When Draysky next awoke, his grandmother had collapsed on her bed. Aila stole into his room, carrying in soup and water and checking his bandages.
“I think I can stand now,” he said, trying to prop himself up. “After all, I walked all the way home like this.”
“Not with the full fever, you didn’t,” Aila countered, and she felt his temperature again. It was still uncomfortably high, even for one with the sickness. “And not until you tell me what happened up there.”
“You probably wouldn’t believe it,” he said, taking a bite from the warm soup. ”I’m already telling all the ridgers that my belt caught on a rock, and that I never actually fell in.”
“So you did enter the Grinder?”
“That, actually, is probably the most normal part.”
He relayed to her the rest, leaving nothing out. The runes, the ember, Balean. Her eyes widened with each sentence, but not once did she shake her head.
“So, this Balean, where did he go?” asked Aila. “He didn’t come down the mountain with you.”
“He definitely did,” said Draysky. “You mean he isn’t here?”
“We haven’t seen anyone new. Sounds like he might have left you after you freed him.”
Draysky shook his head. Balean had been eccentric, but he’d also seemed keen on helping him from their talk atop the mountain.
“Maybe he’s hiding,” he said. He trailed off, fishing for the sliver of an ember in the pocket of his pants that were hanging from a hook on the wall. His fingers grasped it, and he sighed, the warmth seeming to resonate with the fever.
“See this? Balean treasured this. There’s no way he’s leaving it behind,” he whispered as she leaned in. “This is what made the Grinder turn. It’s not running now that I’ve removed this, Aila. It’s stopped. Completely stopped.”
“Won‘t the Keepers be furious now that they can’t mine crystal? We need to get you out of here.”
“When they find out, yes!” laughed Draysky. “But I don’t think they ever understood how the Grinder worked. Like us, they thought it was natural. There’s at least a few weeks of crystal left in the shale, crystal that they can now mine much more safely. By the time that runs out, we’ll be gone. The Silver Keeper will have arrived and left. We’ll buy back our debt. And then, long after we’ve taken off, they’ll have to shut down the outpost. They’ll have no choice!”
“The easy crystal explains the gifts, then,” said Aila, and she opened the door to Draysky’s room, revealing a mound of items clustered near his bed. There were sacks of salt and resin and a new coat. A few jars of spices, a pair of boots that were worn but with the leather still in good condition, and a gleaming cup from Aleman—one that meant free drinks from the tavern for a month, usually only given to a Keeper that brought him particularly good prices on goods coming to the outpost. There was even a new pickaxe leaning up against his bed. From the tight leather wrapping around the handle, Draysky knew Burnsby had prepared it specially for him.
“They’ve already been up the mountain, so they would have seen that the Grinder has stopped,” Aila explained. “Twice now. All the ridgers are buzzing about how you entered the Grinder and lived. Not only that, but they guard you, Draysky. Two men every night, armed with pickaxes in case the ritebald returns.”
“They wouldn’t be able to buy anything but time,” Draysky said.
“They would find that worth it,” she answered. “But anyway, if we’re to leave, we need all the help we can get. We need to focus elsewhere, on other problems.”
“On big problems,” came their grandmother’s voice as she hobbled into the room, then settled herself back. “Keeper problems. Problems that you should know the history behind, if you’re so intent upon this foolishness.”
Draysky and Aila looked up as one, like children caught stealing from the cupboard with crumbs on their faces.
“Your father also pursued a similar path,” she snapped, and Draysky’s face heated up beyond the fever, and she sighed. “And foolishness or not, it’s time you learned why it didn’t work the last time it was tried, so that you have a chance this time.”
She settled next to them, then spoke.
“Your father seemed to think that times have changed. Perhaps they have, but people do not. I still remember rich man Wallace from when I was young—the man who discovered vaporweed here, and knew of its use. He, too, was a ridger. A lazy one, mind you, always barely scraping by. His children were always scrawny. But vaporweed changed that.
