The Chimney: The Merc Papers

by G. T. Spoor

“Why not?”

  “Because he’ll hand it over to the MRC.”

  “So?”

  “They’re not the true owners. You heard Amias. The CEC hired the dowers, not the MRC.”

  “Well, yeah, but he said Boulderjaw sold the research to the MRC, so it’s theirs now.”

  “Maybe we should hand it over to the Bureau,” Sarah suggested. “They’ll know who to give it to.”

  “Yeah, whoever pays them the most,” Berk added.

  “We’ll give it to Coaltank,” Emily said.

  Berk looked stunned. “Why the dower? You heard the gnoma. He’ll hide it away.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t think so. Boulderjaw, Flintmace, and Hardbrew put four years of their life into this research. It was as much theirs as it was Amias’s. Regardless of what Amias might have believed, I think Coaltank will know what to do with it.”

  “Fine,” Berk said. “But we should probably think about getting out of here. I’m surprised no one’s come to check up on what happened here, although they’ll probably blame the Church of Gaea.”

  Chapter 19

  The Purple Puffins

  Emily opened the door to the Occulta-Initia, allowing Sarah to go in first. The place was crowded compared to the last time they visited. There was one whole customer standing at the counter.

  She was an older woman, bordering on ancient. Thin and frail with long white hair tucked under a black hood. Her modest clothing reminded Emily of the farmers back home. On the counter was a variety of different herbs, all neatly packed in small parcels. It seemed odd to find a hedge witch in New Doral.

  “I’ll be with you in a moment,” Tilly called out. She never looked up from the counter as she tallied up the bill. Once the transaction was completed, the old woman carefully placed each of the small packages in a black bag before heading for the door. She avoided any form of eye contact and seemed in a hurry to leave the store. From what Emily had observed so far, the mystic arts were not very popular in the Chimney.

  “Welcome to the Occulta-Initia—oh, it’s you again.”

  “You seem a little surprised to see us,” Emily said.

  Tilly looked over her shoulder at the back room. “Between you and me,” she whispered, “business hasn’t been too good. Mistress Mira doesn’t get too many return customers.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” Sarah mumbled.

  Emily ignored her. “Is she available? We’d like to speak with her.”

  “Isn’t the Merc with you?” Tilly was looking past Emily toward the front door and seemed a little disappointed.

  “Berk had to go back to the Red Wolf Base to report in. I don’t think he’s very comfortable around—”

  “Mira,” Sarah quickly interjected.

  “I was going to say the mystic arts, but I think that’s equally as a valid.”

  Tilly started laughing but quickly stopped herself. She looked over her shoulder toward the back room again. “She can be a little off-putting.”

  “That’s a bit of an understatement,” Sarah said.

  “I don’t think she understands how bad for business it is. If she’d only be a little nicer to the customers and the tenants, we wouldn’t be in—” Stopping herself in midsentence, the girl quickly cast her eyes to the floor. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

  “It’s fine,” Emily said. “What are friends for if not to have someone to complain to?”

  Tilly’s face brightened. The young woman probably didn’t have too many friends. Her rather unique appearance and working for the only elf in the Chimney isolated her from the rest of the city. “I’ll see if she’s busy,” she said before rushing off to the back room.

  While waiting, Emily started poking through the stack of scrolls scattered across one of the display tables.

  “Think we should get this for Berk?” Sarah asked. She held up an old leather book. The title was difficult to make out, but the picture on the cover was that of a wand hovering over a potion bottle. “It’s like a spell book for beginners.”

  “You shouldn’t tease him.”

  “You didn’t see him when we went to the MRC. The man’s as big as a lorry but shrieked when I got too close to him with that amulet.”

  “Some people aren’t comfortable around this stuff.”

  “What about you? What are your feelings on things like this?” Sarah was now holding up a glass jar, the contents of which looked pink and squishy.

  “We had mystics in the monastery, although they mostly practiced elemental magic. They didn’t have need for… things like that.”

  “You don’t think this is someone’s innards, do you?”

  “I seriously doubt it.”

  “I can give that to you at a discount.” Tilly was standing behind the counter again. Neither of the women heard her arrive.

  Sarah carefully set the jar back on the shelf. “I’m not sure if it goes with my decor.”

  “If nothing else, it is a good conversation piece.”

  “What conversation would you have about that?” Sarah asked.

  “You could probably try to guess what it is,” Emily suggested.

  “Or who.”

  Tilly laughed. It was an infectious, childish laugh and before long, the others joined in.

  “Is Mira available?” Emily asked.

  “She should be now. Go right in.”

  Mira was sitting in her wheelchair behind a desk with a quill in her hand. Papers filled with strange diagrams and even stranger writing were spread out in front of her. The original box of death sat off to one side. On top of it was a glowing red stone set into a shiny metal disk. The stone was pulsating at the rate of a heartbeat.

  “What have you brought me this time?” Mira asked, looking up from her work.

  Emily pulled out a stack of papers and set them down on the desk in front of her. “We thought you might be interested in these.”

  “Pala-script? Gnomas only used this for their private records. Who did you have to kill to get this?” the elf asked.

