The Fae Artifactor

by Honor Raconteur

  “Hard to tell how it’s getting stuck because of that,” Loman agreed sourly. “I assume there’s something about the tunnel that’s doing it. I just don’t see any marks to offer us a clue.”

  “Frustrating,” she agreed absently, mentally intrigued. Had the slope pushed the bottom of the tunnel upwards? Even an inch would do it. The confines of the tunnel were quite narrow, after all.

  The end of the tube closed, leaving them in the dim lighting of the tunnel. Only the florescent rocks embedded in the walls provided any light whatsoever, a somewhat eerie glow of white and bright green that made everyone look sallow. Sevana’s ears popped as the air pressure around them changed, and the pod lifted from where it rested on the ground. Not by a large margin, just enough to be felt. In the next second they abruptly moved forward, the pod rapidly picking up speed so that the light around them became streamlined, creating a somewhat beautiful and captivating display. Sevana had never seen the like before and enjoyed the novel transportation system for a moment.

  “We’ve made some progress while you were recuperating,” Loman informed her without any prompting. “It’s been quite blissful, actually, finally having a solution, even if it turned out to be partial.”

  Sevana’s attention snapped back to him. “Partial? Ah, you mean the pods that are still getting stuck midway?”

  “Yes, them,” Loman agreed with a grimace. “But correcting the slope seems to have solved the problem of them shooting off down the wrong branches, at least. We’ve run multiple tests on the first tube, and I’m doing the third run down this one. Pol has already done multiple trips on the third, or tried, but he keeps getting stuck at a certain point and it’s been quite the task hauling him back again. For that matter, this tube gets stuck every time at a certain spot. Fortunately, it’s not far past the reef, and it’s easy enough for me to haul it back myself.”

  “But the intersecting tube that liked to abscond with the pods is before the reef?” Arandur inquired.

  “Yes, which is why we decided to test it. If this run goes smoothly, we’ll know the problem is fixed. At least, that problem is fixed.” Loman’s smile was rueful, a mixture of satisfaction and frustration, which was perfectly understandable.

  “How about the other stations?” Sevana leaned forward on the narrow bench seat, very interested in any news. “Did you report our findings here?”

  “I did, that very day,” Loman assured her. “And they promptly went out to measure the land and discovered the same issues there. I’m not surprised by that, as I see that you’re not, but I’m happy to report that the solution here seems to be working elsewhere. At least on this particular problem, we can assure our passengers that if they wish to get to Kesly Station, they’ll actually reach Kesly instead of some other random destination.”

  “If they don’t get stuck on the way,” Aran pitched in wryly.

  Loman’s face screwed up in a pinched manner. “Yes, quite. I do wish we could figure out what’s stopping us there. We’ve measured the land even more carefully after discovering the slope had changed, sure that if we levelled things perfectly, it would solve the problem. Unfortunately, we’ve had no such luck. I’m quite at my wit’s end, Artifactor. I don’t know what else to try.”

  “Well, I’ve spent several days away from the problem, I’ll have a fresh perspective on it.” Sevana didn’t discount the importance of being an impartial observer. Sometimes it was possible to get too close to the problem to see the obvious.

  Loman’s head came up, eyes darting to the side. “That was the intersecting tunnel. We passed it without issue.”

  “Good.” Sevana meant it, as that meant she only had one problem left to focus on. “And when do you normally get stuck?”

  “Right about…now.”

  The pod abruptly slowed, then came to a swift halt. Sevana looked all around her, not able to discern what had changed. The clear transparency of the quartz allowed her to see the basalt nature of the tunnel around them, but even with her enhanced eyes, there was no obvious impediment. “It felt like we rammed into an obstacle of some sort.”

  “It did, didn’t it,” Loman agreed darkly. His frustration was clearly evident in the contortion of his features. “But if you come back to this spot and check, absolutely nothing bars our way. I can guarantee this. You see now why we believe so strongly that there must be something about the slope of the land that’s causing this. Perhaps the tubes have been tilted and warped? But every measurement we’ve tried says they are exactly where they’ve always been, running in the same straight lines as they’ve done before. I really am out of ideas on why this is happening.”

