Rebel Skyforce (Mad Tinker Chronicles)

by J. S. Morin

  There was some glimmer of comprehension—or was there? Perhaps something in his tone had conveyed the heart of Cadmus’s question. Confidence schemes were an art that Cadmus had never patronized, but he knew the principles: skilled observation, inference, vague answers, leading questions. Was Erund playing three-cups and a marble with him? From Madlin’s reports, the Veydrans she was traveling with could puzzle out bits of Korrish by the sound. There were plenty of ways to glean bits of Korrish geography from the Tinker’s Islanders, and it wasn’t likely that any of them would refer to a humans-only sky as a village.

  “Well, despite the rusty ear, I think I’ve found my man,” Cadmus said. He stood and extended a hand to Erund once again. The scribe—and likely infiltrator—relaxed visibly and gave an amiable shake, less focused on impressing with grip than in the vigor of the shaking. Cadmus clapped Erund on the back and guided him out the door of his office. “We’ll get you clearance to the dynamo workshop. You can start tomorrow on some practice metals.”

  While they walked among the offices of Errol Company, Cadmus searched for someone. It wasn’t a particular twinborn he sought, but rather one with a particularly quick mind and the proper tool at hand. He made a few cursory introductions, pointed out bits of trivia about the construction of the building, all biding time until he found what he was looking for.

  Mazzin Daug was the man who caught the Mad Tinker’s eye. He was a Takalishman who was quarter Feru by his mother’s side. He had grown up the son of a soldier in Tellurak and his twin was a freeman pub bouncer in Korr. He was bull-necked and barrel-chested, looking like a statue whittled from mahogany and left to the elements for a year. “Mazzin, come here a minute. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

  “What’s that, boss?” Mazzin asked as he approached. “New fella comin’ on?” He extended a meaty hand, slashed across with light-colored scars.

  “Mazzin, this is Erund Hinterdale,” Cadmus said. As Erund extended his hand, the Mad Tinker switched to Korrish. “Ventilate this imposter immediately.” He chose long words in the hope that the Veydran spy wouldn’t puzzle it out in time.

  Mazzin was a soldier’s soldier. He knew his commander’s ruse immediately. He drew his pistol—the thing Cadmus had primarily looked for in a rescuer—and fired, putting a bloody hole in the center of Erund’s chest. The false twinborn’s eyes went wide in surprise, or shock, or fear. When he fell dead to the ground, it no longer mattered the cause of the gaping eyes that stared off at an accountant’s door nearby.

  “Get someone to help you get him down to the furnaces. Incinerate the body. Make inquiries and find out if anyone else was here with him, and take them into custody. I want this mopped up quickly.”

  Cadmus watched as the body was removed from the halls of Errol Company headquarters. No sooner had four workers trussed the corpse up in a tarp, than a pair of janitors appeared on the scene to scrub away the blood. It did Cadmus’s heart good, seeing the efficiency of his people. They had suffered a close miss that could have put all these fine men and women in peril.

  “Dammit Madlin, this is the trouble in trucking with Veydrans.”

  Some days, you are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Mazzin had been seeing about a discrepancy in his weekly wage when Cadmus had recruited him for an impromptu murder. Guilty or not, the man hadn’t been tried, but Mazzin hadn’t been given time to think. The order was clear; Cadmus’s tone was urgent. It had been more a reflexive response than a decision.

  To keep matters quiet, he was also assigned the task of finding Erund Hinterdale’s associates on Tinker’s Island and arresting them. The man had only arrived days ago, and the only lead Mazzin had to go on was a wife. The thought that he’d killed a family man sat in Mazzin’s stomach like a ball of lead: heavy, poisonous, and with no quick way to be rid of it.

  The Gilded Coin was Cadmus’s attempt to extort money from wealthy visitors to the city. Whatever else might be inferred from the man’s actions, Erund Hinterdale had money. Flanked by two one-worlder guards he’d brought along as much for company as for their aid, Mazzin knocked on the door of room 412.

  “Open up,” Mazzin called through the door. “Official business.”

  He didn’t have to wait long. The door opened and revealed a woman as tall as he was. She was thin past the point fashionable ladies strove for, with a fair face and reddish gold hair, and was wearing coveralls belted so tightly that it looked as if she must be about to snap in two.

