The Tinkerer's Daughter (27 page)

Over the months that followed, I trained my pilots, and in their own ways, they trained me. We got to know each with an intimacy that I had never imagined. In essence, we became brothers and sisters, and in time, we could almost read each other’s minds.

Years later I would often look back on those days and wonder what might have happened if I had done things differently. There were a dozen times that I could have turned aside from my quest, moments that I could have taken the prudent course instead of the dangerous one. And I can say with the utmost certainty that if I had done this even once, the world would not have been the same. I’m not bragging or being arrogant, I’m simply stating it the way that I believe it happened.

I faced my fears and I refused to accept my fate. I chased my dream despite obstacles that seemed to be insurmountable. Eventually, I succeeded, and in the process, I changed the world. I’m proud of that fact.

The End

1,000 years of war had ended. As the rebuilding process began, the world around us began to take shape in wonderful and exciting new ways. General Corsan spent the next two years planning and building a bridge to connect the Isle of Tal’mar with the mainland. Meanwhile, I managed my fleet and pilots to both military and civilian ends. At times we were spies, at other times destroyers, but most often we were simply delivering mail.

For my part, I often met and accompanied members of royalty and dignitaries from city to city and country to country. I helped these people form alliances, treaties, and business partnerships. As these agreements came to fruition, the world around us blossomed. I watched as small towns like Riverfork grew into prosperous cities, and technologies like Tinker’s steamwagons and airplanes brought us all closer together.

Analyn never gave up teaching, though with my encouragement, she and Daran healed their relationship with King Ryshan. A few years later when the king died and Analyn’s older brother succeeded him, she thanked me for helping to bring them back together.

Tinker returned to his little valley, the only place he could ever call home, but I visited him there frequently. He also made annual trips with me to Tal’mar to visit with my mother during the solstice. We always exchanged gifts, as was their tradition, and Tinker’s gifts were always well received.

My mother and the Tal’mar nobles –especially their children-spent all year looking forward to the night that Tinker would arrive in his old airplane and deliver dozens of wrapped gifts containing the most incredible mechanical toys and devices.

In time, Tinker too became a legend.

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A note from the author:

Thanks for reading “The Tinkerer’s Daughter.” I’m grateful for the opportunity to share my work with you, and for your support, which allows me to have the best job in the world. If you wouldn’t mind taking a few extra minutes to post a review at
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Aboard the Great Iron Horse

steampunk series

The Tinkerer’s Daughter trilogy

steampunk series

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mystery/fantasy series

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Karma Crossed

urban fantasy

The Darkling Wind

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Acknowledgements:

Special thanks to Tanja, Jeramiah, Mel, Jack, Lisa, Ian, Melissa, and all the others who’ve helped bring my stories to life.

The Tinkerer’s Daughter Copyright 2008 by Jamie Sedgwick

Artwork Copyright 2011 by Timber Hill Press

Published by Timber Hill Press

ISBN-10: 1460982290

ISBN-13: 978-1460982297

All Rights Reserved

All characters and situations in this work are fictional. Any resemblance to real characters or situations is purely coincidental.

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Tinker’s War

By

Jamie Sedgwick

Published by Timber Hill Press

I was a fool in the company of fools, and I was the greatest fool of all. I was naive to believe the world could change so quickly. I wanted to believe -
I needed to believe
- because it meant so much to me. I was so desperate to have those narrow-minded fools who meant so much to me accept me into their fold. I was foolish enough to believe that they could, and that if they did, I would be happy there. But it was only one small way in which I misunderstood the world, and there were so many more. Yes, we were all foolish, and for that, we would pay a terrible price.

After a thousand years of bloodshed, men and elves had found peace. We were building roads and bridges, sharing our wildly different technologies with no expectations other than a better life for all. Our understanding of the world and the sciences grew exponentially. For a time, it truly was a golden age. But the Kanters, the cannibalistic giants from the Badlands to the south, were reluctant to abandon their old superstitious ways. The small tribe of Kanters that integrated into our society came alone. Meanwhile, their brethren fell into a civil war that King Ryshan fueled as he gifted weapons and machines to help the sympathizers overthrow their tribal leaders. Soon the Kanters knew how to use bombs, cannons, and blunderbusses, and they did so with great efficiency.

The newfound peace we had achieved in the north lulled us into a sense of complacency. As the Kanters poisoned the ground with the blood of their kinsmen, many of the tribes began to foster a deep resentment towards both the humans and the Tal’mar. Trouble was brewing. In the end, it was not the Kanters that would bring us to ruin. It was something entirely different.

We had long since become aware of the special properties of the steel made from ore mined in the Blackrock Mountains. It possessed a unique quality, the ability to store energy at an incredible rate of efficiency. In fact, the simple act of heating and forging steel made from Blackrock ore appeared to imbue it with even greater capacity, so that when done correctly, the steel almost seemed to possess an energy all its own. Some metallurgists speculated that the energy contained in Blackrock Steel was the same energy that gave the Tal’mar our magical abilities, though our science was far too primitive to prove this theory.

Regardless, it wasn’t long before word of our special steel spread beyond our borders and eventually, even beyond the seas. It was the lure of this powerful ore and the machines and weapons it could create that enticed the Vangars from their icebound continent in the west, across the Frigid Sea.

Nothing could have prepared us for the onslaught. We had fallen back into our petty ways, bickering over territories, coinage, and power. We were unprepared. We were fools, and for that, we would pay in blood.

