Tinkermage (Book 2) (8 page)

“Ah, thank you.” Seether set his snolt aside. “The Alabaster Whitebone is the absolute best tea I’ve ever had. And I’ve had many, many brews in my life, I might add.”

Niksabella held out her hands, and Termund took them, sending a tingle up her arms. His hair was wild and curly about his shoulders, steel-gray eyes filled with a playful mirth only reserved for her. “Milady.”

“To Hells with milady.” And she pulled him, fell against him, rested her head against his chest. He wrapped her up, pressed her so close that she could hear his heart beating like a hammer. “I missed you. How long has it been?”

“Seven hours, more or less.”

“That’s seven hours too long. Let’s try to keep our separation to short periods of one hour at a time at most.”

Termund chuckled and held the back of her head in his hand. “If only life was so accommodating.”

“I’ll make it be.”

When she came out from Termund’s embrace, she caught her brother’s slack-jawed expression and nearly burst out laughing.
He’s never seen me with a fellow before. Not like this. He’s not sure what to think.
So she gave Termund’s hand an extra squeeze and winked at Nikselpik.
A little of your own medicine, eh brother?

Dale went around the table and stood behind Nikselpik. The precisor general clapped his hands, rubbed them together, and gave them all a serious look. “My friends, I’ve gathered you all here for one reason: to decide the fate of our fair city. And make no mistake, we are all in grave danger, or at least
some
danger. Even Mayor Boslem has seen the light, although I’ve not invited a single of our illustrious politicians. Why? Because they don’t have a lick of experience with these ultraworlders. They don’t know what we’re dealing with.

“All of you
have
, in one way or another, dealt with this threat. Amorphs. The Mother Amorph. You two guards,” Dale gestured to the two standing on either side of the door, “have personally guarded some of the captives who were freed by our very own Nikselpik here.”

“Yes, sir,” one of them said. “They’re keeping them at the jail.” He gulped and shook his head. “Some of the strangest things we’ve ever seen, me and Rolv.”

Dale nodded. “Beings the like have never before seen on Sullenor.” His eyes caught Niksabella’s. “Or perhaps you’ve encountered one of these ultraworlders here in our very city.” His eyes slid away, leaving Niksabella with a cold chill. “In any case, it makes the members of this group uniquely qualified to measure what we’re dealing with.”

Etty tapped a spoon on the table. “I only
reluctantly
agree that any one of you, outside our immediate military persons and City Council members, has anything useful to add. Unfortunately, Dale and I do not see eye-to-eye on that account.”

“That’s right, Etty. We don’t. In any case…” Dale sauntered to his right, around Uncle Brit, where he placed his hand on Seether’s shoulder. “Mister Seether, would you care to start?”

Seether’s scarred lips sipped from his cup. He looked up and smiled, a terrible, gentle mask. “I am more than happy to share my poor, sad tale. If it keeps the light alive in this world, yes, yes. I certainly shall.”

Chapter Ten

What had started out as a night of continued recovery, fussing over him by Lili and Fara, and ultimately boredom, now appeared to be taking a very interesting turn. While still physically weak and ill, he was thrilled to see all these interesting gnomes together. Even Etty. His hard feelings for the cleric had diminished somewhat, but that didn’t mean he’d miss out on having some fun at the prickly bastard’s expense.

Yes, it was looking to be an entertaining night, starting with his sister.

Niksabella’s open affection toward Termund had nearly decimated his already fragile worldview. Not that her hugging and kissing on that Thrasperville gnome was a bad thing. Quite the opposite. He was genuinely happy for her. Proud, even, in a strange way that he couldn’t explain. Termund was a good, strong fellow. He wasn’t necessarily the type of gnome Nikselpik would have an ale with—slapping the bottoms of tavern wenches all the while—but his respect for Niksabella was palpable. Yes, anyone could see that. It was just… it stirred his heart a little.
To think you shocked me for once, sister. Good for you!

The room was quickly un-stuffing, the open window ushering in a refreshingly cool breeze that touched him lightly on his face and forehead, sucking the heat out of whatever fever remained.

As Seether gathered his thoughts, he looked around to find Lili. and Fara had claimed the edge of the bed, sitting cross-legged like two gnomeling sisters about to be read a bedtime story. His breath caught. As if for the first time (at least the first time without the bugs) he noticed how stunning both of them were.

Then the strange, burn-scarred man began his tale in a fit of wheezes and coughs. After a sip or two of the Whitebone, he found his footing.

“I am known as Seether.” His pale eyes crawled around the room, taking in every one of them. His smile greeted anyone who would smile back. “My race was called fireborn, and then later, after our enslavement, fire
bred
. I am not crippled. I’m not ill. My people all look like me. Any weakness I might display now comes from my sorry old age, not from any kind of deformity, although I understand I’m quite wretched in appearance to most of your kind.”

Seether’s accent was strange, his S’s drawn out like sizzles, other inflections indicating an elegant tongue. He found himself wanting to hear Seether’s native language.

