On the days Oliver offered extra pay, Draysky brought up enough crystal to carry the crew. Enough crystal that the other crews, too, whispered of him, and ridgers parted beyond his bulky coat. Here, the boy that had once made them lighters, and who had once been eager and pliable, had been changed. Carved anew by the ritebald that had killed his parents into a figure of sheer determination, one even Oliver had reduced jibing, and even the most experienced ridgers nodded as he passed.
Moonlighter, they whispered, along with rumors he chewed vaporweed for his courage.
For none would follow him. To them, two and a half times pay was not enough to double the length of their rope, or to work until their bones ached and muscles screamed. That was no life to live, and it was certainly a short one.
But for Draysky, that life was temporary. Soon, the Silver Keeper would return, after months of work and saving from Draysky and Aila, hoarding every bit of money they could.
And his well waited, now with so many chits hidden that the Keepers had to make more to pay the ridgers each day.
Chapter 30: Draysky
“Four times pay, you bastard! Four times, if you pull up as many buckets as half the team. And I want quality crystal!”
It was the next quota day, and Oliver was behind more than ever. There were two reasons for this. First, the Keepers above him had noticed him meeting quota every month. If quota was being met, that meant quota could be raised, and they had increased it by ten percent. Second, and with more of an impact, was the winter fever that rampaged through the outpost. Every year the fever came with the change of seasons. As winter turned to spring, the fever came to chase the bitterest of the cold away with the rising heat of the ridgers’ bodies. The fever did not discriminate; young and old, man and woman, Keeper and ridger, it descended upon them. And though deaths were exceedingly rare, none who came down with the fever could lift a pickaxe, let alone swing it. In a particularly bad fever year, the Keepers had tried to force a team of ridgers sick with the disease up the mountain. None made it to the top. Two died, and the rest were bedridden for weeks.
This year had been savage. At least half the ridgers had failed to show at the morning roundup, and Oliver threatened to barge into their homes and personally pull them out of their beds. But it had not struck until the last week of the month, and though almost impossible, meeting quota was still within his grasp. They had been a full day ahead, and so long as they did not slide back, they’d make it with ease.
“I’m not just holding him accountable!” Oliver shouted, his finger cutting across the others. “I know plenty of you bastards despise me. You probably want to get rid of me, don’t you? Well, here’s a little secret for every one of you. If we make this quota, you can do just that. I’m here until I hit quota four times in a row, so here is your chance to get rid of me. Bring up enough crystal and you can wave me goodbye. If you don’t, well, just imagine how angry I’ll be when I have to stay. You won’t even have to imagine it, I’ll make it quite clear to you!”
His fingers flexed in the glove, and for a moment, Draysky could smell its sweet scent—not from proximity, but from memory. The side of his face stung as well, and he narrowed his eyes. Out of the Keepers, Oliver was the most dangerous due to his temper. Not just that, he was among the few that knew just how far Draysky’s ability had advanced. Burnsby had continued to warn Draysky that his increased crystal production was treacherous, and his grandmother had reiterated what had happened to his ancestors when they were deemed too powerful. With Oliver gone, Draysky would effectively reduce the Keepers' memory of his skills, as Oliver was one of the few that had personally seen it.
That night after a productive day in the Grinder, he and Aila worked out the exact amount of crystal he would need to bring up depending on how many ridgers fell to the fever. Then she prepared him a brew of herbs, making him down it freezing cold, so that it stung his throat.
“These will keep the fever at bay, should you catch it. They won’t make you immune, they’ll simply push out the onset by a week or so. But when it comes, you’ll have it worse than most and be bedridden.”
“It’s worth it to get rid of Oliver. I only need a few days,” said Draysky, grimacing at the bitter aftertaste. “What exactly is in that?”
