Cipher Hill

by Joseph R. Lallo

  The others laughed.

  “You’re from the surface. You wouldn’t know something worth selling in the fug if it bit you on the leg.” He held out his hand, and one of the grunts handed him a bag. “Now, if you’d like to see something that’d fetch a tidy price, have a look at these.”

  He opened the bag and held it out. She gazed into it, but before she could work out what she was looking at, she heard a rustling farther out in the darkness. She glanced up and saw eyeshine in the trees.

  “Heads up!” she said, snatching her pistol and leveling it.

  “Oi! Easy!” he said, holding up a hand. “Deek, move them back. They’re upsetting the customer.”

  One of the traders turned and clucked his tongue. The eyes blinked, then vanished amid some further rustling.

  “What was that?” Lil asked.

  “Never mind. Down to business, love. Have a look.”

  She reluctantly took her eyes from what now felt like a very threatening darkness. He actually had an interesting assortment of goods, including pelts she’d never seen before and some jewelry made from polished and carved bone. Two pendants in particular caught her eye.

  “How much for these?” she asked.

  He glanced at her pistol. “You willing to part with the revolver?”

  “Heck no.”

  He sucked his teeth. “Ammo then?”

  “How much?”

  “Five boxes of bullets that’ll fit this.” He clicked open his revolver to give her a glimpse of the caliber.

  She weighed the offer, then rummaged in her pockets.

  “I got… two unopened boxes and whatever’s left in this third one.”

  “I said five, love.”

  “I got two and change. But if you keep callin’ me ‘love,’ I’d be glad to give you what’s loaded in the gun if you ain’t too choosy about where I put it.”

  “Price don’t go lower than four.”

  “Tell you what. I’ll give you the five, but you got to answer me a couple questions.”

  “Depends on the questions.”

  “You heard of Ferris Tusk?”

  “Have we heard of Ferris Tusk?” he said, his tone suggesting he was insulted. “A man would have to have his head buried in mud or come from the surface to not know about Ferris Tusk.”

  “You got any idea where he’s hangin’ about these days?”

  “People keep talking about Tusk like he’s a going concern,” Deek said.

  Lil raised her eyebrows. “Care to explain that?”

  “A strange fellow came trotting through The Thicket like it was a jog through the park,” he said.

  “And they were askin’ about Tusk?” Lil said.

  “He. Or she. Wasn’t clear. But it was askin’ about people askin’ about Tusk.”

  “That a usual thing? Folks comin’ through the forest on foot?”

  “No. That’s why it stuck out. And then here you are, showin’ up and askin’ the question it was askin’ about.”

  “You give me a description and we’ll call it five boxes.”

  “Ax-crazy grin, purple hair, too many guns, and loads of knives,” Deek said.

  “Sounds like a real fun fella.” She called up to the ship, “Drop me three boxes of revolver ammo! A deal’s a deal,” she said, offering her hand again.

  This time he shook. They exchanged ammo for amulets, and, before she could say goodbye, the strange traders vanished into the darkness.

  “Funny sort of fellas…” Lil said, turning for the tree to climb back to the ship.

  #

  The Wind Breaker slowed as they approached a city below. Donald and Kent were on watch, as was Nita.

  “Oh, la-dee-dah,” Donald rumbled. “Who do these ritzy people fink they are?”

  Nita paced over to their side of the ship. “Forgive my ignorance, but it doesn’t look so impressive from here.”

  “Oh, come off it,” Kent said. “Look at these buildings. All fixed up. And that mooring station. This is the fug. No one fixes up anything that isn’t being used, or about to be used. There isn’t a building in this place that hasn’t been prettied up. And the lights are lit. Every last one of them. But look at the streets. Not used. Those building are empty. Kept warm, kept lit. Kept comfortable. But empty. It’s all show.”

  Donald gestured. “Over that way? A work colony. Three men to a bunk. Back before I got locked up in Skykeep, I’d sleep outside. Weren’t no shortage of places I could sleep. Plenty of beat-up buildings that I could’ve knocked together into a nice place. But it wasn’t mine. So I slept outside. While these lousy buildings sat empty. For show.”

