Pathfinder Tales--Gears of Faith

by Gabrielle Harbowy

  “Ha. Let’s just say you wouldn’t want me to. Why do you ask?”

  “To keep you talking and assure myself you’re doing okay back there. Listening to you without seeing you, I was just thinking that you’ve got such a melodious voice.”

  “A girl’s voice, you mean.”

  A girl’s voice? Zae worked her way backward through the past few moments, and several things fell into place. His voice. The long lashes. Not wanting her to open his vest. Rowan had been born female, and now he was male. She was glad she’d backed off. Whatever his chest looked like, he was right: it wasn’t her place to look at it without permission.

  “Well, not quite,” she said, before her silence could be taken the wrong way. “I just meant I liked your voice.”

  She thought about how she’d taken men’s chests for granted in the past, and had never actually thought of them as nudity. Was that fair of her? On one hand, it was a healer’s prerogative to see the wound she was treating, but then again, seeing a wound didn’t change how she treated it. She had always taken her viewing of a patient’s wound as her right, and couldn’t remember a time when she had asked before pushing clothing out of the way. If someone was unconscious, then yes, circumstances might demand not waiting around for permission, but with minor injuries and conscious patients, was exposing them always the best course? She’d never thought about it, but now she was looking forward to meditating on it with her morning prayers.

  “You can turn now.”

  Zae did, to find the halfling shrugging back into his vest. There was a hole through the leather that was wide enough to remain. “How bad was it? The dart, I mean.”

  He handed it to her. It was well made but simple, and bore grooves that suggested the design of its launching apparatus.

  “No poison, not too much blood. More a ‘stay out’ gesture than anything meant to be deadly. Pulling it out felt about like a spider bite, but it’s all better. That’s the good news.”

  Zae clutched the dart; her stomach dropped. “What’s the bad news?”

  Rowan gestured toward the open compartment in the table. “You lose. I don’t have to give you any diamonds.”

  14

  A GIRL’S SECOND-BEST FRIEND

  ZAE

  The cubbyhole failed to produce diamonds, but it was not empty.

  “Books!”

  Rowan eased the first object out of its hiding place. It was a hardbound old book, with gold and black faded on its leather spine. He opened the cover and Zae did her best to read the spidery script over his shoulder.

  “A Treatise on Procedures and Processes to Magically Kindle Life in the Inanimate,” he read from the front page, then flipped through it. “Sounds a bit dull, really.”

  “Look at this glyph.” Zae traced around the embossed stamp with her fingertip.

  “It means the book is property of the Forae Logos—the grand library of Absalom, affiliated with the Scriveners’ Guild. None of the books there can be taken off the premises. This was stolen, not checked out.”

  Zae reached for the next book, bound in yellow where the one atop it was brown. “On the Controlling of Mind and Matter. And a different glyph.”

  “That’s the stamp of the Arcanamirium, the academy of magic. These are definitely being used to research this construct.”

  She glanced out toward the hallway. “We’re sure that this building is shielded from magic? No one’s going to suddenly detect these books and swoop down on us?”

  “Completely shielded. I can’t promise that the engineers won’t know their cubby was disturbed, but if you mean are angry librarians going to swarm in here and peck our eyes out, the answer’s no.”

  They went through the rest of the books and found more of the same. Rowan identified the glyphs as property of the libraries of several institutions and academies around Absalom, then carefully returned all the books, positioning them just as he’d found them. Zae watched with growing respect as he eased the panel back into place, using picks at both sides to make minute adjustments and bring it perfectly flush with its surroundings. She would not have been able to cover her tracks as smoothly.

  “Onward?” she offered.

  “Yes. I don’t want you thinking I get myself punctured on every shift, just to have something to heal! Come this way.” He led her out, pausing to relock the door.

  “That’s a relief, because I might well have started thinking that if you hadn’t said anything. How long before we get to make wire?”

  “Just a little longer.” They emerged to the main hall. “When the fourth gear on the right goes down, our shift is done. And then we have until the first on the left goes down and then up before we have to leave.”

