“Borgle, a little help?” Eddy said.
The mechanism turned and looked between Eddy and the trench for a few moments. It lifted one pincer toward the edge of the trench and sparked it.
“Don’t you dare touch that trench!” Mab snapped.
“Stop!” Eddy said quickly. “Just lift me over.”
Borgle chimed happily and used two pincers to grab Eddy’s cart by the wheels and somewhat clumsily heave him to the other side.
“Rotten machine, trying to chip away at what I made…” Mab said.
“Borgle is a digger. Diggers dig, too. Like dwarves. You should be friends!”
“You don’t make friends with tools. And you shouldn’t have to argue with tools and babysit tools lest they ruin what you’ve made.”
“Then Borgle isn’t a tool.”
“I suppose not. More of a pet.”
“Then you can be friends with it!”
“I don’t have much use for pets either. This thing here is a pile of parts. Pretty useful in the shape it’s in. But I’m not so sure it wouldn’t be more useful in a different shape entirely.”
“Like what?”
“Like that.”
Mab pointed to what was slowly becoming visible behind a jagged berm ahead. As they drew closer and more of the structure revealed itself, Eddy found it progressively more confounding. In its general shape, he supposed it must have been a house. He’d seen a few drawings of what made for shelter on the surface, and this was similar. It had shutters over windows, shingles on the roof. But for everything that was reminiscent of a house, there were three things that Eddy had never seen and couldn’t imagine the purpose for. Everything had gears and struts attached. Springs, wheels, and pipes abounded. At one edge, a fire burned underneath a cauldron or kettle. Everything had the same shimmering, shiny look of the metal that composed Borgle’s body.
“Is that… your home?” Eddy said in a less than confident tone.
“Such as it is…” Mab muttered.
“You built it out of diggers?”
“There’s not much to use around here aside from stone, shell, stalks, and diggers. Diggers have the best material. I don’t know what they’re made out of, but with nothing but stalks to burn, even with the best bellows I could manage, I couldn’t melt them down. It’s all I can do to soften them enough to work them.”
“It isn’t… I do not very much like the thought that you have been using things built by my gods to make a house.”
“Well they weren’t using them anymore.”
The trio approached the house.
“How many diggers did you use?”
“Who counts such things? Maybe six. Maybe ten.”
Eddy craned his neck. The place was a good deal larger than his own home. If he were to hazard an estimate, he would have placed it at near the size of one of the huge fishing trawlers he’d seen from below when accompanying his sister on trips to nearby villages for trade.
“It seems large for even just ten diggers.”
“Those things are packed with useful parts. Hook them together right and they stretch quite a ways.”
Borgle stopped at the front door of the gleaming, vaguely clockwork manor. As it had been approaching, Borgle’s merry little rhythm of ticking, whirring, and clacking had been getting rougher. Now, as its two functional eyes swept over the structure, its hull was grinding and vibrating. It was almost like a beast’s growl.
A pincer curled around and grasped Mab by the collar. It plucked the dwarf from its back and unceremoniously dropped her.
"What has gotten into you, you daft machine?" Mab fumed, pulling herself to her feet and dusting herself off.
Borgle pointed with two pincers at the assortment of gears surrounding the door, then pointed at its own body. It produced a rather aggressive thunk.
"I think Borgle does not very much like you using pieces of its fellow diggers for making things either," Eddy said.
"I don't think Borgle gets to have an opinion. Egad. I didn't think if I ever met another person again I'd find myself longing for solitude so soon."
The doorway wasn't quite large enough for Eddy to easily navigate it in his cart, but that didn't stop him from indulging his curiosity. He flopped from the contraption and slid himself in behind Mab as she trudged inside.
If the outside of the house had been a dizzying and complex bit of ingenuity, the inside was at a whole other level. It was dark, what little light was visible came from bouquets of the golden stalks. Eddy leaned close to scrutinize the walls, which were hung over every available bit of surface with tools of various descriptions. Hammers and picks were most common, but there were also pliers and grippers, knives and tongs, and things he knew neither the name nor the purpose of. Like the building itself, each was fashioned of bits of digger and lashed with twisted stalks.
The ceilings were low, barely tall enough to prevent Mab from bumping her head, but that was hardly a problem for someone who had been reduced to dragging himself along the ground. What was a problem was the mounds of scattered parts and debris all over the floor.
"You are not as tidy as you could be, Mab," Eddy said.
The dwarf rattled at some metallic cups and flasks, shaking them to find one that was full.
"I wasn't expecting company. And I don't remember inviting you in," she muttered.
There was more muttering, mostly under her breath, as she leaned over a pile of neatly crafted stone blocks to twirl a handle. Chains and gears squeaked and jingled, causing struts to shift and shutters to rise. The light from the outside bounced off the polished surface of several walls, suddenly bathing the interior of the place with more than adequate light.
Mab pulled a lever and weights dropped, clicking some mechanism or another and yanking open a door that lead further into the home.
"Does everything in this place have a switch or something or other for doing things?"
"When you've got gears and chains, you use them."
