The First Book of Ore: The Foundry's Edge

by Cameron Baity

  A crash overhead tore Phoebe from her self-pity. Great sheets of falling metal bark sheared through the Ascetic’s nest, smashing it apart and severing cables with a tumultuous twang. The mummified bodies, the dainty teacups, the shattered altar—it all came spiraling down. The tree shuddered as debris ricocheted off the walls and cascaded in a cloud of shrapnel. It plunged into the darkness and hit the bottom with a violent clang.

  Her breath was coming in short rasps now. She kept climbing, rung by rung, each step a new agony. Phoebe needed ground beneath her again.

  “Come on!” Micah shouted. She saw him disappear into a hole in the wall. An exit. Almost there, just another few rungs.

  A sudden stillness settled around them, and she felt a change in the air pressure. A few motes of that gray powder drifted around her as she took a step down. Then an unfathomably low tone rolled out of the darkness below, an elemental note groaning from deep within the ground. Another rung down. It was the primal song of the forest, that strange, organlike harmony they had heard blowing out of the hollow trees.

  Last step.

  She reached for the foothold, but her toes did not find it. An explosion of wind surged up and lifted her like a feather. Phoebe was weightless, floating. She clung to the rung and tried desperately to pull herself toward the wall. Within the roaring wind was a deluge of gray dust, rippling past her, trying to drag her away. She buried her nails in the wall and fought against the flood with all her might, flapping upside down like a sail in a hurricane.

  Phoebe had a flash of her inevitable fate—she would be sucked up into the tree and ejected out the towering top. And then, the fatal, crushing fall.

  She closed her eyes and prepared for the end.

  Hands grabbed her wrists. She was pulled against the tide. Micah hauled her into the safety of the tunnel, and they collapsed. The wall of gray dust rushed past as they lay there, shaken. Phoebe was seized with panic, gasping for air. She stared at Micah, not quite seeing him, not quite believing.

  “You’re okay,” he said. This time it wasn’t a question, more like he was reassuring himself.

  As the howl of wind died, they heard Dollop’s distant footsteps and snapped alert. In seconds, the kids were back on their feet and stumbling after the little creature. She activated her Trinka to light the way.

  They followed through hollow branches that led from the main trunk like a network of sewer tunnels. Sap gummed up around their feet, making progress slippery and slow, but soon they found their guide scampering down a hole in the floor. She aimed her Trinka into the cavity and spied Dollop crawling straight down a vertical pipe. He was spread-eagled, lowering himself carefully with his extended arms and legs.

  Phoebe tried to imagine herself doing the same thing, holding up her entire weight and inching down, down, down to who knew what. Something collapsed within her, as if her insides suddenly deflated and shrank away.

  “I can’t,” she confessed. “I can’t do it. I can’t go on.”

  “You have to,” Micah insisted. “You just gotta squeeze against the side, with your back to the wall and feet out. Take it slow, ease down bit by bit.”

  She had nothing left. No strength to go on and yet no will to resist. All she could do was offer a weak nod and lower herself into the hole. With her legs crunched against her chest, she pressed hard against the side with her feet and reeled at the pain. She relaxed her muscles and slid down a few inches, sloshing down the slick tube like a clog in a shower drain.

  It was misery, and her legs were killing her. But she had to.

  Micah said she had to.

  He climbed in after her, and they scooted down inch by torturous inch with no sense of how far they had to go. A rumbling explosion shook the branch like a gong. Phoebe slipped down the tube and tensed her poor wobbly legs, barely managing to stop. She felt her grip weakening. There was only so much she could take. She started to let go.

  Then there was a sloppy struggling in the pipe up above. Gobs of goo splatted down on her.

  “Look out! I’m—” was all she heard.

  Micah crashed on top of her. Phoebe tore loose and plummeted too. A thrashing knot of limbs and screams tumbled into Dollop.

  They all fell.

  The pipe opened up, and they were launched out into the forest. The trio crashed through foil leaves, snapping past metal branches. They plunged into a tangle of chraida cables, and Phoebe grabbed fistfuls in a desperate bid to slow her descent. She clung and fell, then held on tighter and dropped some more. Fully ensnared now, her momentum slowed. She flipped and turned and grappled in the mess of lines as the blurring ground spun into view.