  “You sound like you know your way around pretty well.”

  “I know the front gate and those two. I’m nowhere near being able to navigate the rest of this place. It’s not like it’s on a single repeating cycle. That would be far too easy.”

  “Then how—” she started, but he’d already gone off ahead of her, and she skipped a step to catch him. “How can you possibly learn it?”

  Rowan only winked and darted off again, challenging her to keep up.

  Here and there, a trip down a corridor would reveal a cluster of students using a giant metal-cutter, or a furnace, or some other large piece of equipment that would be unwieldy to replicate elsewhere. It was mostly quiet, and fully injury-free. Rowan himself remained the only casualty of the night.

  When they returned to the main hall and found the fourth gear swinging down into place, Rowan rubbed his hands together. “Good. A successful shift! Now on to the wire. Have you made much wire?”

  Zae followed his lead, into the first corridor—the one with the gear he said would go down and then up before they had to leave. “Tons and tons of wire. Are you sure we can’t put a bell on this thing to tell us when it’s moving?” She looked up at the gear as they passed under the archway.

  Rowan shook his head. “Trust me. We’ll be fine. Come on in here.” The workroom he led Zae into was unquestionably set up for their purposes. Crank-powered machines that looked like laundry mangles were bolted to the floor, gleaming with polish and attention. They were at many heights and of many sizes, and along the walls were worktables with vise clamps and drawers filled with all the necessary tools. A small furnace was offset in a corner, and a woman knelt in front of it.

  “Hi, Ruby,” Rowan said.

  She straightened with a serene smile that seemed almost out of place in front of an open hatch of roaring flames. “Hello, Rowan. Zae. I was early, so I thought I’d get the fire going. This will be fun!”

  “Perfect. Thanks!” Rowan joined her, consulting the temperature gauge on the side of the furnace.

  Making wire was a straightforward but time-consuming process, quite similar to making noodles. That was exactly what wire was, Zae decided: metal noodles.

  Zae set out tools while Ruby waited for the furnace and Rowan conjured water into the quenching bucket. When all was ready, he took out a fully laden pouch from somewhere in his clothes and opened it, revealing greenish white pellets.

  “They look like rabbit food,” Zae observed.

  “That would be one expensive rabbit, when it was done.” Rowan poured a small handful into a crucible and eased it into the furnace. Zae and Ruby stood out of the way of the heat and watched the metal shimmer and melt. Rowan poured it into peg-shaped molds. When quenched and firm enough to handle with tongs, each of those pegs—no longer than one of Zae’s fingers—would be worked into a slender wire at least twenty feet long.

  Fidialory, the gnome with the purple hair, wandered in with Glivia, the dwarf, at some point. Zae fell into the hypnotic rhythm of working with wire. She fed the softened metal through ever smaller apertures in the machine with the crank, and then moved to a draw plate clamped to a table, which had even smaller ever-decreasing holes. Each time she drew the metal through, it would get thinner and longer. If it toughened up and started g
iving her trouble, she had a solution for that. Others coiled the wire and put it back in the fire for a few moments, but Zae had a trinket to do the same. It was painted ceramic, shaped like a dragon, and it heated whatever metal was put in its mouth to a molten red glow. She set it out by her workstation, to ease the queue for the small kiln. Once the wire was reheated, she would quench the coil in water, and it was back to the draw plates and pliers to pull the metal through. Again, and again, and again. She had a similar trinket to chill metal, shaped and painted like a snowflake. She had gotten them both at some point during her travels, bartered for her delicate, ornate gears.

  A little tired, a little hungry, and happy to work off the excitement of the first portion of the evening, Zae embraced the rhythms of the work. She was herself a part in a machine—a wire-making machine—entrained in efficient rhythm with her fellow components.

  By the time they were done, the finished coils of wire were stacked together into what looked like a metal hay bale larger than Zae.

  “Tomorrow we weave?” she asked Rowan.

  “Tomorrow we weave! And in the meantime, we drink. You’re meeting us at the tavern, yes?”

