24
Malco Travicksmith was a Tinker.
His father was a Tinker.
His Grandfather was a Tinker.
Tinkers had been in the family for so long that it was just assumed that every Travicksmith would be a Tinker.
He’d worked hard to follow in his father’s footsteps. A lot of people expected it would all come easy to him, given his family. But what they didn’t know was it was Travicksmith tradition to provide no hints or advantages to their children.
Because to do so would make them complacent.
And, if a Tinker was good enough to work in the Academy, complacency could lead to death very easy.
Tough love, Malco’s father called it.
When he was young, he hadn’t understood. He’d felt bitter towards them. Even his uncle refused to offer anything except a smirk and a tap on the side of his nose.
Not every Tinker worked in the Academy. There were some other dwarven sites and dwarven technology still littered the world enough that there were less dangerous positions.
But Malco had strived to be the best, and that meant at least a few terms in the mysterious Keep. This was his third year and, if he could save as much money as he intended, it would also be his last.
Through his family, a marriage had been arranged. It wasn’t a bad thing. He was quite happy about it. His wife was a happy woman who kept a happy house. She welcomed him home every night with a smile and good food.
But she worried a lot.
Stories of the grisly traps which filled the Keep were common enough they’d reached her ears. She wanted him to take another job. One where she didn’t have to worry for him every day.
He always chuckled off her fears. Told her he knew what he was doing and was always cautious.
But secretly, he agreed with her.
Every time he left his office to attend to a reported issue, he felt the tension in the air. Irrationally, he felt like the Keep was watching him.
Studying him.
Sometimes, hunting him.
He’d be working on a door, his head down in his work, and then cold sweat would leak down his spine and he’d get the urge to turn in a hurry. Look over his shoulder.
And see an empty hallway.
What had he expected to see?
There was never anything there.
Students might talk all the time about ghosts, but he knew there were no such things. And the legends about dangerous discarded experiments left by the dwarves were ridiculous.
No one believed those.
Centuries before, the Mage Court had delved deep into the bowels of the structure.
Before they decided to use it as the base for their training.
They’d carefully mapped it as best they could given the constant shuffling of lower level rooms. They’d found there were indeed treasures hidden deep below the Academy.
A mine.
A mine where the dwarves had clearly worked to bring up the ores they needed for their work. Also large caverns reportedly rich with crystals which the dwarves had used to create their magnificent cores.
That had been easy to map and there were no hidden structures down there.
Today, small groups of mages were sometimes sent down to check them. And to retrieve some samples from the caverns. They had never encountered a single living thing down there. Or any rogue golems such as those which still plodded through some city streets.
Malco knew, without a shred of doubt, that there was nothing haunting the hallways except for smelly brat students.
But still the fear prickled his brain.
He was hunched over the gears of a door. It had been no easy task to pull the granite panels apart. The dwarves hadn’t made anything easy to access.
Or there was a trick to it that nobody knew.
The grease in the gears looked dark and sticky, so he wiped it off with a heavy cloth. He had a tub of fresh grease he would apply when he was sure he’d gotten as much off as he could first.
That would fix most doors.
But some had broken gears or snapped chains. Sometimes bent levers.
These would need to be replaced and that was a pain in the backside to deal with. No smith had yet managed to replicate dwarven bronze, so replacements would be weaker iron or steel. Neither of which lasted as long and would need to be replaced more often.
They’d also need to be checked regularly, because the weight and hardness of nearby dwarven bronze parts would force them to crack eventually.
He felt a dull vibration through the padded coverings over his knees.
The floor was moving a little.
Not unusual.
The Keep often moved a little. Whether because rooms were shifting around again, or some hidden mechanisms were suddenly activated by some mysterious process, none could really say.
Some of the mages believed it was simply a natural phenomenon caused by the earth straining under the weight of the Keep itself.
Either way, it wasn’t a strong vibration but it still left him feeling a little nervous.
Most of it was because of the silence.
The thick granite walls forced a heavy muffled silence that was disturbing.
He’d known of some people made so anxious by the utter stillness that they’d gone mad and needed to be taken away. He hoped that didn’t happen to him. But he had to admit the place gave him the heebie jeebies sometimes.