  Sevana pursed her lips thoughtfully. But an outside examination wouldn’t tell them if the floor of the tunnel had changed because of the sloped ground. Or was it some other problem, also not discernable from the outside? “Is it possible to get out at this point?”

  “Unfortunately not, the air is still vacuumed around us. It would not be wise to exit the pod. In fact, you would have to break the pod to manage it.”

  “Then we’ll have to come back by foot. I want to examine the tunnel more carefully. There has to be a reason here, we’re just not asking the right question.” Sevana stared at the walls around them, grinning and rubbing her hands together in evil glee. She so loved a problem that didn’t have an obvious solution. “Well, alright, let’s get back to the station.”

  Loman nodded, relaxing back in his seat, for all the world like a man waiting.

  Dark suspicions formed. “Loman. When you said it was ‘easy enough to get back’ to the station, you didn’t mean that you had to wait for a rescue party, did you?”

  “Well, of course. It’s not like I can manage anything while stuck in here. You can’t call for help, or send up a signal flare. When we fail to reach the next station in the next twenty minutes, they’ll realize that we got stuck again and send out a rescue party for us.” He cocked his head at her. “Isn’t that obvious?”

  Sevana sank in on herself with a groan. “You’re Unda! You seriously can’t manage to get out of here on your own?”

  “Not without tearing everything apart and drowning you two in the process,” he answered, sounding amused. “If you think you can hold your breath for about twenty minutes and swim back, I’ll give it a try.”

  Sevana glared at him darkly. More fool her for not asking questions and just blithely climbing in. Next time, she’d demand details first.

  It took two hours of concentrated effort to haul the pod inch by inch back to its dock at the station. Sevana fumed the entire time, irritated that she was not only stuck in there without a viable means out, but stuck in there without anything to do. And the air got hot and stale very quickly, making it even more irritating. She yanked off her jacket to combat the heat, and Loman threw out a spell now and again to help refresh the air, but the entire experience remained bitterly unpleasant.

  The next time they had to test the pods, Loman was going by himself.

  Perhaps to soothe her irritation, Aran took her out of the guest house and down to the international market for an early dinner. She ordered three waffles with all of the cream and strawberries the plate could hold, devouring it without an ounce of guilt. Sugar assuaged her mood and she looked up, licking her bottom lip free of any trace of cream before asking, “Well. What shall we do with ourselves for the rest of the day?”

  Holding his glass of tea with both hands, Aran eyed her with a very enigmatic expression in response. “I feel like this is a stupid question, but I’ll ask it anyway. How would you like to spend a little time on a practical lesson in your new magic?”

  “You know, Aran, I do believe you’re right. I agree with that assessment.” Standing abruptly, Sevana caught his hand and pulled him from the chair. “Come on, quick smart.”

  Chuckling, he allowed himself to be tugged, but he only let her tow him so far before he switched up and took lead, taking her away from the residential area of the city. Well, as far as
the air bubble around them would allow. Only so much area was enclosed, after all. Still, he managed to find an area that had no buildings immediately nearby, in a small park-like area with two benches, a table, and a garden of sea anemones lining the beds. The area could just fit inside Sevana’s workroom inside of Big, it was so small, but likely would work for their purposes.

  Aran drew her down to sit on edge of the air bubble, close enough that she could put a hand right through the barrier if she chose to. He sank down on his haunches next to her, one hand resting on the small of her back. “Let’s try something easy first. Water and air are the most versatile of all the elements, as they are, by nature, always in motion. They like to move, they adore direction, and are generally eager to obey. See if you can call a handful of water to you.”

