilled observation, inference, vague answers, leading questions. Was Erund playing three-cups and a marble with him? From Madlin’s reports, the Veydrans she was traveling with could puzzle out bits of Korrish by the sound. There were plenty of ways to glean bits of Korrish geography from the Tinker’s Islanders, and it wasn’t likely that any of them would refer to a humans-only sky as a village.

“Well, despite the rusty ear, I think I’ve found my man,” Cadmus said. He stood and extended a hand to Erund once again. The scribe—and likely infiltrator—relaxed visibly and gave an amiable shake, less focused on impressing with grip than in the vigor of the shaking. Cadmus clapped Erund on the back and guided him out the door of his office. “We’ll get you clearance to the dynamo workshop. You can start tomorrow on some practice metals.”

While they walked among the offices of Errol Company, Cadmus searched for someone. It wasn’t a particular twinborn he sought, but rather one with a particularly quick mind and the proper tool at hand. He made a few cursory introductions, pointed out bits of trivia about the construction of the building, all biding time until he found what he was looking for.

Mazzin Daug was the man who caught the Mad Tinker’s eye. He was a Takalishman who was quarter Feru by his mother’s side. He had grown up the son of a soldier in Tellurak and his twin was a freeman pub bouncer in Korr. He was bull-necked and barrel-chested, looking like a statue whittled from mahogany and left to the elements for a year. “Mazzin, come here a minute. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

“What’s that, boss?” Mazzin asked as he approached. “New fella comin’ on?” He extended a meaty hand, slashed across with light-colored scars.

“Mazzin, this is Erund Hinterdale,” Cadmus said. As Erund extended his hand, the Mad Tinker switched to Korrish. “
Ventilate this imposter immediately
.” He chose long words in the hope that the Veydran spy wouldn’t puzzle it out in time.

Mazzin was a soldier’s soldier. He knew his commander’s ruse immediately. He drew his pistol—the thing Cadmus had primarily looked for in a rescuer—and fired, putting a bloody hole in the center of Erund’s chest. The false twinborn’s eyes went wide in surprise, or shock, or fear. When he fell dead to the ground, it no longer mattered the cause of the gaping eyes that stared off at an accountant’s door nearby.

“Get someone to help you get him down to the furnaces. Incinerate the body. Make inquiries and find out if anyone else was here with him, and take them into custody. I want this mopped up quickly.”

Cadmus watched as the body was removed from the halls of Errol Company headquarters. No sooner had four workers trussed the corpse up in a tarp, than a pair of janitors appeared on the scene to scrub away the blood. It did Cadmus’s heart good, seeing the efficiency of his people. They had suffered a close miss that could have put all these fine men and women in peril.

“Dammit Madlin, this is the trouble in trucking with Veydrans.”

Some days, you are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Mazzin had been seeing about a discrepancy in his weekly wage when Cadmus had recruited him for an impromptu murder. Guilty or not, the man hadn’t been tried, but Mazzin hadn’t been given time to think. The order was clear; Cadmus’s tone was urgent. It had been more a reflexive response than a decision.

To keep matters quiet, he was also assigned the task of finding Erund Hinterdale’s associates on Tinker’s Island and arresting them. The man had only arrived days ago, and the only lead Mazzin had to go on was a wife. The thought that he’d killed a family man sat in Mazzin’s stomach like a ball of lead: heavy, poisonous, and with no quick way to be rid of it.