  “Official, huh? What sort of official comes with a drawn gun and two fellas along for muscle?” she asked.

  Mazzin ignored her question. “Juliana Hinterdale?” She gave a lopsided smirk and nodded. “I am Mazzin Daug, Errol Company security. I’m going to have to ask you to come with us.”

  “What’s this all about?” She crossed her arms and made no move to exit the room.

  “Your husband threatened Mr. Errol and was shot dead.”

  “Wait, you said your name was Mazzin?”

  “Yes ma’am, now if you’ll please come with us, we have some questions we’d like answered.”

  Juliana raised an eyebrow and called over her shoulder. “Sweetheart, wasn’t Mazzin the name you mentioned to me?” The reply from within the room was muffled by one of the interior doors.

  Mazzin heard a door open and the slapping of bare feet on the marble floor.

  “Oh, not you again,” Erund Hinterdale replied as he stepped beside his wife, soaking wet and wrapped in a towel. “Listen, I’ve played along enough for one day, all right?”

  Mazzin stood frozen. One of his men bolted, but only managed to run two paces before he hung suspended in the air.

  “What do we do with this lot?” Juliana asked.

  “Did you tell anyone else about my wife yet?” Erund asked. He wagged a finger at Mazzin. “No lying.”

  “N-no,” he managed to say.

  “Seems simple enough, then,” Juliana said.

  There was a blinding flash, then nothingness.

  Mazzin stood in Cadmus’s private workshop, where the Mad Tinker was relaxing over a pile of sketches for his great machine. It was dusk, and the red of the sunset cast the room in a hellish light. “Nothing at all?” Cadmus asked.

  “He seems to have come alone,” Mazzin replied. “He had a room at the Gilded Coin, but he had few possessions, and nothing so useful as a journal or letters. It seems he was a bit of a loner, only a handful had even recognized the name.”

  Cadmus set his pencil down and paced in front of the window. “What could he have wanted?”

  “I can keep making inquiries, tinker.”

  Cadmus stroked his chin. The puzzle made no sense without more pieces, but Tinker’s Island seemed an unlikely spot to turn up more. “No, I’ll make inquiries in Korr. Thank you, Mazzin.”

  “Goodnight, tinker. See you on the other side.”

  Chapter 6

  “If you want to get rich at a festival, rob a thief. He’s already picked everyone’s pockets clean.” –Tolian the Quickfinger, from the play Prince of Alleys

  The streets of Bouo were never quiet, but during festivals it was a merry riot in the streets. Madlin had lost the count of days as they crossed Khesh, but she didn’t need a calendar to know the Serpent’s Tribute had arrived. Even with a light rain falling, the people of Bouo were out in celebration, many decked out in costumes adorned with green feathers meant to look like serpent scales.

  As the wagons crept through the streets at less than a walking pace, Madlin hunched inside with a hand on her pistol grip. The crowds were too thick for her liking, the costumes garish and bewildering to the eye. News of her trek across northern Khesh could not have gone without rumors arriving well before the wagons. If anyone had intentions of ambushing them for their cargo, the crowd could conceal any number of assailants among the revelers.

  Dan plunked himself down beside Madlin. “None of the serpents are real, you know. I don’t think you’re going to need the gun.”

>   “If this were Korr, and this was someone else’s money, I’d be looking for a way to boost it,” she replied.

  “Maybe, but it’s crated up. It’s not like someone is going to cut your purse strings and sneak off with it. Besides, half this lot’s already drunk and the rest are trying to catch up.” Dan extended a handful of sweets in a tiny wicker basket. “Here, try one. They’re pretty good.”

  Madlin leaned away from the basket. “Do you know what those are?”

  “Fella hawking ‘em said they were sweethearts.”

  Madlin gave him a sickly smile. “Yeah, fried chicken hearts glazed in sugar.” She watched for Dan’s reaction, but he kept chewing as if he hadn’t heard her.

  “Funny, you’d think they’d have given them a cleverer name.” Dan popped another into his mouth. “Really, you can hardly even taste the meat inside. They could have sugared black beans or peas or something and you’d never tell the difference. There some special Serpent Day thing about chickens I don’t know about?”

