And he cursed himself for an idiot. "There is an old Chinese curse, 'May you live in interesting times,' " he muttered to himself, before remembering that, after all, foolish consistency was the hobgoblin of little minds.
That made him feel better; Walter Slovotsky didn't want to risk the size of his mind by being unnecessarily consistent.
"There's also an old American saying," Ahira said. "Goes like this: 'People who talk to themselves are a bit loose between the eardrums.' "
Slovotsky dug his heels in a bit deeper and kicked his horse into a half-canter, smiling quietly to himself as the dwarves behind him cursed, spurring their own mounts. Dwarves and horses—even well-tempered ponies like Geveren and the rest of their escort were riding—were renowned for not getting along.
"You're a mean man, Walter Slovotsky," Ahira said, bouncing along on the back of his animal. He was the only dwarf to ride a full-sized horse, although he and his gray gelding didn't seem to like each other's company particularly well.
Then again, that was Ahira: He always seemed to pick a gray gelding that he didn't get along particularly well with. His swearing at his horse seemed almost as much a part of the dwarf as the clanking of the patched chainmail vest and the huge, double-bladed battleaxe strapped to his saddle.
Nothing ever remains quite the same; there had been a time when Ahira carried a smaller axe, strapping it across his absurdly broad chest. He had traded that axe in on a bigger one, one that was almost the size he was.
"Hey, Walter, doesn't that look like—" The dwarf's homely face creased in puzzlement, then broke into a broad smile. "It is! Wheeee!"
"Huh?"
"At the customs house—it is!" Swearing, the dwarf kicked his horse into a full canter.
The oversized log cabin that stood as the Home customs station was only a blur near the horizon to Slovotsky, but Ahira must have seen something. Clearly, it wasn't anything to worry about, or Ahira would have sounded some sort of alarm, but . . .
Slovotsky stood in the saddle and called out to the dwarf who was driving the flatbed wagon.
"Hey, Geveren," he said, putting the accent firmly on the first syllable of the dwarf's name, "I'm going to go catch up with Ahira. Take a little time, if you need to—"
"Just a small amount," Geveren said, a gap-toothed smile peeking through his beard. "Only a short while."
Slovotsky's short jokes didn't bother the dwarves; to them, they were the right height, and humans were stretched vertically, although not as badly as elves.
"—but you bring the rest in," Slovotsky finished. Then, remembering that none of these dwarves had ever been to Home before, he added, "And be prepared to put up with a thorough inspection at customs without taking offense—I don't want to hear about your giving the inspectors any trouble."
The dwarf smiled, nodded, and waved; Slovotsky spurred his horse after Ahira.
By the time Slovotsky's mare had gotten herself worked up to a full gallop, they were almost at the customs house. Ahira seemed to be wrestling with some human, while another, holding a flintlock carbine at the ready, looked on.
One hand on a pistol, Slovotsky brought the horse to a quick halt and vaulted out of the saddle, only to see that Ahira was hugging a full-sized human, a boy perhaps fifteen or so; tall and a bit gangly, he awkwardly patted the dwarf's back—
"Son of a bitch—Jason Cullinane!" Slovotsky dropped his hand away from the pistol's butt, noticing how the guard relaxed only microscopically, only lowering the hammer of his carbine when a strangely familiar metal rattling issued from the interior of the customs house.
A grizzled face leaned out and nodded. "Greetings, Walter Slovotsky and Ahira. You are welcome Home."
"Betcher ass," Slovotsky said, then switched back to Erendra. "That is, I thank you. It's good to be back."
The dwarf released the boy and turned to Walter. "Can you believe how much he's grown? Last time we saw him, he was tiny."
Slovotsky nodded. "Damn, but he wasn't much taller than this," he said, winking at Jason as he held his hand half a foot above Ahira's head.
"You'll pay for that, Slovotsky," the dwarf said, with patently false menace.
Jason walked over to Walter and held out a hand. "Hello, Uncle Walter," he said, perhaps a bit stiffly. The grip was firm, but it was clear that the boy was trying too hard. No problem—he was just growing faster up than outside, and probably faster outside than inside. It looked like he might easily end up as tall as his father; right now, his eyes were almost on Slovotsky's level.
