The Changer's Key

by Kent Davis

  DEDICATION

  To Dianne,

  who taught me what was right

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER 1

  Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.

  —Elizabeth de Toqueville, Travels in the Colonies

  If they put a bag over your head, they mean business.

  “Sorry about this, miss, but our route must remain secret.” The bald man pulled the fabric down over Ruby’s eyes, and it erased his smile, along with everything else. The burlap stank of mice and scratched against her cheek. The fine leather of the seat squeaked under her bum, and the shackles chafed at her wrists. The cuffs hung heavy, crafted from friar’s iron, the toughest steel in the colonies. These reeves—elite warriors and spies, the lawful arm of the crown—had spared no expense to protect themselves from a thirteen-year-old girl.

  “Best not to squirm, you.” That was the younger reeve. In Ruby’s mind’s eye she scratched at the pink pockmarks on her flour-pale cheeks. Her voice carried the slightest trace of a lisp. Ruby ground her teeth. Two reeves and manacled hands in a barred black carriage headed straight into the heart of hell. If only Gwath could see her now.

  Before today her former mentor would have seen nothing special. Seven days and nights bored out of her skull in a well-appointed stateroom in the upper reaches of the great Tinker man-of-war ship Grail. Not fifty steps away was the balcony she’d almost thrown herself from. It had been a desperate gamble, her opponent none other than the combined forces of the crown and the Tinkers, whose arcane science had transformed and dominated the colonies. She had bet her life to bargain for the release of her father and friends. A moment of madness—she still wondered if she truly would have jumped from that balcony to her death—but she had won.

  However, what exactly had Ruby Teach won? Her father only had time to whisper, “We will come for you,” before they tore him away and hustled him and her companions out of her life.

  One of the reeves—the big woman from the groan of the carriage seat—shifted forward and fiddled with what sounded like a latch. The creak of hinges and a rush of brisk winter air announced the opening of a hatch in the ceiling. “Stuffy in here,” she lisped. “What we waiting for, Cole?”

  “You know,” Cole replied.

  The first reeve blew out her breath.

  The two watchful guards had never left Ruby’s side, sleeping in shifts in an adjoining stateroom. One friendly, one menacing, they had been her only companions, save occasional visits from their terrifying lord captain, Wisdom Rool. Rool had captured her father. He had pursued her for days like some terrible hunting cat through the narrowest alleys and across the steepest rooftops of Philadelphi. He had killed Gwath. Possibly.

  And what was this all about? She had sworn her service to Rool in exchange for her father’s freedom, and then nothing. Seven days of stillness. Of solitude. She had spent her life surrounded by family, a big, boisterous crowd of thieves and pirates, all joking and bustling and teasing and working on her father’s ship. And then all of a sudden she’d been encircled by an empty, echoing nothing. The reeves almost never spoke. Sometimes Ruby hated the silence, and sometimes she feared it. Mostly she struggled with a boredom so profound she felt she might stab her eyes out with one of the delicate teaspoons.

  Instead, she had stolen one. It took four days until the big reeve had sneezed, squeezing her eyes shut for just an instant. An instant was all Ruby needed. Before the reeve opened her eyes, Ruby had palmed the little spoon. She had filed its handle down on the iron bedframe at night, and the sliver of metal now rested snug in the fold of her cheek like an unspoken prayer.

  She had held on to it, hope dwindling, until this morning. A few hours before dawn they had woken her and led her down the stern steps, across a makeshift gangplank, and into a deserted corner of the Benzene Yards docks. They quietly hustled her over to a horseless tinker’s carriage, hidden at the beginning of a high maze of crates and barrels, and it was into the coach and on with the bag.

  They were taking her somewhere in secret, that much was clear, and Ruby wagered her salt for scurvy she didn’t want to find out where.

  She doubled over, coughing, and reached up under the bag to pass the spoon sliver out of her mouth and into the palm of her hand.

  “You all right, Teach?” That was Cole, the smiling one. He had generous eyes, but they were always moving.

  She crouched away from his voice, managed a shiver. “I fear I may be coming down with something.”

  “Dove,” he said, “close the trap. We don’t want her catching a chill.”

  The other reeve muttered to herself, and the seat creaked again as she stood up.

  Quick now.

  Ruby twisted the spoon in the lock, and the shackle sprang open. She tore the bag from her head and flung it into Dove’s pimpled face. With her free hand Ruby swung the chain to the right as hard as she could. Cole caught it easily, but the distraction gave Ruby the instant she needed to pick the other lock. He yanked on the chain, but it flew free from her wrist.

  Ruby planted one foot on the windowsill, one foot on Dove’s shoulder, and she was through the trap onto the carriage roof. Cries came from below, and the carriage door crashed open.

  Ruby vaulted down the other side into the alley of boxes and sprinted with all she had. She didn’t care where or how; she just had to keep moving. Seven days was enough, was it not? Seven days was plenty for her father and friends to have made it clear and into hiding. The tangle of crates and chests would soon release her into the dark streets of UnderTown, and this time she would disappear without a trace.

