“Why indeed?”
“One was a countryman of yours, I believe. From the Coastlands.”
“Heresy is like a weed; it can grow anywhere.” Dimmerk grunted. “Look, old woman, I’ve already given my statement and told that fool of a beadle everything I know.”
“People say that but they are often wrong. There is always more to be said on any important subject, wouldn’t you agree?”
“No. And I don’t have time to stand here and gossip with a couple of useless and nosy women.”
If I expected Frey to take offense, she did not. Instead she wore a placid smile as she began strolling once more around the smithy. She peered into buckets and bent close to examine items on tables while Dimmerk watched her with a disapproval that—for all the world—looked like an even mixture of contempt and fear. I could understand the former, but not the latter. Frey stopped by a table all the way in the back and lifted a piece of polished wood that looked somewhat like the stock of a crossbow. She turned it over in her hands and then glanced back at the table on which the heavy metal tubes lay. And now I saw some of that same fear on her face. And some of the came contempt. She set the wood down at the end of a long row of identical pieces.
“Hatred is a poison,” she said.
Dimmerk said nothing.
Frey stood in the shadows at the far end of the smithy, her back to us as she ran her fingers over the lines of carved wood stocks. “In these times, with war tearing apart nations and breaking families, it is so easy to give in to hate.”
“Hatred is a weapon,” countered Dimmerk. “Without it we become soft. Without it we cannot hope to fight back, or to take back what was stolen from us.”
“Is that what your god tells you?” asked Frey without turning. “Is hatred the arm that raises the hammer of god? If so, how does its fall serve the will of your god? How does that kind of hatred build your church? How does it serve any church or any god?”
Dimmerk said nothing.
Mother Frey turned but stayed on the far side of the smithy. “Philosophers say that the gods do not bother with the petty affairs of mortals, particularly in matters of governance. In theory the gods should not even favor one nation over another, because if they made the world then they made all of it, and all of us.”
Dimmerk said nothing.
“And yet here, on this mountain, there has been a remarkable number of miraculous deaths whose nature seems to argue for a god very much interested in politics, and in the political survival of one nation in particular. It could be argued that this god has gone so far as to intercede on behalf of a single family who, admittedly, was badly treated by both sides.”
Dimmerk said nothing.
“The two diplomats who were struck down would have settled a treaty that would have reinforced a grave wrong done to that family. Their deaths prevented that from happening, which leaves it open for you to make a claim on those lands should our side win the war.”
Dimmerk said nothing.
“I keep thinking about the death of your countryman,” said Frey. “I can’t help but wonder what he was doing in these hills. It couldn’t be pure chance that he would come here, so far from the Coastlands. Was he, perhaps, searching for you? What drew him here, I wonder? There would have been just enough time after the death of Jeks Kol for the news to spread. Might he have come out of some interest in that good man’s death? Or in how he died?”
And still Dimmerk said nothing.
“And then there was the death of a man pretending to be what he was not.”
Dimmerk stiffened. “What do you mean by that?”
“The body in the hills,” said Frey. “We examined it quite closely. He was dressed like a local farmer but I believe that he was a Khaslani spy, and one who had recently come from the Coastlands.”
“You couldn’t know that,” barked Dimmerk.
“Could I not? Then let me explain. His face was ruddy and weathered. The winds touch a man’s face differently here in the mountains than they do down by the ocean. His eyes were green, and green eyes are rare among the mountain farmers, where brown and blue eyes are far more common. I perceived a pale band around his thumb. It is common for Khaslani landowners and their elder sons to wear their signet rings on their thumbs. He had taken his off but had not yet tanned enough to cover it. He was not a serf and not a soldier, that much was obvious. Was he a spy? Perhaps, but not a government agent. He was not clever enough in his disguise for that. No, this man was a young nobleman or an elder son of a noble house of Khaslani who came here on a mission to discover something of great importance. Something he feared to find and perhaps feared not to find. His nervousness was habitual and longstanding, suggesting that he has been dreading something for quite a while. Long enough to drive him to take a terrible risk. To make him want to grow a peasant’s beard and infiltrate the lands of his nation’s enemy. Why would a man of that kind take such a risk? Could it be because his family now lives in estates once owned by a family that had been driven out and destroyed? What could he have found in the mansion or castle that had been abandoned in such desperate haste? Was there a forge there, I wonder? Were there remnants of things being designed or manufactured which filled his heart with a great dread?”
Dimmerk’s eyes seemed to glow with as much fiery heat as his forge. “You are only guessing, you witch.”
“I never guess,” Frey said quietly. “I observe and look for evidence that supports a likely conclusion. Inductive reasoning is more precise than mere guesswork.”
Dimmerk took a few steps toward her. I slipped my hand beneath the folds of my apron and closed my fingers around the hilt of my poisoned knife. He was bigger than I, but I was quick as a scorpion and always had been. I think Dimmerk saw my hand move and guessed the danger. He smiled and stopped by the table with the long steel tubes.
“You are trespassing here,” he said calmly. “You are unwelcome. Please leave.”
