by Jason Fry
But there was nothing except a little more coal and iron. For the first time during the project, Hodey asked if it was time to go to bed when they still had more than an hour left. As Osk and Hodey shuffled off dejectedly, sore and dirty and tired, Stax couldn’t muster the strength to think of words that might rally them.
“One more night,” he told them. “Things can still change.”
He felt numb all the next day, barely hearing Barnacle’s taunts and promises that he would work Stax like a rented donkey once Mrs. Taney declared his project was the failure everyone but Stax and two deluded fools had known it would be.
Stax half-expected Osk and Hodey not to show up for the last night of work, but they were there. They were there, but neither one of them said a word as they descended beneath Brandywine Hill.
They had three branch tunnels left to excavate—two to the left of the feeder tunnel and one to the right—and Stax wondered if they had enough time to finish that work, tired as they were. But there was nothing to do except get started.
The first tunnel yielded a seam of redstone, and Stax smiled at Osk’s glee. At least the little inventor would wind up getting something out of the whole misadventure. Halfway down the second tunnel, Stax noticed he was sweating more than usual, and yelled for Hodey to stop.
The other miner turned in surprise, having managed to stop his pickaxe in midswing.
“Check if that rock’s hot,” Stax said.
“It’s fine,” said Hodey, patting the wall. “See? It’s—wait. You’re right. It’s hot.”
“Shh,” said Osk, holding up her hand. “I hear something.”
Stax heard it too: a bubbling and chuckling noise from behind the rock wall.
“Lava,” he said.
“So we stop?” asked Hodey.
“We can take a look,” Stax said. “But we do it carefully. Dig out the ceiling and raise up the floor, to ensure we’re above it. We’ll dig from there.”
Osk and Hodey did as he directed. They were all sweating freely now in the hot tunnel.
“All right, Hodey,” Stax said. “Osk, have the water bucket ready to pour on any lava that flows in.”
Hodey swung his pickaxe against the rock wall, grunting with the effort. On the third blow, the rock wall exploded inward. Fiery light filled the tunnel, forcing the three of them to blink against the sudden brightness. Stax peered over Hodey’s shoulder at the lake of bubbling lava beyond the wall. Lava, and something bright beyond it…
An arrow zipped above his ear, actually parting his hair, and rattled as it bounced off the walls of the tunnel.
“Skeletons!” Hodey cried out. “Close it up! Close it up! Before they come!”
“No!” Stax yelled, surprising himself. He pushed past Osk and Hodey, scrambling through the gap to stand panting on the stony lip of a pool of lava. Two skeletons stood in front of him, arrows nocked, their skulls swiveling madly on their backbones.
Osk and Hodey were yelling, but Stax barely heard them. He swung his pickaxe at the first skeleton, knocking the monster backward into the lava, its bow bursting into flame before it vanished beneath the surface of the molten rock. A stray gobbet of lava struck Stax on the arm and he heard himself cry out.
The second skeleton fired and Stax grunted with pain. He swung wildly at the skeleton, missing, then connected with the backswing. The skeleton opened its bony jaws, but no sound came out, and Stax brought the pickaxe down again—and kept swinging it.
Someone was yelling his name. It was Osk, he realized.
“Stax! Stop! They’re gone! You’re all right!”
Stax dropped the pickaxe and put his hands on his knees, panting.
“Check…check the rest of the cavern,” he managed to say. “Make sure there aren’t any others.”
“I did,” said Osk. “It’s just us. But Stax, come see!”
Stax looked where the woman was pointing, at the glittering points in the floor and on the walls. The glint of gold. The crimson gleam of redstone. The blue sparks of lapis. And up near the ceiling, a cooler radiance, almost icy.
“Are those what I think they are?” asked Hodey, sounding awestruck.
“They sure are,” said Stax, and he began to laugh. “Diamonds.”
