Coldmaker(83)

My throat had gone dry, so I had to choke out the words. ‘In Paphos?’

She gave her head a slight shake. ‘I don’t know where it was hidden. But it was dangerous. And there was a lot of it.’

I knew it was just a story, but the idea unsettled me. ‘What was it?’

‘Things that looked like Cold, but were the opposite. Something Sun created in secret to get back at his brother. The man telling the story called it “Desert”. And that Sun told the first Khat that if the pieces of Desert were buried in the sand they would dissolve, and then no Cold could ever be Cried within a whole river’s span. So the first Khat went to the all the cities in the World Cried, in secret, burying the Desert in everyone’s Patches except for his. And all the crops went brown, except for his crops. And people starved and died from the heat. The rivers only got hotter, and the people got more desperate. So then the other kings and queens of every Jadan city in the land came and bowed to the Khat, promising everything they had if he would share his Cold. And so the Khat offered slavery.’

My hands started to shake, all of this sounding far too possible, especially after my trip to the dark river.

‘The first Khat caused the Great Drought,’ Shilah continued. ‘So that he could rule everything. If he was the only one with Cold, he held life and death. And every Khat since has been keeping the secret. That Desert is buried everywhere.’ She leaned so close I could feel the heat of her breath. ‘Except in Langria.’

She gazed into my eyes, desperate for me to believe. I put my hand over hers, which was now squeezing my knee, and left it there. ‘They put it in the ground,’ I whispered. The words sounded as if they were being spoken by someone else.

‘What?’ she whispered back.

‘Nothing.’ I was trembling all over from rage. ‘Everything.’

She was right.

I found no sleep after that.





Chapter Twenty-Eight


‘Spout.’

I looked up from the little flame, the visions of dying land still in my mind: trees cracked in half, rivers drained into the bowels of the sands, and the birds all falling from the sky.

‘Spout,’ Leroi said again, sitting on the base of the invention and snapping the black gloves over his hands. ‘Focus. It’s the most important tool of an Inventor.’

‘I thought it would be imagination,’ I replied with a guilty grin.

Leroi gave me a pointed look. ‘Imagination is a material and a tool. It doesn’t fit in just one box. Now do you want to see this display or not? You’re the one who’s been begging.’

I nodded, swallowing my frustration. I still hadn’t got the nerve to ask Leroi if the story about Desert could be true, but it had been constantly playing on my mind.

I flicked the button on the Flamespark, bringing the little fire back to life. The device was simple, a bit of flint and a striking post inside at the right angle, but it was quick and useful and lit the candle on the podium with ease. I moved down the line, lighting the candles on the podiums, the tables, and the cabinets pushed to the sides so we could have a clear path all the way through the main section of the workshop. Meeting Shilah at the final row, I dipped the flame to the last wick, completing the tidy row of fire.

‘Okay,’ Leroi said, shrinking towards the wall. ‘Both of you. Come back and join me here.’

Usually he was excited when he showed us one of his inventions, but he had been more reluctant with this one. Shilah and I scampered back through the rows of candles and met at the Sand Glider – the wheelless platform with the giant, caged fan blades on the front; a creation which I’d been dying to know about. Leroi had moved one of his clay pots to the base of the invention, this pot stout, with all sorts of black tally marks notched in columns on its sides. He pointed to one block at a time. His hands were shakier than usual today.

‘Seventy-two Wisps, fifty-four Drafts, thirty-six Shivers, eighteen Chills,’ Leroi said, tracing the little marks with quivering fingers. ‘All dissolved over the course of a year. It’s the most potent Cold Charge I’ve been able to come up with.’

My eyes widened at such an astounding amount of Cold. I knew all too well how much Jadan pain that Cold might have eased.

Leroi lifted the lid of the pot and sighed. ‘I’ve had pots where I’d dissolved more Cold, and ones with less, but this mixture is the most powerful. The problem is, I’ve finally reached the wall.’

‘Did you say ones with more Cold?’ I asked, trying to keep the incredulity from my voice. Leroi didn’t seem to be the malicious type, but I wondered if he knew the extent of the suffering in the world outside his tinkershop.

Leroi nodded, flexing his gloved fingers to keep away the shakes. ‘I’ve been doing this for a very long time,’ he said with another sigh. ‘But I think maybe you two are here now, for a reason.’

‘What reason?’ Shilah asked.

Leroi didn’t answer, instead taking the lid off the pot. Initially I thought the solution had a gold tinge, but I dismissed this as a trick of the nearest Sinai. He stepped up onto the base of the Sand Glider, which was just large enough for him and maybe one other body. The huge caged blades on the front had a copper wire that fed from the gear work through the bars. Leroi picked up the end of this wire and fed it through the mouth of the clay pot.