World-Ripper War (Mad Tinker Chronicles Book 3) (6 page)

When there was no quick answer to his knock, Danilaesis forced the door. He had done it enough times that he knew just where to apply a bit of pressure to cause the wards to fail and leave the lock unprotected for a moment. There was a gasp from within.

“What are you doing—” the servant’s words were cut off in her throat as self-preservation warned her that it was the warlock barging in on her empress.

Celia lay on her side, facing away from the door, the bare skin of her back glistening with oils. She was nestled among a vast pile of embroidered pillows, propped up in languorous comfort as her servant kneaded the tension from her. A chalice at the bedside in easy reach of the empress told that she sought her ease inside as well as out. “Do they no longer teach manners at the Academy?”

Danilaesis caught himself staring for a moment, then remembered himself and shut the door. “They do, but I’ve always preferred my uncle’s form of diplomacy. Manners are for enemies and strangers, and I always found them a bit false among friends.”

With a sigh, Celia took up the chalice and drank deep. Wine was ill advised when carrying a child, but Danilaesis had stolen sips of her wine often enough to know it was little more than water scented with grape. She would have to drink a bucket of the stuff before Danilaesis would fade from her worries. “So you would presume us friends?” she asked. The servant girl resumed her work on Celia’s back, digging fingers into the muscles and working them loose as Celia made quiet noises of approval.

“Of course,” said Dan. “Our lives may be different. I still have lessons every day; you have to sit long hours on the throne listening to nobles prattle. I spill the blood of our enemies to protect the empire; you spill your own to provide it heirs. You take your pleasures with Tia atop you; I’d prefer to—”

“Where is this leading?” Celia asked. Dan watched as Tia blushed. Like all the palace servants, she was enspelled to remember nothing of conversations among her betters, but she was listening in as they spoke.

“We have our common problems as well. Axterion is becoming a bother.”

“We have a powerful sorcerer at the head of the Imperial Circle once more. I find it more of a blessing than a bother.”

“And when he contradicts you in front of the court?” Danilaesis asked.

Celia held up a hand, and Tia paused her ministrations, wiping her hands on the hem of her dress and sitting back on the bed away from her empress. Dan smirked and moved to the side table where Emperor Sommick kept a selection of expensive liquors. The chambers were Celia’s alone, but when the emperor visited on official business, he needed strong drink. Pouring himself a chalice of brandy, Dan waited for Celia to decide how she would answer.

“Leave us,” Celia ordered. Despite the fact that Tia was no threat to remember anything that was about to be said, there were elements of decorum and embarrassment to consider. The servant girl nodded to the empress and rose to leave. On her way past, Dan winked at her, causing her to flush anew. She was peasant comely, which meant she was plain but well-formed; Dan only teased for her reaction, not with any intention of following through on it.

When the door closed, Celia’s demeanor shifted. She rolled over to face Danilaesis, clutching a pillow in front of her for modesty. “How can you be sure he wasn’t watching through the girl’s eyes?”

Dan shrugged as he took a swallow of the brandy. Something in the fermenting of it was a magic all its own; the brandy did not burn until it was halfway down his throat, where it caught fire like a dragon’s breath. “Can’t live life fearing. I’m not afraid of the old buzzard. So answer my question: you going to put up with him talking above you at court?”

Celia stretched out a hand, and a dress lifted itself from the back of a chair and drifted over to her. With a glare, she convinced Dan to turn his back as she clothed herself.

“Should you be levitating things with the babe?” he asked.

“I’ve borne three children, and I, the babe’s Source ,will be fine with a bit of magic around it. Just don’t
you
go pulling any reckless tricks.”

Dan sketched a bow, chalice in hand. “I’m no fool, Your Highness.”

“Axterion is a nagging pest. He knows everything, or so he’d have us think. Every plan and plot we hatch, we’ve left a dozen holes that only he can see. He was always sharp tongued before, but it makes me wonder whether his newfound youth has restored his wits or merely emboldened him further.”

Danilaesis chuckled. “I never thought he could get crankier, to be honest. But now that he doesn’t have to worry about anyone overpowering him, he’s become a hog at a tea party.”

“Seems to run in your family,” Celia observed. She took her own chalice from the table and refilled it from a pitcher. Danilaesis lowered his brow, but kept silent as he took another swallow of his brandy. “What would you have me do?”

“Prepare for a war with Megrenn,” said Danilaesis. Celia sputtered grape-scented water back into her chalice. “Send me out on some mission to secure our border. Use me as you would an acknowledged warlock.”