There was a quality to his voice that carried a greater menace than I had expected from the man. Frey felt it, too. Even she.
I crossed to her and walked with her to the door, but on the threshold Mother Frey stopped and turned.
“Listen to me,” she said in a voice that was surprisingly gentle. “I understand what you are doing, and my heart breaks for you. It breaks for all that you’ve lost. But you are going down the wrong path. You want people to believe that it is the hand of your god reaching down to strike at the heretics, but we both know that is a lie. That is blasphemy, though I doubt you care about such things any more than I do. This was never about religion. You are using god as a shield and from behind that cover you are striking out with something the world has never seen. Something new and terrible. Could it be that Jeks Kol saw what you were making here and understood its implications? He was a simple man, but from all accounts not a stupid one. The potential of that thing is too great to comprehend. Even now the thought of it fills my heart and mind with black horror.”
“Get out,” he said, but she was not finished.
“I implore you, Dimmerk, destroy what you have made. Do it now before the rest of the world learns of it. Do it before politicians and soldiers and generals learn of it. Do it now before you drown our country and every country in a tidal wave of blood. Perhaps you have been driven mad by what you’ve lost. If so, I pity you. But mad or sane, I beseech you to step aside from this course.” She pointed a withered finger at the table of metal tubes and then at the wooden stocks. “Melt those and burn them. Make sickles and scythes. Make swords if you must make weapons for killing, but do not allow the hammer of god to be known to the world. Do not let that kind of horror be the last legacy of the Fell family. I beg you, do not do that.”
Dimmerk snatched up one of the metal poles and brandished it like a club. My dagger was in my hand, but Frey stayed my arm.
“Get out and be damned to you,” roared the man.
And we women, too wise to fight this fight, withdrew.
Outside
, Frey turned and fair pushed me toward our wagon. “Hurry, girl. In the name of Mother Siya, hurry.”
I helped her up and before I could even take the reins Frey snatched them and snapped the horses into startled movement. She flicked a whip at them—something I had never seen her do before—and drove them mercilessly down the mountain road.
It was when we were nearing the bottom of the winding way that something strange happened. The cold lantern that hung on a post at the corner of the wagon suddenly exploded as if struck by a club. Pieces flew everywhere and we had to shield our faces with our arms.
“Ride!” screamed Frey, whipping the horses anew.
We flew down the hill and were soon deep into the forests and the farms.
-5-
Frey said nothing more until we were back in our room at the inn with door bolted and shutters closed. The old woman looked positively ancient and frail, thin and deathly pale.
“What is it, Mother?” I begged. “Tell me what you meant. What evil thing did Dimmerk invent? Was it some magic spell? Has he conjured a demon?”
She took so long I did not think she was going to answer. Then she dug something out of her apron pocket and held it out to me. I took the item and held it up to study by candlelight. It was a lump of lead that was round on one side but badly misshapen on the other.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Do you remember the bucket of lead balls?”
“I do. Oh!” I realized that this was exactly the same size as the others, though they were all perfectly round.
“I took this from the wall near where the Khaslani was killed. If we had been able to examine the spots where the diplomats and Jeks Kol were killed, no doubt we would find others like this.”
“What does it mean? Are you saying these small lead balls did the damage we saw on the spy? How is that possible? What sorcery is this?”
Frey said, “Have you ever seen fireworks?”
“Of course.”
“Ever seen what happens when too many are set off at once?”
“Once. A barrel of firecrackers blew up in the town where I lived with my husband. Killed the firecracker salesman and his horse.”
“Did you actually see the blast?”
“Yes.”
“Then you understand the force that is released,” she said. “Explosives like that are most dangerous when confined. A hundredweight of firecrackers lit in the middle of the town square is an amusement. That same amount in a barrel is deadly because the force is gathered together. It is like fingers gathered together into a fist. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“The Fell family suffered a terrible tragedy when their factory exploded, destroying all the property and killing so many. The fireworks were probably in cases, stacked and bunched together. Are you following me?”
“I am, but what does that have to do with this?” I held up the smashed lead.
She chewed her lip for a moment. “I am going to trust you, Miri. I know I treat you like a girl but you are a woman. A widow who has seen some of life. You have education and you are not a fool. One day you will take over my responsibilities and to do that you must be wise and you must have an open mind.”
I nodded slowly.
“The Office of Miracles was never intended as an agency for proving the divine. Others in our church do that. It has always been up to us to search for the truth, often in dark and ugly places,” said Mother Frey. “There are many people in this world whose hearts are filled with greed, with avarice, with hatred. I see that in Dimmerk Fell. Maybe he was once a good man and has had his heart broken, but I suspect that he was always like this. The war has simply honed and refined his hatred. And his greed. But he is also very smart. You saw those tubes? Now imagine if you filled one end with a paper firework like the ones we saw, and then rolled a lead ball down its mouth. If you could block the end with the firework, say with a heavy wooden stock, but leave a hole for a candle wick, what do you think would happen when you put flame to the firecracker?”