Barnacle’s mania * Digging in the wrong place * Light in the darkness
The lava cavern beneath Brandywine Hill was a nexus of gemstone seams, and the wealth that came out of the mine over the next several days had even the old-timers whistling in delighted surprise. It also made Stax a hero; he was asked to tell the story of the fight in the cavern innumerable times, and often had to deny exaggerated versions of it that were already making the rounds among the miners and the people of Tumbles Harbor.
Within a few years, he was certain, the tale would have grown so large in the telling that miners who’d swear they’d been there would speak in hushed tones about how Stax Stonecutter fought off a dozen skeletons at once, all of them firing flaming arrows and wearing diamond armor.
Mrs. Taney was pleased, of course, going so far as to give Stax a grandmotherly smooch on the cheek in front of the assembled miners before announcing that The Tumbles Extraction Company would be hiring men and women for further excavations.
Even Barnacle congratulated Stax—as he should have, given the size of the cut coming his way despite having done nothing but laugh at the whole project. As for Stax, he received a sack of emeralds along with that kiss on the cheek. He was pretty sure it wasn’t enough wealth to hire the Champion, but it was a start. And once he became a crew boss, he could expect a steady stream of such payments, provided the Tumbles mines kept paying off.
Stax still found himself sitting up at night in the miners’ dormitory, staring down at his compass and brooding about Fouge Tempro and all he’d suffered because of him. Sometimes he imagined taking his sack of emeralds to the general store, outfitting himself in armor, and buying a sharp sword. Then he’d stride out of Tumbles Harbor, face grim, and search for Fouge until he had his chance for revenge—or died trying.
But there was no guarantee that he’d ever find Fouge. And finding a fortune in gems didn’t make Stax a warrior. The wise thing, Stax told himself, was to be patient. He had a job that was bringing in the wealth he could use to arrange Fouge’s downfall, and give him a chance to get home.
But that was a lot easier to think than it was to actually believe. And so night after night, Stax would find the compass in his hand again, as if it were mocking him.
And Stax had another problem. Until Mrs. Taney could find enough miners to handle the new operations beneath Brandywine Hill, Stax was stuck working for Barnacle.
At first Stax thought that might not be so bad. Barnacle stopped addressing Stax as “Sir Stax,” and treated him with more respect than he had. But Stax’s success beneath Brandywine Hill seemed to increase Barnacle’s hunger for money instead of easing it, and now he was determined to prove he could do what Stax had done.
With the calendar having turned to a new month, Barnacle’s crews were now working deep in the mines hunting for gems, with Koppe’s crews working higher and searching for ore. After watching Barnacle push the miners through a grueling shift in which he ordered them to dig seemingly at random, Stax decided to take the man aside and reiterate the system his father had taught him years ago for maximizing the chance of finding wealth.
Barnacle listened, eyes narrowed, as Stax explained why he’d made sure the handle of his pickaxe was exactly a block long, and how he’d used that to measure distance and ensure they were digging just above the lava line.
Which was when Barnacle turned his back on him.
“Stop lying, Stax,” he said. “Spare me that phony story about heroics in that lava cave. You found those veins right at bedrock, and we both know it. So that’s where we’re going to be digging.”
“That
lava cave was real, Mr. Barnacle. In a week or so I’ll take you there myself. If we’d dug into it from below, skeletons would have been the least of our problems. We all could have died! Mr. Barnacle, you can’t do this!”
Barnacle reached out, grabbed Stax by the front of his shirt, and pulled him close. His voice was low and deadly.
“Don’t tell me how to mine. I’ve been down here earning a living since before you were born. You check walls for heat. You watch for strange formations and bright spots. And when your crew boss gives you an order, you follow it.”
* * *
—
The next day Barnacle supervised the excavation of a staircase all the way down to bedrock—and then, once they reached it, he ordered them to dig out a feeder tunnel two blocks wide.
Mrs. Taney had given Osk permission to take the day off and brainstorm creating a depth gauge, despite Stax’s doubts that such a thing could be built. So Tanner had replaced the little artificer on Stax’s crew. Which made Stax nervous: Tanner was even more forgetful than Osk, capable of forgetting the water bucket, torches, and even his pickaxe on occasion.