“Axterion would never hear of it,” said Celia. She took an embroidered cloth from the bedside and wiped her chin. “He wants nothing but peace. He’s sent envoys to the Megrenn for a lasting treaty.”

“His idea, or yours?”

“His, but I approved it,” said Celia. “I have an empire. I don’t need a war in it.”

“Spoken like a queen, not an empress,” Danilaesis said. He threw back the last of the brandy in his chalice. It was more than a sensible gulp, and he gasped as the fire chased it down his throat. Setting the chalice on the side table, he walked over to stand before his empress. Though just a lad, she only came to his collarbone. She could have stepped back to keep space between them, but instead she craned her neck to keep her eyes on his. Even with the sting of brandy vapors in his nose, he smelled the perfumes from the oils Tia used on her, the talc from the tinted powder on her cheeks and eyelids. She trembled slightly. “An empress should always want more.”

Celia broke their gaze and turned her back. The dress was cut low, giving Danilaesis nearly the same view of her that he had seen on first arriving. “Why now of all times? You think you can force him to give you back your sword?” She sniffed. “What a price to pay for a blade.”

Danilaesis felt the heady rush from Emperor Sommick’s brandy. It made things seem simpler. He stepped behind Celia and put his hands on her shoulders. It took what little willpower the alcohol left him not to slip the dress loose from those shoulders. He whispered in her ear. “I get to be free of the Academy. You get to occupy that idle old brain of his with more important tasks than nipping at the hem of every decision you make from the throne. In the bargain, I’ll reclaim Megrenn for you and give you Ghelk as well.”

“Why do you think you can when Rashan failed?”

“Because I’m going to have the help of those Korrish tinkers, no matter what it takes.”

Chapter 6

“There’s only so much money you can pay a man. You just can’t buy more competence than they have.” –Cadmus Errol

By the light of stars peeking down between the vacuum tanks of the
Jennai
, Madlin made her way across the plaza. She pulled the collar of her jacket tightly against her neck to keep the wind from finding its way inside. Here and there a window glowed in one of the crew quarters, but the ship’s bulk bathed her in shadow that was good enough protection against being spotted by anyone in a lighted room. It was a trick Rynn had learned for her in the tunnels: when trying for stealth, light around someone
else
is your friend.

The door to the cargo hold with the world-ripper was guarded, of course, but guards were not her concern. The two on duty gave a fist to chest salute as Madlin approached.

Pulling out her pocket clock, Madlin flipped it open and angled it to catch enough light to read the face. “It’s 2:32. The two of you stand relieved until 4:32, two hours from now precisely. I don’t want to see boot or hat of either of you until then, and I don’t want to be kept waiting after. Understood?”

“Yes ma’am,” they replied in unison, rather louder than she would have liked.

“No booze, and if you must sleep, you better be rusty sure you wake up in time to be back here.”

Madlin waited until they were gone and slipped inside the hold. The dynamo for the world-ripper hummed at idle, but the room was too dark for her to see anything. Fumbling along the wall, she found the switch for the spark lights and closed it with a solid
thunk
. The room burst into shabby yellow light, not enough to chase away the shadows from the far corners but sufficient to see a path to the controls and the stacks of notes and maps that lay beside it.

As she sat and began sifting through the various documents for the maps she needed, Madlin was aware of the approach of her co-conspirators. She did not so much as flinch when the door opened and admitted Rynn and Jamile. Jamile closed the door behind them as Rynn shuffled across the room and took the seat at the controls as Madlin got out of her way.

“He’s sound asleep,” Jamile reported in a whisper.

“I know, you told me two minutes ago,” said Madlin. She pulled one of the panels off the control console and looked inside. Her father had anticipated the need for non-lunar destinations and had installed a toggle switch to re-enable standard use. Aside from being buried in the guts of the world-ripper, he could hardly have made the swap any easier.

Rynn took over shuffling through maps as Madlin threw the switches one by one to turn on the viewer. When the last was activated, the view sprang to life but was a wall of blackness. A few pinpricks of light were stars, shown from where the moon had been before Madlin stopped the synchronizing device. Rynn spun dials and twisted the view around until Korr looked much like the maps spread out on paper all over the console. Clouds obscured it in parts, but it was otherwise a faithful rendition. A splint on Rynn’s left arm slowed the process, but she spun dials one by one to bring the view around and narrow them down onto the region of northeastern Grangia. The maps they were concerned with did not involve Korr, however, so Rynn turned one more dial and threw the viewer into chaos as the image vanished, to be replaced by swirling blues and whites. With knowledge of the worlds at their disposal, and the coordinates for Tellurak well ingrained in everyone who worked the machine, the image resolved itself into a world once more.