  The cables stretched and creaked, but held, and at last she eased to a stop ten feet above the forest floor.

  Then Micah shot out of the darkness, swinging from a loose cable like a crazed orangutan. He zipped past her, let go of the line with a flourish, and landed hard, tumbling over and over in a chaotic somersault. He rammed into a silver sapling with a hollow thud.

  Far above, through the maze of angular branches, searchlights still scanned the canopy. The rumble of the Aero-copters was like a distant storm.

  She squirmed to untangle herself, then hung down from the lowest cable and collapsed roughly to the ground.

  Micah was already up and dusting himself off. He caught sight of her and laughed. “You’re a mess.”

  She got up on her elbows and brushed her tangled hair from her face. They were both coated in splatters of viscous sap and dusted in gray powder.

  “Where’s Dollop?” she croaked.

  As Phoebe started to pull herself to her feet, she grazed something warm in the underbrush. She recoiled and used her Trinka to see what it was.

  “Oh no!” she gasped.

  There, among the fallen leaves and tire tracks, was a slender metal limb. Dollop’s severed forearm. She covered her mouth. Micah came up beside her to see, and a grim expression settled on his blunt features.

  “Poor Dollop,” she whispered.

  The forearm twitched. The kids recoiled as it slithered off, bumping into roots and foliage to find other wriggling pieces. They fused on contact to form an elbow and shoulder, then hopped away. Astounded, Phoebe and Micah followed the limb over to a slipshod Dollop, who was partially reconstructed and hobbling as fast as he could. The rest of his parts clumped and stuck to him until he was complete and running away at top speed.

  “Dollop, wait!” she cried.

  The terrified little creature skidded to a stop and looked back, his luminous eyes glinting and reflecting back at the kids in the dim light.

  “Please, we need your help. The Citadel, we—”

  An engine growled nearby. They looked through the trees—approaching headlights, lots of them. The Foundry was combing the forest.

  When they looked back, Dollop was gone. Her heart fell.

  “Come on, Plumm. Forget him. We gotta go!”

  Micah pulled her sleeve down to cover the glowing Trinka, and they sprinted away from the lights slashing between the trees. The rumbling hum was growing louder, accompanied by the crunch of wheels on metal foliage. More searchlights up ahead. Micah looked around in a panic. A fallen log lay decomposing and rusted in the undergrowth nearby. He shoved Phoebe inside the decaying pipe and crawled in after her. Then he gathered up arms full of leaves and debris and used them to cover up the hole.

  It was black inside, but flaring light sliced through cracks in the log, so the kids peered out through the slits. Heavily armed vehicles rolled past, their headlamps revealing a platoon marching among them. Wind blasted and shook their cover as an Aero-copter shuddered past.

  Had they left any footprints? Would their tracks be easy to follow, or would they be lost among the fallen foil leaves?

  Through the glare, Phoebe was able to make out one of the figures. He wore mottled gray-and-rust-colo
red army fatigues with bandoliers of magazines strapped across his armored chest. Beneath the helmet and gleaming face shield, she recognized that vacant, haunting expression.

  These were Watchmen soldiers.

  After what seemed an eternity, the lights and vehicles moved away, growing fainter and fainter until they were gone.

  The forest returned to silence. The kids lay in the dark for a long time, their minds reeling and their bodies numb.

  “Micah,” Phoebe whispered.

  “Yeah?”

  “The chraida…We brought the Foundry right to them. They…they died because of us.”

  He yawned and she could smell his sour, hungry breath. Her eyelids were sticky with sweat and getting heavy.

  “It’s their own dumb fault. It ain’t like we asked to be tied up and taken to their stupid village anyway.”

  “But all of those innocent people.”

  “What people? All I saw was a bunch of monkey machines that wanted to kill us.”

  “You know they’re not machines. You saw them.”

  “They shoulda known better than to nab us,” Micah said.

  “That doesn’t give the Foundry the right to murder them.”