At least he had Hodey, who took Stax aside when they had a spare moment, looking to make sure Barnacle wasn’t watching.
“Why are we digging down here?” he asked. “You told us we had to dig up first.”
“Those are our crew boss’s orders,” Stax said, reluctantly, not wanting Hodey to risk a confrontation with the volatile Barnacle.
But Tanner wasn’t so restrained. “We’re digging down here because our crew boss is a fool,” he said.
“Just remember the safety checks for lava,” Stax said. “For instance, Tanner, where’s the water bucket?”
“Ah, I left it back at the junction. Gimme a minute.”
“You can’t forget it,” Stax said. “Ever.”
The mining proceeded slowly, with the crews repeatedly hitting bedrock and having to find paths around it. Stax hoped they wouldn’t find anything of value, and that the lack of rewards would convince Barnacle that Stax had been telling the truth. But barely an hour into the shift, Jirwoh’s crew hit a seam of gold, and an hour after that Pyx’s crew located a small, snaking run of lapis.
During the lunch break Barnacle paced the length of the feeder tunnel, slapping men and women on the back and laughing as he predicted the wealth that would soon be flowing in.
“You thought Brandywine Hill was a good payday, just wait!” he exclaimed, and ordered them back to work twenty minutes early, despite Billups’s protest that this was a violation of work rules. The other miners ignored Billups, which was no surprise. The rules-obsessed miner rarely went a day without finding a violation he could talk about at length. And, of course, they were afraid of Barnacle and his temper.
But there wasn’t too much grumbling, and Stax knew why: They all wanted to find more wealth, and take home the bonuses that would come with it.
And that was dangerous. In a mine, haste could be deadly.
When Barnacle went back up to the surface to ask Ms. Lea for additional equipment, Stax checked in quickly with all the mining teams, urging them to check for heat and hardened blobs of magma. Barnacle wouldn’t like that if he found out, but it was better than the alternative.
The crew boss came back after about half an hour, barking for the miners to hurry up. He found Stax, Tanner, and Hodey working sideways around a knot of bedrock, their pickaxes rising and falling, striking sparks from the gray stone.
“Why are you half a tunnel behind every other crew?” Barnacle demanded. “Slowcarts, the three of you. This wealthy lickspittle has one bit of luck, in a mine started by someone else, and now you three think you can swing pickaxes while sitting in comfy chairs on a porch. Well, not on my shift. Hurry it up!”
He stormed off to yell at someone else and Stax shook his head, exasperated.
“He has some nerve, calling us slowcarts,” muttered Tanner. “I’ll show him. Hey, Hodey, I bet we can finish this branch tunnel in half an hour. Are we on?”
“None of that,” Stax said. “We mine what we mine and we find what we find. My father taught me that one too.”
But Tanner and Hodey were determined, and swung their pickaxes as hard as they could, making rock fly as they dug out the tunnel. It was Stax’s turn to follow behind them, clearing away the loose rock, and he was constantly hurrying up and down the tunnel, taking rock away for removal to the surface and returning to find more waiting for him.
He was walking back when he heard the sound: an oddly hollow thunk, followed by a hiss. The tunnel they’d made jogged to the right to avoid a knot of bedrock, so Stax couldn’t see straight ahead to where Tanner and Hodey were working. But he saw bright light beyond the turn, brighter than the soft glow of torchlight.
And he heard Hodey cry out.
“IT’S LAVA! TANNER! GET THE BUCKET! GET THE BUCKET!”
Hodey screamed.
Stax broke into a run, and tripped over something. It was the water bucket, left behind yet again by Tanner. Stax grabbed it and ran around the corner, but one look told him the worst had happened, and he had arrived too late.
Little house on the savanna * Stax’s new routine * Hejira’s code
“You’re sure you won’t change your mind?” Mrs. Taney asked, for the fourth or maybe even the fifth time.
“I’m sure,” Stax said. He was sitting in Mrs. Taney’s office with his gear packed.