“Half of the ingredients, you don’t want to know. But I’ll tell you the worst one anyway,” she said, then she held out her hand, where a small insect was curled dead in her palm. “Crushed up singer bugs. They chirp all year round, as if no change in temperature will affect them. Mixed in with some nistlante, that should prevent the fever from having as much of an effect on you as well as slowing down its progression. But once this drink wears off, you’ll crash. Its boost is not free. Think of it like ice. Eventually ice melts, and when it does so you’ll lose all the protection it offers. Don’t plan anything for this coming week.”
“Sounds like something to look forward to,” said Draysky. “Also, by the looks of it, we’ll be down to three quarters of a team tomorrow—only eighteen ridgers unless someone else falls ill. How much extra do I need?”
“Pull up four ridgers' worth, and you’ll be in a good spot,” she said after a few moments of calculation. That would be easy with the veins, and manageable without arousing Keeper suspicion beyond what we had already done.
He succeeded in that number, and returned the next night to Aila. Four days were now left, and they were still ahead. In fact, that day they had ridged more than normal.
“Six more ridgers down. Just a half crew, " he said. She scratched numbers into the floor, eyes narrowing
“Can you do seven ridgers' worth? That puts you in a good place.”
“I can, but it’s going to be a stretch.” But the next day, he pulled up seven ridgers' worth of crystal, and fortunately only had half the witnesses. Oliver’s eyes were wide, but in a few days, if all went well, he would be departing.
“Same number of ridgers, three days left,” Draysky said.
“You’ll need to match yesterday, then,” she answered, and he pulled them up. That night, however, word reached Aila about new cases of the fever spreading through the outpost, and she counted as she tended each.
“Illem and Fidel are sick,” she reported when returning home.
“So are four others leaving the mountain today,” said Draysky. “Leaving us with a crew of only six. Six, to do the work of twenty four men.”
Aila wiped her brow, then scribbled once more on the stone. When he saw the number that she produced, Draysky shook his head.
“There’s no way I can provide that much. The buckets don’t move fast enough,” he said. “Even if I filled them instantly, it would be impossible.”
“Then get two baskets,” Aila said. “Look, you’ve already shown Oliver what you can do. Only six ridgers are going to see it, and the others will blame it on the fever. We’re too deep into this now.”
After returning home the next day, Draysky was so tired that he passed out for dinner, only awakened by his sister bringing a bowl to him, along with a cup.
“I dipped into the well, just slightly,” she said, pushing them toward him. “But to get rid of Oliver, it’s worth it. Eat up. You have two more bowls of this waiting.”
Draysky tried to protest through his exhaustion about using well funds, but his eyebrows shot up when they saw the stew. Thick and hearty, large chunks of meat, and an enormous slice of bread. He barely noticed the now-familiar smell of singer bugs. He dug a spoon in, listening as Aila spoke again.
“I’ve added some extra herbs to that cup. They aren’t cheap, but they should help with relaxing your muscles tonight so you aren’t sore tomorrow. You’re going to need it, Draysky. We’ve had two more ridgers go down—there will only be four of you. Burnsby’s one of the sick ones.
“Three of us,” said Draysky. “Erki doesn’t count. How we got stuck with him being healthy, I don’t know. Take good care of Burnsby, he’s older, but he’s only been holding my rope, so that shouldn't h
urt us much. Put Erki in his place and we shouldn’t even notice, so long as he pulls the buckets up fast enough and I keep him on his toes.”
They left for the Grinder a full hour earlier than normal, and true to Aila’s words, Draysky’s body only felt like it had undergone a moderate shift on the mountain the day before. Even Oliver helped carry the equipment up, since there were so few hands, and each of their packs was several pounds heavier from loading gear that was normally distributed. That week, he’d been chiseling for them as well, knowing that without his help they would never reach the quota. But he used a special chisel with a rune in the handle, and that split the rock with a far easier tap. Draysky had tried to catch a glimpse of it, and after being unsuccessful had resolved to steal the chisel after Oliver had departed. That rune on his pickaxe would let him split larger rocks with ease, and there had been times when his boots had heated up near those. He knew there to be crystal inside, but it would take too long to dig it out.