  But she had given her word she would not run.

  She skidded to a stop, sucking wind, next to a crate as tall as she, labeled ACID OF SUGAR.

  She had given her word to save her friends, her family.

  So why was she running?

  The cries and calls came closer, and Ruby bit her lip. She was free. She could escape. Find her family again and then sail with them over the edge of the world and into the mist. But Rool was relentless. If she ran, he would never stop trying to find her, and wouldn’t that put her family in even more danger?

  At the same time, the Reeve and their Tinker allies were the only ones who could discover the secret in her blood, the only ones who could unlock the truth about her. Freedom or knowledge? For a moment the strain of those two ropes
threatened to pull her in two.

  She turned back the way she had come. She had to know. She had to know the truth of herself, no matter the risk, no matter the cost. She took a step back toward the carriage.

  Someone chuckled.

  Ruby whirled, and around the corner strolled Wisdom Rool, empty eyes dancing. He leaned against the crate and smiled, folding one thick arm over the other. “Decided to keep your word?”

  Her feet itched. Even if she ran, he could catch her. He was stronger, faster, more relentless than anyone she had ever known. She never could have escaped. This had been his plan from the beginning. He had wanted to see if she would scarper off. “Yes,” she said, and the fear closed over her.

  Rool nodded, a smile interrupting the horrific scars that crisscrossed his face. “Well then. I’m glad we got that out of your system. Up for a wee excursion, Ruby Teach? There are some people I’d like you to meet.” Rool took another burlap sack out of his belt, just like the first. He tossed it to her.

  She caught it and pulled it on, and for a moment she was grateful. It kept him from seeing the fear. “Does this sack look fetching?” she said. “I hear burlap is all the rage in Paris.”

  Ruby Maxim One: “Show Wisdom No Weakness.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies tied up in the hold.

  Or dead. Or both.

  —Precious Nel, scourge of the Seven Seas

  Henry Collins ran his acid-stained fingers back and forth along the edge of the journal page, locked in desperate battle with its maddening cipher. It was as impenetrable as the first moment he’d seen it. Wayland Teach had given it to him with a dark look and a warning: “Our only hope to find Ruby lies in this.”

  Henry leaned back in the rickety chair and rubbed the grit from his eyes. The deserted little balcony on the rear of the King’s Bum tavern looked out east over the swamp and the madcap collection of shacks, houses, taverns, and towers that made up the pirate haven of StiltTown. When a strong wind blew, the buildings swayed and swung, lashed together as they were with rope, seaweed, and prayer. They dotted the water, indistinct shadows against the night, connected by a sorry patchwork of walkways, all the way out to the sturdy docks where the ships of thieves and murderers lined up as orderly as you please.

  He sighed and rolled his shoulders. The journal lay open on the makeshift table, laughing at him. Seven days of constant study, deep into the night, and deeper into the morning, and he still had no idea what the ciphers hid. Shame heated his cheeks. The captain had entrusted the journal to him because Henry was the only member of the crew who had even the remotest chance of solving its chemystral riddle, but he had not even cracked the first line. Ruby’s mother had crafted a perfect puzzle, and if Henry could not solve it, their chances of saving Ruby from the Reeve were apparently next to nothing.

  He took a sip of tea out of the battered tankard, straightened up to his full height, and shook himself awake. No use moaning. All he could do was try again.

  Henry went back to the equation about two-thirds of the way down the page. His grease pencil danced across the scrap parchment next to the journal, trying to pin it down. Wait. A candle lit in his head. Did he have it? Suddenly his vision blurred, and no, the coded algorithms and chemystral equations on the page pulsed and rearranged themselves, dancing away. All in a waterfall it came to him.

  The ink itself was charged with chemystry.

  Henry laughed. Of course. He reached for his Source, the inner strength that fueled all chemysts, and trickled out a bit into the journal. The equations stilled. He copied a few lines to his parchment, the numbers and sigils straining against his control. Then his vision blurred once more, and it felt as if a mule had kicked him in the belly. Gasping, he opened his eyes. The journal had changed yet again. But everything he had copied lay still on his scrap parchment.

  He dived in. Some time passed. It might have been minutes or hours. Finally, in a burst of inspiration, he discovered the key to the section, and the symbols unlocked. Pink kissed the sky. Hours indeed. Two lines had taken him most of the night, but he had done it.

  A wave of weariness washed over him. He finished the bitter tea with a grin and stowed the journal in an inner pocket of his tattered wool coat. There would be no more work tonight. He would barely be able to get back to his room. He levered himself up on the crutches the Thrift’s carpenters had made for him and gingerly maneuvered his broken leg away from the table and chair. The sunrise had gone red in the distance, and it lit up the mast and rigging of the Thrift, the ship of jovial smugglers that had carried him to this place.

