Quartz, page 6
Left below, the overseer looked only half-convinced.
At his camp some distance away from the mine shaft, the Protector accepted a warmer coat and an urgent report from a guardsman. The days were long and the nights short this close to Girdlesday. Cold stars always shone overhead, but Selene the moon brightened the days.
It was a good time to travel overland.
The Protector stood a moment outside his tent, breathing in the crisp cold air, his feet warm from the heat of the earth. He had not been away from the Protectorate in so long, that former palace with its blackened walls and cracked-marble hallways heavy with the ghosts of past years. Industry reigned in those indifferent chambers. Sharp-eyed guards stood to attention. Clerks rustled, scribbled, toted up numbers. Department heads desperately clicked abaci, moved figures from one column to another, all of them trying every trick they knew to keep the state running for just another year.
Yes, it was good to get away from it, even if work led him on and dogged his footsteps at the same time.
With a nod for the young stazi holding the tent flap open, the Protector stepped into its warm lamp-lit interior. He sat down at his portable desk, its collapsible steel legs locked into place, and pens, scratch paper, and a cup of tea already on its smooth surface.
The Protector frowned as he turned over the pages of the report. The Minister of Industry had tried to conceal it, but production was down. The Protector did not spare a glance for all the flowery prose; he went straight to the tables and compared them to each other. A man less at home with cold cruel numbers might’ve been taken in by all the talk of probabilities, unrepresentative samples, and mitigating factors, but the Protector was not fooled.
The numbers didn’t lie.
The Protector pinched his nose. Ironheart’s secession and the ensuing war with Oakhaven had hastened the slide down the slope of insolvency. For all of the Father’s visionary rhetoric, Blackstone had never recovered from the devastation of the Revolution, the wanton smashing and killing and sweeping away of everything connected with the previous regime. They had destroyed their own machines, killed the agricultural overseers, and torn down waterworks, gas lines, and roads. There had even been talk of destroying the mage-made Primary which controlled all the construction and maintenance machinery. He had barely managed to talk the Father and the other zealots out of sending them all back to the pre-industrial era. They’d slowly rebuilt Blackstone these past fifty-some years, appropriating the Free Cities for their resources and manpower, snatching at any offer of a loan. The colony of Ironheart had been their one bright hope, but that had danced away like a firefly out of reach. And now the loans were coming due, from Clearwater, from furtive private lenders in Oakhaven, from the Trans-Point states.
A pity the Father was not around to see what his mob-whipping frenzy had accomplished. The Protector smiled, without warmth, without mirth. The giant who had bestrode the earth and toppled the heads of kings from their shoulders had died as magnificently as he had lived, in the midst of the inaugural feast of the Ironheart expedition, and now an accountant, a number-juggler, sat in his place. Ah, the irony. The Father could’ve used the calculating sense of a mathematician, and now, with the numbers all falling like dominoes, the Protector needed someone with charisma to sway the hearts of the crowd and win support for an audacious scheme.
The time for caution was over. They needed boldness to save them.
The flame he read by thrashed madly, then winked out.
The Protector sighed. “What have you done with the guards this time?”
A soft laugh answered him. A figure twitched out of the shadows. “Ah, they are staring fixedly at the ground in front of their feet, convinced that they are being extremely vigilant while respecting your privacy. Not to worry, they’ll be back at their feet-shuffling soon after I leave. I wonder how you can stand them.” The voice was amused, casual, as if it were talking about children instead of elite guardsmen.
The Protector sat back in his chair. “They are supposed to guard my person.”
“They’re not doing a very good job. Aren’t you glad that you have nothing to fear from me?” Spoken cheerfully. “Yet, that is.” The tone was matter-of-fact, not menacing. The speaker did not need to threaten.
“Why are you here, Karzov?” said the Protector warily.
