Tinker's Justice (21 page)

A wave of dizziness passed through Tanner as the world decided to pull him in a different direction. He flopped to the steel floor and waited a moment for the room to hold still.

“Welcome to the rebellion, Tanner,” said a voice from above him. He looked up and squinted. A face was backlit against an intense white light coming from the ceiling.

Tanner raised a dripping hand to shield his eyes. “Madlin?” he asked. Jadon stood beside her, his expression flat.

“Almost,” came the reply. “I’m Rynn.”

The room in which Tanner found himself was like no place he had ever been. Madlin had told stories of the world her twin came from. He had heard of the machine. Seeing the monstrosity of copper, brass, and a bunch of metals he couldn’t name, Tanner realized his imagination had let him down.

“How’re you dry?” he asked Jadon, who should have been dripping all over the room, but was not.

“I was off the ship before the powder blew,” he replied. “It would have been foolhardy to stay any longer, since my part was done the moment the fuse was lit.”

“Foolhardy, eh?” Tanner asked. “I’ll keep that in mind next time you’re lookin’ for a favor.”

“Don’t worry,” Rynn said, extending a hand and helping Tanner to his feet. “We approve of foolhardy around here.”

The hum took getting used to. Stalyart likened it to a bassoonist who never ran out of breath. The deck buzzed, sending the hum right through boots and legs and into the gut. The Korrish must have been used to such sensations, but he could find no comfort in it. Time. That was all he needed. Eventually the
Mirror’s Trick
would be like a piece of him—another leg or arm, another skin.

Tanner seemed less shy of the skies than he had of the sea. Perhaps the sky did not play such tricks on the stomach as the rolling waves. Perhaps the view so far below held some magic over him. Stalyart admitted he had a similar reaction to seeing the world spread below him in miniature.

“Fine day for sailing, is it not?” Stalyart asked when Tanner noticed him watching.

“You call this sailing?” Tanner shouted back over the wind and the hum of the machines.

Stalyart laughed from his belly. “I cannot say. Are we sailors, or some new thing? You should find me the word the Korrish use for those like us who sail the skies. I think this world lacks for a description that befits us.”

“Slow us down,” Tanner said, crossing the deck to where Stalyart manned the helm. “Machine’s got sight of us.” The crew was handpicked, each one of them Stalyart’s man. It had been a shame that he could not take them all, but
Mirror’s Trick
was a smaller ship.

A few shouted commands and crewmen brought the engines to a halt. They still flew as momentum and the air current carried them along, but they slowed. The wind rustled clothing and the wood of the deck creaked and thumped beneath booted feet. The rest of the sky had gone silent. Stalyart was reminded that nothing but Anzik’s runes were keeping them aloft. It was easy to think that some Korrish mechanical magic had been responsible for their flight, but that told an incomplete tale.

Tiny arcs of lightning hopped in the air, preceding the opening of a hole into the world of Korr. Jadon was waiting beyond, along with a girl who had to be the Korrish tinker, Rynn, and several others whose names Stalyart did not know. He glimpsed the machine, strange and fascinating, far more complex than the flying devices that had been attached to
Mirror’s Trick
.

Stalyart swept a hand to his side and bowed to those who stood beyond. “Welcome, and thank you for the gift of this marvelous vessel.” He spoke Kheshi, which was a language Tanner had informed him the girl Rynn knew.

“We’ve got a chain set up,” Rynn said. She was unladylike in her manner of dress, in sweat and grease-stained shirt and trousers, with spectacles like an old man, wearing boots fit for a miner. “You run into problems with the mechanicals, Jadon can get word to me via a few intermediaries.” Jadon Zayne stepped through the hole in midair and onto the deck. Had Stalyart not known better, he would have sworn the boy was Anzik Fehr.

“How many?” Stalyart asked. He had been involved in such schemes before, and knew that each time information passed between twinborn, it involved delay. Messages could also become muddled in the passing—he knew this because he had muddied many himself.

“Three links and he’s got my ear.”

Stalyart gave Rynn a narrow look, but nodded.

“This is Veydran business,” Rynn said. “You can do what you like with the ship. Payment for it is Anzik’s business, one way or another. But I’d view it as a personal favor if you didn’t go getting it blasted out of the sky.”