He squinted at what little of the bare walls he could see behind the mechanisms. There was etched writing, the kind of spider web-thin lines one gets by scribing with a needle. At first, he supposed it was left over from some sort of mystic writing that had been on the original bits of digger, but the shapes seemed wrong for something of merfolk origin, even the truly ancient stuff he'd been encountering.
"Did you write these things?" he asked.
Mab glanced in his direction, then at the mostly hidden writing.
"Oh. Yes. Ages ago. Just after I built this place."
"What does it say?"
"You wouldn't understand."
"I don't understand. That is why I am asking what it says."
"It had to do with dwarfs."
Eddy blinked, patiently waiting for further explanation. Mab sighed.
"I was taught that we only get what we earn in life, and you only earn something by working. Your pay for a job? You earned that. Your good fortune? You earned that. Your bad fortune. You earned that. So, when I got myself trapped here, I knew that it was because I earned it. Did the wrong sort of work. Got the gods mad at me. If you want forgiveness, and the good fortune that comes with it, you’ve got to earn it. There's more to it than just working, though. You need to let the gods know that the work you do today is for them. So, I kept track. Every day, every job. I marked it down. This is a tribute to you. Please see your way fit guiding me home."
Eddy gazed about. The messages peeked out from nearly every bit of wall and support. Even some of the older looking struts had messages scrawled along them. But the newest things lacked them.
"Why did you stop?"
Mab sighed again.
"There is an old saying among the dwarfs. It is a bit too appropriate these days. You can't dig a mine in water."
"You can if it is ice," Eddy said.
"That's why I said water, not ice. Look, it doesn't matter. What it means is, if you keep working and when you're through you find yourself right where
you started, day after day, week after week, then you are doing something wrong. No sense working at it if you'll never succeed.”
“So, you gave up. You believed you would never leave this place?”
“I’m still not convinced I ever will. If the gods saw fit to send me a fish out of water and a pile of disobedient scrap, something tells me they weren’t too pleased with the work I was doing.”
Eddy smiled. “We will show you that you are wrong. We are the things you need. Because we are on an adventure, and the hero of an adventure always helps his friends.”
The merman seemed as though he had more to say, but he was silenced when the walls around him began to shake. Slowly, one wall lifted and tilted.
“Your house is moving, Mab! I did not know houses did that,” Eddy said, fascinated.
Things started to tumble from the shelf on the offending wall. “It doesn’t move on its own.”
She hustled outside.
“You cut that out!” she snapped.
Borgle, either bored or curious, had found a large handwheel fashioned from the same sort of gear that formed the wheels on Eddy’s cart. Spinning the wheel cranked in this chain and spun that strut, causing one corner of the house to shift.
The machine, upon seeing Mab and Eddy emerge from the house, backed away, awaiting new orders. Mab muttered under her breath and spun the wheel in the opposite direction, restoring the house to its proper angle.
“What is that for?” Eddy asked.
“When the earth shakes, sometimes it settles differently. I designed this place so I can level it. Now come on. I need to stock the still."
She stomped irritably around to the rear of the house, where a small hallway from the inside ended at a large, simmering kettle. The sides of the hallway were strapped with bundles of stalks, some still plump with their sweet liquid, some dried husks. She grabbed a few of each and approached a potbellied monstrosity that rattled and rumbled almost as aggressively as Borgle had.
Eddy dragged himself up and practically pushed Mab aside to investigate it.
"What is this?" he said, eyes wide and face enthusiastic.
"I said. It's a still. It's for making booze."
"Why does it bubble and hum?"
"Because you need heat the… Look, I'm not here to educate you. And even if I was, I wouldn't educate you about this. This is just about the worst made still, which makes the worst made booze, that you've ever seen."
He nodded. "This is very much so. But also, it is the best. Because it is the only."
"If we make it out of here, maybe you could cart yourself down to Smeltersons Distillery. The stills are bigger than this house, and there are dozens of them. Some of the best brew and booze to be had, and enough of it to keep a whole mountainside of dwarves from getting thirsty."
"Maybe I will!" Eddy said. "With this cart, I do not even need land swimmers. And I can…"
Eddy trailed off when Mab kicked open the door to the fire box.
"Wow…"
Mab raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"Look at the glowing…" Eddy said, approaching the dusty, smoldering embers. "And the heat. I can feel the heat."
"You are easily amused."
"It is like... little fragments of a glowing pool…"
"There plenty of things down here that glow."
"But not that color. That red color. I've only ever seen fire once. I didn't know it could be so still…"
"Between your lackluster language and how easily amazed you are, I'm beginning to think you aren't the most brilliant specimen of mermen."
Mab loaded up the firebox, sprinkled a bit of this and that into the assorted compartments and canisters of the still, and decanted some sort of liquid.
"Is that the booze?" Eddy asked eagerly.
"It is…" Mab rumbled.
She was clearly running short of patience. Eddy remained oblivious to that fact.
"I would very much like to taste some please! I am a little thirsty and you make me want to know what booze is like."
"I said it before. This isn't for you. Badly made dwarfen rotgut is no way to introduce yourself to the world of spirits. That you think this is the sort of thing you drink when you are thirsty is sign enough that you're not savvy enough to be drinking it."
