Tinkermage (Book 2) (2 page)

Chapter Two

Niksabella sipped a cup of steam-pressed Rarebolt tea at her brother’s bedside: a strong, bitter brew with enough punch to keep her humming along at a low buzz without the head rush that normally accompanied black, unsweetened snolt. And with the tea, she could avoid bouts of insomnia as well.

It was important to keep up her strength, and her sensibilities, for her brother’s sake.

She’d been watching him twist and turn in his sheets all night, murmuring and cursing and sweating out the remnants of
bug
. Pretty much the usual thing for the past few weeks—Nikselpik had been in a perpetual state of nightmarish dreaming, waking only long enough to sip down some soup or Fara’s special tea before falling back into a stupor—except that tonight, things seemed considerably more intense.

Niksabella looked around to see if he’d woken anyone. No one stirred.

They had been rotating positions according to the duty schedule scrawled on a parchment tacked to the door and presently had taken up residence in chamber number eight, a finely adorned apartment formerly occupied by her dear friend Termund. At the moment, Niksabella guarded her brother’s bedside while Lili slept at the foot of the bed on a soft, feather mat.

Jancy came and went as she pleased. Gods only knew where slept. Currently, she was gone, likely off on some clandestine errand, and Niksabella hadn’t the strength to wonder where. All her focus was taken up by concern for her little brother.

Fara slumped in a chair on the opposite side of the bed, snoring as lightly as a puppy. Everything with Fara was sickeningly adorable. Her round face, those bouncy, red curls. The way her lips formed a natural pout when she was deep in thought. And, of course, no one could deny the cleric’s tremendous healing abilities. It had been weeks since the duel, and somehow she’d kept Nikselpik alive and breathing despite the wounds he’d sustained.

It came back to her in a blur of images. Re-bandaging his arms and head. Force-feeding his frail body. Dripping water between his parched lips even as he murmured about some hellish vision inside his head. Changing his bedding repeatedly due to his horrible sweats, bathing him, and generally doting over him like hens over a traumatized little chick.

Outwardly, Nikselpik looked one-hundred percent better. His color had returned, his cuts and bruises were all but gone, and the wound on his head was little more than a horseshoe-shaped ridge running around his crown.

But what was going on inside? That’s what concerned her.

She held the warm cup between her hands and shifted beneath the coverlet, which lay across her knees, adjusting herself in her chair. Winter was coming strong. Every other day, a flurry of snow fell, every trip outside an exercise in bundling up tighter. Only the occasional cold rain kept a blanket of white from covering everything completely. Soon, though, the rains would freeze, and so would everything else.

Her thoughts turned to where they always did when her head space got too sour. Termund. He’d been staying with his Thrasperville kin in a grand suite of rooms down the hall, helping them conclude their business here in Hightower before they set off for home. Before
she
set off for home. Her new home. Thrasperville. Termund had been telling her about it every chance they were alone. The great, winding road hugging the side of the mountain, and sometimes boring through it, to the final, steep pass leading up to the Fool’s Bridge, which spanned Tock’s Lugubrious Folly, a five-hundred-foot-wide gap partially excavated by the gnomes after their arrival at the mountain. From there, they’d take a sky lift across and then through the massive, steel gates of Thrasperville beneath the mountain.

Termund had named off a dozen places he’d take her inside the mountain, most of the names forgotten already, so he’d have to tell her all over again. The domed gardens, the underground lakes, the grand edifices dedicated to Tick, Tock, Evana, and a few other gods specific to Thrasperville. The Schools of Engineering and Invention, which accepted students based on their interest and dedication rather than on governmental ties and wealth. Niksabella, though still fraught with enough healthy skepticism, was anxious to thrive in that sort of environment. It felt like a party she’d been missing her entire life.

Her brother jerked, flipped his sheets down, and called out. Not loud enough to wake the others but enough to send a stab of worry through her chest. Niksabella rose from her chair, reached out to touch his hand, then drew his covers back up. He twisted his head to the right, and his eye twitched.

The dreams must be terrible tonight, brother.

She eased down, but her gaze never left him, not until he finally settled back into his normal, turbid sleep. At least none of this frightened her anymore. Mostly not. She’d become quite used to the routine. But was that a good thing? Maybe not, but it certainly allowed her to dwell on other, less stomach-twisting subjects.

