Tinker's Justice

by J. S. Morin

  Chapter 25

  “My greatest worry in this whole rebellion business is that Madlin’s going to do something brave and stupid, and get herself killed.” – Cadmus Errol

  The tunnels looked different, which Cadmus took as a good sign. But there was still no Kezudkan, which limited the extent to how pleased any tunnel could make him. He had long suspected the daruu had some sense of innate navigation, some feel in the stone that was akin to constellations or the position of the sun for telling north from east. But he was no daruu, so his suspicion that they had not traveled far at all from the world-ripper room remained nothing but speculation. It was time to put the premise to empirical test.

  Still holding the gun pointed at Gederon’s back, Cadmus pulled out his pocketclock and opened the face with a flick of the wrist. “You’ve got five more minutes,” he said. “After that, I kill you and take the chance that I can find him quicker without you leading me astray.”

  “I’m n-n-not misleading you.”

  “Four minutes, fifty-six seconds.”

  “B-but it’s going to take m-more than five m-m-minutes to get there,” Gederon protested.

  “Then pump those stubby pistons of yours faster,” Kupe snapped. “He’s running out of patience with you.” He winked at Cadmus while the daruu wasn’t looking.

  Gederon quickened his pace, and before long he was breathing hard. Cadmus sneered, marveling that his younger body was holding up to the rigors of the search better than a lazy daruu.

  There was no door, when they arrived, just an opening in the side of the tunnel. Gederon stopped and pointed silently, but Cadmus could already hear the voices within the chamber. He waggled the gun in Gederon’s direction, indicating that the daruu lad lead the way.

  As they approached, Cadmus could pick up the conversation. “I just think that we’d be better off if—Gederon, what are you doing down here?” Kezudkan asked as Gederon appeared in the entrance.

  Cadmus stepped up behind the young daruu, still training his gun at Gederon’s back. “Hello, Kezudkan. Surprised to see me?” The room was filled with daruu, dressed in strange, metallic clothing made of fine rings. They looked important, though he recognized none of them.

  “Erefan,” Kezudkan breathed, his eyed widening. “You’re … you can’t be here.”

  “But I am, and it’s time for—blast it, none of you move.” Cadmus aimed the gun at a brawny daruu reaching for an axe that dangled from his belt—the only weapon he could see in the room besides his own. “I’m here for Kezudkan Graniteson. This doesn’t involve the rest of you.”

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish here,” Kezudkan said. “Just put the gun down and we can talk. Just leave the boy alone.”

  “I’ve got no quarrel with your nephew—yes, I remembered him,” Cadmus said. “But I just want everyone here to know why I’m here, and that this doesn’t have to end with a lot of bodies to clean up.”

  “You’re a thief, a runaway, and a murderer,” Kezudkan said. “Why should any of us believe you?”

  One of the younger daruu in the room, the one dressed most extravagantly, stepped between Kezudkan and Cadmus. “I am Dekulon, king of the daruu people. I cannot allow you to harm one of my subjects.”

  “Even a criminal?” Cadmus asked.

  “He had broken no laws among our people,” King Dekulon replied. “If you have a pre-existing quarrel—”

  “Quarrel?” Cadmus scoffed. “He tried to kill me!” He wanted to shout that Kezudkan had killed him, but that would have muddied the waters more than cleared them. “I’m going to have my justice, whether it’s given to me or I have to take it. Now, step aside.”

  King Dekulon shook his head. “I cannot.”

  “Erefan,” Kezudkan said. “Let’s be reasona—”

  Click.

  Crack!

  The shot went through King Dekulon and Kezudkan both. So did the second shot. By the third, the two daruu had fallen in separate directions, and Cadmus only cared to ensure that Kezudkan was dead.

  The room erupted into chaos. Cadmus’s attack had shocked them all—probably because no one had ever dared attack their king before. Two of the daruu rushed to the king’s aid; the one with the axe took the weapon in hand and rushed for him; the eldest daruu began muttering something that had a suspicious sound to it—magic.