Tinker used to have a saying:
“A revolution may take centuries to happen, but when it does, it happens overnight.”

I always thought I knew what he was talking about. After all, I had lived through many of the same experiences he had. I had seen the centuries of bitter warfare and intolerance give way to a new, peaceful society. That change had happened seemingly overnight, and I thought Tinker’s words had referred to this. What I didn’t understand was that Tinker’s proverb wasn’t a recollection of history, but rather a vision of the future.

Little did I imagine how prophetic Tinker’s words would prove to be, or how quickly we would fall under the wave of black dragon ships that stormed our shores that fateful summer.

Robie asked me to marry him on a breezy summer afternoon under the shade of an old elm tree on a hill overlooking the Riverfork Midsummer Faire. It was not the first time he had asked, though he had grown increasingly persistent in recent years. I said “No,” of course, as I had so many times before.

Ten years had passed since the death of Prince Sheldon and the end of his ambitious coup attempt; ten years since the end of the war between the humans and the Tal’mar, and the destruction of my home town of Riverfork. In the years that followed the war, the humans rebuilt the town and eventually Riverfork grew into a small but bustling city. Brick walls and tile roofs replaced the thatched-roof, split-log construction of the old village. Tall buildings grew up in place of the rustic cabins and frontier homes, and muddy paths became wide cobbled streets with boardwalks and intricately wrought gas lamps. The streets were lined with bakeries, shops, restaurants, and inns.

Docks sprang up along river. Barges made regular trips back and forth between Riverfork and Anora, the large city to the north. Commerce thrived. Families grew. Young men and women left their family farms in increasing numbers to move into the city where they could work and earn money to buy the wonderful things that industrialization had provided for us.

In the center of Riverfork, the residents built a park as a memorial to the brave souls who had died during the war. It was a lovely, sprawling piece of land with a wide grassy meadow and trees scattered throughout, and a dense old growth forest along the western edge. It was there, beneath the shade of an ancient elm that I found myself cornered by my would-be mate.

It had been an exhausting morning filled with faces both familiar and half-remembered. I had seen farmers and storeowners I had known in my childhood, as well as many of the children that I had gone to school with, now grown and raising children of their own. Among them was Terra Cooper, a farm girl I’d met while living with Tinker. I had never known Terra very well but I remembered her family fondly, especially for the dog that Tinker had bought from her father to protect me when the Kanters invaded. That dog, a flame-coated heeler I named Cinder had been my constant companion for years, until the inevitable creep of age and an especially cold winter took her from me. I missed her terribly. I had considered finding a new companion many times, but I knew that no other animal could ever replace Cinder.

That afternoon, Tinker and I left the faire to have a picnic up on the hill overlooking the park. Tinker’s fans followed us, and it wasn’t long before he wandered off surrounded by a flock of admirers - mostly elderly women who had outlived their husbands and were now reveling in the glow of a true hero. They took great pleasure in catching the attention of the wily old adventurer, and he took great pleasure in giving it to them.

I watched Tinker’s highly animated movements as he described some old battle that he’d probably never even witnessed, much less fought in, with the gaggle of old women hanging onto his every word. He soaked up their adoration like a sponge. Honest man that Tinker was, he wasn’t beyond exaggeration from time to time, especially in the company of admirers. I didn’t want to deprive the old man of his simple pleasures so I smiled and let him enjoy the attention as I watched him from the shade of the elm tree. And that was where Robie found me.

“Can I sit with you?” he said as his long shadow fell over the blanket that I had spread out on the ground. I glanced up at him sideways, squinting against the sun. He was dressed in a fine white shirt with a long-tailed coat and tall knee-high boots that he’d folded halfway down. He wore a cutlass on his side –not an expensive one, but a quality weapon that a man could trust with his life-and a long brown cloak with the hood pulled back. He hardly looked like the young pilot I had known all those years. He was more like a buccaneer out of some storybook.

“Of course,” I said, as congenially as I could manage.

He happily joined me on the blanket, leaning back against the tree and ran his fingers through his thick black hair, brushing long bangs away from his face. “It’s a nice park,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Yes, it is.”

“It doesn’t look anything like it did before.”

“No,” I agreed, nodding slightly. I was purposefully curt. I had been sitting alone, watching Tinker and enjoying the blissful weather. I found Robie ruining my mood. I had a feeling that I knew where the conversation was headed, so instead of helping it get there, I just kept quiet.

“I hear General Corsan retired last year.”

“He was getting old,” I acknowledged.

“Not as old as Tinker,” Robie said with a chuckle. He was watching Tinker with a wide grin. The old man shouted something and waved his arms in the air, reenacting some battle between our air force and the Kanters, or perhaps Sheldon’s loyal foot soldiers. “I wonder when Tinker will retire.”

“Tinker will never retire,” I said. “What would he retire from? All he does is build things and he certainly won’t quit that until he’s dead. The man’s mind never stops.”

“Good for him,” Robie said. “I hope I have half that man’s energy when I’m his age.”

I watched Robie as he watched Tinker. There was no arguing the fact that Robie had grown into a fine young man, but somehow I still saw the boy I’d known in his face. Perhaps it was because I had matured so quickly in my youth, my years advancing well beyond those of my peers. Though he was my senior by several years, I had attained physical maturity years ahead of Robie. Such is the nature of the Tal’mar. Even as a half-breed, I’m no exception.