World-Ripper War (Mad Tinker Chronicles Book 3) (17 page)

Spark was a mystery to Dan. He knew that lightning sought metal—Danilaesis had learned as much at the Imperial Academy—but how it could be tamed to do tricks was too abstract, even for a sorcerer. The tangle of copper wire was like a magpie’s nest, an insane collection of bits someone happened across and stuffed together. It shouldn’t
do
anything as far as Dan could see. But while the innards that belonged there were meaningless to him, it was what did
not
belong that mattered. Black powder wasn’t dangerous in small quantities. You could hold a pinch in the palm of your hand and ignite it, with nothing more than a burn for your trouble. The amount he’d worry for his life over … well, Dan assumed that he couldn’t fail to notice someone storing that much black powder underneath the console.

Nothing. Hmm.
It was unlike Dan to find that his suspicions were unjustified. The worlds were filled with intrigue and betrayal, all sitting just below the point where average people took notice. Dan had seen his share of it, had started his share of it. He normally had a good sense of when something was a set up.
There’s always the chance someone was just careless …
No, it was too convenient, too perfect.

Other possibilities flicked through his head. Perhaps the view would open to something he was meant to find irresistible. Wait for him to go through and they could strand him; Dan knew enough about spark to know that Rynn could disconnect the power remotely—how was a mystery, but it was enough to realize that
she
knew. A straight-out ambush seemed unlikely, since he could see his destination before taking the step of turning the image into a hole between worlds.
Why they can’t just call it a ‘gate’ or a ‘portal’ is beyond me.

It struck him.
What if someone is already through?
It would make sense to leave the coordinates dialed in, especially if it was an operator who had gone through. Any idiot could work the switches to turn the machine on and off, but someone paranoid about being left on the other side might not trust just anyone to find them again. There was only one person aboard the
Jennai
who came to mind when Dan considered that scenario.
Rynn
. She was both an expert with the machine and thought that everyone else—save her absent father—was unqualified to use it. A wicked grin spread across Dan’s face.
I bet you went through, and Jamile is supposed to sneak back here and open the portal back up to let you in again. Sosha watches me, Jamile works the machine, and you get a secret meeting wherever those coordinates are.

Dan nodded to himself. It fit. It sounded like the limit of Rynn’s deviousness. It just wasn’t enough to fool him. Seating himself at the controls, Dan activated the levers one by one until the viewframe sprang to life.
So, where did you go, Rynn?

Dan gaped, eyes staring. Thoughts of Rynn trickled out the corners of his mind like drool. Sitting in a circular room of fine-cut stone sat Anzik Fehr.
Checkmate.
So it seemed Rynn had gone to meet Anzik Fehr and bargain with Megrenn. Whether she was in Megrenn or somewhere aboard the
Jennai
was no longer relevant. His most hated rival was sitting with his back turned, not a half dozen paces away—even fewer if he walked to the viewframe and activated the switch with magic.

Patience
, he cautioned himself. Axterion’s lessons sank into him like water into hardwood. They beaded up on the surface of him, but given long enough, they seeped in. Dan knew that Anzik was stronger than Jadon Zayne, his twin. Just because he could overmatch Jadon did not mean he would fare as well against the stronger twin. Dan opened the door to the hold just a crack, enough to reach through and snag a coil-gun from one of the snoring guards. The runes were well-powered, and the steel balls it used in place of bullets were racked up in a neat line behind the barrel, ready to fire.

Time to die, Anzik Fehr.

Walking to the viewframe, Dan took careful aim at the back of Anzik’s head. He was a poor shot with Tanner’s pistol, but at such close range, even Dan couldn’t miss his mark. With a glance over his shoulder, he pulled the switch and activated the world-ripper. And fired.

The shot tore through Anzik’s head without the barest hint of resistance. Dan squeezed the trigger a second time, then a third, not willing to risk any chance of survival. It all happened in the blink of an eye, and when that blink had ended, Dan knew he was in trouble. There
should
have been a hint of resistance, even from so mighty a gun. A twitch, a spasm, a spray of blood and gore, something should have happened.