  Cadmus dealt first with the threat he best understood, planting a shot in the head of the daruu with the axe and dropping him to the ground with a thump just a pace away. He fired another shot that took the rune-hurler square in the chest, but it struck a barrier that flashed blue and flattened the steel ball bearing. The rune-hurler seemed unharmed, but flustered, stumbling over his words and feet at the same time as he backed away. Not to be deterred, Cadmus fired a second shot at the rune-hurler, and a weaker flash from the barrier was not enough to turn aside the shot. The rune-hurler collapsed against a wall, not dead, but no longer a threat.

  The surprise was Gederon. The stutter-mouthed daruu lad had stood bolted to the floor to that point. But something inside him must have snapped free. He whirled on Cadmus with a speed seldom seen in daruu. The Mad Tinker fell back and fired again.

  Click.

  There was no shot left. In the excitement, Cadmus had not kept count. He should have dealt with the threats before him and reloaded to finish off Kezudkan. It might even have been a chance to gloat; he had felt so clever disposing of his nemesis without bothering with melodrama, but pure ruthlessness had an impractical side to it as well. Kezudkan had been no real threat.

  Gederon was. The daruu lad closed the two-pace distance to Cadmus in a heartbeat. He struck like a trolley with no brakeman, bowling Cadmus over and driving him to the ground. The Mad Tinker slammed to the floor, his head cracking against the unforgiving stone. He blinked out of consciousness for just a second, coming around just in time to see a heavy fist bearing down toward his face. After that, there was no waking up.

  Kaia and Greuder made frantic efforts to direct the two working world-rippers around the Jennai as it sank into the Sea of Kerum. The main chamber of the lunar headquarters was splashed with seawater and so crowded with people that rebel refugees were stumbling over the wounded. The able-bodied stood stationed at the viewframes, ready to haul survivors into the crowded confines.

  Rynn found herself, for the first time she could remember, surrounded by rebels who weren’t looking to her for answers. They jostled and pushed, trying to keep out of her way as she made her way to the main world-ripper, which was the only one of the three that was idle. Most people who ended up beside her asked after her health, or expressed relief that she had made it.

  “Why isn’t this one on?” Rynn shouted over the general commotion.

  “Blame your father for that,” Greuder shouted back, though Rynn had lost sight of him at the control console of the upstream world-ripper. “He shot out the spark line, and we haven’t had a chance to fix it.”

  If that wasn’t a call for Rynn’s services, she didn’t know what was. “Why would he do that?” she called out as she moved to inspect the damage.

  “He was after that daruu, hot for blood. We sent Kupe to drag him back, but the lad got stuck on the other side with him.”

  “Eziel, you rat bastard,” Rynn swore. “You’d better not have …” she didn’t finish the thought. “Greuder, let Kaia finish the rescue from the ship. I need that world-ripper.”

  “But Rynn,” Jamile shouted. Rynn couldn’t see her, but imagined that she must be with the wounded. “There are still people trapped on board.”

  Rynn gritted her teeth. One life—two if Kupe counted—against however many might still be alive and trapped in the sinking airship. How could she ask that? How could she demand that? She could order it. She was still in charge. They would understand.

  She still couldn’t do it. “Fine. Keep up the search.”

  Rynn shoved her way roughly through the crowd, which couldn’t part fast enough for her liking. “Any
mechanics around, get over here. I’ve got a machine to repair.”

  Kupe huddled with his back to the tunnel wall, coil gun pointed at the entrance. He had heard it all and was no fool. Cadmus Errol was probably dead. A bunch of daruu were likely dead as well, but not all of them. The coil gun shook in his hand. He couldn’t go look.

  “Stay back!” he shouted as a daruu stuck his head out to look down the corridor. “You all stay right where you’re at. I’ll stay out here. Don’t you come closer or I’ll blow so many … I’ll shoot you up good.”

  Kupe squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed. What he wouldn’t have given for a drink right then. He’d shoot straighter with the tunnel a bit wobbly than with his hands shaking like he was holding a steam hammer. Some hero he was. The tinker that had helped set the Human Rebellion to boiling had needed him, and he was stuck to the floor with his own glue.