Slovotsky shook his head. "A handshake is just not going to make it, kiddo." He seized Jason in a bear hug, sighing to himself when the boy's returning grip was only perfunctory.
"Damn, but it's good to see you, boy. How's everyone?" he asked as he let Jason go.
Jason smiled. "Just fine, as of a couple of tendays ago." He pursed his lips for a moment. "I'm sure that Mom and Dad would have wanted me to—"
"Sure, sure, and pass our best wishes along, when you see them. Which'll be when?"
Jason shrugged. "Another couple tendays. Ellegon's supposed to pick up some supplies here for Daven's team, and pick up Valeran—"
Slovotsky smiled. "Val's here? I haven't seen him since we gave your father the crown." A good man to have around in a fight. Or just to drink with.
Jason frowned. "Dad has him baby-sitting me," he said, making it evident that he didn't think he needed any watching. He brightened. "And teaching me swordsmanship, too. In any case, Ellegon's supposed to pick him and Bren and—"
"Bren Adahan? The Holtish baron?"
Jason whistled in irritation at being interrupted again. "Yes, him. Dad has him here, partly to be taught by Lou Riccetti, but mainly to keep an eye on me, like Valeran does." The boy tried to shrug away the notion that he needed watching over. "I don't have to put up with it for much longer. Then Ellegon will pick up Valeran and me on his way out; we're going to be his tenders while he makes a sweep to Ehvenor and then back Home. Now, what are you two doing here?"
Walter tried to smile disarmingly. "Whatsamatter, boyo, aren't you glad to see us?" he asked, trying to change the subject. Jason's was a hard question to answer honestly, and Walter had no intention of doing so.
Anything involving Walter and Ahira's plans to skulk around Pandathaway had to be handled on a need-to-know basis.
Jason didn't.
Walter had no intention of telling Jason that he and Ahira were going to pick up some trade goods to take to Pandathaway to sell while they were trying to dig up word of either what Ahrmin was up to or what Ahrmin thought Karl was up to; if a rumor of intended spying reached Pandathaway, the spies in question might be easily detected.
Which would be hard on the spies.
So Walter Slovotsky broadened his smile and spread his hands. "Just doing a little business, and checking up on Lou. I take it—"
He was interrupted by the same rattling from the customs house. He furrowed his brow, finally noticing the wires strung on poles that led from the building and down the hill and into the valley. "Son of a—"
"Telegraph." Ahira smiled. "He's got a telegraph." He looked over toward Slovotsky. "How's your Morse?"
Slovotsky shook his head. "I just barely was able to learn enough to pound my clumsy way to a beginner's license, and that's more than twenty years ago. You?"
"Not even that close." Ahira lifted his right hand, making it shake. "Remember? I couldn't make a dit different from a dah, much less get up to twenty words per minute."
"And a telegraph means electricity—coal, you think? Lou used to say that he thought there was a seam of coal up in the hills."
"Could be, could be." Ahira nodded. "I think we'd better have words with the Engineer; he's been keeping secrets."
Jason cocked his head to one side. "Excuse me?"
"Secrets, secrets," Ahira said. "I thought Lou was going to tell us about any major advances, and this telegraph is—"
"No, not that. You said that you could
n't learn Morse. It doesn't seem hard."
Ahira's face darkened; Walter stepped in. "You know how your Uncle Ahira used to be a human, on the Other Side?"
"Yes, yes," Jason said, tapping his foot impatiently.
"Well, as a human he had a dysfunction. It's called muscular dystrophy—his muscles didn't work right."
"Oh," the boy said, clearly indifferent.
The idea of a permanent disease wasn't something he could identify with, Walter realized; any member of the upper class could afford the services of a good healer, and even a clumsy Spidersect cleric could help someone compensate for disobedient muscle and nerve better than could possibly be done by the most competent physician on the other side.
Some injuries, granted, were permanent, or close to it; Tennetty's eyes, the missing fingers on Karl's left hand, scars from where the body had healed itself imperfectly without benefit of healing draughts.
But muscles not working right? It was foreign to the boy's limited experience. Lucky kid.
