Tinkermage (Book 2) (28 page)

“So make me understand.”

“It would be better, and much easier on you and the ones you love, if you’d allow me to simply guide you like I’ve been doing.”

“Guide me? I don’t even know you. Why would I ever trust you?”

“Because you
must
.”

Niksabella ground her teeth. She’d been manipulated for too long. By Raulnock and by Jontuk and now this wily gnomestress who wouldn’t share so much as her name.
Must
wasn’t the response she’d been hoping for. “No. And if the next words out of your mouth aren’t your name, I’ll expel you from this dream, and I won’t come back. You’ll never see me again unless you find me in the real world, and then you’ll have to deal with all my friends, too.”

The sea was creeping up to match Niksabella’s resolve. Salt water waves swirled around the Prophetess’ ankles, soaking up her dress. She looked down at the sand and away. She was used to being in control. Giving orders. Getting her way. None of that was happening now, and Niksabella could tell she didn’t like it.

They stood for several moments without speaking a word. A maddening standoff punctuated by the relentless swaying of the ocean surf. Finally, Niksabella could take it no longer. Her resolve remained, but she had to break the stalemate in order to press her attack. “I know you’ve been in my dreams for months and—”

“For years.”

Niksabella stopped. “Yes, years. You made me hurt my brother when we were gnomelings.”

The gnomestress’ hair blew in a sudden gust. She raised her hand to her waist, palm facing down. “Since you were a wee one and even before that. No, I won’t deny that I’ve played a part in your life. That much you deserve to know. I was there when you took the
Sparks Exam
. I helped you design the automaton that defeated Isildum Tinskin’s little rolling fire-breather.”

Beating that automaton had been one of Niksabella’s crowning achievements, especially given the toymaker’s cocky attitude. He’d even gone as far as hiring a gnomish band to play an awful racket whenever his automaton entered the arena. If this gnomestress had somehow been in Niksabella’s mind the entire time, helping her with formulas and clockworks and programs, keeping her awake when she should have passed out from exhaustion long ago, it would be a terrible truth. That is,
if
she could be believed. Wouldn’t Niksabella have felt her presence? Wouldn’t there have been clues? “Are you saying none of that was me?”

“Of course it was you, my dear. You are naturally talented. More so than any gnome in Hightower for many, many years. Your Sparks scores have yet to be beaten. Did you know that? And I’ve been watching all of your other achievements these past five decades, too. Every new material enhancement, every project plan and diagram.”

“Helping me…”

The gnomestress nodded. “Not always. Pointing you in the right direction more often than not. Don’t look so sour. Some assistance couldn’t be helped. You needed it, being prone to distraction as you are.”

“Prone to distraction?”

“And I needed to remain close to you. You had to be strong in order to help me.”

“Help you
what
?” Niksabella found all of this very disheartening and disconcerting, knowing this gnomestress, this invader of her dreams, had been like a parasite her whole life, attached to her mind. Had she ever truly been herself?

If you were never yourself, then what would you be doing here now, standing up to her?

“That doesn’t matter. The important thing is that you remain alive. Since you’ve locked me out, I can no longer protect you as I did when you were younger. I can no longer lend you my power—”

“Do you know what that did to my brother? Do you know what I put him through thanks to you?” Niksabella’s voice quavered. Her gut twisted with sickening heat.

The gnomestress raised her chin, indignant. “Your brother was never my main concern. He was never as good as you. He always lacked the mind for success, at least not
true
success. Even back then, his mind was a puddle of mud compared to yours. While he was pretending to make sticks fly, you were thinking about advanced clockworks, even if you didn’t know it at the time. So that’s the brutal truth. I never gave two licks about your wee brother. And I never will.”

Niksabella felt the air between them grow hot, and truth be told, there was nothing more she wanted to do than wrap her hands around the gnomestress’ neck and squeeze the life out of her. “Is that what this is about? Success? Self-aggrandizement? If you think I’m going to help you now, you can just go back to wherever you came from and leave me be, leave
us
be.”

“Oh, you’ll do as I say.” The gnomestress took a step forward.

“Or what? You’ll make sand castles in my dreams?”

