A Riddle in Ruby (9 page)

- Butter of antimony

- Prussic acid—do NOT jostle. Remember last time.

- Reverberatory furnace (two)

- Slaked lime (one bucket)

- Tin salt (as much as you can carry)

—Shopping list, Aubrey Smallows, apprentice Tinker

T
he corner was cozy. Better yet, it had the advantages of cornerhood. The walls pressing into Cram's shoulders were solid and fixed, and the wood of the deck was equally solid on his bum and his feet. He snuck a look up to make certain that the ceiling hadn't sprouted spikes or that there wasn't some wild-eyed bogeyman staring down at him. It seemed trustworthy for now.

But Cram was coming to believe that objects were
not necessarily what they appeared to be on this mad vessel. First, the crew of genial boobs and pirate shams had snapped into a band of hard-bitten toughs when they
kenned
the crown was coming for them. Then the hold had opened its secret doors and cabinets to hide them from the boarding party of sea demons that were after his new master. What could a young man trust if he couldn't trust the seat under his, er, seat?

Cram had fled the deck. He was not proud of it, but it had been the savvy thing to do. That mad girl had rallied them to battle against whatever force of nature that man Rool was. Cram had been ready to do his part: a knock on the noggin from behind, a well-placed trip to tip the balance of a fencing match. He was ready to scuffle his share. But when Lord Athen turned tail like a flushed rabbit, he could see the tale of the ticket. It was every boy for himself, and Mam always said the last to run is the first to get nicked. Quick and quiet, he had tucked down the stairs, shot the latch on the door (not his proudest moment), barred it for good measure, and hunkered down behind a barrel in the deepest shadows of the unlit galley.

That was when it all turned ipsy-dipsy.

He had slunk behind the barrel to shield himself better from the doorway, in case the wild man might open it, but before he could catch his breath, the barrel wood under his hands had wriggled. Shifted, slightly, and then it hadn't even felt like wood anymore. It had been more like skin. Or something in between. Wood skin. Then just skin, and there had been a big man in the dark in front of him, who'd pinned him by the throat with one hand and whispered thunderously into his ear, “Where is Ruby Teach?”

Cram had entertained, for the tiniest of moments, lying to this barrel shade, this kitchen monster, but the strength in the beast's hands had wrung all thoughts but self-preservation out of his head. “Up top,” he had squeaked, and as quick as a stoat after a mouse the hands were off him and the door tore open. The light had framed, just for a moment, the bizarre picture of the back of a huge naked man holding an iron stewpot. Then he'd disappeared up the steps.

That had been hours ago, and the rest of the galley had remained reassuringly solid. Cram, however, was
not a trusting soul. He had grown up in a neighborhood somewhat south of trust. So he had rebarred the door, hunkered down in his corner, and waited.

The sounds of a ruckus had filtered from above a few moments after the barrel man had bounded up the stairs, but after that it had remained eerily quiet.

Until the door rattled. Cram jumped and cursed under his breath. The demon had come back for him. It had finished off his companions and most like was still hungry. Both of the others didn't have much meat on them, so it had come back for the main course.

The manly thing to do would be to grab a chair or a weapon, rip open the door, and sell his life as dearly as he could.

He put his hands over his eyes and tried to keep as still and quiet as possible.

“Cram!” The voice was familiar and urgent. “Let us in! We know you're in there! We've searched the rest of the ship.” It surely sounded like his master. Of course, what was a human shape to one that had so recently mastered the art of barrels?

“Don't think you are pulling it over my eyes, demon!” he shot at the barred door through clenched teeth. “If you hain't already broke through the door, there must be some kind of prevention on you, like them bloodsuckers my mam told me about. If you need permissions to come in, you ain't getting them from me!”

“Cram, it is Ruby and Athen!” The beast's voice had switched to the girl's. Clever. “We need to get in there and out of the open!” It was very talented. It even captured that hint of frustration or scorn that was part of most of her conversations with him.

He inched closer to the door and said clearly, “Not for a thousand pounds or all the tea in Araby will I open this door. There's monsters and huge naked men about, and you're most like one or t'other.”