  Despite all of the reading and lectures she’d received on how to do this, Sevana really only had working theory on how to accomplish even the most simple of tasks. She did remember that focused will came into it, as well as simple and easy instructions. Surely the most simple of those was ‘come.’ As long as she didn’t accidentally bring a tidal wave down on their heads. Sevana was actually quite nervous about doing that. She had no good feel for how much was ‘too much’ power at this point. She was still growing accustomed to the new magical core in her chest.

  Holding a hand directly ahead of her, she cupped it in preparation, then looked dead ahead at the patch of sea in front of her eyes. Right, focused intent. This was harder than it looked, as Sevana had always had tools and spoke incantations to guide her magic into the right paths before. Doing it all silently and without aids felt very, very strange to her.

  “No,” Aran corrected gently, shifting his weight to lean a touch closer. “Don’t command, ask.”

  Right. Right, the elements had their own intelligence. She couldn’t just point and snap her fingers like before. Blowing out a breath, she shoved any hint of frustration to the side and tried again. But this time, she tried to listen as well as communicate.

  It was ever so faint, but the water ahead of her fingers rippled. A murmur, not of words, but of impressions—cold, together, movement. Yes, movement. Some of you, come here to rest.

  Despite her focus, or perhaps because of it, she nearly leapt out of her own skin when a spray of water whipped out and splashed up against her clothes, neck, and face. Blinking, she spat it out and wiped at her eyes and mouth. “That was not at all what I wanted, thank you very much.”

  Snickering, Aran gave her a supportive pat on the back. “But at least it came. Just a little too eagerly. Try again?”

  Determined, Sevana stretched her hand out again to the sea. She’d get this down, she would, and then she would call to wind next. And then earth. Sevana would keep listening and striving until she could speak to the world like the Fae she was becoming.

  Tapping his hand between her shoulder blades, Aran murmured against her temple, “Don’t stress. Relax. The elements are your friends now, remember. Breathe and let them come to you.”

  Sevana forced her shoulders to unclench from around her ears. “That is much easier in theory than in practice.”

  “Which is why we’re practicing. Now, try again.”

  At three o’clock in the morning, Sevana’s eyes snapped open. She lay rigid in the bed, her brain swirling as the obvious hit her: She knew exactly why the pods got stuck in the tunnel.

  Then she groaned in the darkness, vexed beyond belief that her back-brain chose to pipe up now, in the dead of night, when she couldn’t feasibly go out and test the theory.

  Cloth shuffling around clued her in that Aran had heard her, and she looked up expectantly toward the doorway as he came through it. Anticipating his worry even before he got a word out, she held up a hand. “I’m fine. I just realized what the problem is with the tunnels. And why my brain decided to inform me of it now is an excellent question.”

  “Didn’t you tell me once that your most brilliant ideas always come in the dead of night?” he asked. His voice was thick with sleep, but still lilted in amusement as he came to sit next to her on the bed, their hips pressed together.

  “Yes,” she growled, vexed about that. “And it’s very frustrating. I used to keep notes next to my bed about my best ideas, but they were completely illegible the next morning.”

  “Sounds like you. Not that your handwriting is all that legible even when you are properly awake.”

  She smacked him in the arm for that, which he half-dodged, chuckling. “Why do I like you, again?”

  “My devastating charm,” he riposted, his grin barely visible in the dim lighting of the room. “Well? Don’t leave me in suspense, what’s the problem?”

  Pursing her lips together, she stared at him and debated on whether or not she’d tell him tonight. He was being mischievous and Sevana was of half a mind to let him stew as punishment. In the end, she couldn’t help herself, and told him anyway. “I believe the tunnels have compressed.”

  He cocked his head at her. “A rock is a very rigid body. I wouldn’t think there was enough pressure to do that?”

  Before he could trot the objection out, she was already shaking her head. “No, think about this. The weight of the water above us is crushing. Literally. It’s very, very heavy and even a rock wouldn’t be immune to it. Now, add further pressure from underneath, when everything was forcefully shifted, and it would have literally been between a rock and a hard place. No body in the universe is perfectly rigid. Anything under application of force undergoes deformation. Even a rigid body undergoes some slight change in its shape.”

