The Unnaturalists

CHAPTER 2

Syrus Reed sat by the wheel of his clan’s rusting train car, cleaning an old music box he’d found in the City refuse pile. It was an antique, something that worked under its own power, rather than the mysterious myth-power of the Refineries. If he cleaned and replaced the missing parts, he was sure he could get the music box working again. Chickenfeet stew bubbled above the nearby cookfire, setting his mouth to watering. He hoped it would be time to eat sooner rather than later, but he didn’t dare steal a stewed foot for himself for fear of a sharp rap from Granny’s cooking spoon. Somehow, Granny always knew what he’d done no matter how he tried to hide it.

Inside the decaying passenger car, Granny tended to the fussy new baby just brought in from the roadside. The New Londoners abandoned any child who resembled a Tinker or had been born under odd circumstances—children whose laughter moved toys through the air or whose cries caused little rain clouds to form inside the City-dwellers’ lush townhouses before their talents could be squelched by nullwards. Anything that stank of illegal magic was left outside the City gates. Syrus wasn’t sure who would ultimately take the baby—he knew his Uncle Gen and Aunt Jaya had asked for another child whenever one became available.

Syrus sang a charm-song in the sacred language of their people. It was low and soft and sad, but it carried the sound of another world that Syrus could just barely envision through the train car’s open windows. High mountains, tall forests in which strange animals moved through the mists, and glacial plains where flowers bright as stars nodded. A world lost to his people now, but so rich in memory and song.

The baby quieted at last.

Syrus half-smiled. Of all the clan members in Tinkerville, he still had the strongest touch of the old ways. When he sang, even the shyest of Elementals drew near. He could speak to and understand them better than anyone, and he alone was bonded to one of them—the hob Truffler—as all Tinkers had once been bonded to Elementals of old. Such understanding was a dangerous talent that was best kept hidden, especially from the brooding New Londoners who sometimes took it into their heads to Cull the trainyard for new workers for their Refineries. In the last Cull twelve years ago, they’d taken Syrus’s parents. He had been barely two, and their faces were a distant memory to him, kept alive only by Granny’s tales. They had been victims, like every Tinker, of the Cityfolks’ fear and greed.

If the New Londoners discovered one thimbleful of talent among any of the clans, they stamped it out as quickly as you’d behead a poisonous snake. Even though the talents weren’t exactly the same as the magic they so dreaded and feared, even though they most often faded once the Tinkers reached adulthood, the Cityfolk were terrified of the Tinkers who were gifted with them. Granny said that the reason Tinker talents never developed anymore into full-blown magic was because of the disease in the land. Until that was healed, the talents would continue to flicker like candles about to go out. Still, the Tinkers refused to give up teaching their children the sacred language or the old ways, even if they never spoke it aloud where a New Londoner could hear.

Syrus often wished his talent was more useful for something besides speaking to Elementals. If he had real magic, what he would do with it! He imagined tearing down the Refinery and freeing the parents he’d barely known, if they were still alive. Tearing down the walls of the City, even. He imagined the white fires of magic burning through the Refinery smog and the Empress’s Tower opening like a dark flower to the light. . . .

A small, hairy hand pinched his arm. Truffler glared at him. “Such bad thoughts,” he said.

“C’mon,” Syrus said, “don’t tell me you wouldn’t bring the City down if your people could!”

Truffler shook his head. He was hairy all over except for his startlingly bald crown. He came only to about Syrus’s chest, so it was always hard for the boy not to think of him as an odd little child, even though he knew Truffler was older than anything he could imagine. Like most of the Lesser Elementals—trolls, kobolds, hobs—Truffler found mortal speech difficult and spoke in halting phrases.

“Not our way,” Truffler said. “Peace.”

“But the City doesn’t even belong there!” Syrus said. “It’s only there because of one Scientist’s big mistake!”

Truffler looked at him down his big nose. “Peace,” he said stubbornly.

Syrus knew it was disrespectful to argue, so he just shook his head and turned back to the music box. He reached for another tool, but Truffler anticipated his thoughts and handed him the tool kit and a bottle of turpentine.

Granny emerged from the passenger car then, her worn shoes and faded skirts almost noiseless on the iron stairs. “I didn’t just hear ye arguing with Truffler, did I, boy?” Granny asked.

Syrus kept his eyes lowered on his work as she bent near him, inspecting the stew.