I had to think about it. All of that explosive force behind the lead ball would need to go somewhere. If the whole thing did not explode, then it would push that ball down the tube and out.
Frey watched me and I could tell that she saw the moment I understood.
“Not a crossbow,” I said softly. “And not the hand or hammer of god.”
“No,” she said.
“What is it?”
Instead of answering, she said, “Now imagine a thousand soldiers with weapons like that. Put them behind a wall and you can march the all the armies of the world against them and what would be the result? A mountain of the dead.”
“Is it even possible?”
“You saw it firsthand, Miri. The spy. His chest. The ball went in small on one side and the lead, soft as it is, must have hit bone and flattened as it came out. It smashed a much bigger hole on the other side. Nestor described the same thing with Jeks Kol and the diplomats. And we saw it happen to the lantern on our wagon.”
I sat there, frozen by the horror of it. Immediately my mind was filled with terror as the scene she had described—men with firework weapons that could spit death—and the damage they could do. The battles they could win. The kingdoms they could topple.
“Now,” said Frey, “imagine if those weapons were in the hands of both armies. Imagine if every murderous fool could hold a tube of steel and kill from a safe distance. Imagine what this world would become. Imagine what it will become. Imagine that, Miri, and you will be inside the head of Dimmerk Fell.”
We sat there, staring at each other, surrounded by shadows that now seemed filled with legions of ghosts waiting to be born in the fires of wars to come.
“What can we do?”
Frey took the lead ball back and placed it on the night table. “I don’t know that we can do anything. If we file a report then the world will know that this weapon exists. Even if Dimmerk hides his handiwork, the concept will be out there.”
“Fireworks are common. Won’t someone else think of this?”
She looked older and sadder. “In time. Yes. All we can do is pray that Dimmerk comes to his senses so that such a horror will not be shared sooner rather than later.”
“Pray, Mother? I’m surprised to hear you advocate that.”
Frey shrugged. “What other course is left to us, girl?”
There was more to say, and we talked for a while, but then we settled down for the night. I was agitated and Mother Frey fixed me a sleeping draught. I drifted off and my dreams were haunted.
Once, deep in the middle of the night, I dreamed that the Red God reached out of the clouds and smote the mountaintop with his burning hammer. But it was a dream, and I slept on.
-6-
I woke in the cold light of morning to find Mother Frey’s bed empty. It looked like she had barely slept in it. My head was fuzzy and I wanted to scold her for giving me too strong a draught. I washed and dressed as quickly as I could and stumbled down the stairs to find her in the common room. She looked older still and worn to almost nothing, hunched over a mug of broth. Her face was smudged with soot and her clothes were dirty.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Were you out rooting with the pigs?”
Frey touched her face, looked at the soot that came away, shrugged, and sipped the broth.
I noticed that the common room was completely empty except for the landlord, who was standing in the doorway looking out into the street. “Where is everyone?” I demanded.
He turned and gave me a quizzical look. “Up at the smithy, of course.”
“Why ‘of course’? What’s happened?”
“Bless me, Sister, but did you not hear it all last night?”
“Hear what?”
“Why, the world itself seemed to roar.”
“I don’t understand what that means,” I said.
He pointed toward the hills and I came over and looked past him. There, up high near the snow line, a de
nse column of black smoke curled its way into the morning sky. It rose hundreds of feet above the mountaintop.
“Father Ar only knows what happened,” said the landlord. “But the whole top of the mountain blowed itself all the way to heaven’s front yard. Lucky there ain’t much up that far ’cept the smithy, and that’s gone, of course. Poor Dimmerk never did have the luck. Sour scripture-thumping son of a…” He paused. “Pardon me, Sister Miri, I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead.”
I stared at the smoke and then turned toward Mother Frey. She peered at me with her bright blue eyes in her soot-stained old face. She lifted the mug of broth to her lips and took a sip.
She said nothing at all.
After a while I came and sat down with her.
I had a cup of hot broth, too.
Code Cracker
BY
Beth W. Patterson
He should have just given me a sunflower seed. Now he was going to have to pay in blood.
I could tell that he was already a bit afraid of me. Perhaps I would just settle for his discomfort for the moment, since I was enjoying it so immensely. At least he’d stopped insinuating that I wanted a cracker.
I wasn’t going to verbally abuse the tall, slender man, but that was because I couldn’t. The old telegrapher who was my previous cohabitant never said an unkind word to anyone, at least not within earshot of me. This limited my communication. Although my mind constantly raced with statements I wanted to convey, I was unable to say anything I hadn’t first heard. Such is the plight of all parrots. But I could always present a valid argument, even from behind bars. By emitting a single screech, I never failed to cause humans to clap their hands over their ears.
I was in the middle of putting this theory into practice one Thursday morning when the doorbell rang. Watson was self-employed and had to rely on word-of-mouth advertising due to the covert nature of his occupation. Yet he was always surprised whenever someone came to his “office” in our little home. Our center of operation was a narrow dining room that opened into a burrow-sized den with a TV, in front of which I always sat on my perch.
Thirteen Authors With New Takes on Sherlock Holmes Page 29