Stalyart grinned. “My lady, I would be mortified to lose a ship. I am no Denrik Zayne.”

That same night, back in the lunar headquarters, Anzik Fehr stopped by the small dining room to find Cadmus finishing a plate of basil-rubbed chicken in a cream sauce. Greuder had been cooking late meals for him again. Anzik stopped and sat down across from the Mad Tinker, waiting for him to acknowledge his presence.

Cadmus glanced up from his plate just briefly, then stabbed another piece of chicken. “Didn’t think you had it in you.”

“We are not so different, you and I,” Anzik said.

Cadmus snorted as he chewed.

“We both endured circumstances that we viewed with contempt. Both of us remained despite the means for escape because we gleaned an extraordinary benefit from our position. I have seen your inventions. I find it difficult to believe you could not have escaped your daruu if you had wished.”

“Cold-blooded, doing in your old man,” Cadmus said around a mouthful of food.

Anzik shrugged. “Jinzan Fehr was my father, not Denrik Zayne. The pirate was unaware he had a son for most of my life. Jadon was abandoned by the whore who birthed him, who in turn was abandoned the moment my twin was conceived. Even with all that, I couldn’t trust myself not to have second thoughts.”

Cadmus grunted. “Not sure I like the look of that Tanner fellow.”

“He bore a longstanding grudge with Denrik Zayne. I merely gave him an accomplice, and an escape. Your daughter seems to appreciate his martial prowess—most of your rebels are more eager than competent. Sosha seemed pleased to see him once more.”

A fork clattered onto the plate, and Cadmus scowled across the table. “How’s that now?”

Anzik sat back in his chair, surprised at the reaction from the Mad Tinker. “I only meant to imply they vouched for his character. I would hope that you might reconsider your appraisal of me as well. Your mistrust seemed rooted in my association with Denrik Zayne, which I have now ended. Please weigh this accordingly.”

With that, Anzik stood and excused himself from the room, leaving Cadmus with an empty plate and a look of consternation.

Chapter 16

“Non-controlled biospheres have unpredictable weather. High winds and darkened clouds precede storms.” – Traveler’s Companion: Weather Awareness

Rynn watched through the viewframe, blowing to cool her tea before taking a sip. She stood next to the viewframe, so close that she could read the words as Harwick transcribed them into a blank journal. It was the book on medicine that he worked on; she could tell by the anatomical diagrams. The terminology was torturous, with strange words that had no translation from the arcane language. Jamile might have better luck with it, but Rynn was out of her element. Humans were wet, sticky machines on the inside with too much plumbing and too little structural support.

Still, the work was only half done on the translation, and she had been through two cups of tea already while spying on the Acardian lord. He never touched pen to paper with his own hand. Through magical means, the quill dipped itself in the inkwell and set off to work, scrawling neat Acardian script across the page. Harwick merely flipped through pages and traced along the lines of runic text with a finger.

Though Rynn struggled to say what it was, there was something different about Dunston Harwick. Perhaps he had changed his hair, or maybe it was the fact that his spectacles rested on the table beside him instead of on the bridge of his nose. Wandering back to the control console, Rynn set down her tea and resigned herself to accomplishing something rather than wasting her night in speculation.

When the world-hole opened—she wondered if she could ever convince herself to call it a transport gate—Harwick perked up at once. “Ah, Rynn my dear! I was wondering when you’d stop peering over my shoulder and drop in.”

Rynn felt her face grow warm. “You could see the viewframe?”

Harwick grinned. “Maybe. Or maybe you just confirmed my suspicion. Either way, I take no offense. Come in, come in. That cargo hold is so dreary and unwelcoming. Tell me, do you work in there all alone, day in and out, or do you just chase everyone away before coming to see me?”

Rynn stepped through into Harwick’s study. The guards outside the cargo hold would be insurance enough that no one would shut her out of the
Jennai
. “I don’t often work in there at all. We have enough competent technicians now that I can spend my time on other needs of the rebellion.”

“Like building more of those peculiar limbs of yours?” Harwick asked. “I notice you’ve made a new set.”

Rynn’s tinker’s legs were concealed beneath the fabric of her trousers. There should not have been enough evidence showing through for anyone to tell they were new. “You’re bluffing again.”