  “Amias Samuel Thatcher,” Sarah answered.

  Mira’s eyebrows raised ever so slightly. “That was a rhetorical question, but seeing that you answered it, do you care to elaborate?”

  “Amias Thatcher was the gnoma who created the box of death,” Emily told her. “These were his notes. We thought you might be able to learn something from them.”

  “Assuming you can read pala-script,” Sarah added.

  Mira flipped through the pages. “Of course I can. Gnomas think they invented it, but it’s an old fay language.” She paused to slide a couple of the sheets out of the stack and set them aside. “Interesting, but was it worth killing for?”

  “We didn’t kill him,” Emily said defensively, then added, “At least not directly.”

  “You killed him indirectly?”

  “He had another one of those boxes of death, and it kind of got out of control.”

  “I see.” Mira looked over at her own box of death. “That is… unfortunate, but it would appear you two survived.”

  “That’s what we wanted to talk to you about.”

  They explained everything that had happened from the moment the amulet of Osara woke up in the hallways of the CEC, to the moment it died. Mira was studying the gnoma’s notes and didn’t seem to be listening. When Emily finished the elf looked up at Sarah.

  “Where is the amulet now?” she asked.

  Sarah fished it out of her pocket and set it on the desk. The once-shiny red gem was now black with a large crack along the face. Mira picked it up and held it in her hands. Closing her eyes she whispered something in her native tongue, then set the amulet back on the desk. Nothing happened, although the elf didn’t seem to expect anything. She turned her attention to Emily.

  “This tyng you speak of. What and where is it?”

  Emily drew the tyng from her sleeve and thought it a two-foot length before setting it on the desk. It still possessed a faint blue glow. Mira r
eached out to it but never touched it. She simply held her hand over it for a few seconds.

  “That explains that,” she said after a while. “Inanis-metallum.”

  “I’m sorry. I thought it was memoria metal.”

  The elf looked up at Emily. “You’ve been listening to the dowers,” she said. “This is void metal. It is not from our world. Although the dowers have laid claim to it and believed themselves to be its masters, the elves were the first to use it. But it’s rare, or at least it was. It would seem the Chimney still holds some secrets in the tunnels below. Tell me, how did you come by this?”

  “I sort of liberated it from a couple of Blue Tiger Mercs.”

  “And you’ve learned to control it?”

  “It was a dower by the name of Hardbrew who showed me. He said pain was the quickest way to bond with it.”

  Mira shook her head and sighed. “Leave it to a dower to choose that method.”

  “Does that mean there’s something wrong with it?” Emily asked. “It is glowing after all.”

  “It’s… fine.” The elf answered, but she didn’t sound too sure. Rolling her chair away from the desk, she motioned for Sarah to come closer. “Let me take a look at you, child.”

  Sarah looked at Emily and seemed unsure of what to do. Eventually she walked around the desk and stood before the elf.

  “Spare me the indignity of having to get up to look into your eyes,” Mira said.

  When Sarah crouched down beside the wheelchair, Mira placed her hands on either side of the young woman’s head. She then gazed into Sarah’s eyes, first one, then the other, and then both at the same time.

  “Very interesting,” the elf said upon releasing Sarah. “You may go back now.”

  Mira pulled her wheelchair back up to the desk and sat silently staring blankly at the far wall. Neither Emily, nor Sarah, said anything to disturb the elf. After a few moments, Mira slowly nodded.

  “That must have been what happened.”

  “How what happened?” Emily asked.

  “How you managed to survive the exposure to a negatively charged mana crystal.”

  “Would you care to explain?”

  “It’s quite simple, really. Inanis-metallum, or void metal, works on a different reality to that of ours, therefore it doesn’t adhere to our natural laws. That is why it seems impossible. The ability to change shape, mass, and size is only a portion of its characteristics. Inanis-metallum also has the ability to absorb different forms of energy, or in this case act as a conductor. It is my belief that when the metal came into contact with the crystal, it did just that. Instead of drawing all the energy from the area around it, the crystal used the inanis-metallum as a sort of wick and absorbed the energy from the strongest source available, the amulet of Osara. The last Dais gave that amulet to his apprentice as a means of protection, which is what it did. The amulet created a field around you, or more precisely, around Miss Cotton. You and… the Merc were simply close enough to benefit from the protection. All such amulets have some basis in the earth element. This allows any incoming energy to pass through the amulet and back to the earth. In this case, it would seem the reverse is also true. Instead of grounding the energy, it drew the energy from the earth, through Miss Cotton, through your tyng, and into the crystal, thus limiting the overall effects of the crystal, at least where you were standing.” Mira touched the cracked ruby. “It would seem all that energy was too much for the amulet.”

  Sarah looked stunned. “Too much for the amulet. What about me?”

  “What about you?”

  “Should I be worried?”

  Mira sighed. “I don’t think it’s anything to be concerned with.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  “You were simply used as a grounding rod.”

  “A grounding rod?”

  “The crystal drew the energy through you. Nothing more.”

  “Then am I all right?” Sarah asked.

  Mira shrugged. “I suppose so.”

  “You suppose so.”

