Ichor Well Read online

“Of course. Immortality through legendary deeds is an end that can justify any expense. If my ambition sets the world aflame and leaves it in ashes, so be it, so long as the ashes spell my name.”

  “To ambition,” announced Tender, raising his glass. “That’s what sets a man apart.”

  Alabaster raised his glass. “At least there is one other man who recognizes it.”

  Alabaster and Tender sipped their drinks. Mallow knocked back the shot in a single swallow.

  “Mallow, when you are through. Head to the messenger and see if I’ve got any messages waiting. He who strikes with most haste, strikes with most success.”

  #

  Captain Mack hauled himself up into the gig room, followed by the heavily bundled Digger, then both deckhands.

  “I must tell you, Captain Mack,” Digger said, “there are many tales about the Wind Breaker circulating. In exterior appearance, it does not disappoint.”

  “You can thank Miss Graus for that,” Mack said.

  Digger huffed a bit and caught his breath. “Will I be meeting her? I’ve never met, or even seen, a Calderan.”

  “You’ll be meeting her, along with the rest of the crew, directly. Because if I’m going to make a damn fool decision like help you with your damn fool job, I want each member of my crew to have a chance to talk me out of it.”

  He tromped over to the talking tube beside one of the doors and leaned down to it. “All crew on board, I want us all in the galley. Usual orders for a meeting like this at shore. And Gunner, I want your hands in your pockets, not on your trigger.” He stood up again. “This way.”

  “May I ask, Captain, why that final order? About the hands in his pockets?” Digger asked.

  “Just about every member of this crew is likely to have a sour reaction to a face like yours on board without proper explanation, but Gunner’s the one liable to leave the biggest hole.”

  “He would be your soldier?”

  “Munitions officer.”

  Digger nodded and tightened the scarf, still breathing heavily.

  “Digger, you sure seem to be short of breath all the time,” Lil said. “We ain’t done nothin’ but climbed stairs and climbed ladders.”

  “The air,” he huffed, “is a bit thin up here for me.”

  “Yeah, well that makes sense, because the air is a bit thick for me down there,” Coop said.

  Captain Mack led the group to the galley, where Nita was already present. She looked with interest and a dash of distrust at the newcomer and wiped grease from her hands. Gunner arrived at the door as they filed inside.

  “Tell you what, Cap’n. I’m going to go let the little critter out,” Coop said.

  All eyes turned to Coop with disapproval. He stared vacantly for a moment, then raised his eyebrows in realization.

  “That’s to say, uh… I…”

  Digger glanced about. “Is this some manner of vernacular to which I am unaccustomed?”

  Lil looked at him. “I ain’t sure, but to make things easier, I’m just going to say yes.”

  Coop went and returned rather quickly, and the group settled around the tables. Butch, always the one to see to proper hospitality, put out a kettle and some tea, along with a plate of biscuits from the previous day. A sprinkle of sugar on day-old biscuits had become a tradition of sorts on the Wind Breaker. The concoction tasted better than it had any right to.

  “All right,” Captain Mack said. “This here man’s called Digger. He’s got an offer that’s interesting enough to get us here, and to get him on board for the details. Coop and Lil already know this, but when he sheds his gear he’s likely to show the rest of you something you don’t want to see. Listen up. Until he gives us a reason besides his looks to deny him our good courtesy, we are going to hear him out. Digger, off with the scarves.”

  Digger, with very slow and deliberate motions, removed the scarves and goggles. A stir rolled through the room, but all held their peace.

  “Now you folks all got an opinion about this fella already, I’m sure. I ain’t interested in it. What I’m interested in is what he’s got to say, and what you’ve got to say about that. So all of you listen.”

  The newcomer looked around the room at the suspicious faces.

  “As I imagine all of you have determined, the message that brought you here was delivered on behalf of a group of which I am part.”

  “I would suggest you limit your discussion to the things that we’ve not determined,” Gunner said. “Because as I’m sure you’ve determined, we’re a bit excitable at the moment.”