Back to Thrasperville…

It sounded like a wonderful place without the history and stigma she’d earned for herself in Hightower. She might even become important someday in Thrasperville. A new workshop could be procured with loans—Niksabella wouldn’t take any of Termund’s money—and then she could indulge in at least some of her old work habits, enough to create wonderful things, maybe even a better version of her recursive mirror. Termund would certainly introduce her to some of the city’s tinkerers, and she could even dabble in mixed magicks quite freely. She’d almost died in one of Hightower’s back alleys because of her lack of proficiency in the craft. She wasn’t going to let
that
happen again.

She’d already procured a few tomes, and she’d been meditating on her wellspring enough to restore it to modest shape. Now if she could only find the time to study.

The rest of her time was spent in Termund’s company. At least when he wasn’t traveling, delivering all manner of goods and rare treasures. Perhaps she’d go with him sometime. She smiled. Who knew what the future held?

She jerked when Nikselpik sucked in a quick breath of air and threw his arms out. He called out again, louder, more fearful, and turned his face away as if avoiding some terrible fate.

Fara stirred. “Is he okay?” she asked, her voice husky with sleep.

Niksabella sipped and savored her bitter Rarebolt brew for a moment, and then set her mug on the nightstand. “I’m not sure,” she whispered. “It’s never been this bad before. Perhaps he is coming out of it?”

Fara shook her head while she watched Nikselpik’s twisting, muttering form. “Could be his system is purging the last of the bug juice. His sweat looks a bit discolored.”

Niksabella took a cloth and soaked it in a basin of clean water, and then dabbed at his head to cool his fevered skin. She lifted the cloth to check the color. Held it up for Fara. “Yep, dirty sweat. Gray and smelly. He’s hot, too, Fara. Burning up.”

Fara rose, a concerned look growing on her face.

Niksabella dipped the cloth again and tried to hold his head still, but he continued thrashing about. “Hold still, brother. By Tock…”

Nikselpik seized up, his mouth pulling a grimace, hands clutched into claws before him. A thick runnel of black liquid rolled from his nose and ran down his cheek.

Niksabella gasped and drew back, letting the wet rag fall to the floor.

Another line of black surged from the corner of his tightly-squeezed eye. He yelled something incoherent, roared. Niksabella’s mug few from the nightstand, whizzed over Lili’s head—she’d just poked up over the foot of the bed—and smashed against the wall. The sound of splitting wood cut the air as both pieces of furniture buckled. A sudden, pungent smell overwhelmed them, charging the air with power.

Fara looked at Nika with wide eyes. “We have to wake him, Nika. He’s using his wellspring, but he doesn’t know it…”

“How?”

“I don’t know, but we let this go on he could kill us all.”

Niksabella grasped the edge of the bed with one hand and her brother’s bony shoulder with the other. Magick roiled off him in powerful waves. She’d never felt anything like it. It took all her strength not to shy away. Fara was suddenly in full retreat though, her arms thrown up in front of her face as if warding off the heat from a raging bonfire.

A bookshelf ripped from the wall and tumbled over. A chair imploded, smashing into match sticks. Things began toppling and flying from shelves.

Fara was right. This
could
kill them. She needed to act fast.

Could Niksabella leech off some of his power like a heat sink? It was possible, she supposed, but it would take a wizard of great skill, which she was not. If she took on too much, she could become overloaded and… what? She had no idea. Her brain might melt, just like soft lead couplings trying to channel super-heated steam.

A boom echoed through the infrastructure of the building. A thin crack ran across the ceiling. Dust rained down. Lili yelped and stumbled toward the door. Niksabella couldn’t blame her. She’d probably never seen this much power up close.

Niksabella opted for the most direct approach: a good, solid shaking. “Brother.
Brother,
” she said. “Wake up!” In all honesty, she had no idea if waking him was the wisest choice. If he had a sudden reflex and called forth one of his defensive spells, they could all end up burned to ash or thrown without mercy into the hard, stone walls.

Or end up like that chair…

She shook him again, harder this time. “Futtering Hells, brother. Wake up!” Her voice was nearly a screech, her grip on his shoulder turning vice-like in her pure panic.

Before she slipped off the bed, Niksabella balled her fist and struck Nikselpik square in the jaw. “Brother!”