“So you’re just an old fart,” Nik interrupted him. “Like Brit.”

The rotund Thrasperville patriarch shrugged at Nik and stuffed another pastry into his mouth.

“Old, yes, but I still have a spark or two left in me as you saw on Swicki Hill. In any case, I am, what you call, an ultraworlder. Much like the amorphs who attacked your Southland farmers. But, to me,
you
are all ultraworlders. No different than the peoples of the dozens of worlds I’ve visited. You see, to be more specific, I am what you might call a
gatemaker
.”

“Gatemaker?” Niksabella said.

“I build gates. Between worlds. Points where beings may cross through the ether of space and time and step into another world as they might stride across the threshold between rooms.”

While Nikselpik had visited many places in between the worlds, especially in his infatuation with the Rapurian peoples of the north, who’d built such caches to store their wealth and knowledge, Nikselpik had never actually met a gatemaker before.

“How I came to be in your world is a sad tale, one I can sum up in two words. The Baron. A usurper from an outlaying darkzone
world. He rose from the shadows and took control of an ancient stronghold called Weyar, where he dismantled the previous warlords and installed his own mercenaries. Our ambassadors to the normally festive gathering were sent home and barred. Peace was no longer celebrated. Instead, the Baron claimed that the War Council was a tool of justice to help settle age-old disputes on and between worlds.”

Dale harrumphed. “How conquerors get their start. Historically speaking.”

“Indeed. It was merely an excuse to extend his reach, to take control of smaller, unsuspecting worlds citing an agenda of justice and order. It was alarming—to those who cared—but the last ultraworld wars had ended centuries ago, and for the most part, there’d been relative peace. Who cared what powerless entities sat on the War Council?

“But the Baron brought his animosity to the darkzone overlords, who had been stewing in ancient defeats. He dredged up old hatreds and set allies against one another, all the while picking up the broken pieces and re-assembling them in his own design. Soon, he was making incursions into lightzone worlds and even some negative prime worlds, which are normally dead zones for ethereal travel. No one could have guessed his end game.”

“Which was?” Niksabella asked, rapt.

“Which
is
, you mean,” her brother corrected.

Seether shrugged. “I’m still working that out. Complete domination? In and of itself a task that would take thousands of years. Quite honestly, the last being who tried died of old age before they could conquer their ninth world. The Baron already has twenty-seven worlds under his thumb. That said, he has become reckless. Most likely he’s simply an ambitious despot who enjoys his daily death and destruction. No one has gotten close enough to him to dare ask his true agenda.” Seether cleared his throat. “I believe there could be another possibility.”

“What?” Dale and Niksabella asked simultaneously.

“I believe he wants to enter the Crux, the mysterious center of our universe. I believe he wants to become…
a god.
”

Nikselpik glanced at his sister and then gave her a second look. She was slumped in her chair, her expression drawn, worried. He could practically hear the thoughts whizzing around inside her head.

“In any case, my world was one of the first.” Seether paused, his smile gone wistful, his pale eyes far away. He sighed that wheezing sigh of his, and then continued: “I escaped, and, to shorten a very long tale, ended up on the stonekin world of Rockholm, where I lived among them as far as my decrepit body would allow. Such a rugged, unforgiving place, Rockholm. I thought I’d be safe there, but the Baron followed me, bent on catching me and putting my gate-weaving abilities to use. I was able to avoid capture with the help of the stonekin. The rock folk even held off the Baron’s forces for some time, retaining their independence for a decade or two. But the Baron’s scryers pecked at the stonekin people, buggering their dreams and turning them dark. The Baron didn’t use force against the stonekin as much he poisoned their minds until one of their own betrayed them and stole their sacred Stone of Life, turning it over to the Baron, selling them all into enslavement.

“And then the Baron made the stonekin fight his bloody wars.

“For my part, I remained hidden, shielding myself from his scrying eyes, for I knew how to protect myself. Having a rebellious disposition by this time, I created portals for the stonekin to travel to other ultraworlds to help them find a way to shake free of the baron’s yoke.”

“But you said they were under the Baron’s control.” Dale had walked around the table to stand, arms crossed, behind Flay and Terrence.

Seether chuckled, a tortured sound. “The Baron does not know all the secrets of the Stone of Life. Stonekin figured out how to get away, albeit for short periods of time, in order to undermine the Baron’s plans. Still, many have perished. And stonekin do not easily reproduce. It may take a hundred years to fully form a newborn.”

The weight of the story was not lost on Nikselpik. Even as Seether told the tale, he found himself thinking of Jontuk. How the rock giant had first come to him in the Magi Den one evening, a huge figure amongst the den’s tortured souls. How he’d made his offer to trade Nikselpik anything within reason for information he could retrieve about his sister’s device. Of course, Nikselpik had named one thing he didn’t think Jontuk could get. Bugs. And lots of them. Yet the giant had returned with a container of them, frozen, fresh and ready to use. He’d readily agreed to provide Jontuk information about his sister’s invention. What was the harm?

