by Dave Butler
He was doing it for the boy.
The boy had brought him chicken and called him Charlie.
And Charlie knew what it was to be alone and afraid.
“Aldrix!” he called again.
This time he was rewarded with a “Murmph!” from underneath the stairs. Charlie peered into the deep shadow there and found the little dwarf boy, tied hand and foot and silenced by a gag in his mouth.
Aldrix definitely hadn’t stowed away by accident. He’d been kidnapped.
Charlie hated kidnappers.
“Shut your mouth down there!” The voice came from the deck, and Charlie recognized the French tones of the Sinister Man.
Charlie pressed himself against the wall in a shadowed corner and held still. Peering up the stairwell, he saw the Frenchman’s sneer and his eyes searching into the dimmer space belowdecks.
Then the Sinister Man cringed as if he’d been poked. He turned and looked aft, toward the back of the steam-truck, and a stone struck him in the forehead.
“Let my son go!”
Charlie heard the voice and knew it instantly, too: it was the harsh bellow of Syzigon. The Sinister Man staggered back as another stone struck him.
Charlie wondered whether Syzigon was just throwing the rocks or if he had a sling. And was he riding one of the donkeys? He only wondered for a moment, though, because the Frenchman pulled his long pistol from his belt and stalked toward the back of the steam-truck with murder in his eyes.
Bang!
As the shooting started, Charlie grabbed Aldrix and yanked the gag off the boy’s mouth. “Let’s get out of here,” he whispered. Carefully, so as not to hurt the boy, he ripped the ropes from his wrists and ankles and then set him on his feet. “Is there any door other than that one?”
“No.” The little boy’s cheeks puffed up and he bit his lower lip.
The truck ran on steam, which meant it burned something. “Is there a coal room?” If coal came in through some sort of passage, maybe Charlie could take that same passage out.
Aldrix only whimpered.
With the boy in tow, Charlie searched. He found a galley, with dishes and food. He found a bunk room, with six beds that folded down from the walls. He found a captain’s cabin, with a single bed, shelves, and a desk.
He found the boiler room, with a glowing furnace surrounded by a maze of pipes, some of them red-hot. And there, in a corner, was a big bin full of coal. And above the bin was a trapdoor in the wall. That had to be the way the steam-truck received coal.
Charlie climbed up and pushed the trapdoor. It didn’t budge.
He punched it. Nothing.
Scrambling around the room, he found a shovel.
He swung the shovel against the trapdoor with all his might.
Bang!
The inside of the boiler room rang like a bell. The trapdoor still held.
The sound of shooting from above continued.
“Is that man shooting a certain dwarf?” A single tear crept down Aldrix’s cheek.
Charlie managed not to laugh at the strange wording. “No,” he said. “He’s only shooting at your father. And he’s still shooting because he hasn’t hit him yet.”
And also because he hadn’t heard Charlie’s efforts to break out. Or he’d heard the noises and assumed they were caused by something else…such as maybe William T. Bowen driving the steam-truck over boulders.
There had to be another exit.
He pushed open the last two doors. The first opened into a storage room, with shelves on all four walls stacked deep with tinned food.
Behind the other was a tiny washroom. The entire room was brass and glass, and there was a drain in the floor. Against the right wall were a washbasin and mirror; sprouting from high in the back wall was a nozzle that Charlie guessed must be for standing under and washing the body; against the left wall was a small metal flush toilet.
At that moment, Charlie’s legs both twitched, throwing him to his knees.
“No.” He gritted his teeth and pushed himself back onto his feet, mostly leaning on the shovel he still held. “Step away,” he warned Aldrix.
The little boy barely had time to scoot back before Charlie swung the shovel against the toilet.
Gong!
He had no time to listen to learn whether he’d been detected. The toilet had budged an inch from the wall, and water was gushing from it. Charlie wedged his shovel between the toilet bowl and the wall as tightly as he could. His legs shook violently as he braced himself, threw his back into it, and yanked.
Sprong-ng-ng!