  “Do you feel all right?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Then you’re fine—unless you don’t wake up tomorrow morning.”

  “What happens if I don’t wake up?”

  “Well, then you’ll be dead, won’t you?”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about that, Sarah,” Emily assured her.

  “No. No. Of course not,” Mira said dismissively. She started looking over Amias’s papers again. “There seem to be a few pages missing. You wouldn’t happen to know where they are, would you?”

  “They’re in Talomria,” Emily said.

  Mira raised her eyebrows ever so slightly and went back to her reading. That’s when Emily knew their meeting was at an end.

  ~~~***~~~

  “What do you think she meant when she said I suppose so?” Sarah asked.

  “Sorry. What did who mean?”

  “Mira. When I asked if I’d be okay, she said, ‘I suppose so.’ What do you think she meant by that?”

  Emily shrugged. “I’m guessing she meant you’d be okay.”

  “It’s not exactly a solid answer, is it?”

  “Look, I’m sure she was probably just leading you on. You’ve seen her place. There’s as much make-believe as there is mysticism. She may know her stuff, but I think she enjoys the mystery around it more.”

  “Still…”

  “How did you feel this morning?”

  “I felt… well… pretty good actually.”

  “There you go. You woke up, so everything must be fine.”

  “Thanks. That makes me feel loads better,” Sarah replied sarcastically. She picked up the next order and loaded it onto the tray.

  “How many more customers out there?” Emily asked.

  “Only three tables and two of them are drinking. Tom already sent Kate home.”

  “Yeah, I thought it was quieter.”

  “I’ll have to tell her you said that.” Sarah carried the last meal out of the kitchen.

  Emily wiped down the rest of the counter and tossed the dirty rag into the hamper by the back door. Someone would come along and collect them at the end of the week. It was a slow yet peaceful day at the Bird and Bay, something she hadn’t had in a long time. With the gríma back in her possession, Galbassi gone, and the research dealt with, she could finally take a step back and figure out what to do next.

  They had decided to give the mana research, otherwise known as the Thatcher Method, to Coaltank in Talomria. It wasn’t Berk’s first choice. If he had his way, he would have turned it in with his final report, but Emily thought it was for the best. The dowers seemed to be the only ones who could make heads or tails of the method, aside from possibly Mira, not that the elf would have even bothered. Evidently, Coaltank was surprised by the offer. He was sure that after Hardbrew’s death, the research and the dowers would have simply been forgotten. It might not have removed all the distrust between the dowers and the vir. In fact, it probably didn’t even put a dent in it, but it was a good start. If nothing else, it did restore Coaltank’s trust in Emily. He was so grateful, he granted her an open invitation to visit Talomria whenever she felt lost. Her father was the first and only Domatta she had ever followed on the path. It would be a unique experience to view it through the eyes of a dower. Even the brief conversation she had with Coaltank set her mind at ease.

  The dower’s version of the Way differed slightly in its teaching from that of the vir. As Coaltank explained it, she could only follow her own path, no one else’s—just as Amias followed his. When their two paths crossed, the gnoma’s Way was already laid out for him. She could not have prevented his death. It was his actions alone that led to his end. As for Galbassi, that was a different story. She would have to make amends for her violation of the first tenet.

  For every misstep one takes on the path, they must take one hundred steps to make up for it. Only then will they be moving in the right direction.


  In other words, she had a lot of steps to make up for—but where does one start? She wanted to look into the death of her sister, but she had already made too many waves. It might be better to take a few of those steps back, and, as Coaltank said, wait for the path to show itself.

  Grabbing another cloth from the cupboard, Emily filled a bucket with water before heading to the main room. It was part of her job now to wash down all the tables at the end of the day. At least that’s what Tom told her. Actually, Tom told Beth to tell her. He was still avoiding her.

  She started with the table in the corner, as far away from the remaining few customers as she could get. The last thing she wanted was for the people to think she was rushing them out the door. As it was, one of the tables was already leaving when she started cleaning. By the time she reached the third booth, she heard Tom at the bar.

  “We’re closing,” he said to someone who had just walked in.

  “Just one ale, please.”

  Emily knew that voice.

  She looked out from the booth and, sure enough, saw Berk take a seat at the bar. Setting her cloth aside, she walked over to the Merc and sat down beside him. He didn’t look at her at first and was simply sliding his mug across the surface of the bar, from one hand to the next.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked.

  Picking up the mug, he downed the ale in one gulp, then singled for Tom to refill it. As long as he was drinking, Tom didn’t mind. He would stay open all night if it meant even one more fyn in his coffer.

  “Not too well,” Berk said with a lopsided grin. “Petrova fired me.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Only wish I was.”

  “What happened?”

  “He found out you were helping me.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. Someone from the MRC, someone from the CEC, who knows. Doesn’t matter how he found out. All that matters is he did.”

  “I’m so sorry, Berk.”

  “It’s not your fault. I knew I was taking a chance. Besides, you taught me a lot and… it was fun while it lasted.”

  “I thought I heard your voice,” Sarah said. She had finished changing in the back room and was now in her civilian attire. When she reached the bar, she looked at Berk, then at Emily. “What’s the matter? What happened?”