Nikselpik sat bolt straight in the bed. A splash of murky brine shot from his mouth and ran down his chin. Niksabella inhaled a foul stench like dead fish and… and… something
more
. His arm whipped out and caught her across the chest, knocking her over her chair and into the wall, where her head smacked painfully against the wall. She sunk to the floor in a daze and from there watched as her brother faced some monstrosity only he could see. “The
lake
!” he screamed, his voice hoarse and raw with sickness, arms thrown up as if to ward off some impending doom. “It’s in the lake… a god in the lake!” His voice trailed off in a sorrowful moan.

There came a long moment of shocked silence where Niksabella, Lili, and Fara remained as still as possible, each one waiting to see what her brother would do next.

He shook in the bed, remained cowering behind his arms for a minute or two. But slowly, he lowered his guard. The smell of magick dissipated.

Niksabella swung her legs free of the wrecked chair, turned, and tried to get on her knees, wincing at a pain in her hip. “Nik?”

His head whipped in her direction, eyes wide with terror. “We’ve got to warn Dale!”

Chapter Three

Dale Dillwind’s toughest gnomish precisors
grunted as they wrestled their carts, filled with jostling barrels, across the rough terrain. Even with the help of hastily-configured steam engines and ponies, the going was rough, to say the least. The liquid inside was as volatile as anything ever produced in gnomish factories. Concentrated fire.
Fraze
.

The precisors rode three to a cart and several dozen yards between each one (in the event they exploded), doing their best to avoid sloshing the contents. Dale winced every time they hit a rut, even though First Alchemist Tozzie assured him the chilly temperatures would keep the flammable liquid tamed. Even now, the thin, elderly gnome ran back and forth between the wagons, mostly getting in the way, but also adjusting levers on makeshift thermocoils to account for any rough patches they encountered.

Dale climbed to the top of a hill overlooking Harwood Lake. They were still two miles distant, but their prize was clearly in sight. Nestled between two hills covered with thick spruce and pine, Harwood Lake was no longer the crystal clear water it had once been, its surface now a shimmering, perfectly still black. The reeds and foliage around its fringes were dead and wilted, the once-verdant shore grass had become clumps of blackened waste.

Back at Rad’s, the wizard Nikselpik had told Dale to come to this blighted place, told him that the root of the amorph disease festered in the lake. At first, Dale harbored doubts, but upon laying eyes on the place, he knew there was something off about it. More than off. No, the amorphs were here.
It
was here.

And Dale was determined to wipe them out. Every last one.

Speaking of the enemy, there were none in sight. Not a single stumbling, crawling monstrosity to be seen. That worried him, too.

The westerly approach was the most direct and unobstructed way, for there were no roads to Harwood Lake, only trails barely wide enough for two gnomes to walk side by side. Someone had suggested using aerostats to deliver the “gift,” but Dale had already commandeered every last workable aerostat for a special mission, so they’d been at it like this for three straight days, slogging through the rough, unforgiving terrain. His gnomes were tired, sweating in the cold, hungry, and sore. Determined though. Dale could not help but be proud of them.

Despite the losses they had taken at the battle on Swicki Hill and at Rad’s, Dale was satisfied the inexperienced precisors were becoming a reasonably good fighting force. They had a common goal, a foe to defeat. He’d surprised himself, as well, taking to the art of war quite naturally for an unseasoned combat commander.

Ahead, precisors pulled snow-dusted shrubs from the ground and filled in the craters left behind. “Get those holes filled, gents, or the wagons will sink!” He’d shouted more over the past ten days than he had in his entire life. He liked that, too. It was as if he’d discovered a side of himself he’d never known existed. Sure, he’d trained and trained for years, going through the motions of being the Precisor General, but he’d never been challenged like this.

An armed guard of fifty soldiers surrounded him, although their entire retinue had swelled to nearly four hundred. The rest were around, galloping to and fro on ponyback, or locked in formation in the event the amorphs attacked. The rest took shifts maneuvering the carts. There hadn’t been any time for secrecy. The enemy knew what they were up to. It was just a matter of time before they revealed themselves.

He eyed the two hills flanking the lake. He’d run scouts around the lake to draw out any amorphs, but the bait remained untaken. Either the enemy was were exercising extreme patience or they had something much bigger in store.

What are you going to do, you lecherous fiends?