  “Can you maybe not eat those right in front of me?” Madlin asked. Her stomach was turning sour with the squishy noises of Dan chewing as he talked.

  “What, are you squeamish?” Dan asked. He opened his mouth wide, showing half-eaten sweethearts within. Madlin cringed away from both the sight and smell. Dan laughed. “That’s what you get trying to make me sick telling me what they are when I’ve got them in my mouth. You don’t get to be warlock by tossing your lunch over every little thing, but I know that trick. I invented that trick.”

  Madlin watched a troupe of actors putting on a makeshift performance for an audience within elbow’s reach. Three of them were dressed as fishermen, and a fourth wore an elaborate serpent costume with scales of oxidized copper. “You don’t strike me as the inventing type. I bet you’d find tinkering pretty boring.”

  “You said it, not me. I’ve got nothing against you tinkers, but I just don’t need machines to do my work for me. It’s fine for people who can’t do magic worth horse snot, like Tanner.”

  “Tell me, Dan, what do they do when people get sick in Veydrus?”

  There was an elaborate sigh from above Madlin, and a basket of sweethearts showered her. “Piss off, Madlin. How many times are you going to try to thief-talk me into giving you magic lessons? Lather up any more jelly on my bread and I’ll rot my teeth.”

  “It’s a fair question!” Madlin protested, flicking the foul treats off the wagon and into the crowd.

  Dan grabbed hold of one of the supports for the wagon’s canvass covering and swung around into Madlin’s field of vision. “Fine then. For a sniffle, we drink dragon piss. For fever, we lie naked under a full moon. If someone breaks a bone, we take them to the smithy and alloy the bone with iron, then weld it back together. Festering wounds must be bathed in virgin blood. Should anyone show signs of hysterical madness, we treat them with land and title.”

  Madlin listened to the tirade with her lips pursed. “How’s the virgin blood thing work?”

  Dan’s face grew solemn. “You’re serious about this one, aren’t you?”

  “If I can’t find a way to cure septic rot, they’re going to cut my foot off.”

  “Make sure they’ve got hot tar on hand to seal it,” Dan said. “I’ve watched it done after a battle. Nasty business. If it were me, I’d almost rather let the rot take me. Then again, it’s not me.”

  “What would you do if it was?”

  Dan studied her. Madlin had not grown accustomed to the vast age that crept into his eyes when he took something seriously. She couldn’t tell if he was using the aether vision he had told her of, or if there was some evaluation being made of her. “I’d keep it to myself, fix it quiet, in the middle of the night, when no one was around.” He bobbed his head, prompting Madlin for a sign that she understood his double-meaning.

  “Good enough,” Madlin replied. She checked over her shoulder, and Jamile was still on the next wagon ahead, sitting with Tanner. “I’ll find you once everyone else is asleep.”

  “I’ve got a price though.”

  “What’s that? Ten percent of a gold mine not enough?”

  “My share’s only five once Tanner and I split it, but I’m not asking for more gold. I’ve got two conditions.”

  Madlin’s hand strayed to her pistol. No-Boots had tried a similar tactic on her once. What was it about adolescent boys? “What kind of conditions?”

  “First is for your own protection. I’m going to use a spell to watch through your eyes. If anything goes wrong, I’m waking Jamile.”

  Madlin shrunk back. “You can do that?” Dan shrugged and nodded. “I don’t like the idea of someone else watching what I see.”

  “Just don’t go bathing or taking your clothes off in front of a mirror. I’m guessing Jamile and your father aren’t keen on you using magic, or you wouldn’t keep looking over to see if she’s listening. I’ll help you, but I don’t want you killing yourself, either.”

  Madlin mulled over Dan’s condition. The thought of another mind lurking behind her eyes sent a cold shiver through her despite the warm Kheshi rain. It sounded similar to her own slumbering consciousness watching Chipmunk’s antics, but without the lifelong familiarity, sisterhood, and trust. Some part of her had always wondered whether she and Chipmunk were even really separate people, and not king and crest of the same coin. Dan’s presence would be alien. “Will I be able to tell you’re there?”

  Dan held up his palms. “How would I know? I don’t let anyone use magic on me.”