  Nita looked down again. “The unbridled extravagance of a warm hearth in an empty home,” she said. “I had no idea.”

  “Why you fink we’re so eager to help you poke holes in what these folks built?” Donald said.

  Nita glanced around the city. The workers and servants were scurrying about, clearly concerned by the arrival of the most notorious ship ever to dip down into the fug. She usually felt a mixture of pride and shame at being a part of something that could cause such fear at its mere arrival. Right now, it was entirely pride.

  “Captain? Are we ready to drop anchor?” Nita called.

  “We sure ain’t trustin’ that mooring crew.” The captain threw a switch, and their heavy iron anchor dropped down, shattering the flagstone. “You boys know what to do, right?”

  “Ask questions about Tusk, then wreck the place,” Kent said. “Not terribly tricky.”

  “Questions first. That’s why we’re sending you. These aren’t the usual sort of scum we’re accustomed to dealing with. May as well give them a chance to play along.”

  “I’m looking forward to the looks on their faces when they don’t,” Kent said.

  “You want Lil and Coop to watch your backs?” Mack said. “Just outside the door?”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” Kent said.

  #

  Donald kicked open the door of the Ruby Club. He and Kent ducked to enter.

  “You blokes really ought to build proper-size doors,” Donald said, glancing about.

  The interior of the club was the very essence of civility. Large, overstuffed velvet chairs. Hunting trophies littering the walls. Polished-wood furniture with intricate inlays. And a large, crackling fire. A long-faced server looked to Kent and Donald with the same expression he would have had if a pair of rats had scurried through the door.

  Their arrival stirred the member of the club currently in attendance from a doze.

  “What’s all this?” said a portly fug man dressed as though he were fresh from an expedition.

  “Well I’ll be,” Kent said, marching up to him. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fat fugger before.”

  The long-faced steward stepped between Kent and the man. “Unless you have business with Mr. Barnum, and I am quite certain I would have been alerted if you had, then I am afraid I must ask you to leave.”

  “I fink we do have business wiff… Barnum, was it?” Donald said.

  “Bah. I would not associate with such coarse ruffians,” Barnum said. “Take them away.”

  The steward crossed his arms. “I must ask you to leave, sirs.”

  Kent glanced about. “Or what?”

  “I shall call the authorities.”

  Kent beckoned the steward closer, then cupped his hand to his own ear.

  “You hear that? That sort of churning rumble outside?”

  “Yes…”

  “That’s the Wind Breaker. And we’re here as their more reasonable spokespeople. Don’t you think you’d be better off talking to us than dealing with them?”

  The steward glanced to one of his subordinates. The underling rushed to the door and peeked out the window. He looked back, face even whiter than before, as though he’d been looking into the maw of a wild animal.

  “… How may I help you, sirs?”

  “We’re here to talk about Ferris Tusk.”

  “Fine
man. Fine figure of history,” Barnum said, raising a snifter of brandy from beside him. His voice managed to convey a tone of bluster and hyperbole with the most innocuous of statements.

  “What do you know about him?” Donald asked.

  “Only what the history books say, naturally.”

  Kent stepped forward. “Do you remember Lucius P. Alabaster?”

  “Fine chap. Fine chap. Many a day I regaled him with my adventures. Do you fellows know I once matched wits with—”

  “Alabaster says Tusk was the fire tender at this very club for a number of years,” Kent said.

  “Nonsense.”

  “Did you lose your fire tender recently?”

  “He’s right there.”

  Kent turned to find a diminutive and youthful fug man, by fug standards at least.

  “He new?” Donald asked the steward.

  “Yes. Our previous fire tender resigned a few months ago.”

  “That was Tusk,” Kent said.

  “The devil you say,” Barnum said. “Impossible.”

  “Does anyone know anything about him?”

  “I am afraid not. He was a holdover from the previous staff. He arrived in a timely manner, did his job well. I didn’t worry myself with anything further.”