“Or everyone around you, those you love, will perish. Or, at the very least, suffer miserably. Either because of your lack of faith or by my hand… for spite’s sake.”

Something huge splashed in the surf, and Niksabella glanced up just in time to see a shiny, black appendage roll beneath the surface. Niksabella furrowed her brow. She’d not be intimidated.

“What
are
you?”

The gnomestress’ smile twisted wryly. “A goddess.” Her eyes danced and she raised her chin. “Oh, and I’m your mother.”

Niksabella blinked. Her brow furrowed. She swallowed. Inside she trembled to her very core as her knees grew weak. She wanted to deny it but the truth hit her like a hammer. Like a bag full of hammers.

The gnomestress looked up at the sky. Niksabella followed her gaze. The sky rumbled in response. The clouds roiled and turned from white to gray to a bruised hue across the entire expanse.

The gnomestress looked at her. “Best wake up, dear daughter. Orcs are coming.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

By the time Bertrand had adjusted his headdress and donned a cloak made of similar stuff—mauve feathers and jangling threads of aqua-colored beadwork, all clasped around his frail neck by a pair of hinged bones—
Swinger
was ready to land.

“Get them off the ballistae, Captain.” Bertrand blinked beneath the monstrosity atop his head.

Against her gut instincts, she ordered Rose and Crick down.

As they buzzed above the thick finger of stone, Stena put the magilenses to her eyes and tried to discern where the stone plank led, but the base was covered by a cascade of leafy vines, impossible to penetrate with her instrument.

They circled once more, honing in on the tip.

Bertrand followed her to the main deck rail. “Can you feel them?”

“That’s the problem. I feel them just fine, but I can’t see a futtering one of them. Do you know what to say when they come?”

The airship nosed down toward the fingertip, rolling back and forth a bit as Linsey adjusted their course.

Bertrand flipped through a tiny book of notes he’d taken from the old texts brought back by the last Hightower gnomes to ever see Giyipcias. “I believe so. I’ve a passable knowledge of the language, but that’s a far cry from being well-versed. And it’s been two hundred years. Some things may have changed. However, I should be able to keep us alive long enough to get our point across. Be prepared to improvise if necessary.”

“Wonderful. You’ll let me know when I need to start this
improvising
.”

“Hmm. I’ll wink my right eye two times when I’m out of ideas.”

“Oh, for Tock’s sake.”

They alighted upon a flat portion of dark gray stone, edges crawling with vines and steaming moss. Chipped mooring posts placed at the four corners depicted the form of a tall, sinuous woman, back arched and breasts pressed forward, arms crossed at her midsection. Strangely alluring, yet it did not help Stena feel the least bit safer.

“Rose. Crick. Ladder down. Get us tied to those moorings.”

The two did as they were told, hooking an extendo-rung
to the side and cranking it open so the steel frame expanded downward, and climbed down. Stena threw them ropes while Linsey cut all the engines but one.

“Okay, Bert. Let’s get this over with.”

The linguist went first. He slung his satchel containing his book of notes, as well as another contraption of bone pipes affixed to strange, leathery sacs, over his shoulder and climbed overboard. To Stena, he looked like a befuddled, elderly bird clinging to
Swinger
’s side. With Rose and Crick’s help, he managed to keep from breaking his neck on the way down.

At the bottom, their feet sank into the spongy moss. Stena’s nose was filled with the scent of must. Now, she felt even more helpless and exposed, and she couldn’t keep from touching the hilt of her long knife again.

“Let’s spread out.” Stena went to one of the mooring posts and examined the statue. Rose and Crick made good use of the ground time to inspect the hull of the ship. Stena hoped they looked innocent enough. Just an airship crew doing what an airship crew would normally do. Not an invasion force. Not a threat.

Stena was briefly stunned as a vibrant tone rang out from behind her. She turned to find Bertrand all wrapped up in that strange device she’d dropped down. Bone tubes poked out in every direction, held together by dry-rotted vines. One bladder rested beneath in his armpit, the other under his chin, and he circulated air through them by pumping his arm and nodding his head.