  “That’s not exactly reassuring,” Madlin replied dryly.

  “It’s like a wolf pack,” Dan replied. “Biggest wolf doesn’t get rolled on his back for anyone. Doesn’t mean the others have it so bad though. I’m the lead wolf wherever I go when it comes to magic. You want my help, you’re gonna have to learn how to behave in the pack with the rest of them.”

  “What says I won’t take your advice, then renege?”

  “For your own good, I’d check on you anyway. You haven’t got a sorceress’s mind. You want to learn about magic, but you put your trust in things like locks and guards with rifles. I could slip past any guard you post and get through any door. So, are you just pissing in my ale here, or are you going to agree to my first condition?”

  Madlin couldn’t see another way. If Dan had a mind to, she suspected he could make good on all his boasts. He had already proven that he wasn’t deterred by guns. Why would a lock on the door of a rented room pose any greater challenge? “Fine. But let me hear your other condition before I agree.”

  “When we get settled into an inn, we ditch this bumpkin festival and find a game of Crackle somewhere with good liquor,” Dan said. He hopped down from the wagon and fell into stride a pace away. He was tall enough that he only looked up slightly to see eye to eye with Madlin.

  “Serpent Festival not to your liking?” Madlin asked.

  Madlin had heard many descriptions of Bouo. To most foreigners, it was the bazaar of Mongrel Khesh. To frequent visitors, it was a pit of vice and corruption. To the locals, it was the soul of the Kheshi Empire. To the southerners, it was the leak where filth from across the seas seeped into the continent. It was crowded, raucous, colorful, and diverse. She had never heard anyone refer to it as backward or countrified.

  Dan gave her a withering look. “Amateur pipers on every corner, warbling out the same tired ditty without end. Kids dressed in feathered hats, pretending to be dragons—”

  “Serpents,” Madlin corrected.

  “It’s all the same to them. None of them has seen a real dragon; no one gets to be eight years old still believing they’re real. Food’s not half bad for Khesh, but it’s all sugary and it’ll sour my stomach if I eat much more of it. I’d just rather have a bit of a good time fleecing the locals at cards.”

  “What do you need me along for, then?”

  “Tanner’s too good, and I’m sick of following him everywhere anyway. I need someone of age to get me in and swap drink
s with me. I’ll order whatever you like, so long as you get me whiskey or ale—I’ll let you know which before the serving girl comes ‘round.”

  “You sure this isn’t just an excuse to hang around me?” Madlin asked. Perhaps the direct approach would get Dan to falter and reveal his intentions.

  Dan rubbed at the side of his face. “Not sure how to break this to you, but I see plenty of you these days. I’m not dog tired of you like I am with Tanner, but unless you get up and dance on the tables, I don’t expect to see anything I haven’t already outta you.”

  Madlin frowned. “I don’t dance.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me,” Dan replied.

  Rooms were impossible to find in Bouo during festivals, but certain sums of money shifted the impossible through unlikely and plausible, and into the realm of the done deal. Five rooms on an upper floor and space in the adjoining carriage house for their wagons, and Madlin’s caravan was settled at the Silverhorse Inn. They’d paid triple the usual rate and had to bribe the occupants to vacate, but with Madlin’s money and Tanner doing the talking, it had been arranged.

  Madlin threw the satchel with her personal belongings onto the bed and slammed the door shut behind her. The room was cozy for the price it had commanded, but it was all hers. It had been far too long since the last time she had accommodations all to herself in Tellurak. It had doubled their expenses to take on an additional two rooms so that no one but the guards were sharing, but it was worth every fonn.

  Cares left aside for the moment, Madlin collapsed onto the bed crossways and luxuriated in the feel of a proper mattress beneath her. The music from the Serpent’s Tribute festival wafted in through the slats in the windows, though she had chosen a room that backed onto a little-used side street that was barely more than an alley. It was just as well; pure silence wouldn’t have been any greater comfort.

  Madlin’s unwinding was cut short by a quick series of raps on her door. For a moment, the thought of ignoring the summons and pretending she wasn’t there crossed her mind, but the moment passed. She stretched as she rose, and checked to see which tagalong had come first to claim her, Jamile or Dan.