“Thank you for coming,” said Anzik, his voice coming from beyond Dan’s field of view. With no further warning, Dan felt himself yanked through to Veydrus by means of Anzik’s magic; the coil gun pulled free of his hand and thrown back through to Korr. He turned to break free and dive for the airship but only managed to turn himself around in time to see the switch opening by telekinesis. Korr vanished.

“Where are you?” Dan demanded, switching to aether-vision as he suspected he would get no helpful answer. The false image of Anzik was so obvious, so plainly constructed when viewed in the aether. He watched as Anzik let it unravel.

Anzik emerged from around a corner, entering though an open door. “This has been a long time coming.”

“You think I’m afraid of you?” Dan snarled.

“Irrelevant. You’ve lost,” said Anzik. “I don’t care whether you spend your last moments in terror or rage. I just care that you expire.”

Dan spared no more time on chatter, throwing himself bodily at Anzik. Unarmed as he was, he still liked his chances against the Megrenn sorcerer in fisticuffs. It was the key advantage to being a warlock, the ability to maintain calm and focus while struggling between life and death. Though Anzik was older and full grown, Dan was in fighting shape and half a head taller. It didn’t matter.

The ground pulled away beneath Dan’s feet as he was lifted and hurled across the room. A flash of shielding magic flared as he struck the stone wall. Anzik shook his head. “Not here. Aboard the
Fair Trader
, I was the one on the defensive, the weaker, the cornered. This is your turn.” Dan struggled, but Anzik pinned him against the wall without so much as moving a muscle.

“I’ll kill you,” Dan promised. “Danilaesis will avenge me. I’ll burn Veydrus to cinders just to see you die in the flames.”

“Perhaps,” said Anzik, his voice calm against the hurricane of Dan’s rage. “Perhaps one day I will stand across the battlefield from Danilaesis Solaran, and you may have your chance for revenge. But I suspect that I will one day stare down at the smoldering ruins of Kadris, wondering where your body lies amid the rubble.”

Dan thrashed, struggling to draw aether as Anzik sucked the room dry with his superior draw. “Rynn put you up to this, did she? What deal did you strike with her?”

Anzik thrust with his telekinesis, and Dan’s bones cracked. The fury in his eyes went dull and his muscles slack. Anzik let the corpse slump to the floor. “I can’t see what I could possibly gain by telling you,” Anzik replied.

Rynn was sitting in a dimly lit kitchen, sipping at a strange brew of tea under the watchful eyes of a pair of nervous cooks when Anzik returned for her. She had felt the shockwaves, the subtle force beneath the surface of reality that told her magic had been at work. It reminded her of the Battle of Tinker’s Island except this time, it seemed, Dan was not victorious.

“It’s done,” said Anzik.

Rynn felt an emptiness inside. The room, the people, the idea that Dan was really dead, none of it seemed quite real.
What kind of a monster am I turning into?
Dan had saved her life multiple times—once from Jadon and his father, even. He had taught her magic, taken the collar from her neck, had helped power the Tinker’s Island world-ripper. Even when he had tried to bed her, it had been in the block-tongued way of an adolescent boy who was all optimism and awkwardly misplaced self-confidence.

“Your father told me he was like a rabid dog,” Rynn said.

Anzik said nothing in reply.

“Isn’t this the sort of thing I was worrying
he
would do?” she asked.

“Prophylaxis is often difficult to reconcile,” said Anzik. “For me, he had already earned his death. He has killed more of my people than you can know. He intended to kill far more and made no secret of it. It is the Kadrin way, at least among their sorcerers. They view all as theirs and would take it if we do not oppose them at every turn.”

“Does he know?”

“He is no fool. His twin will blame you, of course. You are committed to my cause now, insomuch as you have made an enemy of the Kadrin Emprie. With your help, they
will
fall.”

“So what now?” Rynn asked, setting aside the cup of tea.