  Did her father know what the Foundry was doing to the chraida? He couldn’t even bear to squash a cricket—instead, her dad would catch it in a jar and set it free outside. He would never stand for this.

  She couldn’t fight off fatigue any longer. Sleep was taking her. Their hiding place was painfully uncomfortable, but her body demanded rest. The Chokarai forest all around them was quiet as Phoebe drifted off.

  But her head echoed with the screams of dying chraida.

  hen Phoebe roused after only a scant few hours of rest, she wondered if it might have all been some sort of insanely vivid fever dream. But between the dim slivers of dawn sifting into their shelter, and Micah’s raucous snores, she knew it was all very real.

  Outside, she could hear the Chokarai stirring. Metallic hoots and ratcheting cries percolated all around her, mingling with the melodious tinkling of leaves in the breeze. This forest was alien, yet its morning ambience was soothing, even rejuvenating. She savored the sensation, basking in its serenity.

  At last, she shoved the foliage aside and crawled out of the hollow log. Fireworks of pain exploded across her body. Her back was knotted and sore, as were her arms and legs. Muscles she didn’t even know she had screamed for attention. Her wounded foot throbbed, made all the worse by the fact that she was woozy with hunger.

  Why, then, did she feel such a tingling sense of exhilaration?

  Phoebe thought about everything that she and Micah had done. They had eluded a thousand Watchmen and infiltrated Foundry Central, the most powerful organization in the world. They had discovered a land made of living metal and narrowly escaped being killed by its savage creatures. And had any human throughout history ever met the Ascetic?

  Maybe one, she mused darkly as she recalled his skull mask.

  But Phoebe had survived all that. How many times had she told herself she couldn’t do it? Yet here she was. Every time she hit the wall, every time she thought the pain was too much, Phoebe had overcome it and faced down everything thrown her way. That quitter, that spoiled brat who couldn’t be bothered to lift a finger, was no more. Her father didn’t need that coddled little girl right now—he needed a savior.

  It was all up to her. Okay, her and Micah.

  She pushed past the stiffness and pain, stretched her aching muscles, and inhaled the earthy iron scent of the Chokarai. The branches of the silvery forest were draped in a peach-colored mist that was starting to burn off. Everywhere she looked, tire tracks cut rutted trails, and boot prints meandered in all directions. There were big circular stamps the size of manholes made by some massive machine she couldn’t recognize and hoped to never see.

  Her foot was bothering her, so she leaned against the log to examine it. She peeled off a blood-crusted sock and saw a puncture wound on the ball of her right foot. It was sore and red, but she was relieved that it didn’t look too serious. Still, it was only going to get worse the more she had to walk.

  Phoebe limped around, scanning the forest floor for something she could use. She found a strip of metal bark and gathered up a bunch of fallen foil leaves. With the bark as the sole of her makeshift shoe, she wrapped her foot and ankle in layers of the crinkling foliage. She searched her sniping pockets for her coil of wire, but as she dug around, her fingers grazed something else. She gasped when she realized what it was.

  Honeygum! She had hidden the snack in her pocket for class and completely forgotten about it. Her stomach howled at the thought of sustenance. She dug out her wire and used the strand to bind the leaves and bark securely around her foot. The ragged boot wasn’t comfortable in the slightest, and it looked absolutely ridiculous, but it was better than nothing.

  Once that was out of the way, Phoebe poured rich strawberry Honeygum syrup into her mouth, drop by sumptuous drop. It was the best thing she had ever tasted in her life. She was relishing the candy, delighting in the sensation as it gelled in her mouth, when Micah blasted out a husky snore.

  It would be so easy. She could gobble up the rest of the candy and secretly spit out the gum once he woke up. She wanted to—more than anything she wanted to—but despite the growling protests of her empty stomach, she saved half of the Honeygum for him. He needed his strength as much as she did, and any little morsel would help.

  Phoebe poked her head in the hollow log to find Micah passed out with his mouth hanging open, oozing drool. The opportunity was too good to pass up. She looked around for something that might do the trick. There, on the wall of the pipe log, she spied some sort of slithering critter. It was about the size and color of a plum and covered in nubby feelers like wavering fingers. It was clearly made of metal, but as she gently prodded it, she discovered to her astonishment that it was the consistency of congealed bacon fat.

