World-Ripper War (Mad Tinker Chronicles Book 3) (28 page)

“Not often,” he replied.

“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t know what we’d do without you, and I don’t want to find out. If you need someone to talk to—about Madlin, or the war, or what happened with Erefan—I’ll always listen.”

Cadmus turned, gently extracting himself from her embrace so that he could look her eye to eye. “Can I buy you a drink? They just restocked this place.”

Jamile smiled, but shook her head. “I don’t drink.”

Cadmus snorted. “Neither do I as a rule.”

Chapter 21

“Pure as native stone.” –daruu expression

The domed chamber was dominated by a central table of marble polished to a mirror shine. Carved all around the edge were runes that spelled out: “We guide. We advise. We protect. We serve.” Humble words for a table surrounded by the men who held power among the daruu. King Dekulon and five of his trusted advisors sat around it, with several empty chairs interspersed. Kezudkan wondered idly whose spot he was taking by occupying one of them.

“Thank you for joining us this morning, Kezudkan Graniteson of Korr,” King Dekulon greeted him. “These are men whom you may trust with any secret you wish to share with me. These are Kenuk, Pillar of Finance; Sarbuun, Pillar of History; Braklan, Pillar of Defense; Zepdaan, Pillar of Runes; and Lunjak, my successor.”

Kezudkan nodded to each man in turn, already having forgotten their names.
Still a patriarchy, it seems. Did the kuduks snuff that out as well?
“Good to meet you all. I am honored.”

King Dekulon smiled. “Now that we have the formalities behind us, let us talk. These are learned men, and there is much we wish to know. New is not something we see often here.”

Kezudkan’s old eyes could still judge a stone or two, and he glanced around the chamber, sizing it up. “I can see not. This room was hand-shaped, oh, I’d say around six hundred years ago.”

The king smirked, and glanced around the room in kind. “Would you care to guess higher? This is the oldest untouched stone in the kingdom. It has been as you see it for over eight thousand turns of the world.”

“But how—”

“By the stones,” said the Pillar of Runes. “I can only imagine the sorry state of your world’s infrastructure if this room appears so young.”

“Now, now,” King Dekulon chided. “There is no need for disparagement. We are here to learn about one another. The mere fact of Citizen Graniteson’s presence indicates that there are ways in which our kinsmen have surpassed us.”

Kezudkan hung his head. “Perhaps, though I can only wonder at the cost that has been paid for them when I see a place like this.”

“Perhaps a more general overview of your world might be the best beginning,” suggested the Pillar of History.

“Well,” said Kezudkan. “That’s not a topic I get asked with regularity. Let me think where to begin …” He paused a moment to straighten himself in his chair. “Well, geographically, Korr and Veydrus are the same. Same mountains, same valleys, same seas. Not as much of Korr is covered in forest, compared to what I’ve seen here, up above; we’ve cut most of it down over the ages. A lot of the mines are used up, and mining becomes more profitable every year as the metals get scarcer or have to come from farther away. We’ve got airships and thunderails to make travel easier. There are—”

“Pardon me,” the Pillar of Defense cut in, “but what is a thunderail?”

“I … well … hmm.” Kezudkan stopped a moment to think.
Muddy cracks, how can I explain it without explaining a dozen different concepts that make it work?
“It’s a sort of machine.” There were slow nods as the daruu indicated that they had passing familiarity with the concept. “It runs on steam … heated water from a furnace it carries with it … forces wheels to turn, wheels that the thunderail sits upon. It makes it move.”

“It seems ill fit to the name,” King Dekulon said with a chuckle. “Perhaps ‘furnace wheel,’ would convey it better.”

“Well, the thunder part I imagine comes from the sound it makes. You can feel it coming from across the deep.”

“It is a large machine, then?” the Pillar of Defense asked.

Kezudkan scoffed. “Hundreds of people can ride on one, and it can haul a like amount of cargo.”