“No, Granny,” he said.

“Because it’ll be lessoning time, if that’s the case.”

Syrus glanced up at her. Her dark eyes twinkled above weathered apple cheeks. She pushed aside one of her gray braids to reach into her patched coat and draw out her pipe.

“You know that isn’t really much of a threat, Nainai?” He said her title low in the old language.

She tried to look threatening, but a grin split her face after only a few seconds. Syrus loved her stories more than anything; it wasn’t a chore for him to listen as it was for some of the other children.

Granny lit her bowl with a taper, and her whiskered chin puckered as she sucked at the long-stemmed pipe.

“Did I ever tell ye about the man whose arrogance cost him his entire life?” Granny asked.

“No,” Syrus said.

Granny chewed on her pipe stem a bit. And then she began. “In a green country far from here, a man of the Feather clan found a box washed up on the riverbank. When he cleared the mud and reeds away, he read these words carved in the old language on its lid: Only the one who is strong enough can bear the weapon inside of me.

“There was no lock and no seal on the box, just that warning. Now this man was the pride of his clan—he was their war leader, because it was back in the days of fighting, and he had forced the rival clan’s daughter to be his bride. He had killed a fierce creature called a bear and wore its teeth around his neck. There was nothing he believed he couldn’t do or withstand. And he had big dreams for the clans. At the time, in that far country, our people lived under the boot heels of warlords who came into the mountains to steal our sheep and our women. This man hoped to rise up against them and throw them out of our land. He was ready to fight, and as he bore the scars of the bear on his chest, he was sure that he could stand up to anything.

“He didn’t even wait to get the chest home. He opened it right then and there, sure that the weapon inside would help him on his quest.”

Granny paused, drawing deeply on the pipe before exhaling a cloud of smoke.

Syrus remembered the bits of the music box that had somehow drifted out of his fingers and into his lap. Truffler grunted at him. The smell of turpentine from the opened bottle was almost as strong as Granny’s pipe smoke.

“And then?” Syrus finally said. Because he knew she would expect him to.

“The weapon for which he was so eager was no more than a tarnished mirror. He very nearly threw it into the mud in disgust, but then couldn’t resist looking at his own proud, handsome face. Do you know what he saw?”

Syrus shook his head, though he had his guesses.

“He saw the truth. He saw that his plans for battle would destroy our people. He saw that his wife was sleeping with another man. He saw that everyone thought him a blowhard, a bully, a person of ugliness. But he also saw the man he might become.”

“And do ye know what he did?” Granny asked.

Syrus waited.

“He repacked the chest carefully and took it home. He gave away the bear claw necklace to someone in need of its power. He told his wife she was free to go to her lover. And he sent the chest to his enemies with a note that said: Let there be peace. He went on to become a great leader, and when we needed shelter, the Elementals heard his pleas and granted it to him. He was the first to enter here, and he saved our lives by the way he changed his own.”

Syrus snorted.

“What?” Granny asked. “You were expecting something else?”

“Something more interesting. More dramatic. Like he killed himself there on the river and his blood turned into something horrible. Or—”

Granny clucked at him like an aggravated hen. “That wouldn’t serve the lesson.”

Syrus looked at the bits of music box as Truffler spread its pieces on a little cloth on the ground between them.

“The lesson is this,” Granny said. “Arrogance destroys the future and masks the truth. Let go of your pride and learn who ye truly are.”

Syrus nodded, feeling chastened. It was as though Granny had again read his mind and found the thoughts there just as disturbing as Truffler had. And yet it was difficult to unthink them. Even though he hated the City, he was always the first to volunteer to help on Market Day. Something about it fascinated even as it repulsed him. He could have said it was because of many easy marks he found to pickpocket, but it was more than that. There was a mystery buried at the heart of the City that he longed to open wide.

Granny blew smoke into his face to get his attention. She laughed when he coughed and squinted at her through watering eyes.

“And learn the lesson within the lesson,” she said. “There’s more than one way to defeat an enemy. Sometimes the best attack is no attack at all.”

From within the train car, a thin wail rose. Granny frowned. “That didn’t take long,” she said. She rose, still surprisingly spry for however old she might be. Syrus wasn’t sure of her true age, but she had been old for as long as he could remember.

A disturbance at the far side of the clearing drew their attention. A runner came through, pushing past metalworkers and women at their cookfires, nearly tripping over a group of children playing tiles in the dirt.