  “Ah, yes. Yes, I recall him now. Good riddance he’s gone,” Barnum said. “Horrible riffraff with his bloody hollow accent. Glad to be rid of him. It’s bad enough that squatter moved in.”

  “Squatter?” Donald said.

  “Yes,” the steward said wearily. “We’ve been having some problems with someone lingering next door. Moving sacks of this and that into the unoccupied building. Despite repeated requests and several encounters with the constabulary, the trouble persists. A deplorable state of affairs.”

  “For how long?”

  “Just a few days. I am confident it will be solved shortly.”

  The next comment came from the rear of the room. “Misplaced confidence. A frequent fault of the landed gentry.”

  All turned to the source of the voice. It came from a heavily armed and black-belted lunatic with a grin well suited to that status. Four of the six holsters on the front of the fiend’s outfit were still populated with assorted firearms. The remaining two weapons were already in hand.

  “But then, who am I to talk?” Fritz said, pacing closer. “I was so certain the Wind Breaker crew would do their own dirty work that I lit the fuses before I even left to gun down the ones unlucky enough to be dispatched to the Ruby Club directly.”

  Kent and Donald dove aside and upended some tables, launching polished silver and fine glassware into the air as they took cover.

  “Relax, gents. I’ve been hired to kill the Wind Breaker crew, no their subcontractors.”

  “Who in blazes are you?” Donald barked, fumbling with his own gun.

  “An opportunist working for the very man you are looking for. And I’ve presumably been hired to keep you from finding him. Knowing that Alabaster was hired by him and knowing that Alabaster spent his days here prior to that time, and further knowing that the Wind Breaker, having had their way with Alabaster, would know this, the Ruby Club seemed the natural place to—”

  Donald and Kent, finally getting their weapons in order, didn’t wait for the end of the explanation. They popped up from behind the tables long enough to fire three shots each. Fritz sprang aside with an acrobat’s grace, taking cover behind a heavy display cabinet.

  “Really now, gentlemen. There is such a thing as manners!”

  Fritz leaned out and opened fire, alternating each pistol with a rapidity that made it seem as though he were wielding some manner of fully automatic weapon. In moments a dozen shots were fired, all but shredding the heavy tables protecting the grunts. An instant later Coop and Lil burst inside, pistols in hand, and opened fire. Fritz dashed across the floor, grin still wide and a demented laugh shrieking almost as loud as the gunfire. The would-be assassin’s aim was pathetic, even when evading bullets wasn’t a concern, but the volume of rounds fired came perilously close to striking Coop before he and Lil slid behind the tables with the grunts.

  “Who’s your friend?” Lil asked, hastily reloading her weapon.

  “Don’t know, but the maniac’s looking to kill the lot of you,” Kent said.

  Coop popped back up and took aim, but the only target was Barnum, who seemed barely aware of the flurry of activity. Fritz had vanished up a back stairwell, and the rest of the staff had rushed out the rear of the club.

  “Well he’s gone now,” Coop said.

  “We ought to stay low,” Donald said. “He said somefing about lighting fuses.”

  “Don’t be thick, Donald. You heard how flowery he was being. That was a metaphor.”

  A few seconds later, as they were cautiously preparing to follow Fritz into the stairwell, a deafening blast from outside signaled something that was certainly no metaphor.

  #

  “Get that fire out!” Mack barked, revving the turbines and attempting to steady the ship.

  The building beside the Ruby Club was a smoking wreck. The roof and top floor were entirely missing. The brick and slate had been hurled in flaming fragments, pelting the nearby buildings and taking a terrible toll on the Wind Breaker. The side of the ship was smoldering, flames licking up along the starboard side. Bright green streamers of phlogiston leaked from flapping holes in the envelope.

  “Gunner! Get to the gig room. Make sure the crew ladder is down. I want Lil, Coop, and the grunts up here.”

  The fire was spreading quickly. Nita scrambled to the damaged railing and surveyed the damage. After a moment of hesitation and thought, she slipped her goggles in place.

  “Are we going to use any of the main cannons, Captain?”

  “You have your orders, Ms. Graus. Don’t waste your time asking about the cannons. Get the fire out!”