“It only took a year before his children were fatter than mice that stayed the winter in a storehouse. Everyone bought his vaporweed, as he kept the plant's location a precious secret. No one knew what the leaves looked like, as he powdered them. But eventually, even for one as wily as he, he was successfully followed. By one of his children, no less. Word of the plant's description spread, eliminating his singular hold, so anyone who wished to spend time in the wilderness could harvest it. And many did.
“Now, Wallace was as smart as he was lazy, and he’d saved up the majority of his money in chits lining the inside of his mattress, so many that his wife couldn’t sleep from discomfort. It was said that he had hired multiple ridgers simply to watch over his house to prevent thieving, for his wealth alone was nearly that of the entire outpost combined. And when the vaporweed no longer paid, he counted his chits and realized that he could survive with his family for twenty years before they ran dry. Twenty years, then it was back to ridging.
“So Wallace set his sights to the south, to the lands beyond the outpost. After all, if he was no longer tied to the outpost by debt, why not simply leave now that he had no profit stream? He packed up his remaining chits and loaded them onto a cart with his family. And they left for brighter futures.
“But Wallace had a peculiar habit with his chits. To keep himself from overspending, every chit he intended to save he would mark, a single scratched line through the center. Few of these ever made it into the currency, as Wallace hoarded them. Before he left, they were so rare that the children called them “Wallace’s worthies,” as he would buy them back from them for equal chits and a candy.
“After he left, Wallace was never heard from again. No mail to his cousins, nothing.
“But the day after, anyone who went to the Keeper’s store received Wallace’s chits back as change. Chits that were once rare in the general currency.”
Aila and Draysky were silent for a moment, before Aila spoke.
“You think the Keepers killed him?”
“Killed or robbed. Is there so much difference on the unknown road? The moral remains: You can’t buy your way out of the outpost. The only people in my long time I’ve seen leave, with letters returning to their families, are those who became Keepers themselves.”
“There’s no way I’m joining them,” Draysky said, sitting upright. “Not after what they’ve done.”
“Perhaps not,” said his grandmother, standing to leave. “Or, perhaps they provide you a nice ride to the city, thinking that you are an asset. Then, you disappear among the crowds. It’s better than disappearing on the road, where you are actually disappearing, forever.”
“She has a point,” said Aila after his grandmother stood and departed. “You don’t actually have to do anything for them, or become one of them. You just have to use them. And now that you can draw runes, well, why shouldn’t they make you a Keeper?”
“Because I can’t draw runes. Not like they can, not without a source. An aurel, Balean called it,” Draysky said, and he held up the sliver of burning ember. “This is what really draws them.”
For a moment, his sister was quiet, her nose scrunched together.
“But they don’t have to know that,” she said. She took Draysky’s hand, forcing it open to reveal the cuts along his palm, one deep enough that she had had to stitch it. Then she traced from his palm up to his index fingertip, indenting it with her nail, next to the other broken bones. “After all, they draw the rune
s with their fingertips. Your hand already has so many scars, and this sliver is small.”
She rushed over to her medical bag, pulling out a razor.
“Small enough to fit in a finger.
Three Keepers met in darkness.
There was Oliver, with a stack of green cards in front of him. Each of those represented a month of quota under his command for his team, and his fingers pinned them down to the table as if a wind might sweep them away.
There was Junice, her short, cropped hair falling just past her ears. More to keep them warm than for fashion. In Consuo, that hair would be cut shorter to counter the heat. In her hand she held a record book, in the other a pen, and she stood rather than sat. The tip of her pen was poised, ready to write, and all knew that whatever entered that notebook made its way back to the city, then the Tower. Few had seen Junice about the outpost, for she spent the majority of her days counting figures and projecting crystal estimates in the warm interior of her home or the back of the Keeper store.