  At the words ‘change in shape’ Aran perked up with understanding. “You think the tunnels have changed their shape. Enough to compress around the pods?”

  “At least at that point. It obviously wasn’t much, not enough for us to be able to discern it with the naked eye, but that tunnel is very carefully sculpted to be form fitting around the pods. There’s barely any room on all sides to begin with. It wouldn’t take much.”

  “But why would the tunnel only compress smaller on one part?” Aran shook his head and answered his own question. “No, of course it would. If there’s two different forces applied to the rock, it won’t uniformly change, the deformation will vary. The forces applied may not affect all the parts of the rock or they may not cancel each other.”

  One of the reasons why Sevana quite liked having Aran around was that he wasn’t an idiot. She so despaired of repeating herself ad nauseum or breaking things down into layman’s terms. “Precisely. This is still mostly conjecture on my part, but I’ll bet my boots I’m right. We’ll need to go into the tunnels tomorrow and properly measure their width and height to verify it.”

  His dark brow arched in a sardonic manner. “Don’t give me that. You’ll measure things to prove it to everyone else. You know very well that you’re right.”

  Smirking, she patted him lightly on the cheek. “You do know me so well.”

  Rolling his eyes, he asked patiently, “So if nothing is wrong, can we go back to sleep? You can prove your point in the morning.”

  “Certainly.” Sevana’s hand still rested on his cheek and her heart gave a lurch at the memory of their kiss. Would it be inappropriate to initiate another one now? She wanted him to continue his affections, after all.

  But no, it was late. And she didn’t want to seem too forward and scare him away. As a sort of apology for waking him, she leaned up to give him a quick, chaste kiss instead. “Didn’t mean to wake you up to begin with.”

  “I like this new way of apologizing,” Aran informed her mock-gravely. “Do feel free to continue.”

  Snorting, she pushed him off the bed, though inwardly she felt immensely pleased with the way that had gone. “Go sleep.”

  Visibly amused, he did so, shuffling off back to his own bed. Sevana lay back down as well, breathing deep, trying to relax enough to fall back asleep again. It proved something of a struggle, as she could still feel Aran’s lips on her own, and she was
excited to prove her theory about the tunnels. Even though she couldn’t trust her new magic to fix it herself just yet, it would be rewarding to give people a solution. Really, the fun part of problem-solving was unveiling the fix.

  Eventually, she did fall asleep, a grin on her face as she anticipated the morning.

  They went to the station early, before most people even made it out of their houses. No one was about—not that she really expected anyone at work yet—but Sevana had come prepared. She took the measuring tape out of her pocket and extended one end to Aran. With his help, they measured the mouth of the tube and got its dimensions. “Alright, we know the pod can get through here perfectly. So this is our measurement. Let’s go in.”

  Stifling a yawn, Aran followed her in. “You owe me lunch later, you crazy woman. We could have at least grabbed something on the way here.”

  “Yes, yes, I’ll treat you.” Sevana nearly skipped ahead of him, downright perky. No doubt she’d regret skipping breakfast at some point, but she was far too excited to even think of something mundane like food now. The ocean floor was cooler in the morning, and she hugged her jacket tightly to her torso, but the temperature didn’t deter her, either. She was determined to prove that she was right. She speed-walked forward, her legs eating up the ground quickly.

  “For a convalescing woman, you’re walking my legs off,” Aran complained to her.

  “After my magical core was properly switched over to Fae, I’ve felt much better,” Sevana confided, not slowing a whit. “I’m not even achy like I usually am.”

  “I’d be glad to hear it if you weren’t walking my legs off.” He gave her a sideways roll of the eyes as Aran stretched his legs in order to keep up. “Are you absolutely sure about this theory of yours?”

  Sevana slowed her pace a touch so that she could converse with him as they walked. “Almost positive. You said before that we would have seen cracks along the tunnels if there had been compression, correct? But we do see cracks.”