  “Gunner, quiet down. Digger, take them words to heart,” Captain Mack said.

  “Yes, point taken. First, I’d like to establish just where we stand in terms of commonality of knowledge. Most of what I wish to discuss is completely unknown by surface dwellers, but this crew knows a good deal more than most, so I would hate to cover well-trodden ground unnecessarily.”

  “Ask,” Coop said from the doorway.

  “Do any of you know where phlogiston comes from?”

  “No. By design, I reckon,” Lil said.

  “That’s right. It’s a closely guarded secret. If not for my status, I very much doubt even I would know.”

  “And what status might that be?” Gunner asked.

  “Status that’ll be revealed after he’s gained or lost our interest, Gunner. Now keep your mouth shut unless you’ve got something useful,” Captain Mack said.

  Digger continued. “I am going to very slowly place my hand in my pocket and very slowly pull it free. I am not drawing a weapon. I am merely fetching something to help illustrate the nature of our potential partnership.” He slid his hand into his pocket and, when he was not gunned down, took a breath. “What you are about to see has likely never been seen above the fug. Men have been killed for even bringing it aboard a ship.”

  Digger removed from his pocket a small glass ampule. Inside was a thick liquid that looked like honey, though a white crust clung to the portion exposed to the air inside.

  “This vial contains the substance responsible for all of the successes and all of the failures of the world as we know it. This is the chief ingredient used to make both burn-slow and phlogiston.”

  “Make phlogiston?” Nita said.

  “Yes.”

  “I’d always imagined phlogiston was something that one found, rather than something one made.”

  “Curiously, you aren’t far off. The legend is that phlogiston was found by chance, but found as a result of a natural process that we have since improved. Now, between burn-slow and phlogiston, just about every worthwhile device to come from the fug depends upon this stuff in order to function at the level to which we have become accustomed. We call the stuff ‘ichor.’ Blood of the gods. Every last canister of phlogiston ever sold or stockpiled, and every brick of burn-slow ever burned, has come from a single well of the stuff in the southeast. We call that well South Pyre. As far as anyone knows, it is the only source of ichor. … But that’s not where this vial came from.”

  “You found a new well?” Nita said.

  “Indeed we did. And while I’ve never been to South Pyre as a point of comparison, I would call the well we’ve found large by any measure.”

  “So you’re offering to sell us what you’ve been making off the fresh supply?” Nita said.

  “Not precisely. We haven’t begun producing it yet.”

  “… Then what, may I ask, did I find hidden in the gig of our ship?”

  “As I said, a message was delivered on our behalf. We arranged for a canister to be stolen and delivered to you. This sample is one of precious few that we’ve been able to secure, and therein lies the first of two reasons we require your assistance.

  “The well is located within The Thicket, which as I’ve told your captain is home to fug hounds and far worse, all manner of creatures twisted by the fug. But that speaks only to the bulk of The Thicket. Ichor, it would seem, has a similar but far more pronounced effect on the flora and f
auna.”

  “Is it me, or did he start wandering off into a different language at the end there?” Coop said.

  “He means to say the plants and animals are like fug hounds, only worse,” Captain Mack said.

  “Indeed. I very much suspect the raw hostility on display by the local wildlife is the reason no one had discovered the well and returned with word of it.”

  “And where in that do we enter?” Lil asked.

  “In order to utilize the ichor well, we must secure it. That will mean reaching it, in numbers and alive. We shall then need to defend it long enough to set up both permanent defenses and the rudiments of a facility. And ideally we would do so in a manner not likely to attract attention to the well, since if representatives of the current industry were to become aware of it before it is fortified, we would most certainly lose it to them.

  “As I see it, what the situation requires is combat prowess, subterfuge, and engineering skill in equal measure. If what I have heard of your crew is true, this ship may well be the most concentrated source of all three ever to exist.”

  Coop raised his hand.

  “Subterfuge means sneakiness, Coop,” Nita explained.