He wished there was a window nearby so he could open it just to hear the wind or something.
Using a screwdriver, he scraped some of the grease from the largest gear.
Wiping it off, he noticed it looked a bit gritty. Maybe some dust or debris was drifting down from above. Using a mirror, he tried to look up through the narrow duct which carried the chain, but couldn’t see anything unusual.
He kept scraping it.
He hummed to himself just to get some noise into his ears and distract himself from the eerie quiet.
Normally, he’d have a partner with him.
But today, Jor was busy elsewhere.
Too many doors had been breaking down. No one knew why. Malco guessed it had something to do with the rooms, though. Reports were received that rooms were moving around more and more. Even on the upper levels where they were normally more stagnant.
This also wasn’t very unusual. Malco’s grandfather said it happened once when he worked here. The Tinkers all had their own theories.
Some sounded plausible. Like, the Keep was just moving air around. Ensuring the air in the lower levels didn’t get too thick.
But others were outlandish.
Like that the Keep was alive. And it was watching. And it was moving rooms around for its own mysterious cause.
Again, making Malco feel hunted.
His wife was right, he thought as he lay the screwdriver down and picked up a towel. Using that, he rubbed the sides of the gear.
This was definitely his last year, he promised himself.
The stress was making him lose his hair.
Next year, he was going to work with his father who was responsible for maintaining the docks. An ancient dwarven lighthouse was his biggest challenge. A place where there wasn’t a single trap. And no tunnels into the earth.
Just a massive system of mage lights that needed to be maintained.
Easy work.
Safe work.
He grunted as he finished wiping down the gear. Reaching for the fresh tub, he paused. A sound.
What was that?
It came from the ducts above the door.
Nervously, he moved back a little. Looked up. The sound came from the vent.
It sounded like a rat was skittering through the pipe.
Gulping, he grabbed his ladder and set it down. Slowly, he took a hesitant step up and reached for the vent. Then he thought better of it. Reached to his hip and pulled out a hammer.
Using the heavy end, he lifted the vent and peered inside.
Dark.
But the sound was there. A scurrying clatter. Almost metallic.
Was something actually in the pipe? What sort of thing would be in the pipe?
Licking his lips, he brought up the small mirror and slowly slipped it inside. Darkness.
Nothing but darkness down either side.
A thwump thwump sound boomed through the pipe and he almost cartwheeled off the staircase in surprise. It sounded like something had fallen from a great height and scrambled to its feet to keep scurrying.
Then he saw a small glow.
A distant glow in the mirror.
A mix of fear and awe touched him.
“Something in there,” he breathed. “In the pipes!”
He had to tell someone. Had to let the Headmaster know. They could send a team of mages down to track it down.
If there was a rogue golem in here, or some other creature, then this could be bad. Maybe the students weren’t wrong when they said they’d heard things in the walls!
He jerked the mirror out and was about to slam the grille to the vent shut when suddenly it appeared in front of him.
A metallic spiderlike thing. All legs and dwarven bronze shell.
A bright red light where a mouth might have been.
Two front arms holding what looked like a crystal.
For a split second, they looked at each other.
Then his eyes widened as the little thing let out a loud screech.
Reeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
“Shit!”
He tumbled back off the ladder and fell to the ground. His hammer skittered away, dropped as he tried to catch himself and control his fall.
Terrified, he glanced up. Half-expected to see the golem climbing down out of the pipe and drilling him with any number of painful dwarven weapons it might carry.
But it hadn’t.
It was frozen in the opening. Peering at him through the closed grille.
Watching.
Swallowing hard, Malco inched away, dragging himself as slowly as he could away from the vent. Intending to get up and run as fast as he could.
He put his hand down onto a tile.
Felt the tile give a little.
And heard the soft metallic click.
“Oh no,” he breathed.
How was it here?
It wasn’t here before!
Above his head, the ceiling dropped open with a flash. An arm let out a loud clank before the horrifying sound of buzzing metal ripped through the air.
And then through his body.
His last thoughts were of his wife.
Who was going to tell her he wasn’t coming home tonight?