World-Ripper War (Mad Tinker Chronicles Book 3) (16 page)

Kaia helped Rynn to her feet, then watched as she took the controls. After a few scratchwork calculations, Rynn started spinning dials. “Wow,” said Kaia. “I thought I was getting good with those, but you’ve obviously been at this a lot longer.”

“You ever seen Cadmus work this thing?” Rynn asked. Kaia shook her head. “Just watch. He can wave the viewframe around like he’s pointing a finger. Flip those switches.” Kaia complied, and the viewframe sprang to life.

The scene was off by several paces, and Rynn adjusted the targeting until she and Kaia had a proper view of Madlin and Cadmus’s kitchen. Kaia licked her lips. “Is that it then? The secret hideout?”

“And for the time being, your new home,” said Rynn. She pulled the final switch, and the moon was right next to them.

“Should we … should I wait for them?” Kaia asked. She leaned one way and the other, trying to peer around through the world-ripper for signs of her hosts.

Rynn took Kaia by the shoulder and looked her straight in the eye. With the inches of height the tinker’s legs added, she even managed to be the taller of the two. “Listen. You’re a valuable member of the rebellion. You’re being assigned to this remote headquarters to work in operations, not just to hide. You have the skills to be of use to both of them. Once I close this hole, Dan can’t get anywhere near you. Once I’ve dealt with the problem, you’ll be eligible to return to the
Jennai
…” Rynn smiled, “if Cadmus and Madlin can spare you.”

Kaia nodded, though Rynn could still feel the nervous tension in her muscles. On a sudden impulse, Rynn pulled her close for a hug. “You’re going to be fine. Now, get through.”

Picking up her pack, Kaia nodded to Rynn and stepped through the world-hole to Korr’s moon. After a single step in the fractional gravity, Kaia spun with a shocked expression frozen on her face. Rynn wagged a finger. “Madlin will explain.” She pulled the switch and closed the hole.

Rynn’s sigh let the worry siphon out of her like fouled oil. Squirming her way under the machine again, she disengaged the lunar orbit compensator. Nothing in Dan’s life had given him a sniff of mechanics. Without someone to spoon feed him the process, he’d never figure out how to find the moon with the world-ripper. With Kaia safe, a dark cloud passed from Rynn’s heart. There had been a temptation to use her as bait, a pawn in some half-formed ploy to trap Dan, one which she had purposely sabotaged before she could finish devising it. Rynn had never seen Dan play chess, but she suspected that he was the sort who flicked captured pieces off the board with the attacking piece. He was not the sort who treated pawns with care.

With an undignified grunt, Rynn hauled herself into the chair and paused to catch her breath.
More flexible, better joints, maybe lighten the next ones a bit more
. Relaxing at the controls, she dialed in the coordinates from memory. She didn’t trust writing them down anywhere Dan—or her father—might have found them. While Cadmus was safely tucked away in the second headquarters, Dan was a constant worry. He might not understand how the machine worked, but apparently he was intent on remedying that fact.

Well, that’s why I’m doing this, after all.

The machine sprang to life once more as Rynn reached her destination coordinates and closed the switches. Unlike her slight misfire on Madlin’s lunar workshop, this time she found herself staring into the meditation chamber of one Anzik Fehr, Veydran sorcerer and potential ally. He was present in the chamber, sitting with his back to the viewframe, as still as if he had been carved there. At least, she assumed it was him; his form was completely robed, and his hood was up.

Last chance to back away
, Rynn told herself as she slowly reached for the final switch.
It’s either the sane one with the pirate for a father, or the crazy one who kills for pleasure—so far only our enemies, but you never know…

Rynn pulled the switch and connected the two worlds. Anzik did not so much as flinch.

“Hello,” Rynn called through the hole, standing and walking toward where Anzik sat. She wondered whether she should disturb him further if he was so deeply set in his meditation.

“You have returned,” Anzik replied. “Good. Come through.”

“Thanks,” Rynn replied, stepping across the hole into Veydrus. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

Anzik climbed to his feet and turned to face her. “Of course you interrupted. Nothing truly begins without something else being interrupted. Had I not been meditating, I would have been sleeping, or studying, or consulting with the ministers or even just thinking. I am never doing nothing. This interruption is both welcome and long overdue.”

“Sorry,” said Rynn, “I didn’t think it was a decision to be made hastily.”

“Once made, it cannot be unmade,” Anzik agreed, nodding. “Close your device, so we can have some privacy.”

“The door to the machine is guarded. Dan is being watched in his sleep. Unless he wakes up, the world-hole will stay open. If he does, someone will come in and close it and scramble the coordinates.”

“Stranding you here?” Anzik showed the faintest sound of curiosity, the hint of a raised eyebrow.

Rynn smirked back at him. “I’ve made arrangements.”

“Very well,” said Anzik. “You have decided to ally with Megrenn, then.” It was not a question, but the conclusion of an equation Anzik had figured out. “What terms do you propose?”

“You help me get rid of Dan, we both gain …”

“Agreed.”

“I supply you with the knowledge of how to build coil guns, you supply materials and a workforce, and we split the production yield fifty-fifty. Your people made cannons once, according to Tanner. This would be more complicated, but you’ve got a lot more potential workers than I do right now.”

Anzik paused. “You would need to supply considerable aid in explaining the manufacture of those parts. The coil gun is beyond what Tellurak knows. It is far beyond what Veydrus knows.”

“How long do you think it would take to train your people?” Rynn asked.