  He and Lil nodded. “Yep. Then we’re that, all right.”

  “You said there were two reasons you needed us,” Gunner said.

  “Yes. You see, assuming we are able to successfully secure the ichor well, there is still the matter of the manufacturing process. If the knowledge of ichor is silver, the knowledge of how to work it is gold. The process for making phlogiston out of ichor is trivial, but making it efficiently, and in quantity, is another matter. And that’s to say nothing of the more complex concoctions like burn-slow. To fully utilize the well to its potential, we need a chemist with experience in the stuff, and as I understand it, there are only two. The first lives and works down in South Pyre. He and his staff are exceptionally well compensated. I wouldn’t imagine anything could convince them to join our concern. But the industry is cautious. They know an errant collapse could easily take the lives of the primary chemist and his entire staff, so a backup was trained.”

  “And he’s the one you want?” Coop said.

  “She, actually. A Dr. Samantha Prist. Because of the sensitivity of her knowledge, she’s kept sequestered in a relatively secure and isolated facility. She is essentially a prisoner, and has been denied any opportunity to actually ply the precious trade she has been taught for fear of the knowledge spreading beyond their control. This has filled her with resentment, I’m told. If we were to liberate her, I feel certain she could be coaxed into serving as our primary chemist. To achieve this, we shall need to liberate someone from, in effect, a fug-folk-run prison. I understand you have some experience in that regard.”

  “And what do we get in exchange for helping you out?” Lil asked. “Just permission to buy phlogiston and burn-slow from you?”

  “Buy it? If you are able to help us begin production, you have my personal word, and at your request a written proclamation stating it, that you shall receive, free of charge, as much phlogiston and burn-slow as you desire for as long as you desire. … With the understanding that there shall be no resale. We are in this for profit, after all.”

  “You can take the fugger out of the fug, but you can’t take the fug out of the fugger,” Gunner said.

  “That about all you got to say?” Captain Mack asked.

  “That, as you might say, is the long and short of it.”

  “Any questions for him?” the captain asked his crew.

  “Who exactly is this group you represent?” Nita asked.

  “We call ourselves the Well Diggers,” Digger said.

  “That name is a bit on the nose for a secret organization planning to dig a new well. I can see why you need aid in the area of subterfuge,” Gunner said.

  “How many people are in this organization, and of what sort?” Nita asked.

  “Thirty, excluding myself. Mostly, er… workers.”

  “Grunts you mean,” Lil said.

  “Yes. They work for me on various projects related to The Thicket. Clearing brush, gathering resources, things of that nature. My primary role is as the local surveyor, which is how I came upon the knowledge of the ichor well in the first place. Also—and I would normally keep this information in the strictest confidence, but in light of present company that would appear to be unnecessary—the bulk of the Well Diggers are formerly inmates in Skykeep. They came to me for employment and protection. It seems it is no secret that I’ve fallen out of favor with the other… with the more respected members of the industry. This has made me rather appealing as an ally for those with similar woes.”

  Captain Mack looked over his crew. “That about it? Who wants to volunteer to watch this fellow while the rest of us discuss what we should or shouldn’t do?” he asked.

  “I’ll watch him,” Lil said. “I can’t imagine Coop’s gonna feel any different than me on the matter, so you can count his vote double.”

  “Good girl, Lil. Take him to the gig room while we collaborate.”

  Lil stood and slapped Digger on the back. “Come on now. Let’s let these folks get to figurin’. And don’t try anything silly, because that’d sure make their decision easy.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of acting out of turn. I have as much to lose here as all of you,” Digger said.

  “A little bit more to lose, if you ask me,” Lil said.

  She walked him out of the room from behind. When their footsteps disappeared down the hallway, Captain Mack spoke up.

  “All right. I’m sure you all got plenty to say. Now’s the time to say it. Gunner, we’ll start with you, seeing as how you’re the voice of opposition in matters of this sort.”