Halfway down the slope, Officer Roto stopped him, dismounting from his pony with heavy grace. The giant of a gnome huffed and puffed yet never complained or shirked his duties. Roto had more than proven himself in the battle on Swicki Hill, and Dale had been impressed and strangely humbled that he’d not thought his friend capable of running more than three steps, much less slaying over twenty of the enemy. Dale thanked the gods every precisor, including Roto, had shown their true colors, and those colors had run true. But they would need more bravery still.

Roto leaned on his mace. “This plan of yours, Dale. It seems a bit… hasty. Why the lake?”

“I trust Nikselpik, that’s why. He risked his life to give us a chance, and I reckon he knows what he knows because of it. He said burn Harwood Lake, and that’s what we’re going to do. Look at that lake and tell me it’s right.”

Roto wiped the sweat from his brow with a stained cloth. “Rotten to the core, indeed. Wouldn’t drink the water if you threatened to beat me with my own arm. Shouldn’t we get some alchemists on the job? Let them cast an opinion first?”

“Not a time for patience, my friend. Our enemy is pressed, and we must continue to squeeze them. Keep them on their heels and keep them guessing. We failed to do this on Swicki Hill, and we nearly paid the price. Now, we’re in a position to end this.”

The truth was, Dale didn’t know if the plan would work. Despite efforts to scout the enemy, he couldn’t even guess at their true strength. But something in his heart, and his trust in the strange, dark wizard, Nikselpik Nur, kept him going.

Roto grinned. Winked. “We’re hardly keeping them guessing, sir. At this pace, we might make it to the lake’s edge by late tomorrow afternoon.”

Dale slapped the officer’s shoulder. “Are our wizards ready?”

“Aye.”

“Have we looked sufficiently incompetent, bumbling, and otherwise easy pickings?”

“We have looked, so far, like a bunch of complete boobs. If I were the enemy, I would have already attacked us.” Roto snorted. “I’m not sure how they are holding themselves back.”

“Perfect. Draw up the wizards. Let’s get this done.”

Dale put his hand on the hilt of his sword, comforted by the cool steel. He studied the tree lines on both sides of the lake, searching for movement. Yes, he could feel them there, their alien sensibilities picking him apart, looking for weaknesses. The witch, too. Beaten to a pulp last time, she must have revenge on her mind. And without Nikselpik here, the enemy would be even more confident, he was sure.

Speaking of which, he wished the wizard
was
here now. He understood why Nikselpik had gone to his sister’s aid. To face the treachery of Hightower’s First Wizard, Raulnock. Dale’s ire needled at him as he thought about the First Wizard. A city official, too. Dale was embarrassed to admit his disappointment in another gnome, but he placed his anger back where it was needed most. These ultraworlders had come to Sullenor and accosted the innocent farmers of the Southland farms and the poor folks of Dowelville. Hundreds slaughtered or taken. With Nikselpik’s help, they had hit back and hard. But they weren’t yet done.

Dale stepped to the side as a cart trundled by. Spanski rode ponyback on one side with Elwray Stormcranker on the other. Spanski nodded to Dale as they passed—the wizard’s usual comical expression was replaced with an air of grave focus.

“Not too fast now, gents. Get stuck once or twice.”

Only the gnomes pushing the carts, a select few precisors, and the wizards knew of Dale’s plan. He couldn’t risk full disclosure for fear the amorphs would read someone’s mind and discover their ploy.

The next cart came slowly behind, flanked by two younger but reliable wizards, Smeeve and Candila. Their peasant attire marked them as anything
but
wizards, and they spent most of their time managing water and wineskins for the tired haulers.

One by one, they made their way painstakingly down the hill, with Dale constantly measuring their progress. Near the bottom of the slope, he stormed up to the front cart, looked beneath it, and called a halt. “Looks like a broken axle!” He shouted in mock frustration.

A small cadre of precisors—armored down for ease of movement—swarmed around the damaged vehicle while the ones trailing them caught up. Dale glanced around. They had just a bit over a mile to go across a relatively flat stretch littered by tall grass and an occasional stand of trees. There were sure to be ruts and hidden dangers, so they’d need to be extra careful…

A sudden wind blew across the open space, bending the grasses and causing bare branches to clack together in an unsettling applause. Dale chewed a clump of blackweed, swallowing a bit of the bitter juice. Every precisor had a pouch full of the stuff, and what’s more, most seemed to have developed an immunity to the psychic attacks of the amorphs; those who were already battle tested against them, at least.