  Whoever heard of squishy metal? And yet it was undeniably true.

  A long neck protruded from the critter’s squelching mass, bulging out in a lumpy head. It had three antennae, two flat ones on top and a round one centered below, like an electrical plug made out of snot. It used these nodules to probe at the rust on the log. She scrunched up her nose as she plucked the thing up. It was heavier than she expected, and its wet feelers wiggled around to touch, maybe even taste, her skin.

  It didn’t seem dangerous, but it was thoroughly revolting. And perfect.

  Quiet as a cat, she crept over to Micah and carefully peeled up his collar. She eased the rust slug off her hand and let it slink down the front of his shirt.

  His snores stopped abruptly. He twitched and giggled and flopped like a little child being tickled. Then he lay still again. Phoebe bit her lip as the bump continued to roam. With a shrill squeal, Micah jolted upright and clanged his head on the pipe. He tore out of the shelter and pawed at his body, contorting himself and dancing spastically until the rust slug came sloshing out a pant leg of his overalls.

  Micah was just starting to calm down when he noticed Phoebe doubled over in a fit of hysterical laughter.

  Now he got it. His face melted into red-hot, freckled fury.

  “Gotcha!” she managed to squeak out in between snickers. “That’s for the train tunnel. A cave slug for a cave slug.”

  He charged at her, but before he could say anything, she presented him with the half-eaten container of Honeygum.

  “Breakfast is served,” she said with a sweet smile.

  The sight of candy disarmed him. He whipped it out of her hand, slurped it down in one gulp, and chewed voraciously. “Where’d you get this? You got any more?”

  “Sorry, Charlie. That was it.”

  He eyed her suspiciously. “Why you bein’ so nice?”

  “I’m not.” She shrugged. “I just don’t w
ant you to faint on me.” Phoebe didn’t know why she couldn’t simply thank him for saving her life the night before. She wanted to, but something in her resisted fiercely.

  “Guys don’t faint,” he said, chewing his gum with his mouth open.

  “Yeah, well, guys don’t do that dance you just did either. What do you call that move anyway?”

  “Laugh it up. But watch your back, ’cause this ain’t over.”

  “Not by a long shot,” she agreed with a twinkle in her eye. “But unless you got something better to do, we should probably get going.”

  Though Micah was surely just as sore as she was, he worked the kinks out of his muscles with an ease that Phoebe envied. He stretched his arms over his head and cracked his neck with a quick jerk. With a few glances, he assessed their surroundings—pipe-work forest in every direction.

  “Where to?” he asked.

  “I was hoping you might have a clue.”

  “Well, looks like the Foundry headed off in that direction,” he said, pointing down the most rugged and pronounced swath cut by the vehicles. “Question is whether it leads to the Citadel or not.”

  “N-n-not.”

  The kids jumped at the unexpected voice and ducked behind a stand of silvery trees. Foliage rustled nearby as an asymmetrical form poked out from behind the underbrush, bulging amber eyes fixed warily upon them.

  “Dollop!” Phoebe came out of hiding and took a few steps toward him, but the little guy scampered farther away on four wobbly legs. “You came back.”

  “I—I did. That is, I was told to.”

  “By who?” Micah asked suspiciously.

  “The Great Engineer. Everseer. The M-M-Mother of Ore.” Dollop stroked something on his chest. “Makina.”

  The kids exchanged a look. “Say wha?” Micah asked.

  “It-it is said in accord fourteen, edict two, m-mark twenty: ‘Thy savior is thy m-master. Serve those who giveth themselves unto you, for um, only then shall you be served by-by Me in turn.’ Or is it, um, edict two, mark twenty-two? I-i-it’s definitely one of those,” Dollop stuttered. “Th-the Ascetic saved me first, bu-but you bleeders saved me most recently. I think that c-c-cancels out the previous time, especially because the chr-chraida mock the Way…a-along with everyone else. Of course, we c-c-can’t be certain without consulting an axial.”