  Zae hesitated. “I’d like to, but Keren’s probably waiting for me.”

  “Bring the Keren,” was Rowan’s response. “Kerens are welcome!”

  Zae laughed. “All right. I’ll go home and clean up, and meet you in a bit.” She gathered her satchel, then paused at the workroom door. “How are you going to keep all this secure? It’s not like you can move it yourself.”

  “It’s not like anyone’s going to take it.” Rowan gave Zae a pointed look, even though it wasn’t as if they’d stolen anything from the room they’d snuck into.

  “Not in a stealing way, I mean, but how will they know it’s been claimed? If I wandered through and saw a big heap of greenish wire, what would stop me from just using some?”

  Glivia cleared her throat. From her pocket, she pulled a scrap of black leather. “Prototype glove for throwing and transporting the net,” she explained. “We haven’t had a chance to test it as much as I’d like, but I think it works pretty well. We can take the wire to the tea shop for safekeeping, and then bring it back in the morning.”

  15

  DUCK AND CASTLE

  KEREN

  Under the kitchen table, Appleslayer shifted with a whuff. Keren extended her bare foot, absently rubbing his soft flank. When he whuffed again and sat up at alert, tail wagging, she roused herself from her woolgathering and rose to swing the kettle back over the fire. Zae was home.

  A few moments later, the gnome’s key clicked over in the lock and the door pushed open. “Did you miss me?” Zae asked, peering inside.

  “We both did,” Keren answered, opening her arms. Zae went right to her embrace and hugged her tightly, then knelt beneath the table to rub the dog behind his ears.

  “You look exhausted,” she told Appleslayer. Getting to her feet, she said, “You both do. I know why Apple’s tired. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to ask you about your day earlier!”

  Keren rolled one shoulder in a tired shrug. “You first. How was your field medic shift?”

  Zae came around behind Keren and started rubbing her shoulders, seeking out and destroying knots of pressure with expert revolutions of her thumbs. “It was a quiet night. Not much to treat. I did get a chance to search the workshop of those shifty engineers. They’re building a construct, but all they’ve got hidden are contraband library books in a secret cabinet. The power source is a cylinder that could be jar-shaped.”

  “Our jar?”

  “Hard to say at this point. I’ll keep peeking in as things progress.”

  “And the books?”

  “They were from all the various magical libraries around town. They’re not supposed to be checked out, so technically they’re stolen property. That’s why they were hidden.” Zae felt Keren’s neck tense under her fingers. “But we can’t turn them in. Not if we want them to keep working so that we can figure out what their power source is.” She felt the tension fade again.

  Zae gave her shoulders a squeeze, then turned toward the hearth and pulled the kettle off the fire, handling it carefully with folded cloths. “Refresh your cup?” she offered, and Keren nodded, sliding the earthenware mug to the edge of the table. Zae poured carefully, then made tea for herself. “So, tell me about your lessons.”

  Keren had been dreading this, and as a result, hadn’t been able to decide how to say it aloud. If words gave power to thought and intent, would saying she had failed make it more real—or more permanent? She considered her words for a few long moments, discarding options that sounded too self-deprecating, too hopeless, or too frustrated.

  “You make it look easy.”

  Zae canted her head. Keren wasn’t sure if Zae had learned the gesture from Appleslayer or Apple had learned it from Zae. “Pouring tea?” she asked.

  “Channeling divine magic from your god,” Keren said.

  That silenced Zae for a good few moments. Her lips moved, her lip ring clicked her teeth, but no sounds came out. Finally, the gnome took a long sip of her tea. Her goggles, still on her forehead, clouded over with the steam. Keren watched the mist wash across and fade, and decided that her conviction was not going to evaporate so easily.

  “Your connection with Brigh,” Keren said. “What’s it like?”

  “Ah.” Zae gestured toward the parlor with a tilt of her head, and Keren scraped her chair back to follow. Appleslayer padded along too, and when they had settled comfortably together on the plush loveseat, he curled up over Keren’s feet.