Slovotsky walked over to the shack and leaned in. "Please tell the Engineer that Walter Slovotsky and Ahira are here, bringing a load of dwarven blades, raw silver, and fourteen hefty appetites."
The man inside began beating a rapid tattoo on the telegraph key.
Walter Slovotsky threw his arm around Jason's shoulder. "So tell me, what's this bullshit I hear about your dad going after the sword?"
"I haven't heard anything about it," Jason said, his face reflecting what appeared to be only honest puzzlement. "And I'd like to. Now."
You're taking on something of your father's imperiousness, Jason me boyo, and I don't like that much. Before you get to sing the blues, you gotta pay the dues.
"Make it a bit later, okay?" he said, trying to put just a trace of sternness in his voice. "We've had a long trip."
Jason visibly considered it for a moment, then nodded. "Agreed, Uncle Walter."
Slovotsky smiled. "Now, get on your horse. I want the ten-cent tour of Home—by way of the bathhouse, and with special attention to the brewery. Seems there's been some changes of late."
"Brewery?" Ahira smiled. "Good idea. While you do that, I'm going to head for Lou—is he in the cave?" he asked, raising his voice and turning to the guard in the customs house.
"Yes, Ahira; I'll alert him that you're coming."
"That won't be—"
"Easyway, warfday," Slovotsky said. "Ememberay ouyay aren'tway ayormay," he added in pig latin, knowing that it took most of a lifetime of English speaking to be able to follow deliberate fracturing of the language.
Jason smiled and nodded his agreement, but the guard was puzzled. Which was just the way Slovotsky wanted it; no need to embarrass his friend in front of strangers.
"Right," the dwarf said. "And please ask him to tap a keg; I haven't had Homemade beer for far too long."
* * *
Taking another pull at his third tankard of beer, Ahira nodded in approval, both at the brew—either his memory and taste buds were going, or it was a lot better than it had been back when Ahira was mayor—and at the noisy machine Riccetti was patting the side of.
The beer was awfully good, he decided. Not quite up to the level of Genesee Cream, but at least as good as St. Pauli Girl.
The machine was impressive, too. "An honest-to-God boiler and generator—Lou, you did good," Ahira said, shouting over the clangor of the machinery. The machine was hot and noisy, and Ahira really didn't understand the need for the odd-looking piston arrangement that had the huge generator humming, but it clearly worked.
Riccetti smiled briefly. "Thank you," he shouted back. "It seems to do the job."
Ahira looked the human over carefully as they stood near the warren holding boiler and generator, the heat from the machine beating against them like a wave, despite the cross-draft ventilation.
The years hadn't been kind to Lou Riccetti; his unhealthy-looking skinniness had only gotten worse, and his head was now completely bald. His face and hands were splotched and scarred, and he walked with absolutely no spring in his step. The marriage to an ex-slave that Karl and Chak had arranged had been a profound failure; Danni had left with a trader several years ago.
But there was an unselfconscious forcefulness in his manner, something that Ahira had never even seen traces of in the old days.
"The phrase, Ahira," Riccetti shouted, "is 'happy as a pig in shit.' Which I am. Hang on a moment; I have to do a bit of business."
He raised a hand and beckoned to the nearest of the engineers, a chunky man in his mid-twenties, who trotted over and bent his head near Riccetti's mouth.
"Bast, you remember Ahira?"
"Sure." The tall, broad-shouldered engineer stuck out a calloused hand; the grip was firm, for a human. "Good to see you again."
"Have him buy you a drink later; we've got a lot of work for now," Riccetti said, dismissing the formalities. "Now, send the word out that the telegraph is going down for the night, and then hook up the DC generator around dark—and have Daherrin post extra guards, all armed with signal rockets."
"Trouble?" Bast asked, clearly perfunctorily.
"No, but I'm getting skittish in my old age."
"Good." Bast nodded. "We going to run the hydroxy rig?"
"Right; I want a long run—all through the night and into tomorrow. So break down the compressor, clean it, then put it back together—and cofferdam around the bottles; I don't want anything else to break if they go this time."
"They shouldn't. I think the new valves will hold."
"We'll see."