The Shadow pinned back a flap of the tent, opening a small window. Chill air crept in. “I wanted to be here at the end of the operation. Quite a stroke of genius on your part to send the dissidents into the mine.” The Shadow’s voice was sincerely admiring. “That surveyor had quite a following among the dissatisfied. He certainly was looking to Oakhaven for support.”
“Which is why they insisted on sending this so-called peace mission.” The Protector smiled thinly. “Oakhaven wants dominion, not trade. That man—Furin, is it not?
“Yes.”
“Then he’s the boy’s…?”
“Father.” Karzov shrugged.
“Then we have double reason to get him out of the way. Have the charges been set?”
“Yes, and waiting for you. Shall we?” Karzov bowed and gestured. The Protector rose and left the tent, hunching himself instinctively against the cold. The stazi at the entrance saluted, carefully not looking at the Shadow.
“It is”—Karzov skipped a few steps and twirled, arms wide—“a beautiful day.” His teeth gleamed in his smile.
A short while later, several underground explosions shuddered through the earth. The mines collapsed and rubble filled the main shaft.
Members of the Secret Fist remained at the exits to make sure there were no survivors.
Chapter Six
The Barrens
THE YEAR’S SECOND MOONRISE had barely peeked above the horizon when the Blackstone authorities unceremoniously booted the firedancers out of their city. If he hadn’t been so blasted tired, Rafe might’ve been amused at how hastily Blackstone marched out the foreign spy they were so eager to get their hands on.
At least he was in good company. The other firedancers were stumbling and red-eyed, many clearly nursing hangovers. Burgess, still in his show finery, now looking a tad shabby, was unshaven and brooding. Only Isabella looked like she had not been tied to a trolley and dragged through the streets. She was alert, if not fresh. Freshness implied innocence, and there was none of that in Isabella’s guarded eyes.
The first shift was on its way to work as the firedancers, laden with packs and pushing handcarts, wound their way through the city. Rafe stayed in the middle of the group and hoped that none of his erstwhile co-workers from Girdlesday Eve would come by and recognize him.
Blackstone was closed in behind high natural walls of granite. The firedancers staggered out through a narrow gateway and down the steep slope. Rafe had arrived by riverboat, but the firedancers traveled on foot. He privately wondered why they didn’t get rid of most of their jewelry and props. They didn’t really need garishly painted backdrops, did they? Especially since they didn’t even use them in Blackstone?
“I swear that city gets cheaper every year,” said Burgess to everyone and no one in particular. “Only two kegs of ale for the lot of us and not even a hot breakfast before tossing us out.”
“You should come to Oakhaven,” suggested Rafe.
“Everyone goes to Oakhaven.” Burgess gave a deep sigh. “Oakhaven can afford to be picky, and they drive a hard bargain. They know there are plenty of desperate out-of-work performers lined up at the city gates.” Burgess scuffed sand with his boot, raising dust. “But the drink’s better there.” He lapsed into silence and none of Rafe’s efforts could move him to more amiable conversation.
“It’s the post-performance letdown,” Isabella told him when he dropped back to walk with her. She wore her customary somber garb: dull black pants and shirt, dull black hat, dull black boots. A woman in masculine clothing ought to be scandalous, but Isabella only succeeded in imbuing her attire with her own severity.
“Or the post-performance hangover.” Rafe’s mouth still felt tender. Blisters were rising on his lips, making it hard to talk. “Where are we going?”
“Smaller cities, agri-caves, mining camps. Wherever Burgess leads us.”
“I need to get to Oakhaven soon.” Rafe pitched his voice low.
“We’re still in Blackstone territory, so you need to keep up your guise. Wait until Burgess’ meandering brings us closer to the border. Then we can make a straight line for Oakhaven.”
“We?”
“Of course. You didn’t think I would leave you to fall off a mountain and break your neck, would you?”
“I have been out in the wilderness before, you know.”
“Of course. I’m sure you know the hills around Grenfeld like the back of your hand.”
Rafe opened his mouth to tell her about his surveying apprenticeship and his overland military missions, then shut it. Far better that she think him more helpless than he really was.