Then there was Store Keeper Weris, sitting with his back to a heater illuminated by a sparkling red rune. Even among the Keepers, few could afford the kernels to keep that powered day and night. He pushed down his glasses, blinked, and motioned for Oliver to begin.
“When I was convicted, I was sent to the outpost for five years to amend for my crime,” Oliver said, then he pushed forward the tickets. “To pay back the Keepers for your actions, the council said. Time, however, is not the only resource that has value, and the High Keepers realize this. So the council added an addendum: Should I complete four months of quota in a row at any point, I should be released.”
“Four months of quota has never occurred throughout the history of this outpost. What the judge wrote is hyperbole, an impossible goal to underscore the severity of your sentence,” Weris argued.
“And yet, it is written,” said Oliver, tapping the card receipts. “I have the documentation, as does she.”
“Confirmed,” stated Junice, removing a sheet of paper from a folder and passing it to Weris, who scanned it over before pushing it back toward her like a spoiled meal.
“You did so by empowering a ridger for them to rally behind. What’s this I hear, that he somehow stopped the Grinder? If we, the Keepers, haven’t succeeded with that for years, then how do you think he will be viewed among his own people.”
“I achieved your quota,” said Oliver, crossing his arms. “There were no other conditions.”
“You leave a steaming pile of droppings in your wake for me to handle after you are gone. You succeeded by cheating. Every dozen or so years, one of these ridgers gets the idea that they can rise up. Usually, that can be dealt with quietly. But him? He would become a martyr.”
“You think I like him? I thought he died on the blasted mountain. I’d rather he had,” Oliver shot back.
“I’m sure you would, after what he did to your hand. You should have struck him down then and there, before he could gain momentum.”
“I tried–”
“You tried what? Are you telling me you couldn’t stand against a simple knotted? No wonder they sent you to me for reformation.” He waved a hand in dismissal to Oliver, while the muscles on the side of the young man’s jaw bulged. “You’ll ride with the Silver Keeper back to Consuo. You got what you wanted, but not my approval. Now, leave us. We have to work to counteract your incompetence.”
“Incompetence? I achieved what has never been accomplished here!”
“By giving them a hero. If you are so sure, shall we add a clause to that contract? That if there is no resulting riot or incident in the next six weeks, that you may leave? I’d be happy to do so. I would even send you on your way with a year of my pay if that were to occur.”
Oliver stared, his expression dark, but his mouth unmoving, until Weris spoke again.
“No? Good. Now out of my sight.”
Oliver left in a flurry, though he caught the door before it slammed and stomped off into the snow. Weris waited for a moment, then drew a rune in the air, severance, the lines glowing a dull blue. The kernels within the heater behind him flashed to power it. Junice’s ears popped as the air from the windows and doors pulled inward, creating a shallow vacuum around them—a trick, she knew, that Weris was quite fond of. That layer, despite its thinness, insulated sound better than a ten foot wall.
“When you return to the Tower, I want you to fully report on his ineptitude to the council. When they want to know why their quota is not met in six months, his name should be on the tip of your tongue.”
“Of course. I shall include it in the sealed notes.”
“Good. Which leaves us with the problem that he left behind.” The heat runes behind Weris flared as he sighed and turned back to Junice. “What information do you have on the ridger? I vaguely remember him from the store—seemed incapable of keeping his own house patched together.”
“Not much. He’s young, barely started shifts. Already gathering support, and he’s pulled in more crystal on his own the last few weeks than multiple other ridgers combined.”
“Until he fell in. Surely, he must have been lucky that the Grinder faltered as he was about to be crushed.”
“The Grinder has been running for over a hundred years, but I suppose that is a possibility.”
“I don’t see any other possibility. What else do you know?”
“Family decimated by the ritebald attack not long ago. That, and he sells the runed lighters that have been popping up among the Keeper ranks.”