"That we will." Bast nodded and walked off.
Riccetti beckoned to Ahira, and the two of them exited into another warren, the clatter of the generator fading in the distance.
"I take it you're suitably impressed?" At Ahira's nod, Riccetti went on: "A year or so ago, Karl asked me for some plans for a telegraph—he wants to set one up over there—and that led to all of this. I think we can give him a nice price on the whole package, now that we found that new seam of hematite."
The warrens were a bustle of activity; sights, sounds, and smells.
Riccetti guided him down a lefthand turn and into the residence section of the warrens, and past a guard into the Engineer's quarters. The room hadn't changed much, although Riccetti's sleeping area was now a real bed instead of a simple pallet.
Over in the corner, the telegraph rattled constantly.
Riccetti seemed to give it only a small portion of his attention; the news was probably not terribly important, Ahira decided, but he approved of the idea of keeping something going down the lines at all times. The mere fact of information traveling up and down the line was reassuring.
But there was something that the young engineer had said. . . .
"Hydroxy?" Ahira asked.
"Right—just elementary electrolysis. Pour a direct current through a tub of water, collect up the bubbles with a nice blown-glass rig, and then run the gasses through a compressor—"
"Electric motor?"
"Next year; right now, it's literally horsepowered. In any case, we squeeze the glass into brass bottles, and we've got bottled gasses."
"I could have guessed that."
"Eh?"
"If you put some gas in a bottle, it's bottled gas."
"All sorts of uses for that," Riccetti said. "You can get a very hot welding flame with hydrogen alone."
"I know; nice." Ahira nodded.
"Wait until next year—if we've got the valve problem solved. We may have electric lights—Aeia, of all people, pointed out how she could give night classes to farmers if we had decent lighting."
Aeia . . . Ahira smiled.
The first time he'd seen Aeia, she'd been a badly brutalized little girl who had been rescued by Karl, Walter, and Chak from a slaver; she was skinny, knobby-kneed, and homely.
The last time he'd seen her, she was lovely, almost ready to burst into her prime as a woman. He was willing to bet heavily that by now she was a treat for
the eyes.
"How's she doing?"
"Good, but . . . I don't think we're going to have her around much longer." Riccetti shook his head. "It may not be long at all. Don't you believe that Bren Adahan is here just to help Valeran keep an eye on Jason. Or learn from me, despite his sincere smile. He's chasing her, and hard."
"You disapprove?"
"Not really." Riccetti sat silent for a moment before answering. "I just wonder about ulterior motives. Including my own; she's a hell of a schoolteacher."
"Good point." Being married to the emperor's daughter—even an adopted daughter—was hardly a bad political move for a conquered Holtish baron. Of course, marriage to Adahan would mean that Aeia would have to leave Home, and maybe Lou was just suspicious because he wasn't all that thrilled with that idea.
Ahira would have to talk to her. "And how are things political?"
"No problem." Riccetti shrugged. "I've been having Petros handle most of the local politics for me—and as far as Khoral goes, all I have to do is delay wootz shipments whenever he makes annexation noises. Only trouble's been with the raiders."
Ahira didn't like the sound of that. "Bad?"
Riccetti shrugged. "More of too much of a good thing. With the way that we've cut into the guild in the vicinity, it's hard to find caravans—some of the raiders are giving up on the life, taking up farming or mining." He shook his head. "Others drink too much. We had a murder earlier this year. Couple of Daven's men tried to extort some money out of a farmer, and killed him when he said no."
That sounded stupid; at Ahira's puzzled look, Riccetti shook his head. "No, I don't think they intended to; they were just trying to rough him up." He shrugged. "Didn't make much difference when they were dancing on the end of a rope." Riccetti took a long pull at his beer. "I can still see their faces, Ahira, still . . ." He slapped himself on the knee. "But we've got to—"
He cut himself off as the rattling of the telegraph took up a more insistent clamor. "That's my call; hang on a second." He walked over and tapped out a quick tattoo on the brass telegraph key.
At the clattering response, his face whitened. "Shit. Did you hear that?"
"I don't know Morse, Lou."
Guardians of the Flame - Legacy Page 5