The toilet leaped from the wall and smashed into the mirror. Glass shards flew across the washroom, and as the toilet fell, it ripped the washbasin from its place, too. Water spouted up from the floor.
Where the toilet had been, Charlie saw daylight. A hole, big enough for both of them.
Charlie trembled. He dropped the shovel and scooped Aldrix up into his arms. “Don’t worry. You’ll be safe.”
He wrapped his arms and legs around the boy, shaping himself into a ball as much as he could. Then he threw himself into the hole, just as his vision went black.
The skin of Charlie’s face stung. His arms and legs ached.
He opened his eyes.
He lay on his back under trees. The dwarf wagons stood lined up in the corner of his vision, and Syzigon sat by his side. The other dwarfs waited around the wagons; they looked off into the distance through the trees.
“The first thing I need to tell you,” Syzigon said slowly, “is that I’ve wound you up all the way.”
It was true. Aside from the many pains in various parts of his body, Charlie was well. Alive. His body hummed, and he felt within himself that he could again run fast, jump far, and perform feats of strength. He nodded.
“So when you want to leave,” the dwarf continued, “you may do so. And I will give you whatever aid I can, and the last thing I will do before you depart is wind your springs to their maximum tension again.”
Charlie sat up. They were off the road, and he couldn’t tell how far. He wasn’t even sure how the wagons could have gotten into forest as deep as this. They were narrow, but not that narrow. Maybe the oversized wheels let them roll over smaller bushes and shrubs? The trees were other species here, too. Older, it seemed. Less pine and more oak. The forest smelled different.
He nodded again.
“The second thing I need to tell you is that I owe you a debt. Thank you for saving my son.”
“You’re welcome,” Charlie said. “Anybody else in the same situation would have done the same thing.”
A smile cracked the dwarf’s face and he laughed. “Earth and sky, no, I’m much too old to believe that nonsense. And even among those people who would have helped me, precious few could have done anything useful.”
“Maybe.” Charlie tried not to look the dwarf in the eye. He wasn’t sure quite where the conversation was going.
“And the third thing is this: I’m sorry. I apologize for mistreating you…Charlie.”
A flood of strong feeling washed over Charlie, and he lay back down. He wasn’t lying on pine needles, but on something softer and cooler. Moss.
“Pondicherry,” he said. “My name is Charlie Pondicherry.”
“Thank you, Charlie Pondicherry. My friend. I hope you will call me by my name: Syzigon.”
“Is Al—is a certain dwarf well?”
Syzigon patted Charlie’s shoulder. “A certain dwarf my son was terrified. He doesn’t know why those men snatched him, and I don’t really know what to say to explain it. But thanks to you, he’s safe now, and not injured, and with a certain dwarf my wife.”
Charlie still wanted to know why the dwarfs talked about each other that way, but this didn’t seem to be the right moment to ask.
He sat up again. “What about those men? Bowen and the Frenchman?”
“The Frenchman?”
“The one who shot at you.”
Syzigon nodded. “They’ve p
assed us several times on the track, looking. They haven’t seen us, and they won’t.” He grinned again. Each time he did it, his smile was more natural, warmer. “We’re very good at hiding.”
“That’s dwarf magic, isn’t it?” Charlie thought back to the night before. “That’s what a certain dwarf who is…” He tried to remember what Aldrix had said. “Your wife’s sister…was doing last night.”
Syzigon nodded. “With the Dust of Distraction. That’s a warding, a dwarfish spell that pulls the eyes of enemies away from a dwarf. Or a dwarf’s friend.” He smiled again. “You can’t move much when you’re warded with the Dust, but as long as you can stay still, it becomes very difficult to see you.”
“What about when you’re moving?” Charlie asked.
“You have many questions. Are you planning to take up dwarf magic?”
They both laughed.
“I like to know things,” Charlie explained. “I’ve read a lot of books, but I’m learning lately that books don’t have all the answers.”
“The wagons themselves are protected by a different spell.” Syzigon pointed at the column of runes painted on the wagon nearest to them. “It’s not as effective, but if you keep the wagon doors shut and move slowly, it discourages inexperienced eyes.”