“Ah, the vaporweed ones? It will be good to be rid of him, the drug makes the men lazy. And the ritebald, you say? Little family left behind, skill with runes… Junice, I say we have a solution that resolves all of our problems and gives the ridgers their win at the same time.”
“Indeed. It would be the only logical one,” she said, nodding as she tapped her pen on the open page. “Shall I make it official?”
“Do so. And be sure to inform the Silver Keeper as soon as he arrives. I want this to go smoothly. I know you are fond of your numbers and might rather keep him, but remember our purpose here is far more than mining crystal.”
“Of course,” she said, and she flipped to a page in her records. One that listed all of the names to be found in the outpost, as well as their positions. Many, with “wife” or “child” next to their name, or “Keeper,” or “unusable.” Many, as well, with “deceased.” Running her pen down the page, she found Draysky’s name, then struck through “ridger” next to it, replacing it with a new word.
“Keepered.”
Chapter 43: Draysky
The Silver Keeper arrived as he always had, in the middle of the night, when the town was still with sleep. He left his cart two miles up the road and hiked the remaining distance into the outpost. There, he met with Weris and recovered the most recent notes from Junice. Most importantly, he pulled his costume from storage, dusting it off as well as donning the ornamental rings and jewelry. He checked over the runes Weris had prepared days before he arrived in exchange for the kernels he brought from the Tower.
Then he returned to his cart, his servant keeping the horses tended, and performed a last check over his attire with a hand mirror. Had he returned to the Tower like this, he’d be laughed out of the inner ring. He might even lose his room on the Tower's ground level for mocking the Keepers. But this wasn’t the Tower, and here, in the outpost, the gaudy outfit differentiated him.
“Last of the line,” he sighed to his servant. “After this, we go home.”
“Word is we might need to handle the far south outposts in the future,” said the servant, and the Silver Keeper shook his head.
“Not necessary. They don’t need the same show of attention as the two northern ones. The only reason we go to the other outposts is because they’re on the way here. I daresay the others could survive without monitoring. But this one, this one the Tower keeps an eye on. This is why we’re paid extra, along with the Keeper traveling to the sister
outpost.”
He spat in the snow, watching it freeze as he drew another breath. Thank the heavens he was paid extra for his travels; few others would risk their lives like this. The cold he could handle. The long hours of riding were an inconvenience. Not knowing if he would breach into living hell when he entered the outpost, that was another thing altogether.
Of course, his uncle had left that part out when offering the position. “For your skill, this is the best I can arrange for you,” his uncle had said. Which was easy for his uncle to say, considering he lived on the Tower’s third level. “Now, don’t give me that look. This is a wonderful chance at exposure for you. When reporting back, you may just be speaking to the higher Keepers. I’m not sure what more you can ask for, considering your rank. We gave you multiple tries there, multiple chances. This, while not perfect, is a welcome change. View it as an opportunity.”
“Opportunity my ass,” grunted the Silver Keeper now as the wagon pulled up to the outpost. As he arrived, a figure ran forward, that of Junice, catching his cart before the ridgers spotted it.
“It’s Weris,” she said, her voice blunt as usual. “He’s come down with the fever. He won’t be coming out, but trusts you to run the day. He very specifically said to me, and I reiterate, 'Don’t mess this up.'"
“Bring the one Keeper home, Keeper the one ridger. Not much to mess up. Crotchety old bastard.”
“He also instructed me to return with whatever you say, and note it.”
“Then if it’s already written, I say it again. Crotchety old bastard. Bringing me here with a fever going around no less. Wonderful. Now I get to vomit the entire way back to the Tower.”
“Noted,” Junice said, and he turned away, his servant ushering the horses forward. Like he and Weris, Junice was aware of the outpost’s true nature.
If they all only knew, the Silver Keeper thought, as the villagers and the Keepers came into view. If they only knew what kind of bomb they were sitting upon. Then I’d be the one warning them to be more careful. Heavens, if it were up to me, I would have buried this in shale years ago.
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