“Stax, it wasn’t your fault,” Mrs. Taney said. “I have eyes and ears down there, you know. I know that right before it happened, you warned all the crews about safety. I know how many times Tanner forgot the water bucket. And I know it was Barnacle who insisted on digging too low, despite your warnings. I don’t know what else you think you could have done.”
“I don’t know either, but whatever it was, I didn’t do it. And now Hodey’s dead.”
“Yes, he is. But going off on your own won’t bring him back. It was an accident, Stax, and accidents happen—to solo miners as well as to full crews. In fact, they happen even more often to solo miners, because when you get tired there’s no one next to you reminding you of the dos and don’ts.”
“If I make that mistake, I’ll be the only one to pay the price,” Stax said. “And that’s the way I want it.”
Mrs. Taney looked at him for a long moment, her eyes searching his face, and then she nodded.
“So your plan is to go into the outback and set up your own homestead,” she said. “It’s dangerous out there, Stax. There’s no law, no neighbors, no one to help you if you need it.”
“I know that,” Stax said, patting the sword at his side and pulling the hilt a microblock out of its scabbard. “Actual iron. No more wood.”
“Well, that’s a start,” Mrs. Taney said. “You’ve been to see Brubbs and Xinzi already, I suppose.”
Stax nodded. “The rest of my equipment’s waiting there for me. Along with the title to the land I’ve chosen.”
The iron sword, equipment, and land title had used up more than two-thirds of Stax’s earnings at The Tumbles Extraction Company, leaving him with little margin for error if something went wrong. But Stax didn’t want to talk about how little he had left. If he had, Mrs. Taney might have tried to talk him out of doing the last thing he felt he needed to do.
He reached into the sack he carried at his belt and extracted three emeralds, which he placed in a line on Mrs. Taney’s desk.
“Would you see that these get to Hodey’s sweetheart?” he asked. “It won’t be enough for that undersea palace he was always talking about. But it will help her get something a little smaller.”
Mrs. Taney nodded and tucked the emeralds into her desk drawer. “We’ll take care of her. We do that for our own. Everyone on the shift has given some of their wages. Barnacle even tried to hand over half of his bonus from Brandywine Hill.”
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Stax hadn’t expected that, and found his emotions threatening to get the better of him.
“I figured I couldn’t talk you out of leaving, so I went to the general store myself,” Mrs. Taney said. “I have something for you.”
She ducked into the back room and returned a minute later with a large, T-shaped package, which she indicated Stax should open. He stripped the paper away to discover a brand new pickaxe—one whose head was the cold greenish blue of diamonds.
“That iron one of yours was looking a little worn, and that won’t do out there by your lonesome,” Mrs. Taney said. “If you measure the handle, you’ll find it’s exactly a block long.”
Stax stammered his thanks and stuck out his hand for her to shake.
“Oh, come here, you ridiculous boy,” Mrs. Taney said, embracing him and kissing him on the cheek. “I hate to lose you, but I’ve known enough ridiculous boys over the years to see your mind is made up. Good luck, Stax. Good luck and keep safe.”
* * *
—
The little patch of land Stax had bought was several hours’ walk from Tumbles Harbor, beyond the hills that gave the town its name. Away from the coast, the land turned to savanna, a vast flat expanse of grass that stretched to a line of mountains to the north and away into infinity to the east. The grass was broken by stone-lipped ravines, as if someone had struck the ground with a giant axe, and by tall, brooding acacia trees, whose sharply angled limbs made Stax think they were about to fall over.
Stax’s land was in the middle of the savanna, atop a little hill. Using a shovel he’d bought at the general store, he built a simple cabin of sod like the one he’d built near the shores of Desolation Bay—big enough for a bed, several chests, a crafting table, and a furnace, and lit by a single smoky torch. The cabin had a door of acacia wood from a tree Stax chopped down, and sat in the center of a square of fencing made from the same wood. In the corner of his plot of land Stax had dug out a little pond and planted a few rows of wheat and a few pumpkins, which was enough food to sustain him without the necessity of caring for animals.