It clung to his body by a harness fitting round his waist and neck. Quite clunky. Bertrand pulled loose a stopper and began playing the device. He blew into what could only be defined as a large snail shell while his fingers danced over holes cut into one of the bone tubes. A deep piping sound danced through the air. A low key quickly rose to a higher pitch. A trill, then a drop down again to make a tremendous, bass-heavy note.

The sounds were surprisingly wonderful. Bert kept playing and they all kept looking around, waiting for something to step through the curtain of vines. She walked to another one of the mooring statues, gazing out into the vast green. She looked up.

Nothing.

She was about to go see about repairs when a note of tremendous strength and volume replied to Bert’s, so loud and chest-rattling the hairs inside of Stena’s ears itched with vibration. She noticed the same happening to the others, all their ears twitching. Her heart immediately began racing in her chest.

“Apparently, that was some good playing, Bert.”

Bertrand seemed surprised at his own ability. “I just studied the texts,” he said between notes, “I’d never considered myself a musician, but then I realized music is nothing more than a language of sound.”

“Uh, Captain?” It was Crick, his voice high and tight and full of tension.

She turned slowly, hand tightening over the hilt of her knife for all the good it would do her. She took two strides and looked at Crick, who stood near Swinger’s aft hull, his palms against the wood, a terrified plea in his eyes. Three dark, steel spear points pressed through his shirt into his back. They looked deadly sharp, one of them drawing a line of blood down the long, straight blade. On the other end of those long, thin spears squatted three long-limbed creatures. All elbows and knees and ears as long and sharp-looking as their spears, pierced with hoops of ebony metal. Their armor was sleek-fitted reptile hide and chitin, ridged with feather clips. Eyes glinted like fiery emeralds behind long masks.

Swamp elves. Might as well have been ghosts.

Rose cried out.

Stena turned and drew her weapon. Just as quick, she faced her own array of darkened steel. Two points pressed through her heavy coat and leather shirt as if they were made of pig grease, sharp pricks against her breasts. Another spear point leveled at her eye. Despite her fear, or maybe because of it, Stena gave the elves a defiant look and tightened the grip on her weapon. She’d not fare well against these spears, but if she could get in close, she’d bleed at least one of them. “Rose?” she called, forcing her voice calm.

“I’m okay, Cap.”

“Might want to drop your weapons, Captain,” Bertrand said.

“Tell them we’re friends, Bert. And that it isn’t polite to point.”

Stena grinned through her terror, hoping it served to make her look more fearsome, and sheathed her weapon rather than dropping it.

Bertrand then issued a halting proclamation in a language that sounded like snakes fighting in a basket:
iths
and
ishes
and all kinds of
sthaths
.

The spear points eased away but not by much. Stena nodded at the fierce-eyed warriors and, in possibly a foolish move, turned her back on them. Bertrand had been left completely unmolested, perhaps his ridiculous costume offering some sort of reprieve from the elves’ ire.

“Is it working? What did you tell them?”

“I’m not sure. I’m still on the customary greeting…”

“Oh, for Tock’s sake.” Ignoring the spear warriors at her back, Stena marched over to Bertrand, gripped his arm, and shouted into the jungle. “I’m Stena Wavebreaker, First Captain of the Hightower Navy, friend of the swamp elves and emissary of Precisor General Dale Dillwind. And I would like to know why we’re being greeted like a band of orcs!”

Bertrand mimicked her volume if not her intensity and defiance. She only hoped that whoever was in charge here understood they were not here as a threat. But she didn’t want them to think they were weak either.

Stena’s eyes darted all around, again found the cascade of vines at the other end of the long finger of stone. What would come through that verdant curtain? A death squad to slaughter them where they stood? A company of jailers to shackle them and drag them to some dark, mossy jungle dungeon? She didn’t think their lives were at stake as they would already be dead, but it didn’t keep her imagination from running wild.

Let’s just hope these savages find our arrival curious enough to warrant a conversation before they do something rash.

From beneath the stone finger and all along its mossy edges, shadows carrying implements of death unfurled like tall blades of grass lifted by a stiff wind. A ragged formation entered the area with green eyes glinting—six, twelve, twenty-four of them—marching in precise unison toward Stena and her crew. Their footfalls made no sound on the moss and stone. A figure suddenly rolled into the middle of the formation and stood in one smooth motion. This one was different than the others. No weapon in hand yet advancing with powerful strides, suggesting zero fear. More than that, it suggested this individual commanded these troops. This was the leader. This was the one Stena needed to talk to.