“Now, I prepare you to bargain with a god.”

Chapter 13

“Vengeance must be pursued in both worlds to be effective.” - Rakashi dar Fandar

The door to Axterion’s chambers burst open, cracking against the wall. A howl of aether followed in its wake, trailing a young warlock who strode in with a sword slung across his back. Danilaesis marched over to Axterion’s breakfast table, scowling fit to scare off demons. The not-as-elderly-as-he-used-to-be sorcerer sat sipping sugared wine as he ate a morning meal of roast boar and eggs. His look of mild reproach was a rock in a storm sea.

“You left orders that I can’t move our troops?” Danilaesis shouted, lifting spread arms. “How am I supposed to—”

“You’re not supposed to anything,” Axterion snapped, the mild expression hardening. “You’ve no place yet commanding troops, let alone the movements of the whole imperial army. Now, what’s this all about?”

“They
killed
me!” Danilaesis screamed. He grabbed the sword from his back and whistled it through the air. In an instant, Axterion’s breakfast table was dashed to splinters, his breakfast splattered across his clothes and onto floors and wall.

Axterion had watched over Danilaesis often when he was a young boy, his mother absent and his father too busy to pay him attention. Servants and tutors had been no match for the boy’s mischief and magic, so it had fallen to Axterion to wrangle and raise him. In all those summers of caring for Danilaesis, he had never raised a hand to the boy. The surprise on Danil’s face was obvious when Axterion grabbed his wrist in one hand and his throat in the other. His newfound youth had given him back a strength he had not known in ages. Never a burly man, Axterion still held more meat on his frame than did his grandson, with a man’s grip.

“Get a hold of yourself,” Axterion snapped. He could smell the brandy in Danil’s sweat, and wondered how long the boy had been awake to have been drunk already. “You’re disgracing us both.” He flung Danilaesis back, then waved a hand to slough the foodstuffs from his shirt and pants. With a second’s pause for thought, he gestured to the door and it slammed itself shut. “Now, skip to the part where this all starts making sense.”

Danilaesis seethed, his breath coming in long, hissing gasps. “They. Killed. Me.
He
killed me!”

“Who?”

“Anzik Fehr,” Danilaesis replied. “That little sewer rat tinker and him used that portal machine to ambush me. And after all I did for her and her scraggly rebel oafs.”

Axterion’s blood went chill. He had heard a similar tale when his wife—who had been twinborn—had died in Tellurak. He put a hand up to his mouth, rubbing the raw stubble of a beard that grew there. “We’ll make them pay for it. Just … not while they expect it. Too soon. Haven’t you heard that revenge ages like cheese?”

“I want you to teach me the transference spell,” said Danilaesis, his breath calming. “Not the book version; I know enough to understand that the best versions of anything never get written down. You must have a better spell for it tucked away in that rotting old skull of yours. I’m going to appear in the Ghelkan royal court, walk over to Anzik Fehr, and …” Danilaesis thrust his sword  through an imaginary opponent … “skewer him like a piglet. Then … then I’m going to do what Brannis did and transfer world to world. And then I’m going to do the same to Denrik Zayne while little Jadon watches, and
then
I’m going to beat that little wretch with my bare hands until he’s nothing but crow food.”

Axterion let Danilaesis finish his rant and run himself out of breath again. “I can teach you a better version than you’ll find in the libraries. But I’ll also teach you something far more valuable, if you’re willing to learn.”

“What’s that?” Danilaesis asked, narrowing his eyes.

Danil had been the victim of many cruel twists of words by his tongue over the years, but this was not to be one of them. “I’d like to teach you how to be a proper bastard, the kind Rashan could be, when he wasn’t solving all his problems with brute magic. The kind of sorcerer that doesn’t need to take every problem head on, sticking his neck out. If you want your revenge, you’re going to want to live to see it.”

Danilaesis nodded slowly.

“And
then
, we’re going to show them what happens when someone kills a Solaran.”