“Several summers,” Anzik replied. “You’d have to start with young apprentices, those whose minds might still stretch themselves around new concepts.”

Rynn held up her palms. “Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Summers? You mean you expect me to spend years getting a workshop up to speed? Not happening. I’ve got a rebellion to run, I can’t be—”

“I agree,” Anzik said. “My own people would be a poor choice. Megrenn, Ghelk, Safschan, Narrack, all the members of the Megrenn Alliance lack the skills you require. Our smiths can forge beautiful weapons, but you must know the limits of smithing.”

“Of course, but what are you planning to do about workers, if you don’t have them?”

“My father once bargained with the goblins, to make him Acardian style cannons,” said Anzik.

Rynn took a step back, the creak of the stabilizing spring in her mechanical ankle glaring in the quiet of Anzik’s chamber. “Goblins? You’re going to bring me goblins?”

Anzik looked down at the floor and shook his head. “No, I’ll tell you how to gain their help yourself.”

“I don’t like the sound of this. I thought I’d be helping humans, not monsters.”

“I don’t know what your world says of them, but I know Tellurak’s concept of the goblin is erroneous,” said Anzik. “They’ve made them into night story villains, crawling creatures living in dark nooks and shadowed corners, attacking naughty children. I tell you, this is far from the case.”

“Fine then, what are they?” Rynn crossed her arms.

“They are small, delicate creatures, weak but quick. In a wrestling contest, you’d best their greatest warrior. Sparring with blades, you’d never touch one. They aren’t great fighters though; they rely on cleverness. They are quick learners. Goblins don’t live as long as humans, so they have to be. My father taught them to build cannons in a season.”

“That’s not encouraging,” said Rynn.

“They had been using catapults before that.”

“Oh.” The difference between a catapult and a cannon was like the difference between a pick axe and a steam-chisel.

“He taught them large-scale casting, better alloys of metal, how to make black powder …”

“And your people … ?”

Anzik shook his head. “Far beyond our craftsmen.”

Can’t keep this rebellion going with kindling. Time to throw coal on this fire.
“How many goblins can you get me?”

“Depends how well you impress their god,” said Anzik. Rynn’s eyes shot wide. “Don’t worry. They don’t worship actual gods.” Rynn let out a breath. “They worship dragons.”

Dan crept through the corridors of the slumbering airship undetected. Rynn was a fool if she thought that Sosha could keep him under constant watch. The girl had succumbed easily to his sleeping charm and would awake knowing only that she had nodded off while on duty. Avoiding the few nocturnal denizens of the ship was a simple matter when Dan could see their Sources in the aether, even through walls.
Pathetic. This whole world could fall to a few resourceful sorcerers.
Dan paused. It was worth considering, now that he thought about it. He shook his head to clear it of wandering notions.
Later. I have to see what they were hiding first.

It was amusing in a way, the childish subterfuge of the human rebels, thinking that they were working some sly plot behind his back. Rynn had kept him from returning home for some reason he had not yet fathomed; the easy assumption was for protection.
I’d make the best coinblade this world ever knew. Why not just pay me to fight for you?
Dan didn’t know the price he’d ask. But he knew he was worth every eckle of it—or whatever they called money in Korr. He had shown his worth in the defense of Tinker’s Island. But that assumption was almost
too
easy, too simple for the trouble they were taking to keep him away from certain places at certain times. The misdirection, the guard—using a pair of pair of same-worlded twinborn was brilliant, he had to admit—all of it told the suspicious part of Dan’s mind that something more was going on. He intended to find out what.

As always, Dan’s first instinct was the world-ripper machine. It was the heart and fist of the rebellion. It took a mighty and daring sorcerer to work a transference spell—more skilled than Dan or Danilaesis, he was forced to admit. The world-ripper not only mimicked the effect, it exceeded it, allowing detailed surveillance and extended transit, not just an instantaneous swapping of two bits of the world. It also had no trouble transcending worlds, something that only his cousin Brannis had ever managed, so far as he knew.
Once I get that thing figured out, I’m going to pay those Megrenn scum a nice surprise visit. Then the goblins … then the ogres …

Dan’s musings kept him occupied as he skulked through the
Jennai
. Keeping himself hidden was just not enough of a challenge. The door to the hold with the machine was locked and guarded. Another sleeping charm and a bit of fiddling telekinesis made short work of both problems. Once inside, he shut the door and found himself alone.
Odd. Where’s Kaia?
It was her shift, and she had been the most pliable of Rynn’s world-ripper navigators.
If you told anyone …
Dan was tempted to hunt the girl down and demand to know why she had missed her shift. No explanation would be good enough, he suspected, to make him consider sparing her life. She was supposed to tell no one and acting peculiar was just a coward’s way of signaling that something was wrong.

But something stopped Dan. The controls. The operators were meticulous about returning all the dials to a null setting when they finished with the machine. Not this time. Whoever had last used the machine had left it in haste, failing to wipe out the evidence of the last destination. Taking a step toward the machine, Dan caught himself short. What had that old buzzard Axterion said about coincidences?
“Two oddities are more than doubly odd.” Something like that. First, the girl is gone. Now, someone left the coordinates behind to find. Why?

A trap felt likely. He had only to think back to the death of Erefan for evidence of how the device could have been rigged to kill him. Though he hadn’t witnessed the explosion, he had heard third-hand how the daruu, who had owned Erefan, had set it to explode. Of course, Erefan lacked shielding spells but depending how much black powder had been used, Dan might still have been at risk. He ripped the panels off the control console, heedless of the damage to the lock that Rynn had installed and poked his head inside.