“Remarkable,” breathed King Dekulon. He turned to his advisors, looking each of them in the eye. “You see? This is why I wanted to learn of their world. Think if we could ride these thunderails to the other deeps.”

“The machine that brought him here seems more promising,” the Pillar of Runes said. To Kezudkan’s eye, the Pillar of Runes was the eldest among the Veydran contingent, and the one with the hardest set to his eyes.

“Impatience is uncalled for, Zepdaan,” said the king’s successor.
Interesting that the first thing he says is critical of one of his own. Is it his job to spare the king from having to scold?

“Apologies,” replied the Pillar of Runes. “But we have a device that can drop a man in our midst, despite all our defenses. I wished to focus on the practical.”

“I agree,” added the Pillar of Defense. “How does this machine of yours work, Citizen Kezudkan?”

“I don’t have the dustiest notion,” Kezudkan replied. The king and his advisors exchanged looks, but to their credit, there was no burst of outrage.
I expected a kuduk response. I expected Draksgollow’s response.
“I found an ancient cache of books, written in a language I could not decipher. I was able to puzzle out its function and construction from detailed diagrams, despite not understanding the annotations.”

“So you did not invent this machine,” stated the Pillar of History. Kezudkan sensed that the historical record of the world-ripper machine had just demoted his contribution to a footnote.

“An artist draws a building; an architect creates it. I was the architect,” Kezudkan replied. “Elements were missing; details had to be calculated. I can take credit for neither the underlying principle nor the grand concept of its purpose, but I did create it … with some assistance from my human.” He ground his teeth for adding that last bit. Something about the presence of the Pillar of History sitting there across from him nagged at his conscience. It was enough to make him wonder whether magic was at work on him, or whether he merely could not summon the deceit necessary to lie to his own people on first meeting them.

“So the daruu of Korr have friendly relations with the native humans?” King Dekulon asked, sitting up straighter in his chair. “I had been waiting until later to ask, but the question presented itself at the mention of a human assistant.”

Kezudkan tugged at the collar of his suit coat. By the king’s reaction, he had some fondness for the creatures. “Not as such, Your Majesty. I owned Erefan, the human in question.”

“So we are dominant in Korr?” asked the Pillar of Defense. He looked in turn at King Dekulon and his successor, then the Pillar of History. “In some great war of ages past, we were victorious?”

Kezudkan closed his eyes and let out a long breath. “No.” A long, somber silence hung over the table.
I suppose they want me to elaborate
. Kezudkan would have been just as happy avoiding the conversation to follow. He looked down at his clasped hands. “We lost. The humans outnumbered us, but each of us was worth ten of theirs. Their magic was strong, but primitive; ours was elegantly crafted, but our practitioners too few. In the end, neither of us won.”

“Then who?” asked the Pillar of History.

“The kuduks.”

“What’s a ‘kuduk?’” asked King Dekulon. By the puzzled expressions around the table, the ignorance was endemic. Kuduks had not arisen in Veydrus.

“Though they have purged it from their own histories, and those of the humans, daruu records have survived to tell their origins,” said Kezudkan. “They are the result of an unfortunate crossing of the two races. They are stronger and heartier than humans and breed nearly as rapidly. They could work no magic of their own, but with equal numbers and superior strength, they helped us overwhelm the humans.”

“So … you
did
win?” asked the Pillar of Defense.

Kezudkan shook his head. “The war devastated the populations of all three races. The kuduks recovered their numbers, as did the humans, though they now are a beaten and subservient people. We never have.”

“Revolting,” said the Pillar of Runes.

“I would not have thought it possible,” said the Pillar of Finance, the first words the man had spoken since the introductory pleasantries.

Kezudkan frowned. “It is a sad state, but I hardly see how—”

“Cross-breeds, Mr. Graniteson,” said the king’s successor. “Braklan gets caught up in the strategic details, but the creation of an entire race of mongrel humans sickens me.” He glanced around the table. “I think I speak for us all.” Wizened daruu heads nodded in agreement. King Dekulon simply sat still, his face hardened into a scowl.