  “Put down your weapon and surrender,” a steady, bass voice called from within the chamber.

  “Ain’t gonna,” Kupe replied. “They’re gonna come for me … well, come for him at least. I’m gonna get rescued, and you’re in a heap of scrap when they get here.”

  A thump rumbled through the floor, accompanied by a scuffing sound. The thump repeated, became a rhythm, but not a steady beat. One of the barefoot daruu was stomping a signal. Kupe wasn’t sure if it was paranoia or if he was smarter than he gave himself credit for, but he was in no position to run. He needed them to find him. If he ran off, there was no telling whether the rebels would get to him before the daruu, or even if they would keep looking once they found Cadmus. Kupe had to be realistic—he wasn’t that important.

  To his surprise, when the world-hole opened, it was right beside him. Rynn was standing there with a look of fury in her eyes. “Grab him,” she ordered.

  A pair of soldiers hooked Kupe under the arms and pulled him through to safety. The area just in front of the viewframe was packed with soldiers, all armed, all with their weapons pointed out into Veydrus. Kupe was dragged out of the way, but he had as good a view as anyone of what was about to come.

  The viewframe moved, advancing at Rynn’s command into the room where her father had died. Kupe saw the body, face bloody and misshapen, lying on the stone. The young daruu Gederon knelt over a daruu body, shoulders heaving in silent sobs. His hands were bloody.

  There were plenty of daruu bodies. It looked like Cadmus had taken four of them down before they got him. Kupe didn’t recognize any of them, nor had he expected to. These weren’t Korrish daruu, the sort of folks who made the newspapers with flashpops at the opening of museums and the fluff pieces about quadricentennial birthdays. These were foreigners, otherworldly, only their language familiar.

  “Who are you people? Who are you to have invaded our home and attacked our king?” one of the daruu asked, stepping forward.

  With enough coil guns to add a screen door to the chamber, Rynn must have felt safe enough to parley. “Kezudkan Graniteson took my father as a slave, buying him in return for my mother’s freedom and mine,” she replied. “You harbored him. I don’t know what happened here, but if you involved yourselves in my father’s conflict, it is your own doing. Which one of you is responsible for this?” Rynn pointed at her father’s body.

  “He killed my uncle!” Gederon shouted, turning his attention from the elderly daruu’s corpse. “Shot him, clean through the king, who’d done an honorable thing to shield him. He was a madman.”

  Kupe watched Rynn’s face. The knit of her brow, the clenching in her jaw, that raw hatred in her eyes. She didn’t want to shoot the daruu, he realized. She wanted to bash his head in with her bare hands.

  “We want no war with your people. I am Lunjak, now king of all daruu. What would more loss of life gain either of us?”

  Rynn turned to her soldiers. “Bring my father’s body.”

  She watched the new king as six rebels gathered up the broken man who was once the Mad Tinker. The daruu’s eyes were fixed on her as well. King Lunjak must have noticed her eyes wander to Gederon, because he stepped in front of the young daruu, just as Gederon claimed the prior king had done. “An act in grief, and against the killer of a king, is no crime.”

  “Maybe you haven’t noticed,” Rynn replied. “But war isn’t a time for trials and laws. You attack us, enslave us, then try to claim innocence? I ought to pour lava down the halls of this whole kingdom of yours.”

  “We have done nothing to your people,” King Lunjak said. “We have merely—”

  “Draksgollow,” Gederon cut in. “He’s the one stealing you humans. He’s the one who took this whole mess off the rails and made a war of it. My uncle just wanted to mine gold on a world where no one knew about it. Until your father ran off and started a rebellion, he didn’t give a sandstone brick about humans one way or the other.”

  Rynn adjusted her aim, but the king kept himself between her and Gederon. After a long, slow, shuddering breath, she lowered her coil gun. “Where can I find him?”

  Chapter 26

  “Warning: the transport gates can create some rather unusual side effects when paired. Please use extreme caution when activating two in close proximity.” – Traveler’s Companion: Transport Gates

  The rolling green hills of Khesh were dotted with new houses. The sweet smell of wildflowers was tinged with coal smoke and the raw, fresh scent of cut lumber. The refugees from Korr mixed with repatriated slaves and the survivors from the Jennai. The Human Rebellion was in the past for most of them, though a few still hung on in ancillary roles.