From then on, he’d worn the container of frozen bugs on his belt, not realizing just how much he was accelerating his addiction, betraying his sister’s trust, and failing to really help Jontuk and his people.
It’s a wonder he didn’t smash you into the ground. But where is our stony friend now?

Etty tapped his mug on the table, pinning Seether with his doubtful eyes. “None of this explains
why
you’re here.”

“Indeed. It does not. Well, not readily. Allow me to officially declare I have come to your world with a powerful stonekin named Jontuk to seek help from you. We were sent by a gnomestress, one of your very kind.”

“Very nice,” said Brit, licking his fingers. “An official declaration makes it official.”

Etty shushed Uncle Brit and glared at Seether. “A gnomestress, you say? Pray tell how? We gnomes do not travel to ultraworlds. At least not Hightower gnomes. It is a violation of our laws.”

“I do not know from where or whence this gnomestress came. At first, she visited the stonekin in their dreams. She broke through the Baron’s scryers, emptied their stony heads of all the poison, and then gave them a message. She said there was one on the world of Sullenor who could lead them to freedom. One like her. A gnomestress.”

Murmurs broke the stillness. Even Nikselpik issued a doubtful
hmmm
and blinked twice to digest the news. A gnomestress from Sullenor could save Jontuk’s people? What gnomestress had half the moxie to dabble so brazenly in ultraworldy affairs? And then a sick feeling came over him. He glanced across at his sister, who was fidgeting in her chair, mopping at her forehead with her sleeve, in spite of placing herself next to the open window. If he didn’t know any better, Niksabella looked
trapped
.

“Well, this is an interesting story,” Etty snapped. “But why didn’t you tell us this right off? Why wait ‘til now?”

Seether nodded. “It would seem a wise thing to do. But, keep in mind, when we arrived, we had no knowledge of your world. We couldn’t tell friend from foe. If foe, then we could be taken or killed, and the mission for naught. If friendly, we wanted to approach as delicately as we could.”

“And now?”

“And now… the situation has escalated far more quickly than we anticipated. Our plans have not gone… exactly as planned.” He glanced at Nikselpik, who flushed with a small degree of shame.

I was the botch in their plans.

“The Baron’s scryers found us, obviously, before we could understand exactly what we were looking for here. The gnomestress who guided us, the Prophetess, we call her, has never been precisely clear. On the upside, it gave me a chance to fight at your side on Swicki Hill.”

“But at what cost?” Etty groused.

Justin, who’d been naturally quiet throughout, said, “This man fought valiantly on Swicki Hill. He’s offered up information freely. He’s proven he is a friend.”

“True,” said Dale. “But Swicki Hill would never have happened had this one not led the ultraworlders to us.”

Etty slammed his hand on the table for emphasis. “How many gnomes did we lose again, Dale? And how many again at Harwood Lake?”

An itch crawled its way up Nikselpik’s arm, and an uneasy heat pricked at his skin.
Where was this going?
Sitting next to Seether, Elwray looked tense as well, and his sister seemed about as tightly wound as the wizards. Jancy, of course, looked bored.

Justin Lake’s eyes searched Seether’s face as if he were scouting out every possible angle of an encampment to discern whether they were friend or foe. “Before we start throwing accusations around, it might be helpful to know her name—the one the Prophetess sent you here to find. What’s her name?”

“Yes, her name!” Uncle Brit belted, for once focused on something other than his food. “Surely a Thrasperville gnomestress. One of our talented cogweavers, no doubt. If you give us her name, good sir, we should like to have a word with her.”

Etty leaned back, seemingly smug in his growing support.

Dale had already circumnavigated the table by now and stood, once again, behind Terrence and Flay. “I can’t disagree. What does this world-hopping gnomestress call herself?”

“To be perfectly honest I’d rather leave that to her.”

“Oh, I’m sure you would.” Etty smirked at Seether. “Let me guess. Is it dear Fara, here? Or this bar maiden?” The cleric gestured to Fara and Lili sitting on the bed, and Nikselpik felt the heat rise in his face.
Watch your tongue, cleric.

But to their credit, Fara rolled her eyes and Lili frowned. “Oh, give it a break,” she said. It was clearly neither of them.

Seether’s eyes turned sly. “She knows who she is.”

“Oh, isn’t everyone clever except for the Hightower councilors and our very own precisor general,” Etty said in a mocking tone. “Let’s just all dance around the subject and talk in riddles—”

Dale held up a hand at Etty. “Mister Seether. While I think I have the rest of this tale pegged, can we hear it from you? What did the stonekin decide to do?”

Nikselpik noticed Seether’s hands tighten around his mug. He felt a shift in the air that indicated gathering magick, but so subtle he looked up to see if Etty had noticed. The cleric wasn’t aware, not a single flinch on his ruddy face.