“Can I have some more of that salve, please? My mouth is hurting again.” Somehow it wasn’t that difficult to sound so pathetic.
They spent the night in a stone shelter built around a well. Rafe was so tired that he fell into his bedroll soon after gulping down flatbread and vegetables, washed down with cold water. The night was short and the moon already up when they set off the next morning. Rafe exchanged his boots for thick-soled well-cushioned foot muffs, capable of protecting his feet from miles of hard rock, insulated against the cold and cinched tight against the fine sand of the low-lying valleys. They also felt like he’d strapped boards on to his feet.
Fortunately, they’d left many of their supplies back at the shelter. Burgess, expansive once more, explained to Rafe that the shelters were held in common by all performers, small traders, and other itinerants. Those groups coming from supply centers were obligated to replenish the stores. It was a good system, held together by the glue of strong self-interest and swift justice. Warmth and food were hard to come by in the Barrens.
Rafe soon inserted himself into the work of setting up and taking down camp. He mended broken wheels, helped get handcarts out of ditches, and caught pale fish from nearby streams. The performers were a gregarious bunch, and soon accepted them into his circle. They regaled him with stories of their travels and a number of embarrassing personal anecdotes, but there was one topic they avoided—Isabella.
Despite his probing, none of the firedancers gave Rafe any indication of how they knew Isabella, what she did, or how often she traveled with them. In fact, they avoided her person as much as they avoided her name in conversation, and none of them, save Burgess, would even willingly keep her company.
Five days later, during a rest stop, Burgess glanced up at Selene’s position in the sky and gave orders to move on. Rafe volunteered to fetch Isabella, who had gone off by herself beyond a hillock almost as soon as they stopped. That was not unusual; Isabella required a large amount of privacy. Rafe got the feeling that she was not comfortable with people and that traveling with a large group was wearying on her.
Rafe paused at the summit, taking a moment to check his bearings from the position of the stars. Oakhaven lay Pointwards and counterclockwise from Blackstone and they were heading in roughly the right direction. Despite his gnawing anxiety, he was not quite ready to leave the firedancers and strike out on his own. They had both more overland travel experience and supplies than he did.
Plus, he had not satisfied his curiosity about Isabella.
Rafe considered the silver-and-shadows landscape, and wondered what it would’ve been like under the twin satellites. Had the combined light of Selene and Salerus brought out colors in the landscape and nourished plants on the surface? It was almost beyond his imagination to visualize the Barrens looking anything like the agri-caves.
Walking softly—the hill was solid rock, but not gravelly—Rafe came down the other side to where Isabella sat cross-legged, turned away from him, focused inward. The bubble of quiet she normally carried around herself had expanded to fill the entire valley.
Not wanting to disturb the peace, Rafe walked up close behind her and opened his mouth to softy call her name.
The next instant he was flying. Even his soldier’s instincts hadn’t seen Isabella move until she swept his legs out from under him. Rafe hit the ground with a breath-squeezing thud, saw stars and a glittering blade, and rolled before the next blow landed.
“Rafe!” Isabella checked.
He stared up at her. At the way Selene haloed her silvery head, at the slight flush on her cheeks, at the exasperation in her eyes. Her hands were on her hips and there was no sign of the weapon she’d pulled on him. Rafe couldn’t see where she’d concealed it in her clothing.
He started to laugh.
“You dolt,” she said. “I could’ve thumped your head with a rock!” She offered him her hand.
“Or stabbed me. If you wanted to, I’d be dead right now.” Rafe let her help him up to his feet. “I was right about you. You are a fighter, and a conditioned one. What are you fighting against?”
Isabella made an annoyed noise. “Was all this just you testing out your suppositions? Next time, ask before trying out any dangerous experiments.”
“But you never tell me anything about yourself,” Rafe complained. “No, don’t go back to your meditations now. Burgess wants to get moving.”
Isabella nodded. “We’ll be at Liberty Caves by moonset. Should feel like home to you.”