“Not so,” said Harwick. He pointed to her legs with the stump of a pipe as he withdrew it from the pocket of his jacket. “New rune work. Similar pattern to the old, but a tighter structure and better formed runes. Either you had someone else do the work, or your carving has improved.”

“I do my own runes.”

“Neither here nor there, of course,” Harwick replied. He ambled over to a side table and picked up a finished volume. “This is what you’re here for. Chemistry.”

“Anything worthwhile?” Rynn asked as she accepted the book. She would read it through later, but it never hurt to hear the highlights ahead of time.

Harwick tried to suppress a chuckle, but failed. “You really do lack the feminine predisposition toward noticing certain things.”

“What?”

“Turn to page one hundred eighteen,” Harwick replied. “You’ll see.”

Rynn flipped thought the hand-numbered pages—if a magically copied text could be considered handwritten. Starting from the heading at page one-eighteen, she read aloud: “If you should find yourself without a supply of age-stabilizer, this approximation can be concocted using only class two technology and class four magic. Most primitive worlds will have all the ingredients you need. Should you lack any, please consult table seven of appendix … Harwick, what is this?”

“Age-reversal!” he exclaimed. “I’ve de-aged five years in the past two days. I’ve been taking a dilute version of the formula it gives down below there, just to be safe. It’s a gods-reborn miracle.”

“It’s magic.”

“No, girl, that’s the trick of it,” Harwick replied. “It’s neither magic nor your world’s science. It’s a combination, and so far beyond both our worlds’ understanding that they make it seem a child’s school experiment.” He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a stoppered vial. “I made a bit for Cadmus; figured it was only fair. You’re still a bit on the young side to begin with.” He eyed Rynn up and down.

“How are the rest going?” Rynn asked. She took the vial from Harwick and gazed into the liquid within. It was clear, but there were whorls and particles within that suggested impurities, but which were probably just the book’s incomprehensible science at work. It seemed to have done little harm to Harwick, but she would hold onto it a while before deciding whether to pass it along to her father. She was beginning to feel the weight of being his keeper, deciding which wonders he could be trusted with.

“I copy the words, but medicine escapes me,” Harwick replied. “I am neither apothecary nor physician, and my dealings with those who are have never delved into professional detail. People become ill; they make them well again. I’ve rarely given a thought to the ‘how’ of it.”

“I can see why you and my father get along so well,” Rynn replied with an edge of sarcasm.

“Indeed. Your father is cursed with a curious compulsion to be understood. I think that’s why he moved to his own continent. Even if it was the sorriest barren rock in Tellurak, he could keep out layman clods like myself who didn’t gawp over his clever machines.”

“Hey now! I grew up there,” Rynn protested.

“Then you should know,” Harwick replied. “But then again, I think that you didn’t. You’re the Korrish one, if I’m not mistaken. You’ve fallen into the old trap of twin conflation.”

Rynn shrugged. “We’re really just parts of one whole person, when you think about it. I
remember
growing up on Tinker’s Island.”

“That’s where you shortchange yourself, my dear girl,” Harwick replied. “The Source is different. In almost all cases it splits unevenly between worlds. I bet Madlin doesn’t have the same need of a machinery leg, either.”

“One twin’s misfortune,” Rynn replied. “We need the same optical correction, have the same freckles, the same tastes in food and drink.”

“What’s she thinking, right this moment?” Harwick asked.

Rynn straightened and leaned away from Harwick. “That’s none of your—”

“I don’t particularly care,” said Harwick. “My point is that
you
don’t know. You’ll know what she’s said, what she’s seen and heard. You’ll remember it like you were there, but you didn’t think it. I am keenly aware of the difference. Ever since the death of Caladris Solaran, I find myself missing the devious streak he had. It helped me sort through more political …”

Harwick droned on, but Rynn’s mind blocked out the sound.
Caladris Solaran
, he said. It couldn’t have been a coincidence. How many twinborn Solarans could there have been? There had to have been some relation to Danilaesis Solaran. Dan had mentioned his twin’s name every chance he got, as if a Korrish twinborn like Madlin ought to have recognized it. The risk of him discovering the role she played in Dan’s death made his possession of the books problematic. She was going to need to find a way to get them all back from Harwick and acquire another translator. The rebellion had thrown in fully with Anzik’s people, and Denrik Zayne was dead. Perhaps Anzik or one of the sorcerers from among his people could be trusted now.