The change was striking. The land and water were all in the same places as they had just been, though the clouds had moved. What was notable was the shift in color. The reddish brown of the Grangian landscape was replaced by greens and lighter browns of northeastern Khesh.

“Well, time to find Mabliss,” Madlin muttered. It was something she’d have said to someone else running the machine, but it was redundant with Rynn at the controls. Still, useful or not, she could not help but comment.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Jamile asked.

Madlin moved to the viewer and pulled the lever that would move the auger out of their way. It was stationed on rails to be able to insert or retract through the world hole with ease. “That thing Sosha’s watching over ... that isn’t human.”

“He’s just a sorcerer. Since when have you been superstitious? We can both work some degree—”

“It’s not that. I’m sure there are plenty of sorcerers out there just squeaky clean of mind and heart. That one’s a twisted monster. He’s got a soul like a bear trap and all the remorse of a headsman.”

“Sounds like a perfect servant of the new Eziel.”

“The old Eziel,” said Madlin. As the two of them talked, Rynn scanned Khesh under the early rays of dawn, looking for the city of Mabliss.

Jamile closed her eyes and shook her head. “The Eziel I grew up with helped his children, fed them, gave them hope.”

“There’s a fat lot of hope riding on beating the kuduks.”

“Hope shouldn’t involve bloodlust.”

“Now you’re just being difficult,” said Madlin. “Besides, I think we can both agree that we don’t want
that
being our legacy. Dan’s a menace. I don’t know how Tanner stood being around him.”

“And you promise you’re not going to just murder him?” Jamile asked. “Much as I hate that look in his eyes when he talks about war and killing, he doesn’t deserve that. Someone made him this way, and it’s not his fault he turned out rotten.”

Madlin held up her hands. “Hey, you want to learn magic or not? Dan’s not going to teach you; we’ve figured that out by now. These folks are willing to help with magic
and
might have some ideas what we can do about Dan. They might lean to killing, but let’s be reasonable and hear them out anyway.”

“I think I found it,” Rynn called out. The viewer hung over a modest city by Kheshi standards, built in the hills. Well-worn trade roads headed south and west, with smaller ones snaking out into the countryside in all directions.

“One more world over,” Madlin said. She crossed her arms and waited. For all their knowledge from the mysterious books, Cadmus had yet to let them try seeking out Veydrus. The Mad Tinker had strange ideas when it came to being conservative. He’d build a machine that scratched and tore its way through the fabric of the universe and use it without a further thought. But to aim it at a world where magic was known and commonplace? To him it was folly. To Madlin it was potential.

The viewer swirled through another iteration of color and chaos before resolving itself into yet another world. Veydrus. From an airship’s view or even higher, it did not look so different than Tellurak. The Kheshi city of Mabliss was gone, but another occupied the same space. It was quaint by comparison, spread out over the same hills but with trees and gardens mixed among the streets, and fewer of the roads appeared cobbled.

“No time to gawk. Let’s get to finding someplace that looks official,” said Madlin. Even staring through the world-ripper viewer, she could see herself in Rynn’s glare. The sooner she was through in another world, the better.

The view dropped so quickly that Madlin felt her stomach lurch, and she leaned away from the viewing frame. Rynn had done it on purpose, of course. All the buildings were circular in shape, some domed, some with conical peaks. Larger structures consisted of multiple circles conjoined. The city was built around a central hub, a towering structure much taller and with more sub-circles than any other. “Looks like as good a place as any,” said Rynn.

“Are you sure that’s where you can find the Zayne boy?” Jamile asked. “Maybe it would be better to go somewhere less likely to be guarded and ask around for him.”

“Maybe,” Madlin said. “But we’re in a hurry. My father wakes up like clockwork at five sharp. We need to have the world-ripper shut down and everything back the way it was before he gets down here.”

“What do we do with Dan if he wakes up?”

“We’ll think of something if it comes up,” Madlin replied. “I don’t think Dan’s ever
seen
the sun in the east though. Cadmus is a bigger problem.”

“I should come with you,” Jamile said. She slipped beside Madlin with eyes wide and earnest.

Madlin shook her head. “You stay here to warn Rynn if Dan gets up in the night. I’ll be fine.”

“I can warn
you
. The two of you have to connect anyway to make a warning effective. I might as well be on the far side to lend a hand.”

“You going to be able to shoot anything if we need to?” Madlin asked. It was a trap question.

