Chapter 3
Chapter 3
It’s only by utter exhaustion that I sleep.
The walk back into Emgarden helped. The tower neighbors the town, but not comfortably so. During the first hour home, my mind obsesses over the machines. I sketch out everything I can remember of Machine One and promise to do the same for the others—surely I can learn something by drawing them. I’ve done this for every Ancient gadget I’ve come across, speculating on what their missing pieces might look like. If nothing else, my fluttering mind needs an outlet.
Eventually my thoughts are no longer new, merely recycled, driving me mad with thinking and rethinking. Some bitter mitemeal tea I traded Amlynn for helps settle me and grants my body several hours of rest.
I wake close to mid sun, eager to resume work but realizing it might not be best to break Moseus’s mist rule on my first solo journey to the tower. So putting my own desires aside, I trek across town, slowing at Entisa’s fresh grave, and out into the farmland that hugs the east wall of the village. The crops extend for about a hundred meters out, bending more or less to fit the shape of Emgarden and the locations of the wells. There are three wells in the farmlands, only one of which has the windlass I built to help pull up water. The farther the plants grow from a well, the harder they are to care for. The hardiest crops are planted farther out, with the more delicate close to the wells. I’d love to build something to make the endless process of watering easier, especially since farmers constitute more than half of Emgarden. Even I tend crops when things are slow for me. Something to pump water up through tubes and irrigate, or to carry heavy buckets of water to save us a few trips ... I drew up plans for an irrigation rover once, but there are no resources with which to build it, and no guarantee it would work, so I abandoned them. Limited resources likewise mean no experimentation with other methods. Tampere’s climate is livable, but it isn’t always kind.
Hopefully this deal with Moseus changes things. A lot of things.
I find Salki out in the millet, kneeling and pinching hungry beetles in half with her fingers. Casnia lingers nearby, under a scraggly tree someone’s thrown a blanket over for better shade. Balfid and a few others are there, too, eating lunch.
It takes everything in me not to screech, There are other people here. I’ve met them. In the tower. We’re not alone. But Moseus’s deal will make life so much better for us, so I can keep my mouth shut for a little while.
“You can take another few cycles,” I say instead as my shadow falls over Salki. Time off to mourn, I mean, but she understands me.
Salki pushes up the brim of her hat. “Or I can be useful.” She shrugs. “It was her time.”
“Doesn’t make it easy.”
“Doesn’t make it easy,” she retorts, knocking a half-formed egg sac off a knee-high plant with a rusted trowel.
My tongue curls in my mouth, desperate to share my optimism about the tower, but I swallow that hope down. Maybe when things are more solidified, when I’ve earned a little more of Moseus’s trust, I can let it slip. Salki wouldn’t hurt a fly, and any secret I gave her would die with her, but I did agree to the keeper’s terms, and I need those machines. We need that metal. So the story stays buzzing at the front of my mind, distracting and heady.
I crouch down and start pinching beetles myself. The adults are a shiny dark blue, and their guts spray a dark amber. They’re too bitter to eat.
“Gross.” Salki laughs. She’s wearing gloves.
I reach over to wipe my hand on her trousers; she smacks me with the flat of her well-worn trowel.
Smiling, I pinch off a few more bugs. “I think I can get you some better tools.”
Salki sighs. “There’s no point sacrificing one trade’s tools for another—”
A sharp pain stabs through my skull. A gasp catches halfway up my throat as my hands fly up to my forehead instinctually. Gods’ piss, it hurts.
“Pell?”
Gritting my teeth, I push on the side of my head, beetle guts on my fingers, as though I could counterbalance the pain. The strange ache takes its sweet time abating, but gradually it crawls away, receding one stab at a time, like my brain is trying to square out its own grave’s corners.
The trowel falls. Salki’s hand rests on my shoulder.
“Without melting down what I have,” I say, continuing the conversation. “I’m fine. Need some water.”