  “What do I think? I think a man has come to us seeking precisely the skills we have, and offering precisely the goods we need. And I think that is a bit too convenient for my tastes. Call me superstitious, Captain, but when nothing is ever easy, simplicity where it doesn’t belong makes me nervous.”

  “What he’s asking isn’t exactly simple, to my ear,” Captain Mack said.

  “Oh, it’s a hell of a job. No one would argue that. But it was served up to us on a silver platter. Too good to be true if you ask me.”

  “I agree with Gunner on this one,” Coop said.

  “Now that makes me nervous,” Gunner said.

  “Nothin’ that came up out of the fug ever had anything good in mind for us. Especially nothin’ with the name Ebonwhite.”

  “The man’s an Ebonwhite?” Gunner said. “I can’t even see the silver lining for all the red flags on this, Captain.”

  “Glinda, thoughts?” Mack said.

  Butch answered with her usual eloquence, weaving a sentence out of exotic profanities that roughly echoed the sentiments of the others.

  “Nita?” Mack said.

  The engineer crossed her arms, causing the sash of wrenches to jingle.

  “Captain, you know I came here without preconceptions about the fug folk. They made an impression rather quickly, and it wasn’t a positive one. But there were some good people in Skykeep with us. People I might even be inclined to say I trust. I’d surely recognize any of them if I were to meet them, and if any were among those I’d become the most familiar with, I believe we could trust them to vouch for his intentions.”

  “So is that a vote in favor?”

  “Perhaps not in favor of the venture as a whole, but at least in favor of further investigation,” Nita said. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

  Gunner cleared his throat. “Now, I didn’t deal with many of those prisoners except for during the cleanup after, and I’ll admit there were better men among them than any other fugger I’d dealt with, but a wolf can easily dress in sheep’s clothing for a few minutes. And gaining their council on the matter requires that he be telling the truth about them. Not only that, but to find out the truth of that we’d have to go where he leads us, which is down into a part of the fug we’
ve never been to before. I don’t know for certain this is a trap, but it’s got damn fine bait, which is usually a good indicator. We don’t even know if what he’s saying about that ichor substance is true. For all we know he’s scraped a bit of tree sap into a vial and made up a, frankly, extremely unlikely story about its properties.”

  “Then let’s ask for a demonstration,” Nita said. “He said making phlogiston was trivial. My workshop has plenty of tools, and Gunner is no stranger to working with chemicals. If he can produce any phlogiston at all from the sample he brought, it would at least indicate there was some truth to his claims.”

  Gunner leaned on the table in front of him and eyed Nita. “You just want to see how it’s done, don’t you?” he said.

  Nita smiled. “Of course I want to see how it’s done! What engineer wouldn’t want to see? Gunner, you haven’t stopped tinkering with that light gun of theirs since you got it. Don’t tell me you haven’t gotten a taste for their particular brand of ingenuity.”

  “I’ve got a taste for it when I’m pointing it at them.”

  “Well this is our chance to, just maybe, have an awful lot more of it to point with,” Nita said. “I’m with all of you. This does sound too good to be true. But sometimes things that sound too good to be true are true anyway. If it turns out to be a scheme, then we’ve gotten out of worse ones before. And at least this time it’ll be coming from in front of us rather than behind us. The question here isn’t should we trust him or not. The question is would you rather regret doing something dangerous or regret doing something safe, and I think my history speaks for itself on that issue.”

  Captain Mack glanced about again. “Thoughts on this new argument our most junior member of the crew has presented?”

  “If you paint it like we’re taking a gamble, then I ain’t never been one to miss a chance at a good bet,” Coop said. “I suppose I’m for it.”

  Gunner considered his words for a moment. “If he’s able to do with that goop in the vial what he says he can, then I’d say it’s at least worth a chance, provided we keep our eyes open the entire time for the inevitable double cross.”

  “I’m glad you all feel that way. Because we were going to do it regardless, but things go smoother when we’re all tugging the line in the same direction,” Captain Mack said. “Let’s go see if this fella can work some magic and set some minds a bit more at ease.”