The beast switched back to his master's voice. “Cram, you must recognize us. How can we prove it to you, so that you might unbar the door?” It was a coiled, controlled anger, as when you might speak to a child who was doing wrong, but who would just do worse if you got angry with it. It reminded him of Mam.

The memory weakened him. “All right, but you only get one chance. I and my master, whose voice you now wear, recently had a sit-down regarding my long-term contract with him. I declared myself at said time as a certain type of man. What did I call myself?”

“A coward.”

“Untrue.”

“What do you mean, ‘untrue'? It was only a few hours ago! I remember it clear as noontime sun!”

“Clearly you do not remember correctly. My master came to me in fear and appealed for my aid in counseling his afraidness.”

“I did no such thing!”

“I am sorry to say that that is how I remember it.” Cram folded his arms.

The voice oozed menace through the cracks in the frame. “You open this door, Cram, or you will soon be utterly alone on this ship.”

“Better alone and alive.” Cram leaned back against the wall.

“We will simply break it down.”

“See, your true colors are shining through.”

There was a silence on the other side of the door.

“You know that you'll never get off this ship alive without the other two of us.” It was the sneaky voice, the girl's again. “Also, if you let us in, I'll show you where my father keeps his secret stash of rum.”

He pulled the bolt and cracked open the door.

A small, bony, incredibly sharp foot lashed through the opening and cracked against his shin. He howled, and two bodies tumbled through the door in the dim half-light. One replaced the bolt, and the other kept kicking him.

“Ow! Ow! Stop it!” he said, trying to fend off the little lightning strikes aimed at both his shins.

“It is us, you muttonhead!” the smaller figure whispered. “Ruby and Lord Athen.” The kicks were painful, but not nearly as strong as the terrifying strength of the previous monster.

“All right, all right. We'll see if you don't turn yourselves into muskets or barrels or worse,” he whispered. “Please stop the kicking.” The two figures
calmed a bit, and the one that looked like Ruby took a tinker's lamp out of a bag and turned up the light. They were a mess, a mass of cuts and bruises.

They stared at one another.

Cram spoke first. “What about that rum then?”

The girl looked him up and down. “I lied,” she said.

Perhaps it was them after all.

Laugh at the Rain.

Laugh at the Reaper.

Run from the Reeve.

—Old Irish saying

R
uby crept from below like a ghost in mist. The full moon had cooperated and snuck behind a bank of clouds like a coconspirator. There were shadows and dark corners everywhere. It was the kind of night Skillet had called just enough light to make trouble.

She slipped from the shadow of the mast to an island of rope in the central deck, to the shelter under the forecastle stairs. Now that they were moving, now that
they were in action, she let all the worries fall away. She ran her thumb over where she had carved her name in the underside of the third step. The
Thrift
was her place. No jumped-up, scarred-up constable would find her if she didn't want to be found.

Once Cram had opened the door, they held a quick council. Gwath's strange power. His hunt for Rool. The nearby city. They settled on a desperate plan, but they had all agreed it was their only chance.

So she sneaked up to Fat Maggie. The dim line of the hawser rolled down to the tug, and a little island of light spilled out of the wheelhouse. The city twinkled beyond, perhaps a few miles away. By morning at the latest, the tug would bring them into dock, and the ship would be flooded with soldiers and sailors and chemystral monsters. They were truly flushed rabbits, and the hunters were closing.

She threw one of the wood nails she had brought with her, and it made a solid clack on the wall next to the stairs. At the signal Athen and Cram sneaked out of the door to the lifeboat hanging from hooks on the port
side. Ruby scanned the rear deck and the water below for sinister shadows as the two began to lower the little vessel over the side. This was a game of cats and mice. She understood mice more deeply at that moment than ever in her life. Whether or not the cats are fighting, the mouse just wants to go on its way.

Behind her, down on the deck, Cram muffled a curse. It carried like a gunshot in the ocean air. She whirled to see what had happened, and Wisdom Rool was there before her.

“You're quite the little sneaker, Ruby Teach,” Rool said. He was dripping water head to toe, and one arm was lashed to his shoulder with a sling of torn sail.