  “Then you’re not using the aft cannon,” she barked.

  She dashed to a tubing manifold at the base of the helm and removed it with three quick twists with a wrench. It belched steam as soon as it was released, but she wrangled it to the side of the ship and directed the stream downward. The flames sputtered and sizzled, but the drenching of steam began to tame them. Below, the deckhands and the grunts dashed toward the crew ladder. The flames of the detonated building were beginning to spread to the roof of the Ruby Club. Mack did his best to keep the ship steady until he knew the full crew was aboard, but one of the turbines was squealing terribly.

  Through the smoke and dying flame, he spotted a figure moving across the Ruby Club’s roof. Nita was still dousing the flames. Gunner was below decks helping the rest of the crew to board. He wrangled the ship’s wheel with one hand and drew his pistol with the other. In the time it took him to fire three quick shots, the half-seen figure on the rooftop dashed to the roof’s edge and leaped. Amid the wailing of the damaged turbine, the crackle of burning wood and the hiss of steam, it was impossible to know if the attacker had reached the ship. And yet, Mack knew.

  “Eye’s sharp. We’ve got a boarder. All hands, find and eliminate the boarder.”

  “I’ve nearly got the fire out!” Nita said.

  “Fire’s the least of our problems. Find and repel the boarder!”

  Fritz launched over the railing, each hand gripping a short dagger. The killer moved with a spider’s grace, first skittering along the decking, then up through the rigging. Leg’s entwined two stout ropes, freeing hands to draw pistols. Bullets rained down onto the deck. Mack and Nita dashed for cover, but the lunatic moved like the wind, springing from deck to rigging, from rigging to envelope, and always spraying bullets. It was like being besieged by an entire infantry division in a single, frenzied package.

  “What is it?” Nita called, huddling in the stairwell.

  “Don’t matter what it is. We’re killing it,” Mack growled. “Give me a distraction.”

  “We’re on it, Cap’n,” Lil announced, charging up beside Nita, with Coop and Gun
ner close behind.

  With most of the crew on deck, bullets flew thick in both direction. As swift as the attacker may have been, it could still only manage to fire at two targets at once. Bullets ricocheted and dug divots into decking. Pipes sparked and sprayed their contents. Mack reached the ship’s wheel.

  “Brace!” he ordered.

  The crew dropped to the deck and held tight. He spun the wheel and opened all lines to the turbines. The ship lurched and spun. Its gondola swung wide. The leaking phlogiston drew brilliant spirals in the air. Ropes and wood creaked and groaned. Everyone on deck began to slide toward the starboard side. All felt like they were twice the weight they ought to be. The crew, prepared as they were, held their ground. Fritz was less lucky. The hired gun slipped from the rigging and struck the damaged, smoldering railing hard. Both guns dislodged and fell over the edge. Before replacements could be pulled from the holsters, Nita dove atop the whistling steam line she’d been using to fight the fire and turned its end on Fritz.

  Something between a shriek and a giggle split the air as the black-clad killer tried to keep the steam from scalding anything vital. Gunner and Lil fired into the billowing cloud, but the steam made it impossible to know if they were hitting anything. Coop finally gave up on firing altogether and dashed into the cloud of steam. With a heavy thud, the wiry frame of their attacker launched over the railing. Mack fought the controls back into submission, and the ship began to right itself. Without being told, the crew found their way to the railing and scanned for the fallen attacker. They were still quite close to the rooftops. It was entirely possible whoever had assaulted them had not been killed by the fall.

  “There! There!” Lil squealed, leveling her weapon.

  All took aim and fired at a limping figure sliding down the peak of a rooftop below. Alas, the form slipped into the alley between two buildings and vanished in the inky shadows.

  “You want we should get the lights on and sniff that thing out of hiding, Cap’n?” Lil asked.

  “No. Ship’s torn up, and if whoever that was was crazy enough to rig a building to blow, no tellin’ what other plans might be ready to spring. We’ll get some distance, patch up as much as we can, and head back to Ichor Well to patch up the rest. I sure hope you got somethin’ worth gettin’ in there.”