  The sunset flickered. It flashed orange. Cries and clamor came up from the shore over the wind. The chem pot on his table still burned, and the sky above him was still black as pitch. It wasn’t dawn. The Thrift was burning.

  Henry whirled, heading for the door.

  And stopped short.

  Two women stood between him and it. One was the new serving girl from downstairs, the friendly one who quoted Shakespeare and Calderón. Her clocklock pistol was leveled at his heart. The other he had never seen before, but she was tall, almost as tall as Henry, and in close breeches and a sleeveless vest. She carried no weapon and was soaking wet, a trail of water leading to the edge of the platform.

  Bells rang in the streets below. Calls and yells rang out, and the village sprang to life, banding together to fight the seaman’s worst enemy: fire.

  He took a breath, but the serving girl—Jenny—cocked her clocklock and shook her head.

  The soaking wet girl said, “Now, Mister Collins, we cannot have you calling for help.” Her English was careful, and her accent was Catalan, from the east of what used to be Spain. “Otherwise, what use would it have been for me to set fire to that lovely ship of yours?”

  Henry faced the two women and scratched his ear. “Who are you?” he asked. He barely heard his words over the pounding of his heart.

  Jenny motioned at his coat with her gun. “We need that journal, alchemyst.”

  “I’m not certain I know the journal of which you speak,” Henry lied. He was a terrible liar.

  The tall one chuckled. “You are playing for time. Perhaps one of your new friends will burst in from below to save you. The captain with all his rage, or the buffoon, or the lithe one with the sword. Athen, yes? However, I set a crashing good fire, Henry Collins, and every one of your companions will be busy putting it out far into the night. By the time they find your body, it will be cold and clammy. Perhaps the seagulls will have had a go at your pretty eyes.” She smiled. “That is, if you resist. If you give us the journal and leave with us, no harm will come to you.”

  Henry scratched his ear again.

  This time he was able to grasp the tiny vial Cram had helped him sew into the collar of his new coat. The little clay container rested just between his thumb and forefinger.

  “Very well,” Henry said. “It’s right here in my coat—”

  “Vera, look out!” Jenny cried.

  Henry hurled the vial at the ground between them as he threw himself out of the way. The pistol fired, and the ball grazed his shoulder. A razor of pain almost scattered his focus. The vial of carbon fluid smashed, and Henry gave it a push with his Source, activating it. Jenny threw herself to the deck, and sticky gray threads sailed above her head and smacked into planks of the wall. The tall one, Vera, was not so lucky. The thick strands shot around her and affixed themselves to the wall. They contracted, and within a moment she was stuck fast next to the door: an immovable statue.

  Henry clawed across the floor, but a wild beast in the form of a serving girl pounced on him, punching and biting, smelling of stale ale and, strangely, marigolds. They rolled back and forth across the balcony, neither able to gain the upper hand despite her small frame and his injury. He rolled over, one leg hanging over the edge of the deck, trying to get at his crutch, but it was just out of reach. Jenny rolled with him onto her back, and her legs snapped around his
throat.

  “Wrong target, simpleton,” she gritted through her teeth. “She’s the one who wanted to spare you.”

  Sparks shot off in Henry’s head, and red crept in at the edges of his vision. His fingertips brushed the crutch, but it slipped away. He flailed his arms about as the world grew darker and darker. It was just Providence that he struck the back of his hand on one of the chairs. His fingers closed about the chair leg, and he heaved it over his head in desperation. It struck something.

  The vise was gone.

  Air poured into his throat, and he scrambled onto his knees, ready for the next attack.

  It didn’t come. The chair was gone, as was the girl. He crawled to the edge and looked over. Ripples in the water.

  The tall girl shouted as he stumbled through the door. She was yelling in Catalan at the top of her lungs, but the carbon over her mouth muffled most of the sound. “Lo siento,” said Henry. He tumbled down the stairs.

  He labored through the deserted common room, cursing the crutches and his injured leg in equal measure. The chilly night reeked of smoke, and he picked his way with rushed care from the Bum’s platform over the slimy planks of the empty bridges.

  Henry still had no idea how to navigate the chaotic maze of switchbacks and cul-de-sacs. Was the sound of the fire . . . that way? He rushed around a corner and barely ducked under a low-hanging sign. How had he come to this? Three weeks ago he had been apprentice to one of the most powerful chemysts alive. The road ahead had been lined with purpose. If he had died, at least it would have been a noble death. But now? He shook his head and burned those thoughts away.

  Turn after turn he forced himself through the heaviest clouds of smoke, until he careened around a corner at the top of the stairs that led down to the docks.

  Below, a beast of fire gorged itself on the Thrift.

  Her mainmast glittered like a candelabrum. Part of the main deck had burned away, and some of the forecastle as well. Teams of townsfolk tended to the small fires that had started on the surrounding ships, but the Thrift’s crew was on its own.

  They were losing.