“Headwoman Reed!” he called.

Granny peered at him, taking the pipe out of her mouth and holding it in a gnarled hand.

The runner skidded to a stop next to Syrus, and the boy was glad that all the music box parts were on his other side. The pieces would have been scattered beyond recall otherwise.

“There’s a fine carriage on the old Forest Road,” he said. “Gen thought you’d want to know.”

Granny smiled. “He’s right.”

“They’re carrying a box of the Waste.”

Immediately, everyone of the Reed clan was at attention. Syrus’s cousins Raine and Amalthea came from around the train car, their sleeves and patched aprons sopping from doing laundry.

“What?” Granny said. All the joy was gone from her face.

“Gen’s group saw them collect it. The fools are actually taking it into the City with them.”

“I don’t know whether to let them take it inside or make them put it back where they found it,” Granny said. Murmurs rose among the clans—who would be stupid enough to try to carry a box full of the Waste around? Especially when everyone knew of its destructive power? Only the Cityfolk.

“Come along,” Granny said at last. “Raine and Syrus, bring whatever supplies we might need. Amalthea, you stay with the baby.”

To the runner she said, “Send someone back to Gen to tell him we’ll be there directly. Rest yourself here by the fire.”

She clamped the pipe back between her teeth and waited, her eyes glimmering with impatience. Syrus rolled up the music box parts in the cloth and shoved them at Truffler. “Guess we’ll worry with this later.”

The hob nodded.

Then he leaped up the rungs of the passenger car ladder to gather his things.

As the Reed clan tromped through the Forest toward the old Euclidean road, Syrus hummed a song of hopeful victory—of bulging pouches and chests full of jewels, of rich foods and warm coats. Not that the Tinkers would keep such things for themselves. But they would bring excellent prices in the market and hexshops of Lowtown, which would allow for necessities they’d been unable to afford in this lean year. It had been a long while since anyone had been foolish enough to travel along the old road, much less carrying a box of the Waste. He hoped what the runner had said wasn’t true. It had to be impossible—what box was strong enough to hold the Waste, much less keep it contained?

Syrus thought about Granny’s story as they marched, especially the lesson within the lesson. Sometimes the best attack is no attack at all. She was telling him to think differently about the City, about the problems between Tinkers and Cityfolk, but how? The Tinkers supplied the Cityfolk with workers, with knowledge of old-fangled machinery. The Cityfolk barely tolerated the Tinkers in their derelict trainyard, keeping them close only because they were useful. Syrus had often wondered why his people didn’t just leave. Even if they couldn’t return to their old home, they could at least move somewhere else. He had asked Granny that repeatedly a few years ago until he’d seen the Manticore for the first time.

And then he’d understood.

The Forest touched him gently with fiery, dreaming fingers. The rest of the year, the tree faces were obscured by leaves, but through the falling golds and scarlets, he saw the sleepy faces of a dryad or two curled behind the bark. A few fairies peeped out at him as he passed, but there were not as many as there had once been, so Granny said. Through the Forest came a humming heartbeat—the Manticore. Her life was bound to this Forest; she was the source of all that dreamed through the winter and woke to blossom in the summer. Without her, the Creeping Waste would swallow this place whole.

She was why the Tinkers stayed. Why they continued to observe the old rituals and forms despite what the Cityfolk did and said. The Tinkers were the Manticore’s and the Forest’s last defense. They stayed as a diversion and prayed that they would never have to fight openly ever again. They had done so once and lost horribly, Syrus knew. That early war with the First Emperor was when the Culls had started. And they had continued off and on up until Syrus’s childhood. There hadn’t been one since then, and Syrus hoped there would never be another one.

Uncle Gen signaled up ahead for the rest of the line to quietly fan out and take positions. Voices along the road filtered through the trees. Syrus crept up through the dried leaves and ferns without a sound. Truffler squatted next to him. Syrus was wishing there had been time for stew when the carriage came around the bend.

Then his uncle gave the signal to move forward, but the line of Tinkers stopped almost as soon as they’d begun.

Syrus watched as an old highwayman and two rotten-toothed accomplices stepped out from the opposite side of the road, halting the carriage in its tracks.

Uncle Gen humphed and leaned on his bow.

Granny chewed on her pipe, then said softly, “Well. Ain’t this interesting?”