All was in place. It was time.

Dale caught Elwray Stormcranker’s eye and gave a nod. Elwray and Spanski began drawing up power from their wellsprings while silent orders filtered down the precisor lines. A slow tension unwound from those attending the carts. Precisors rearmed themselves with weapons stashed in the wagon frames. The air charged as more wizards joined in with the two elders. Two weeks ago, Dale would have been uncomfortable with the sensation of so much magick in one place, but now it was a welcome addition.

Spanski and Elwray each held a hand above their respective carts, urging the weighty structures to rise. Grunting and groaning, they drew the contraptions up with creaks and groans and sloshes of fraze. Dale glanced behind to ensure the others had their burdens lifted clear of the ground and shouted, “Go!”

The wizards walked their ponies forward, the carts flowing smoothly along with them as if riding on oiled tracks. Picking up speed, they moved at a canter and then at a near gallop. Dale had impressed upon them the sense of urgency required, yet they’d not had time for a full trial run, and the need for secrecy had been paramount. It had been a reckless gamble but one Dale was willing to take to end this quickly.

Their only time to prepare had been in Rad’s basement, reviewing the plan again and again, testing their wellsprings and bonding over mulled wine and ale.

Now, the wizards’ ponies were at full churn, kicking up grass and dirt, Spanski’s wild, white hair flapping around his balding head. They were almost there! No signs of the enemy from the trees or the lake.

Precisor cavalry flew over the hill and down the slope to protect the wizards’ flanks.

At the lake’s edge, Elwray and Spanski lowered their cart so the wheels rested precariously in the mud. Spanski dismounted and yanked a swinging pipe so that it hung out over the brackish water. He affixed the other end to an iron nipple on the barrel and twisted the connection tight. Elwray jerked a lever, and fraze gushed forth, splashing into the lake and congealing on its surface like copper-colored oil.

Forms erupted from the trees on either side as the second cart reached the shore line. Dale recognized sinewy mountain cats, a dozen or more, bounding across the open ground, eating up the distance in mere seconds. Powerful hill bears lumbered behind the cats, mouths opened wide, fangs exposed, tongues lolling as they sucked air. Other things came too: wolves, crud-sliding humanoids, and flying things impossible to describe, all of them wearing lecherous crowns twisted around heads and necks, pushing their hosts to physical exhaustion.
Amorphs.

The precisor general was struck with a sudden sense of dread.
We are so small. How can we fight these? How can we possibly win out?
He pushed the thought away.
Because we must!

The third cart began to dip as one of the wizards, distracted by the oncoming creatures, lost concentration. The corner caught earth, and the cart flipped, landing with a crash and a tremendous
thawump
as the fraze erupted in a blinding flash. The wizards evaporated into ash, and the surrounding grasses caught fire. Enemies that had closed the distance spun away with singed fur and skin. Pony riders broke formation and peeled away.

Dale felt the blaze from where he and a group of fifty precisors charged across the flatland on foot. He covered his eyes and angled his soldiers around to the left, following the other floating fraze barges. Etty was right on his heels, his powder-tinged armor glittering with firelight as if he himself burned with heavenly light.

Beyond the conflagration, the world was chaos. The fourth cart had nearly made the shore but was just seconds away from being swarmed by a pack of slavering wolves. Wizard wrath buzzed in a whirlwind of such force it could only have been Elwray’s, tossing beasts through the air, while Spanski, in a cloud of smoke and ear-bending sound, scalded the enemy with hissing steam from his steel casting gloves.

The gnome cavalry had ridden down some of the enemy behind and to his left and were fully engaged now, and Dale found himself trapped between going forward or back.

A cloud of smoke rolled over them, blotting out everything except for a few tiny glimpses of movement and the sounds of dying. Dale panicked. Maybe this had been the wrong plan, a
horrible
plan, after all.

Etty’s cry warned him as talons flashed from the sky. Dale’s sword rose instinctively, sparking against the talons in greeting and deflecting the danger. Dale braced for another attack, but a wind, probably from Elwray’s twisters, ripped through, whisking away the black cloud and any sky raiders with it. But a second pack dropped from higher up, things so fast and black and twisting Dale couldn’t make out a single feature aside from their grasping, slashing claws.