Eddy rolled to his back so he could cross his arms. "I am an adult. I am savvy. More savvy about the sea than you, and that's where we are."
"But we aren't in the sea, we're in a cave under the sea."
"Mab, if you do not want to share with me because you want more for yourself, that is your decision. But if you do not want to share with me because you are afraid I do not know how to drink. That is my decision. I would like very much to try some."
Mab shook her head. "It's your funeral."
She fetched a hammered metal cup and decanted some of the liquor from the bottle she had just filled. Eddy sat up and propped himself against a wall in a sitting position. He held out his hands like a child receiving candy and accepted the cup.
To his credit, Eddy didn't immediately gulp it down. While Mab jingled and sloshed other nearby bottles, he tipped the cup back and forth and considered the contents. It was almost perfectly clear, though to his eye there might have been a slight amber tint. It was a bit thinner than water. Even to his untrained and stunted sense of smell it was powerful in its scent, similar to but significantly more substantial than the more delicate aroma of pannet. He dipped his finger into the stuff. It felt warm from the still, yet strangely cold at the same time as he pulled his finger away.
Once he'd tested it with all other senses, then he gulped it down.
His large eyes opened wide. Catlike slits of his eyes opened round and large as saucers. The glow of his fins surged extra bright. He gaped his mouth open and tilted his head back, silently panting.
"A bit much, yes?" Mab said, handing him a second cup.
Eddy waved it off as though he were being offered a vial of poison.
"It's fresh water," she said, pushing it back in his face.
He snatched it and drained the cup in one grateful swallow.
"I warned you," Mab said.
"Not enough," Eddy wheezed. "It does not even have a flavor. It is just pain on my tongue. You drink that?"
"Every day."
"Are you hollow inside? It feels like it is eating a hole through my belly. Is that because it is my first drink?"
"Nope." She tipped back a swig from the bottle. "You just start to look forward to the fire in your belly."
Eddy tipped his head back again and resumed his baby bird position, tongue lolled out and eyes slowly easing back to normal. Mab chuckled at the bizarre sight. Her jovial attitude faltered when she heard a sudden and vigorous cranking noise and one corner of her home started to raise up.
"Again!?" Mab growled, thundering off toward Borgle.
#
Mira gazed down at the inky depths below.
“They’ve been down there a long time…” she said, anxiety in her tone.
“That’s good news!” Cora said. “Seems to me if there was something that definitely meant bad things for your brother, they’d have spotted it really quick. That they’re taking their time probably means there’s not much damage to see.”
“I hope you’re right…”
Cora fished out the gem she’d taken as payment and twisted it in her fingers.
“I don’t know much about mining. Do you get all sorts of gems out of just the one hole? Or is it one type of gem per mine?”
“Mostly you are lucky if you find any gems or precious materials at all, let alone more than one type. We have been very lucky that our mine has had a great deal of variety, if not a great deal of quantity.”
“That’s nice. Shows Mer is smiling upon you. That’s what father used to say. … There! Is that them?”
Cora squinted downward.
“Oh, sure. That’s Cul alright. Easy to spot him. There aren’t too many mermen with just the one eye.�
�
“What happened to the other eye?”
“He had a belly full of pannet and thought he’d show a guard at Deep Swell who was boss.”
“I haven’t been to Deep Swell, but I’ve heard the mermaids are as formidable as mermen, and the mermen are absolute beasts.”
“Cul can attest. They hit harder than they have any right to.”
Sitz, Bult, and Cul approached from below.
“Did you find anything?”
“Mira, it is probably nothing but—” Cul began.
“A bunch of rocks fell along the edge of the rift. Could have crushed someone if he wasn’t paying attention,” Bult said.
“Bult!” Cul scolded, slapping him in the head.
“What? It isn’t a lie,” Bult said. “We’ve got to set her expectations.”
“We didn’t find any sign of him,” Cul said. “But there was definitely some damage near the seaward side of the farm. The rest of the farm held up well.”
“The seaward side is where the entrance to the mine is…” Mira said shakily.
“Tell us where it is and we’ll take a look.”
“It isn’t as easy as that,” Mira said. “There’s vents. Scalding water. Eddy needs to wear a special outfit to get past it.”
“So you pulling us way out here out of our way was just a waste of everyone’s time, then,” Sitz muttered.
Cul slapped him in the head as well.
“I thought it was best to… I thought if it all happened quickly… This is terrible…”
“Do you have more of the equipment?”
“His spare is in for repair. The material is hard to get, and he’s the only one who needs to go to the mine. I’ll get it. I’ll go get it and I’ll see if any of the others have suits they can spare. By now surely the commotion has died down back in Barnacle. I can get the others back home to help me.”
“Good. Then we’ll be on our way then,” Sitz said.
“You go. I’m helping her,” Cul growled.
“Yeah. You can’t just tell a girl her brother might be hurt and then go on your way. Where’s your heart?” Cora said.
“Right near my stomach, which’ll be growling if I don’t get the money it takes to keep me fed, and that won’t happen if—” Sitz began.
The Adventures of Rustle and Eddy Page 19
