Barnacle’s mania * Digging in the wrong place * Light in the darkness
The lava cavern beneath Brandywine Hill was a nexus of gemstone seams, and the wealth that came out of the mine over the next several days had even the old-timers whistling in delighted surprise. It also made Stax a hero; he was asked to tell the story of the fight in the cavern innumerable times, and often had to deny exaggerated versions of it that were already making the rounds among the miners and the people of Tumbles Harbor.
Within a few years, he was certain, the tale would have grown so large in the telling that miners who’d swear they’d been there would speak in hushed tones about how Stax Stonecutter fought off a dozen skeletons at once, all of them firing flaming arrows and wearing diamond armor.
Mrs. Taney was pleased, of course, going so far as to give Stax a grandmotherly smooch on the cheek in front of the assembled miners before announcing that The Tumbles Extraction Company would be hiring men and women for further excavations.
Even Barnacle congratulated Stax—as he should have, given the size of the cut coming his way despite having done nothing but laugh at the whole project. As for Stax, he received a sack of emeralds along with that kiss on the cheek. He was pretty sure it wasn’t enough wealth to hire the Champion, but it was a start. And once he became a crew boss, he could expect a steady stream of such payments, provided the Tumbles mines kept paying off.
Stax still found himself sitting up at night in the miners’ dormitory, staring down at his compass and brooding about Fouge Tempro and all he’d suffered because of him. Sometimes he imagined taking his sack of emeralds to the general store, outfitting himself in armor, and buying a sharp sword. Then he’d stride out of Tumbles Harbor, face grim, and search for Fouge until he had his chance for revenge—or died trying.
But there was no guarantee that he’d ever find Fouge. And finding a fortune in gems didn’t make Stax a warrior. The wise thing, Stax told himself, was to be patient. He had a job that was bringing in the wealth he could use to arrange Fouge’s downfall, and give him a chance to get home.
But that was a lot easier to think than it was to actually believe. And so night after night, Stax would find the compass in his hand again, as if it were mocking him.
And Stax had another problem. Until Mrs. Taney could find enough miners to handle the new operations beneath Brandywine Hill, Stax was stuck working for Barnacle.
At first Stax thought that might not be so bad. Barnacle stopped addressing Stax as “Sir Stax,” and treated him with more respect than he had. But Stax’s success beneath Brandywine Hill seemed to increase Barnacle’s hunger for money instead of easing it, and now he was determined to prove he could do what Stax had done.
With the calendar having turned to a new month, Barnacle’s crews were now working deep in the mines hunting for gems, with Koppe’s crews working higher and searching for ore. After watching Barnacle push the miners through a grueling shift in which he ordered them to dig seemingly at random, Stax decided to take the man aside and reiterate the system his father had taught him years ago for maximizing the chance of finding wealth.
Barnacle listened, eyes narrowed, as Stax explained why he’d made sure the handle of his pickaxe was exactly a block long, and how he’d used that to measure distance and ensure they were digging just above the lava line.
Which was when Barnacle turned his back on him.
“Stop lying, Stax,” he said. “Spare me that phony story about heroics in that lava cave. You found those veins right at bedrock, and we both know it. So that’s where we’re going to be digging.”
“That lava cave was real, Mr. Barnacle. In a week or so I’ll take you there myself. If we’d dug into it from below, skeletons would have been the least of our problems. We all could have died! Mr. Barnacle, you can’t do this!”
Barnacle reached out, grabbed Stax by the front of his shirt, and pulled him close. His voice was low and deadly.
“Don’t tell me how to mine. I’ve been down here earning a living since before you were born. You check walls for heat. You watch for strange formations and bright spots. And when your crew boss gives you an order, you follow it.”
The next day Barnacle supervised the excavation of a staircase all the way down to bedrock—and then, once they reached it, he ordered them to dig out a feeder tunnel two blocks wide.