“You must really hate me, to still be trying to make quota,” said Oliver as they walked up the mountain. “You know, after all this time, Crystal King, I think I might even miss you. Might.”
“I just want a full dinner,” said Draysky, avoiding the Keeper’s trap.
“Ha! I can see it in your eyes, you can’t wait for me to be gone.” Oliver spit off the mountainside, then turned his attention back toward the path. “Not that I should care. You’re a ridger, you’re not going anywhere. At least you’re good at it, eh?”
“Maybe I’ll get taken up to become a Keeper one day. Just maybe.”
Oliver frowned, looking at him, and shook his head.
“Not for you, Draysky, not for you. You’re too good of a ridger to lose. Ha! That will be something for you to remember me by, won’t it? Right when I leave, I’m writing the Silver Keeper himself. Letting him know that under no circumstances should you be drafted as a Keeper. You’re welcome. And just know this. Years later, when you’re thinking of me, I won’t be remembering you. I’ll have better things to do.”
Draysky pressed his lips together, refusing to reply. A reply would make that notion stick in Oliver’s head. And while he had no intentions of being a Keeper, he did not need the Silver Keeper considering him valuable enough to trap at the outpost.
At the top of the mountain, Erki joined Draysky, listening as Draysky explained how to use two buckets.
“Don’t worry about shalestrikes. Your sole focus is on reeling these in quickly, Erki. As soon as you feel the tug, you pull.”
“Think you’re so strong that a shalestrike can’t hurt you? No way am I not calling those out and getting whipped by the Keepers.”
“Erki, I’ll be fine. The buckets, focus on the buckets. Now, each of these needs its own stake, you understand? They’re too heavy for a single one. Drive them in real deep. And if you need help, you shout out for Oliver. He’s so desperate, even he will lend a hand.”
“Draysky, there are four of us. There’s no way we are making quota. No one else even has to work today, they’re all in bed.”
“Because they’re sick,” Draysky sighed, then looked back at Erki, drawing himself up to his full height. With his shielded coat, not only was he taller than Erki, but far as well. “You listen here. I’ve carried your weight before, and today is no different. But I can’t pull the buckets up while I’m ridging. If you don’t keep them moving, I’m sending you down into the ridge while I take my own break. When you come back up, I’m hitting you in the face so hard you tumble the entire way back down to the bottom, then I’m sliding down after you to where the Keepers can’t break us up. There I’ll show you something that hurts far more than a shalestrike. You understand?”
Erki’s face turned white, and he nodded. Just a few months ago he would have laughed off the threat, but after even Oliver had seemed unable to control Draysky, fear entered his eyes.
“But if you do work the buckets, I’ll speak with Aleman. And for a whole week, you can have as much beer and vaporweed as you can stomach,” Drayksy continued, then he finished with his harness. The first bucket was already tied to a stake, and he left the second for Erki to complete. “Work hard, Erki, for just this once. Just this one time, then you can go back to whatever the hells you wish.”
Draysky fell backward over the edge of the Grinder, bouncing along the shale. Every few kicks, he felt his toes warm, a sign that he had just bounded atop crystal. When he reached the end of his line, he shuffled his feet over shale, searching for the vein. In minutes he found it, his boot heating up almost uncomfortably as he stood direct over it and started swinging. He kept that boot back—too close, and his feet would develop blisters. Once he had even found holes burned in his sock after returning home.
Now, before the second bucket came, he exposed as much of the vein as possible, raking away shale in a long strip that would fill at least four buckets. Then he started piling the shale up, finishing just as the second bucket came hurtling down. He tugged at the rope, and the first began to slide back up the Grinder, too slowly for his liking, but probably good enough. The second bucket he finished before the first had returned, but he continued clearing away more shale, panting as the rock flew behind him. He filled this bucket more than normal as he waited—the sooner he could get the shale to Oliver, the better, and if he had to walk the last bucket up by himself, then he would.