She sighs. “I hope you know how ironic it is that you of all people fail to stay hydrated.” Standing, Salki waves to a small woman a few furrows over. She brings a bucket and ladle. I deeply drink from it first, then Salki has her fill. Then me, again.
I wipe my mouth on my forearm. Salki thanks the water bearer before returning to work.
I don’t trust myself to keep secrets while meeting Salki’s eyes, so I focus on bugs. “I’m not guaranteeing anything, so I won’t give any details, but I think in a dozen cycles or so, I might have something.”
If I can fix the machines. Their make ... it’s above what I understand. And yet I feel I can do it, if given enough time. A gear can only turn so many ways.
“All right, then.” Salki speaks as though I made a joke, but I don’t mind.
We work down the row in comfortable silence, the sun heating the back of my hair. “How’s Casnia taking it?”
“She says nothing,” Salki murmurs, glancing toward Casnia in the shade of the tree. “But she slept in Entisa’s bed last mist and refused to eat at first sun.”
“We all mourn in our own ways.” I clap my hand on Salki’s shoulder. “Do you need anything? Really, Sal. Do you need anything?”
She glances at me, eyelids heavy. “Company, sometimes. Quiet, others. I’ll let you know.”
I squeeze her shoulder before heading back to get my own affairs in order, and to anxiously watch the ball bearing in my clock worm past the ticks and drop.
I find the right door unlocked when I return to the tower. The cool brush of mist kisses the skin of my hands and face, coaxing my cropped hair into uneven waves. I suppose I’d expected Moseus to be waiting for me, but only emptiness greets me. No one lingers outside the tower, nor in this first chamber. It’s dark, save for the trickle of light shining down the spiraling stairway, and quiet. The sound of the door dragging shut feels like it should shatter the tower, but everything holds. Nothing could break this fortress.
Pulling away from the entrance, I notice two hooks for holding a bar across the doors, further barricading this place from the outside world. No wonder Arthen and I could never get in. I wonder for the millionth time what the Ancients used it for. I’ve wondered so much I’ve started to hate the questions. I merely want to get to work.
I take one slow lap around the first floor, perhaps expecting Moseus to pop out of the shadows. The room seems bigger than I remember. There are two other doors here, one behind the stairs, opposite the entrance, and one opposite Machine One, to the right of the entrance. I don’t test my luck with either and return to Machine One. My lanterns are where I left them, so I light them and crawl back inside the machine, picking up precisely where I left off. I know the next ten steps. I’ve reworked them in my mind constantly, and each proceeds as it should, except for step eight, which requires a different entry angle for this thread feed than I had remembered. A lot of the pieces operate with cables and wires, some made of metal, others—like complex pulleys—made of gods-know-what. If this part connects to that part, they’ll move together, or in sequence, depending on how the tendons, so to speak, are connected.
Another quake rolls beneath the tower, vibrating the delicate machinery. I wait for it to pass before refocusing.
These wires, though. I can see where several of them anchor, but the rest will be a headache. And yet I’m excited to follow and guess at their paths. I wonder if mothers feel this way with disobedient children, drowning in frustration while loving every moment of it.
I shift the light to figure out my next move. A smaller lantern would help a lot, but no one is around for me to ask, so I make do. Trace another carved symbol in what I think is a flywheel, or something that stores or adjusts power. The symbol is the same half circle and unfinished triangle as before. Tell me your secrets, I ask the symbol, pressing the pad of my thumb into it. Tell me how you made this. Tell me how to fix it.
The machine doesn’t answer. Intuition whispers that the souls of the Ancients have long since abandoned this place, following the World Serpent through space and time to rebuild on some other world. If there’s a godly being whose purpose is to create worlds, then surely there must be more worlds out there, however little I understand them. Maybe the great beast created one with more water and more metal. More people.