“The Iron—that is, Bowen saw you.”
Syzigon nodded. “He’s a stranger to me, but that man has known dwarfs.”
“Why do you want to stay hidden so badly?”
Syzigon’s face became very serious. “We have a long history. And few friends.”
“Hiding magic must come in useful.”
“That’s not quite it.”
Charlie stared at him, not understanding.
“Dwarf magic isn’t hiding magic,” Syzigon said.
“What is dwarf magic, then?”
Syzigon hesitated. “You must understand, Charlie. I’m talking to you as I would to a brother.”
“Thank you,” Charlie said.
“Dwarf magic isn’t hiding magic. It’s magic of finding and not-finding. We call our magicians dowsers for their gift in locating objects that are lost or hidden. The same gift that lets them locate things—or people—allows them to make things and people difficult to find.”
Charlie let that settle in.
“So if we’re to part ways now, Charlie, we’ll try our hardest to see that you remain unfound. Those men may be angry with you because you rescued a certain dwarf.”
Charlie thought it best not to complicate Syzigon’s life by mentioning the Iron Cog, so he just nodded.
“A certain dwarf who has the gift will ward you as well as she can. Paint runes on your clothes, maybe. Fill your pockets with the Dust of Distraction. She will know what’s best; she’s the dowser.”
“Thank you,” Charlie said. “I believe there will be a parting of the ways. A certain dwarf your son mentioned you’re going to Machine-Town, and I must go to Cader Idris.” He thought of the Welshman Lloyd Shankin and wondered again whether the dewin was mad. “I have friends to find, and I must…well, it’s a long story, but there’s a man there, and I must warn him that his enemies are coming for him.”
As Charlie spoke, Syzigon smiled broader and broader, and as Charlie finished, he broke into a full chuckle. “Charlie, this is good fortune indeed. We’re going to the same place.”
Charlie shrugged. “Are we?”
“Machine-Town is a nickname. The real name of the town we’re going to is Machynlleth.” Charlie had a hard time catching the town name that Syzigon shared; it sounded a bit like ma-HUN-heth.
In any case, he didn’t know the town, so he shrugged again. “I’m sorry. I don’t know the country at all. In fact, until a few days ago, I had never left a single tiny alley in London.”
“Machynlleth is the town at the foot of your mountain. Cader Idris. It’s spelled a bit like the English word machine, and it…well, you’ll see, but it has more than its share of mechanical devices.”
Charlie straightened out of his shrug. “Oh, very good,” he said, relieved. Now that Syzigon was his friend, he’d be traveling with someone who could share his dangers and wind his mainspring when he needed it. Then a thought occurred to him. “Why did Bowen want a certain dwarf who is your son?”
Syzigon’s face, which had progressively lightened as their conversation continued, grew suddenly dark. “Bowen didn’t want me to buy shares in his joint-stock company. He asked about the Old Man, and I think that’s what he was really after. If I hadn’t had the sheyala with me, he’d have kidnapped me instead. Maybe tortured me.”
“Sheyala? Oh, the cats.”
“More than cats, Charlie. We and the sheyala are the same folk.”
Charlie nodded, though what Syzigon said made no sense.
“And because I did have the sheyala with me, he kidnapped a certain dwarf my son instead. Or his associate, this Frenchman of yours, did. Again, I am in your debt.”
“Does a certain dwarf who is your son know about the Old Man?”
“Not the kind of information Bowen was asking for. So maybe Bowen would have held a certain dwarf as a hostage and demanded my cooperation.”
The thought made Charlie angry. He wanted to mutter something suitably dark, but he couldn’t think of any words that would really express his feelings and ended up just growling.
Then he had an idea. “Wait…the Old Man…is his name Caradog Pritchard?”
Syzigon’s eyes opened wide, and Charlie knew that his hunch was correct.
“Be careful with names, Charlie,” the dwarf said. “Even a false name, worn long enough, acquires something of the essence of the thing it names. A name identifies a person and can grant power over him.”