  “Are you sure this is going to work?” Jamile asked.

  Madlin filled her lungs with country air. It felt good to stretch her legs. “No,” she admitted. “But I only get one try, most likely.”

  “What if it goes wrong?”

  Madlin sighed. It was hard to be pessimistic looking across at new construction. She didn’t have a sense of the Veydran people, knowing so few of them. Most of the Tellurakis she knew took pains to get someone else to do their work for them; her father had recruited those less prone to that vice. But the humans of Korr were workers, and by grace of Eziel, they were working for themselves now. Everything they built was theirs, and they set to the task with fire and zeal.

  “Then we keep trying,” Madlin replied. “That’s why we win. We just keep trying until something works.”

  Across the three worlds, messengers dispersed. They came by world-ripper and departed likewise. They visited kings and empresses, goblin priests and kuduk councilors. Every major faction known in Korr, Tellurak, or Veydrus was invited. Each received a message, written in their own tongue, which said the following:

  You have been invited to the remaking of the world. You may attend in person, or send a delegation of your choosing. This is a meeting of peace, to end all wars, if not for all time then for all foreseeable time. Those who attend will bear witness to history. Those who abstain will still be held accountable to its resolution. Those who defy its edict will perish from these worlds. You will be summoned.

  With each copy there was a listing of a time and place where the delegation would be gathered and brought to the meeting. None of the messengers were lost. The few who encountered resistance in their appointed delivery found themselves with a world-hole filled with ready coil guns at their back, ready to defend them. The Human Rebellion had taken no chances.

  As twilight darkened, they gathered. One by one, group by group, world-holes opened, delivering the delegates. From Tellurak came the Kings of Acardia and Hurlan, with their retinues. The Emperor of Khesh sent his eldest son and three advisors. Takalia sent three governors. The kingdoms of Krang and Silk Waves came together with their delegation of diplomats. Sak Qual sent no one, but the land of Feru Maru boasted the largest delegation, with the entire royal family attending.

  From Korr came the politicians: the governors and prime ministers, the councilors and mayors of the great cities, the peacemakers and warmongers. None came without attendants, using them to fluf
f their reputation among their peers. The prime minister of Braavland brought a professor of history and five secretaries. Tollopland came with a poet laureate. Grangia’s delegation consisted of secondary officials from nearly every government agency, but no one of principal importance. Ruttania sent their entire Central Council, and at special request, one Ganrin Draksgollow.

  Veydrus boasted the smallest number of delegates, but the most diverse. The goblins sent priests of the dragon gods who remained; all were wary of the slayer of Fr’n’ta’gur. The Megrenn Alliance came as one, with the regent of Ghelk and a tiny girl who was heir to that kingdom. Azzat had one ruler, and one delegate: the demon Xizix. He chuckled and snickered, and assured the other delegates that though they were but vermin to him, he had but one intention: to witness the promised history making. The Kadrin Empire had three delegates: the Empress Celia, High Sorcerer Axterion Solaran, and Sorcerer Caladris Solaran (or Dunston Harwick, depending whom you asked). The daruu’s lone delegate was their new king, Lunjak.

  They gathered beneath clear skies on the night of a full moon, with the stars winking into sight as the night grew deeper. A tropical breeze wafted from the nearby Aliani Sea, masking the potpourri of odors from every major culture of three worlds. The hushed crash of waves from beyond the leafy palms surrounding the clearing conveyed a sense of calm. Three massive stone tables had been placed in a triangular arrangement. Each was round, surrounded by chairs, and carved in the center with runes that spelled three names: Tellurak, Veydrus, Korr.

  Rebels of the Human Rebellion milled among the delegates, guiding them to seats amid an atmosphere of tension and mistrust. Every war that could be fought, every war that had been fought, had its participants present. The rebel ushers had been chosen for the languages they spoke. As the delegations finally took their places, the ushers fell into place behind them, ready to translate.