Free Ether & Elephants by Cindy Spencer Pape Page B

had other chemicals along with the tin,” Connor added. “Perhaps something like arsenic, which our Alchemist might find useful.”
    “I don’t know.” Victor looked around. “Haven’t been out this way since I was a boy. There was a building or two, I think.”
    They crested a hill, the terrain sloping gradually up from the sea coast to the moor, but in a series of tors and valleys. The trees gave way to scrubbier vegetation. Ahead, a faint plume of smoke appeared from behind a rocky outcropping, perhaps a mile or so further up the gentle slope.
    “Let’s leave the horses here,” Fergus said. “We’ll sneak up and see what’s about.”
    “Five men?” Barnaby snorted. “Stand out like a parade on that ground. Cap’n, I’m requesting permission to do reconnaissance.” He saluted Victor.
    “He’s right.” Victor stroked his moustache. “Tom, why don’t you and Barnaby take it from here?”
    Connor shared a glance with his father. “All right. Don’t engage without us though. We don’t want to miss out on any fun.”
    Tom handed his reins to Connor. Barnaby was older, probably closer in age to Fergus than to the others, but he was smaller and uncannily nimble. They’d worked together in the past when trouble had threatened Victor and Melody.
    “I can do a little to make this easier.” Tom laid a hand on Barnaby’s shoulder and chanted. “I call this my ‘never mind’ spell. It isn’t much. We won’t be invisible or inaudible, but unless we do something to draw attention, folks will tend to overlook us.” It was a fairly complex casting, since it mucked with other people’s perceptions, but it was one Tom had particularly worked on. True invisibility was well out of the range of a Knight’s magick, with the possible exception of Lord Drood. Even the rest of the Order wasn’t sure what their high mage could or couldn’t manage.
    Barnaby shot Tom a suspicious look, but didn’t argue. The retired sailor had been around the world long enough to know about magick, but like most sensible people, he preferred to stay clear of it. Then both men began to creep forward, one on either side of the road, using the occasional upthrust slab of granite and small shrubs as cover. At the top of the ridge, they paused to take in the landscape below.
    The moor sloped slightly downward for several hundred yards, before leveling off for about the same distance, followed by another, taller hill. The mine, sitting at the near edge of the valley floor, had once been an open pit, leaving a roughly circular depression, surrounded by spoil heaps and rubble. Later, someone had drilled actual mine shafts into the hill directly beneath the pit. The buildings, made of local stone, one small and one large, were fairly recent, perhaps fifty or sixty years old. The small one might be an office, and the larger one had freight doors suggesting some kind of storage facility, but whether for ore or equipment, Tom had no idea. Mining wasn’t something he’d ever studied. About fifty feet behind the smaller building was a privy, which looked to be recently repaired.
    Barnaby pointed at the stone arch directly below them. Clangs and thumps emerged. Someone was actively mining inside. There were no visible guards, but they had no way of knowing how many men were in the buildings or inside the shaft.
    Tom inhaled deeply. With a finger to his lips, he tipped his head downward, indicating he’d go first. Barnaby trained his pistol on the mine entrance. Slowly, cautiously, Tom crept down the scrub-covered hillside. A handful of ore cars were piled near the shaft entrance, so he slid behind those, taking his bearings. He couldn’t see or hear anyone moving outside the mine itself, which he counted as a positive sign.
    A whip cracked somewhere in the darkness of the shaft. “Faster, ye little buggers.”
    A child’s voice cried out. Another shouted, “What was that for? ’E didn’t do nuthin’.”
    “That’s right. And