By second shift, he was slightly ahead of Aila’s prediction, sweat freezing on the tips of his hair from determination. Still, the vein had not yet run dry. But the buckets were rising slower and slower as Erki tired, and the other ridgers looked to be working at a decreased pace. Perhaps they were coming down with the fever as well, and Draysky cursed as the next bucket from Erki took nearly a half hour to return.
“Damn it,” he hissed. “He’ll probably still want his beer and vaporweed, too.”
As the sun started to set, Draysky filled his final bucket higher than the others. He wanted no chance that they would come up short, and he continued until it was piled twice as high with crystal, and then some. Once it was complete, he’d climb to the top and help pull, and their quota would be hit.
Just a few more shovelfuls, he thought, relishing the idea of Oliver departing alongside the Silver Keeper. He tossed a particularly large crystal rock on the pile, then froze as the rock slid under him. He whipped around to look at the Grinder, but there was no coming shalestrike; rather, it looked calm as the day came to a close, as if it too were rejoicing in Oliver’s final day. Then Draysky felt the shift again, and he gripped his pickaxe tight, searching for the source.
He found it too late. It wasn’t the shale that had been shifting, but the rope that held him in place. Once more it shifted, and in an instinctual panic he gripped it with both hands. Instead of providing tension, the tether gave way, his heart leaping into his mouth as he fell backward, the shale grating against the shielding on his back. This far down, the slope was far steeper than high above. He had relied on his rope to hold his weight, and he always staked himself in to make sure that the anchor would be strong enough.
He spun on his back, and he screamed as the heart of the Grinder approached, its gnashing maw now laughing as he spread his arms and legs wide to slow his descent. His limbs caught on the shale and dragged it down with him, creating a rockslide that he surfed upon, the rope slithering behind him with nothing to attach to. High above, one of the ridgers leapt toward it, catching it in his hands just before Draysky reached where the churning rock turned liquid. He lurched to a stop, nearly crying with relief as the rolling shale pulled at his boot, and he reached out to claw himself up the mountain.
But as quick as the relief had come, it died as the rope was ripped from the ridger’s grasp, just as Drysky managed to take hold of the bucket that had tumbled after him. He’d been intending to use it as a makeshift paddle to jab into the shale, but now it was little more than a sled, as he tumbled down into the Grinder twice as fast as before.
The gnashing was now
all he could hear, and with it, a heat that poured from the Grinder’s mouth as if it were breathing. Then his legs caught in the draining shale, and he forced himself upward one last time, taking a breath of air so dusty that he immediately coughed it back up. As the Grinder consumed him, the shale already starting to pierce the front of his coat, the last thing Draysky saw was Erki putting on his harness, Oliver pointing down to the Grinder below. Not to Draysky, but to the masses of crystal that had fallen from his bucket as the rope came loose.
The last bucketful needed for quota.
Chapter 31: Lucille
The Keepers were allotted two days off a week, depending on their shifts and duties, but for a Lock there were no true days off. Lock was not merely a position, but a life choice. So Lucille spent those days looking after her dominion: Heaven One.
Not all of Heaven One, of course. That would be far too extensive, like giving her control over an entire continent when she only owned a harbor. No, rather she took her usual walk around Downeytown, checking for anything out of order, anything suspicious or astray. Downeytown was, of course, simply the accommodations for the first gate. The inn at the crossroads for weary travelers returning home or those seeking to move deeper. But more than that, it was an alarm.
Everything seemed just a touch brighter in Heaven One. The flowers, the buildings, even the dirt seemed more interesting. Sounds carried farther, the whispers of the rustling leaves calling out to her, as if each held a secret meant for her ears alone. From her spot on the cliffs above Downeytown, Lucille could smell the sweet pastries of the bakery shops below, often sold with small trinkets for tourists to take home for keepsakes. At the very center of the town, a road cut directly between the buildings, a road embedded with kernel dust so that it shone while bisecting the city, leading all the way to the gates beyond—a massive arch set into the cliff, the stone doors wide open, leading back to Earth.
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