Stena strode to meet this one. She’d dealt with dwarven pirates, sea drake lords, and every type of horror the Wailing Sea could vomit forth. She wasn’t about to let some swamp elves intimidate her, even if she did feel small compared to the advancing warriors. Not because she and her gnomes were outnumbered, but damn if these elves weren’t
tall
. Taller than the sea elves of the southern seas and even the men of the west.

The all stopped not ten yards from one another. The imposing leader stepped through without breaking stride. A long, curved sword buckled to the hip. A split in the long, chitin-linked skirt of armor revealed long, powerful legs.
Female
legs. The same slick lizard skin and tortoiseshell armor as the old queen from Bert’s tale. Queen Maelika.

The warrior reached up and ripped off her helm off so aggressively that Stena winced. A tangle of wild, yellow hair burst from confinement in a clatter of woven beads. Two pale green eyes glared from beneath brows so deeply furrowed Stena wondered what terrible offense she’d committed. Her lips were perfect curls in her olive-shaded face, but she snarled words Stena instantly recognized, even though she didn’t speak a word of Giyipcias. “What are gnomes doing in my swamp?”

Bertrand, to his credit, replied with barely a crack in his voice, all sense of ceremony thrown out the window. The elf gave a lengthy response, as lengthy as red hot ferocity could be.

“Who is she, Bert?”

Bertrand held up his hand, and Stena could almost see the translation spinning around in his round head. “Captain, she is the queen of these people. Queen of the swamp elves. Her name is Salthisma.

“Yes, I think I may have caught that. Please tell her we’ve come to help them.”

Bertrand relayed Stena’s words in stuttering Giyipcias. It must have been adequate, for the elf queen took a step back and looked up as if taking in
Swinger
for the first time.

“She says, ‘How can you help us? Perhaps as entertainment as we go screaming off this rock?’”

“Tell her our peoples have some urgent concerns to address. Together.”

Bertrand did, or at least Stena suspected he did.

Salthisma listened intently and then replied with more venomous words. It appeared as if she enjoyed the parlay as much as she might enjoy a fight to the death. Either that, or Bertrand was butchering their tongue and she was gaining some pleasure out of his incompetency.

Back and forth they went until Stena realized she was being completely ignored. In an uncharacteristic move, Bertrand took off his ridiculous headdress and threw it to the ground. He struggled out of the musical contraption, setting it down with as much ceremony as he could considering he was probably a hair’s breadth from death.

He looked angry and proved it by spitting words at the queen.

Stena sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, fully expecting to be run through, but when she wasn’t, she opened her eyes to find the queen caught in a moment of indecision.

We should all be dead now.

It didn’t matter. Stena steeled herself. “Lins, bring down the evidence.”

“Aye,” Lins called from the deck of the ship. “I’d love to, but I have a spear plucking at my belly, and to be honest, Captain, I’m a little reluctant to move.”

It was Stena’s turn to be angry. To Bertrand, she growled. “Tell her they need to take their spears off my crew if we’re to show her.”

Bert did, and Salthisma gave them a nod, for the first time seeming more curious than angry.

“Lins! Go ahead.”

“Aye, Captain!”

It took Linsey quite a while to deliver up what they had stored below deck. An uncomfortable silence ensued while they waited. The elf queen finally quit her measuring and spoke in low whispers to one of the other savages. The warrior nodded once and then shook his head, nearly imperceptible movements. The spear tip pointed at Stena’s belly never wavered.

At least she’s quit looking at me like I’m a bug crawling on her arm.
Again, the question of exactly why they weren’t dead briefly crossed her mind, but Stena wasn’t going to argue.

One of the elves, presumably the one who’d had Linsey pegged, called down from the deck. Queen Salthisma shouted back a response.

“What did they say, Bert?”

“The fellow on deck asked if he could help Lins with the unloading. The elf queen allowed it. Things should move along quickly now.”