Mrs. Taney had given Osk permission to take the day off and brainstorm creating a depth gauge, despite Stax’s doubts that such a thing could be built. So Tanner had replaced the little artificer on Stax’s crew. Which made Stax nervous: Tanner was even more forgetful than Osk, capable of forgetting the water bucket, torches, and even his pickaxe on occasion.
At least he had Hodey, who took Stax aside when they had a spare moment, looking to make sure Barnacle wasn’t watching.
“Why are we digging down here?” he asked. “You told us we had to dig up first.”
“Those are our crew boss’s orders,” Stax said, reluctantly, not wanting Hodey to risk a confrontation with the volatile Barnacle.
But Tanner wasn’t so restrained. “We’re digging down here because our crew boss is a fool,” he said.
“Just remember the safety checks for lava,” Stax said. “For instance, Tanner, where’s the water bucket?”
“Ah, I left it back at the junction. Gimme a minute.”
“You can’t forget it,” Stax said. “Ever.”
The mining proceeded slowly, with the crews repeatedly hitting bedrock and having to find paths around it. Stax hoped they wouldn’t find anything of value, and that the lack of rewards would convince Barnacle that Stax had been telling the truth. But barely an hour into the shift, Jirwoh’s crew hit a seam of gold, and an hour after that Pyx’s crew located a small, snaking run of lapis.
During the lunch break Barnacle paced the length of the feeder tunnel, slapping men and women on the back and laughing as he predicted the wealth that would soon be flowing in.
“You thought Brandywine Hill was a good payday, just wait!” he exclaimed, and ordered them back to work twenty minutes early, despite Billups’s protest that this was a violation of work rules. The other miners ignored Billups, which was no surprise. The rules-obsessed miner rarely went a day without finding a violation he could talk about at length. And, of course, they were afraid of Barnacle and his temper.
But there wasn’t too much grumbling, and Stax knew why: They all wanted to find more wealth, and take home the bonuses that would come with it.
And that was dangerous. In a mine, haste could be deadly.
When Barnacle went back up to the surface to ask Ms. Lea for additional equipment, Stax checked in quickly with all the mining teams, urging them to check for heat and hardened blobs of magma. Barnacle wouldn’t like that if he found out, but it was better than the alternative.
The crew boss came back after about half an hour, barking for the miners to hurry up. He found Stax, Tanner, and Hodey working sideways around a knot of bedrock, their pickaxes rising and falling, striking sparks from the gray stone.
“Why are you half a tunnel behind every other crew?” Barnacle demanded. “Slowcarts, the three of you. This wealthy lickspittle has one bit of luck, in a mine started by someone else, and now you three think you can swing pickaxes while sitting in comfy chairs on a porch. Well, not on my shift. Hurry it up!”
He stormed off to yell at someone else and Stax shook his head, exasperated.
“He has some nerve, calling us slowcarts,” muttered Tanner. “I’ll show him. Hey, Hodey, I bet we can finish this branch tunnel in half an hour. Are we on?”
“None of that,” Stax said. “We mine what we mine and we find what we find. My father taught me that one too.”
But Tanner and Hodey were determined, and swung their pickaxes as hard as they could, making rock fly as they dug out the tunnel. It was Stax’s turn to follow behind them, clearing away the loose rock, and he was constantly hurrying up and down the tunnel, taking rock away for removal to the surface and returning to find more waiting for him.
He was walking back when he heard the sound: an oddly hollow thunk, followed by a hiss. The tunnel they’d made jogged to the right to avoid a knot of bedrock, so Stax couldn’t see straight ahead to where Tanner and Hodey were working. But he saw bright light beyond the turn, brighter than the soft glow of torchlight.
And he heard Hodey cry out.
“IT’S LAVA! TANNER! GET THE BUCKET! GET THE BUCKET!”
Hodey screamed.
Stax broke into a run, and tripped over something. It was the water bucket, left behind yet again by Tanner. Stax grabbed it and ran around the corner, but one look told him the worst had happened, and he had arrived too late.