Harwick snapped his fingers. “You still in there? I didn’t mean for you to go looking through Madlin’s eyes. You’re not going to unravel her thoughts, no matter how hard you try. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I suspect that both of us have more important things to do than to toss words back and forth. While I don’t understand most of this next book, the insight into the minds of these ingenious people is fascinating. They take for granted wonders that I can barely grasp, and I am sure there are concepts that are second nature to them that I am wholly ignorant of. It makes things patchwork at times, trying to translate them.”

“Well, I’ll pass your gift on to my father,” Rynn replied, unsure as to whether she would do any such thing.

“Oh, and no offense, my dear,” Harwick said. “But if you could send that girl Kaia, next time, I would much enjoy seeing her again.” There was a mischievous gleam in the old lord’s eye.

Rynn replied with a nod and a tight smile, then stepped though the world-hole back to Korr.

That evening, Rynn stared out at the stars from the window of her quarters aboard the
Jennai
. How many twists of a world-ripper’s dials would it take to reach one of them? How long could she afford to stand on the firing range, dodging conspirators brought close by her own hand? The temptation to flee and leave the burden to someone else tugged at her sleeve. Chipmunk had known better than to get in over her head. When had Rynn lost that cautious, sly part of her that stuck to the tunnels when she went on her criminal errands? She had made herself a fulcrum, the wedge that drove one force against another, and she was feeling the pressure of that lever bearing down on her.

A tentative knock broke the quiet. “Come in,” she answered at once. This time, she was expecting her visitor.

“You wanted to see me?” Sosha asked. She crept into the room as if a child lay sleeping in the bed. Rynn kept no light switched on. Only the moon and stars revealed them to one another.

“Yeah,” Rynn replied. “You remember how I asked you to keep Cadmus from driving himself into true madness?”

There was a moment’s hesitation. “Yes.”

“Think you could do the same for me?”

“What do you … I mean, I think you … Rynn are you all right? What’s wrong?”

Rynn sighed a long, cleansing sigh. It was like getting go of a rope you had been dangling from until your arms could take no more. “It’s Harwick. He just let slip that his Veydran family name was Solaran.”

Sosha clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp. “Does he know?” she asked when she took the hand away.

Rynn shook her head, still looking out at the stars. “It was offhanded. If he knew, I doubt I’d be here right now.”

“Do you know how they’re related?” Sosha asked. “The name has to be more than a coincidence.”

“Of course it’s more than a coincidence,” Rynn replied, feeling the tide of panic rising. “But what do I do now? He’s got the books, and he’s only given back three of them so far translated. Do I keep my cards or throw them in?”

“Throwing them in is killing him, isn’t it?” Sosha guessed.

Rynn put her hands against the glass and leaned against it. “Yeah. How do we risk him finding out about Dan, with so much at stake?”

“Are you sure he’d react badly? I mean … it’s hard to overlook how Dan was.”

“Consider Harwick’s age. He’s got to be a great uncle or something at the least, maybe even the kid’s grandfather. Even if he doesn’t hold it against the rebellion, you can bet your back teeth he’s going to get revenge on
me
at least.” Rynn gave a bitter chuckle and pulled the vial from her pocket. “He even gave me this for my father. It’s supposed to reverse aging—one of the wonders of bookish chemistry. I leafed through the book, and there’s a lot of weird substances in there. Acids that can melt through stone, artificial rubber, some disease cures you’re going to want to read up on, a couple—”

“But that’s all in Acardian,” Sosha said. “I can’t read the translations.”

Rynn shrugged. “Least of our worries right now.” She handed the vial to Sosha. “Can you at least take a look at this and make sure it’s not poison or something?”

“Why would it be? Harwick has no way of knowing.”

“He has no way that we know of,” Rynn replied. “He’s a clever old bastard, and he’s happy to tell you about it. If he did know, this might be his vengeance.”

“You’re getting worse with the paranoia,” Sosha said.

Rynn looked up to the moon, with her father tucked away inside. “I know. That’s why I need you. Tell me, should I just open a world-hole while he sleeps, ventilate him, and start over with a new translator?”

“Who would you … no, forget what I was about to ask,” said Sosha. She put a hand on Rynn’s shoulder. “It’s wrong. You can’t just go around killing people ‘just in case.’”