Ruby backed against Fat Maggie.

“Quiet now. Your two compatriots have just discovered that there is a fist-size hole in that lifeboat, and the prissy one at least will deduce that the thing will begin sinking the moment it hits the water.” He closed in a step, looming over her. “You and I have unfinished business. Now, duty still requires that I offer you the opportunity to surrender and avoid any unpleasant
actions, which may, perhaps, descend upon you and your allies. What say you?”

The man was a demon. Terror clawed up her legs and fixed its claws around her throat. She couldn't speak. She needed to summon a ruse, to pretend, to make it all better and trick him into letting them go.

Nothing came.

She fumbled under her dress, drawing her knives.

Rool laughed. “I was hoping you would say that.” His good right hand snaked forward, knocked one knife to the deck, and then flashed to the other hand, where he bent her wrist. She heard a pop. She gasped. He snatched the knife from the air as it fell toward the deck.

She tried to seize the moment and darted past him, but his foot lashed out and took her ankle from under her. She fell to the deck, and the first knife skittered over the edge.

Rool unlimbered the sack with his wounded arm and let it hang open. He was not a demon. He was a demonic ratcatcher, and she was as helpless as a rodent in a trap.

The moon came out, time slowed, and she wondered
if Wisdom Rool was the last thing she would see for quite some time. Staring up at his empty eyes, she was perfectly positioned to see the shape of Gwath drop like vengeance toward him from the rigging, high above.

She was also perfectly positioned to see Rool spin and plant her knife squarely in Gwath's chest before he slammed into the deck next to her.

“Now that was just lucky,” Rool said as he crouched in a ready stance with her knife poised to slash in once again. “This gentleman and I have been dancing all over, around, above, and below the ship for hours, and you have finally helped me uncover him.”

Gwath moaned beside her and pushed himself up to one knee, breathing heavily.

Rool smiled. “Run along now, or stay if you wish. He and I also have unfinished business. Talk some sense into your friends. This won't take long.”

She turned to Gwath. He was bent over, fists bunched in his trousers. “Go,” he said. There was blood on his lips.

Ruby ran.

Cram was standing with his back wedged against a pylon, inching out the two ropes. They passed up through suspended pulleys over the side to the lifeboat below.

“It's Rool!” Ruby breathed, and the boy cursed.

“Grab a line, Ferret.” He nodded to the two hawsers. He was struggling to hang on to both of them. Without thinking Ruby grabbed at one, and Cram let it go. As soon as she had all of the weight, pain flowered up her arm from her injured wrist. She gasped and tried to hold on, but the rope burned her other hand as it sped past her palm.

Cram yelped in pain and held on for a moment, but then both ropes were free, and there was a splash below. The ropes passed up through the pulleys and then spiraled down to the water.

“Like party ribbons,” Cram said as they both peered over the side. The shape in the dark that was Athen waved to them from below.

Cram kicked a rope ladder over the side and started down. Ruby grabbed at him with her good hand. She
couldn't think straight. “The boat . . . it's not—”

Cram waved her off. “The master fixed it, popped some tinker goo in there. Won't last long, he says. Come on!” He started down the ladder.

She tried. She threw her leg over the rail and held on with her good hand, but the rope was wet. Her foot slipped out, and she barely kept on the ladder with the other foot. She was splayed out like a cooked fish on the rail.

“Wait!” Ruby whispered.

Cram looked up.

“I—I can't. My wrist.” It was already beginning to swell.

The boy blinked, and she thought he might keep going, leaving her to die or worse. He cursed under his breath and climbed back up to her.

“Come on then, Ferret.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. His odor of cheese and turnips was the best thing she'd ever smelled. She held on tight with her good hand and the elbow of the other arm.

They both landed in freezing ankle-deep water in
the bottom of the boat. “What happened? Can we go?” Athen asked.

Her wrist was ice and fire, and the monster behind too terrifying. “Go! He's dead. Go!” she whispered, and the others grabbed oars from the oarlocks and began to row away from the
Thrift
into the night.