Yet, as I squirm away from the flywheel, I notice something I hadn’t before. It’s the angle, and the shadow, of a spine against the stone floor. Looping my foot through the lantern on the stone, I swing it closer, and the shadow doesn’t move. Which means it’s not a shadow, but a hole.
But why would part of this machine go through the floor? Its steady foundation balances it perfectly. But there it is.
After a minute of acrobatics, the lantern hangs off a strut and I am nearly upside-down, balanced halfway between a protective plate and a long metal support beam. There’s a larger metal plate down here, secured with those fancy screws the Ancients were fond of using. It takes me longer than it should to loosen them with a ratchet, and I have to sit up and let the blood drain from my head before lifting the plate off.
It reveals a much bigger hole than I’d expected.
Several beams, shafts, and other Ancient nonsense pour through a hole nearly a meter wide and almost perfectly circular, but shallow. Definitely intentional. The machine disappears beneath concrete, and I’m positive it doesn’t end there. Why take the time to cut a big hole in unyielding stone just to gain a few centimeters? Any smart engineer would just make the machine a few centimeters taller, or reconfigure it to function on its side, or something. Whatever that something is, it goes under the tower. Which means it’s time to do what I do best.
Untangling myself from loops and bearings, I wipe black grease off my palms with the sides of my slacks and hold my hands to my mouth. “Moseus!” I call. “Mose—”
“Yes?”
I start and spin around. Moseus appears behind me from the first of those two shadowed doorways, which looks like it leads into an equally dark room. Taking a steadying breath, I say, “I need a shovel. And some bracing. I need to dig a really big hole on the other side of this wall. Part of Machine One”—I point to the machine in question—“goes beneath the tower. I want to see if I can reach it. It’s close enough to the side that there shouldn’t be an issue with—”
“You don’t need to bother with that.” Moseus observes the machine with an unreadable expression. “It would be a fruitless endeavor.”
“But any endeavor that helps me understand the machine is fruitful.”
Moseus shakes his head. “I believe it will be a waste of your time.”
“Well, it’s my time, isn’t it?” A little voice in the back of my head that sounds remarkably like Salki warns me to even my tone. I don’t want to lose what I have when I’ve only just gotten my hands on it. Forcing my tight shoulders to relax, I amend, “Just let me look. I need to know.”
Moseus frowns, and after several seconds, he acquiesces. “That room, there.” He points to the second doorway, directly across from the exit on the other side of the stairs. “See if there’s something you can use.”
Quietly, he slips back into his chamber. I assume it’s his chamber, anyway.
Venturing to what ends up being a small closet, I find an array of things, including broken bits of Ancient artifacts. They immediately catch my attention, and I pull some out into the dim light to see them better. They’re not all machine parts. This looks like part of a sieve, that looks like ... well, I don’t know. But I want to know.
Let it go, Pell.With a long breath, I set the exciting toys aside. They’re likely part of the scrap metal I’m to be paid with, so there’s no point in getting worked up over them if they’ll be melted down anyway. That, and I’d prefer to dig while the mist holds.
I find a shovel, a pick, and a broom. After grabbing the first two, I make my way through the front doors again, around to the west side of the tower, where the machine is. Thick mist coats my nose and throat. It’s soothing after long, dry suns. Two emilies have sprouted nearby, both a pale blue that would blend with the mists if not for their softly glowing centers.
I stare at the hard ground beneath the tower and sigh. “Just like a well,” I mutter.
And start digging.
My body moves into the rhythm easily, and I’m pleased to see that after a couple of layers, the earth loosens up. Maybe this was an emily bed recently, and the roots unknowingly lent me a hand before vanishing, as emilies tend to do. I dig down about five decimeters, then widen the hole. I’ll know if I need shoring soon enough, but for now, I focus on digging.
I’ve made a sizable dent in the ground, about one-third of a proper grave, when I hear the swing of the pickaxe behind me. I turn, pause, blink.
Heartwood is here.