“Not likely. I haven’t been back to the Grenfeld caves since I was a child.” He looked directly at her. “I have quartz sickness.”
“Oh.” Isabella looked at him with somber sympathy. “I am sorry.” She touched his shoulder briefly.
Her unexpected empathy picked at that scabbed-over wound. Rafe thought he’d become reconciled to his exile from the agri-caves of his boyhood home, but sudden memories of Grenfeld pierced him. The heavy warm smell of soil, the fresh green scent of growing things. The white glow of the quartz pillar thrusting up from the earth and into the ceiling of the vast main cavern. The songs of the workers, their faces shining with sweat, as they sowed and weeded and picked upon the stone-rimmed terraces.
Since the onset of his sickness, Rafe couldn’t endure the presence of any of the great veins of quartz. But his memories insisted on painting the hollows and contours of the agri-caves as happy places. For a moment he ached to be a boy again, lying in the wheat, plucking berries with purple-stained fingers, basking in the yellow blaze of the megalamps.
But that life could never be Rafe’s. His brother was Lord Grenfeld now. He was the one who consulted with the Chief Grower and walked the fields and that was just as it should be.
“Good thing I’m only the younger son,” Rafe said cheerfully. “A life of placid farming wouldn’t suit me at all.”
“Perhaps,” said Isabella.
Rafe felt the Liberty Caves quartz as a tingle in his feet, a tingle that traveled up to his stomach and became a ball of lead. The entrance to the agri-caves was on the opposite side of a small valley, a saucer-shaped depression that had been blasted down to bare rock. Walls rose sheer and multibanded one either side of the performers as they traveled down a broad path into the valley. The road’s slope was gentle enough for transport carriers to bring in compost and take away produce.
The firedancers surged forward when they got to level ground. Agri-caves meant fresh food—warm ripe berries, tender greens with crumbs of black dirt still clinging to them, fresh-picked carrots and corn and whatever else might be ready according to that particular cave’s schedule.
Isabella dropped back to walk at the rear with Rafe. “Are you all right?”
“I will be, as long as I’m not in charge of digging up tubers for tonight’s stew,” he said, trying for some humor. His skin felt flushed and warm, and anxiety jangled within him. Once he had thought his hypersensitivity to quartz might actually be useful as a surveyor, but the wretched disease manifested only around worked quartz. Being here now only reminded him of the home he could never return to again.
Unless he really wanted to go into a convulsive fit, smash his head on a rock, and drool all over himself.
“I don’t think we’ll get so much as a shriveled-up tuber for tonight’s dinner. Look ahead.” Isabella pointed.
They’d rounded a bend in the road. The entrance was directly ahead.
An entrance separated from them by a tall chain-link fence, a field’s worth of barbed wire, mage lights mounted on tall posts, several battered machines, and soldiers in Blackstone red and black.
Rafe’s head throbbed. He slipped his hand into his pocket and gripped the stolen device from the train. It fit his hand as if it had been made for it, and he focused on its creased surface as he walked into a tangle of searing light that only he could see.
Through the pain lancing his skull, he caught Burgess’ words as flashes, “…custom, man, tradition… centuries old… no wanderers are turned away from the caves!” And jagged splinters from the Blackstone senior officer “…change in policy… no one allowed save authorized personnel… leave… or be arrested…”
The light intensified, blurred his sight, threatened to explode his skull. Please don’t let me have a fit right here, right now! Rafe backed away… if only he could slip back up the road… the quartz here must be close to the surface, to cause this kind of reaction…
Isabella grabbed his wrist.
“What are you doing?” she whispered. “Turn it off!”
And Rafe looked down and saw that there really was a white halo and it came from his clenched fist. Light spilled through his fingers, and his palm was hot around the mage device.
It was so bright that Burgess and the Blackstone officer broke off their argument and stood staring.
“You there,” called the officer. “What do you have? Handheld mage lights are military only. You can’t bring such a device in here!”