Jamile surprised Madlin by drawing the coil gun from her holster. “You shouldn’t even bring one of these things. What makes you think that this world of magic is going to let you get away with shooting people? Half of them are probably just like Dan. If we can’t talk our way through this, Rynn’s going to sneak us out. I’m not fighting wizards and warlocks.”

Madlin studied Jamile for a moment. She seemed determined, her chest rising and falling with nerves, excitement, and ranting without pausing often enough for breath. Her gaze didn’t falter. Madlin’s did. “Fine. You’re right. Either Anzik is there and agrees to help us, or we shovel coal and steam out of there.”

Returning her gun to its holster, Madlin unbuckled her gun belt and hung it from one of the control levers of the steam auger. Before she’d taken two paces away from it, she found herself feeling for the gun at her hip, the absence of its familiar weight triggering a momentary panic that she’d lost it. A naked feeling crept over her. Madlin was young and unimposing, no good in a brawl and an invitation to all sorts of trouble from a certain criminal element. Chipmunk’s voice, still buried inside her, told her to take just the gun and stuff it inside her jacket.
Better to invite a fight and win it, than stumble into one I can’t win
. A hand reached out for the gun belt, but Madlin stopped herself.

Jamile took her by the wrist before Madlin could change her mind again. The two women stood by the viewing frame and waited. The scene was a storybook come to life. The front courtyard of a palace—by the look of it—spread before them with dew-dropped grass glistening in the first light of dawn. The rounded walls of the tower before them were easily the match of any kuduk workmanship, with seams in the polished marble visible only by the change in the grain. A phalanx of guards stood before the arching wooden door at the end of the path they would emerge onto, armed with spears and wearing chain armor covered by livery of green and gold.

“You ready?” Madlin asked softly.

Jamile nodded.

Rynn pulled the lever and the dynamo screamed at the effort of jumping them two worlds distant. But despite its protest, the dynamo was able to power the world-ripper. A hole opened and before either of them had time to second-guess how long it might last, Madlin pulled Jamile through with her. The hole closed an instant later.

The first sensation of Veydrus was the pleasant scent that accompanied the dewy grass. The second was the sound of shouting in an incomprehensible language as the palace guards came rushing towards Madlin and Jamile.

Jamile ducked and shrank back. “Maybe we should have—”

“Anzik!” Madlin shouted to the guards. She held her hands wide, showing that she held no weapon. “I am here to see Anzik.”

Eight guards encircled them, spears leveled. They continued to babble loudly in a language that Madlin caught not a single word of.  Spear points had better luck. By feints, jabs, and tips waved toward the crushed stone path, Madlin and Jamile were made to understand that they should get down. Madlin knelt, continuing to keep her arms wide and looking as unthreatening as she knew how. A guard behind her put a foot to her back and forced her prone.

Struggling and grunting protests that she was sure the guards could not understand, her hands were bound behind her back. Madlin muttered Anzik’s name, but with the weight of two men holding her down, she could hardly spare the breath to breathe. Her solace came in knowing that Rynn was still watching over them, and that a hail of coil gun fire was the throw of a switch away.

Strong arms hauled Madlin off the ground and set her down on her feet. A hand knotted itself in her hair and gripped tight. It was nothing like the reception she had hoped for; apparently the guardsmen in Veydrus were the proactive sorts—not gentlemanly in the least. One of the guards produced a knife. By the angle she saw it, Madlin expected it was the same one holding her by the hair. Rough words came from just behind her ear, but Madlin could not puzzle out what they meant, even from context.

“Anzik,” was all she could think to say that they might understand. Had she been misled? Was Anzik a criminal or a rebel in this world? The guard behind her shouted to his fellows, and one handed his spear aside and came over. The second guard grabbed her under the chin and squeezed, his fingers digging in until Madlin’s mouth was forced open.

The dagger slipped between her teeth, and Madlin finally understood.
They think I’m a sorceress
. They were afraid of her talking or gesturing to work a spell. Was that better or worse than merely being thought to associate with a criminal?

The knife seemed content to rest tip first just past her teeth. She bit down lightly on the blade to try to keep it away from her tongue, but she felt the point as she tried to keep it off the tender flesh. The guard pushed her by the fistful of her hair, and Madlin did not need to be goaded twice. She marched behind the lead guard as she was led toward the palace. Jamile was out of sight, but she could hear them talking to her and Jamile’s babbled answers, barely comprehensible even in Korrish. The sniffs between words told Madlin that Jamile was crying.
You’d think she’d never been captured and threatened with death before
, Madlin thought darkly. For a girl with a formerly collared twin, she ought to have been better hardened.