His presence radiates through me like I’ve taken a full swing at a boulder. Seeing him closer, even in the mist, jars me. Before, on the staircase, he’d seemed like an apparition, a figment of the imagination, but he really does look a lot like Moseus. Thicker, maybe taller, too. Like if Moseus ate more. I don’t know how much of the peacekeeper exists beneath his baggy robes, but Heartwood is very ... present.
He doesn’t look at me, merely swings the pickaxe at the hard upper layer of the ground. His impressive mane of plaited white hair swings over his shoulder as he works. He’s taken off his leathers and wears a simple shirt and fitted pants, still of a make unlike anything in Emgarden.
Pulling my eyes away, I force myself to refocus on the task at hand. “Thank you,” I offer, adjusting my grip on the shovel. “I’m trying to get down beneath the foundation, toward—”
“I know.”
They’re the first words he’s spoken to me, soft as the mist in volume yet hard as the sun in tone. I wonder at him a moment, long enough for him to pause and glance at me. Even in the mist, his green eyes are eerily striking. Where Moseus’s gaze is alluring and calm, Heartwood’s is invasive and alien, reminding me yet again of how different he and his companion are. No one in Emgarden has eyes like that, and Emgarden is all there is.
I’m not sure how to respond, so I merely nod. He returns to his work, and I haltingly return to mine.
Heartwood seems to know what he’s doing, hastening our progress, though I silently congratulate myself when he has to take a break before I do. I try not to look at him; he’s oddly distracting. That, and Heartwood doesn’t seem pleased to be here, making me wonder if Moseus coerced him into it. I dig until I hit concrete that matches what I saw beneath the tower floor, oddly smooth and slightly yellow in color.
“Is this ... a chute?” I say more to myself than to Heartwood. I dig off to the side to find the end of it and manage to detect a slight curve before a chunk of dirt falls down and covers up my work. I’m going to need shoring soon, or I’ll bury both of us alive. “It looks like it angles away from the tower ...”
I turn in the direction the chute seems to be heading.
“Help me,” I ask, climbing out of the hole. “I want to dig this way.” I point away from the tower.
Heartwood says nothing, merely moves over to start breaking up more soil. The mist thins. I wonder if Moseus will ask me to stop soon. The tower blocks the view of the dig from Emgarden, but if someone decides to take a long walk, we could be discovered. I tentatively ask Heartwood, who quietly responds, “Then let us work quickly.”
I dig with renewed vigor, moving aside what Heartwood loosens, filling in old hole to uncover new hole. I dig and dig and dig, until my back aches and my joints cry at me to stop. Until I’m huffing a windpipe of fire and sweat rivers down my torso. Past the protection of the mist and into the heat of the sun, but the concrete continues. Surely I’m nearly to the end of it. Breaking for a moment, I shuck off my sash and overshirt and chuck it out of the hole, then peel my sweat-drenched undershirt from my back and stomach. Stripping down makes me more susceptible to sunburn when I dig away from the shade of the tower, but the sides of the hole shadow me well enough. Wiping perspiration from my brow, I resume digging, my arms shaking from the effort. Then I hit rock.
“Heartwood, can you get the pick under this?” I gesture.
He pauses and glances at me, then averts his eyes like I’m the sun. Moving to give him space, I glance down at myself. What, is he allergic to shoulders? I check my breastband while he loosens the rock; all the bits are where they belong.
The stone in question comes free, and Heartwood resumes his previous work, refusing to look at me or even brush by me, despite the close quarters. Well, to each his own. At least I have the help.
It gets harder to dig the deeper we go, and I worry we’ll draw the attention of Emgarden and tick off Moseus. But a dozen shovelfuls later, the concrete continues unabated. At this angle, it’s going to get deeper and deeper, to a depth that surely only an Ancient could reach. Moseus was right. There’s no way to uncover this, and no way to break through.
And so, with heavy limbs, I return to the tower, and Heartwood vanishes as easily as the fog.