“I see.” Charlie nodded. “So I know what the answer is. And I need to go see the Old Man, too.” He sighed. “In fact, I didn’t want to tell you this because…because it just becomes more complicated, but I need to warn him about the people who attacked us today.”
“William T. Bowen?”
“Not only him.” Charlie tried to think how he could condense what he knew. “I think he’s part of a…of a group. They call themselves the Iron Cog. They killed my father, and I think they plan to kill the Old Man, too.”
Syzigon stroked all three braids of his beard. “Why would they do that?”
“I don’t really know. I think my bap and the Old Man used to be part of the Iron Cog, but then they left it. And when they left, they took secrets with them, and that interferes with the Cog’s plans.” Charlie didn’t mention that he himself was the secret technology his bap had taken from the Iron Cog. “I think maybe they want to rule the world.”
“Then, Charlie,” Syzigon said, “we need to get as quickly as we can to Machine-Town, and we need to do it without being seen.”
“Agreed.” Mentally Charlie added: And find Bob and Ollie and Gnat. “But how do we do that?”
Syzigon grinned his biggest grin yet. “That’s easy. We ask the alfar to help us.”
The two older dwarfs chose that moment to approach Charlie and Syzigon. In the background, the rest of the dwarfs were climbing into their wagons and preparing to leave.
Syzigon and Charlie stood up.
Syzigon nodded his head so deeply to his elders that it was almost a bow. “A certain friend who rescued a certain dwarf is also bound for Machine-Town, I have learned. I have invited a certain friend to sleep in our wagons. I hope that my invitation may meet the approval of those who decide.”
The old woman and man looked at each other and clasped hands. They didn’t say anything, but their eyes met, and they seemed to be communicating through the pure power of gaze. Finally they broke eye contact with each other, still holding hands, and they looked at Syzigon.
“The invitation is a valid one,” the old woman said. She turned to face Charlie. “My name is Patali. You have saved the life of a certain dwarf who is my grandson. You are welcome to our wagons.”
The old man looked at him, too. “We have
decided. I am Calphor. Welcome to our wagons.”
Syzigon nodded, satisfaction visible in his face. “Thank you,” he said to his elders. Then he grasped Charlie by the elbow, a wild gleam in his eye. “Tell me—what do you know of the elves?”
“I am Thassia.” Thassia was Atzick’s wife, the last dwarf of the caravan whose name Charlie learned. She was the one he had seen dancing with the Dust of Distraction around the dwarf wagons.
She was a dowser.
She stood in front of the foremost wagon; the donkeys were hitched to their poles, and the wagons were ready to roll at her instruction.
Thassia held a forked stick, two feet long. Straightening her back, she gripped the stick with both hands by the fork and closed her eyes.
“What kind of wood is it?” Charlie asked.
Thassia opened her eyes and laughed. “A certain friend is even more curious than you said!” she called back to Syzigon.
“I’m sorry,” Charlie said.
“For what? If you never ask questions, you’ll never know anything. It depends on what I’m dowsing for. For instance, if I wish to find water, hazel is best.”
“This one’s oak, isn’t it?” Charlie had seen her cut and trim the branch, humming and chanting as she did so. Her melodies seemed aimless and her rhymes sounded like nonsense, but of course they couldn’t be.
She nodded. “Oak for dowsing stone.”
“I thought we wanted to find the alfar. Do they live in stone houses?”
Thassia chuckled, closed her eyes, and didn’t answer.
Slowly, she rotated to her left. She held the stick pointed out in front of her and angled slightly down. When she had turned about a third of a complete circle, the tip of the stick dipped sharply.
She rotated back the other way, and at the same point of orientation the stick dipped again. She opened her eyes and walked forward when it did.
The wagons followed. Warned to stay close, Charlie walked at the side of Atzick and Thassia’s wagon. He was careful not to get trapped under the big wheels, but his eyes were fixed on Thassia. She continued to swing her dowsing rod in front of her as she walked, and she adjusted her course to move in the direction indicated by the dipping of the forked oak stick.