  “My connection with Brigh,” Zae said slowly, fingering the gear on its pendant at her throat, “is hard to describe because I’m so used to it. I wish there were a way to share the feeling of it with you instead.”

  Keren eased the forgotten goggles off Zae’s head, set them aside, and ran her fingers through the dusky blue waves and curls. “Evandor is very patient. He understands what I want to learn, and he tells me that it’s within my reach. He says I have the potential for magic. Divine magic. But it’s like he wants me to use a muscle I’ve never had to use before and I don’t know how to find it.”

  “Like wiggling your ears,” Zae suggested. Keren watched Zae’s nearer ear, pierced with its line of bronze rings from lobe to tip, but the gnome didn’t demonstrate. “See? I don’t know how to either.”

  “Like that,” Keren agreed. She sipped her tea, then rested the mug on the arm of the loveseat in a slow, controlled motion. Calm, she told herself. Not frustrated. Not hopeless. Just calm. “I know volumes of information about Iomedae, but it’s not as if I know her, or know how to contact her. Have you ever seen Brigh?”

  “Has she appeared to me? No. Not like you mean. But I can think back to times when I’ve felt a presence and known she was with me, and then I can try to tap into that feeling and recreate it. Have you ever felt Iomedae’s presence? When you took your oath, or when you were sworn into the order, or … when you stepped into the Seventh Church?”

  “The back of my neck tingled and I felt lightheaded,” Keren admitted. “But I don’t think that was her. I think that was just me being overwhelmed by my own thoughts. How do you know the difference?”

  “Hm. Do you have something to focus on yet?”

  “You mean a holy symbol? Like your gear, or the birthmark on your hand?” Keren unfolded Zae’s small fingers and traced the darker blotches on her palm that almost resembled a set of gears. “Yes.” She pulled up her sleeve with her free hand, showing the miniature sword that dangled from her wrist like a charm on a bracelet.

  “This mark is my focus. The gear pendant is just more fun to fidget with.” Zae closed her hand around Keren’s, and around the small sword. “But we’re talking about you now. Your focus is essential. You can’t do divine magic without it. It’s like the difference between knowing where Brigh’s house is, and having a key to her gate.”

  “Her gate, not her house
?”

  Zae shook her head. “I’d never presume to enter her house. But if I have the key to her gate, then I can knock on her door. Or she can leave packages on her step for me to retrieve.”

  “But without it…”

  “Without it, I can hope she’s looking out her window at the exact moment I’m waving from the street. And that’s all. Magic-wise, I mean.”

  Keren let that swim around in her head for a few long moments. “So even though you’re dedicated to her, and you channel her power through you, it isn’t a very direct connection.”

  “It’s called a focus because it focuses two things: your attention and will, and your god’s attention to … You know what? Maybe a key isn’t the best comparison. Let’s call it a whistle. People are praying at gods all the time, right? The gods have an infinite attention span and an infinite number of things to pay attention to. They want to favor their followers, so they give you a whistle so that you can cut through that other noise and get their attention. And it’s not for things you want or need them to do—it doesn’t work like that. Or at least, it shouldn’t. It’s for things you can do to glorify them.”

  Keren recalled Evandor’s assurance that training and learning were glorifying to Iomedae. She related this, adding, “I just don’t know how to whistle yet?”

  “Exactly. And part of it is the mindset. If I heal someone in Brigh’s name, it’s not because I want them healed. It’s because I see an opportunity for her power to help someone, and I’m offering to be the conduit through which that happens. If I smite the undead in Brigh’s name, it’s not because I want to kill some skeletons, it’s because they’re an abomination and I’m offering to be the conduit through which she can purge them. If I don’t think these things I want to do are worthy of her, that’s self-fulfilling—I’m not going to be whistling loudly enough for her to hear. Does that make more sense?”

  Now Keren nodded slowly. “A lot more, actually. So it’s not me asking Iomedae for a favor, it’s me offering her a favor—a conduit through which to express her nature.”