“The kuduks rule,” Kezudkan said, raising his palms in a helpless gesture. “Our kind live well. We can work runes, and they can’t. All the machines that rely on runes for some of their function, they need us for. A few humans can manage rune replenishment, but there aren’t enough to go around. The kuduks need us.”

“So, they view us as useful servants, instead of mere slaves?” King Dekulon asked. Kezudkan shrugged. “Unacceptable.”

Kezudkan blinked. “I’m no man’s servant.”

“In all Korr, how many daruu kingdoms are there?” King Dekulon asked. “Do we have a homeland?”

“None, I am afraid,” Kezudkan replied. “But we are ruled with a light hand, given preferential treatment in the legal system. Our word is taken as more reliable than a kuduk’s, even by their own judges.”

“Their own judges …” echoed King Dekulon. He shook his head and stood from the table. Kezudkan leaned forward, prepared to lever himself to his feet in accord with etiquette. But none of the pillars rose from their seats, so he kept his weight on his buttocks and spared his back and knees the pain.

King Dekulon stood beside his successor, who looked up to meet his monarch’s eye. “Lunjak, am I a wanton king? Am I prone to rashness, or impulse?” The successor shook his head somberly. “What is my formal title?”

“You are King Dekulon the Ninth, Chosen of the Stone Itself, Ruler and Protector of the People,” the successor recited in the resonant voice of a professional herald. It carried a weight of ages of tradition.

“This, we must correct,” King Dekulon said. He turned to the Pillar of Defense. “Braklan, gather the Iron Guard.”

The Pillar of Defense stood. He was a grizzled old daruu with an age-pocked face and one shoulder lower than the other. “As you command.”

Kezudkan stared in shock as the Pillar of Defense left the room.
What have I started here?

Gederon lounged at the controls of the world-ripper, his feet up on a crate as a footstool. The council meeting in the viewframe was like watching stalactites form. A bunch of stiff old daruu sat around a table, barely moving as they spoke. Gederon kept one eye on the conference while most of his attention focused on the book in his lap.
Rumbles of the Rail
was one of the latest in a series of thunderail adventures of which his uncle disapproved. Of course, Uncle Kezudkan disapproved of anything remotely entertaining, from music to theater, including books that were written in languages he could understand.

Gederon had seen those books, or at least his uncle’s handwritten copies of the mysterious texts that had given birth to the world-rippers. The value of those books was plain, even if he could not tell nut from bolt of what they meant. There was no denying the result, since he had seen the machine work. It was just that, if it didn’t make your brain hurt from the strain, Kezudkan could not abide any form of leisure.

A sudden motion in the viewframe drew Gederon’s attention. The king stood and paced the chamber. Well, pacing might have been an exaggeration, Gederon realized, when the king stopped three chairs over and spoke with one of his advisors. It was an animated exchange. The king was the only young daruu in the group, and the only one who appeared possessed of passion. Another of the advisors rose from his seat, faced the king and gave a formal reply.

“Soft rocks, Uncle. Can’t you build a machine that will write out what people are saying without having to hear them?” The conversation might have been worth listening to, by the reaction it got. Not that Gederon could have made out a word of it.

Uncle Kezudkan pried himself from his chair with the aid of his cane. Once he gained his feet, Kezudkan took the cane and tossed it up, catching it midway point of the shaft. That was one of several signals the two of them had worked out for Gederon to open a hole.

Squirming into an upright position in his seat, Gederon kicked the footstool crate aside. He adjusted the location of the viewframe from the vantage he had chosen for observation to one convenient for transport. There was a spot just behind Kezudkan that looked suitable, and its proximity was bound to make his uncle seem to be more in command of the situation than if he left it over in the shadows near the wall.