Chapter 37 - Friendly Fire

A glider soaring over the grasslands spotted Rufus coming up from the south. The wranglers went to meet him on cliffords and escorted the trader to the freight elevator.

He looked around, mouth slightly agape at the differences in the village.

“It looks a bit different, I know,” I said. We’d replaced all the sticky shelters with stone and adobe versions—as high as three stories tall. But Rufus fixated on the tallest building in the village.

“A bit,” He said. He pointed to a square tower on the east side. “What are they doing?”

I followed his gaze to a pair of Eileen’s goblins atop the tower with a pair of hide flags. “Directing traffic,” I said. After a moment, a scout glider came in to land on the narrow strip, skidding to a halt on the dirt path that passed for a landing zone. The pilot scrambled out, and over to the pond to scrub the bugs off her face. On the launch rail, a small rocket booster ignited, sending the replacement scout craft rocketing into the air.

“So that’s what I’ve been hearing for these two days past. I thought it was earthquakes and thunder, yet I saw no lightning and never once felt the ground quake.”

“The tower was really a prototype,” I said. I took Rufus to the central courtyard of our developing little city, where a shaded pavilion ringed the fire pits with long tables. This was where Sally’s team did most of their work during the day, as well as where the tribe ate after sundown. Two dozen of her engineers were tinkering with various projects or manufacturing parts, or scribbling incomprehensible new designs. “The internal part of the tower has sleeping room for thirty goblins, and the top can be expanded for more. I wanted to try building one here to see how many bricks it would take before we made one down below. But it makes for a great air traffic control station.”

“Air traffic,” Rufus said, and laughed. "Tabun’ Quo’Horal are not going to believe this.”

“Tabun’ Quarrel who?” I asked.

Rufus unslung his pack, more delicately than I was used to seeing him treat his things. He pulled out a spool of copper wire, the bearing I’d given him, and a few other trinkets. At last, he withdrew a small brass jar and a roll of gauze. I looked at the jar. It was capped, with the first indication I’d had of threading on this world. “Liquor from the artificers?”

“If only,” he huffed. “When I showed the City of Brass the things you gave me and described what I saw here, they insisted on sending a representative in person—so to speak—to confirm things for themselves before agreeing to any long-term trade agreements. The fact they were willing to do so speaks very loudly, Apollo. They leave their city rarely, and only at great risk to themselves.”

“When should I expect this representative?” I asked.

By way of answer, Rufus unscrewed the stopper on the brass jar. At first, nothing happened. Then, tendrils of pale, blue flame began to creep through its neck. The tendrils felt around as I watched, fascinated. They lit upon the gauze. But, instead of singeing the sheer cloth, as I expected them to do, the wraps billowed, and the bottle rattled as fire flowed out of bottle and into the loose shape of a person slightly smaller than a goblin, which stood up on the table and bowed to me.

“Good king,” it whispered. Its voice sounding like the whisper of wind through the forest. “We are Tabun’ Quo’Horal of The City. It is our honor to meet you.”

“You’re kidding,” I said, looking between the badger-kin and the new arrival. “The artificers are magic lamp djinni?”

System notified me.

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What’s the difference? Still, no wonder they were so reluctant to travel out of their city. If they traveled in bottles, practically anyone could promise to take an ifrit one place and then move them somewhere else altogether. If there was value in goblin ears and tongues, a creature of living flame must have demanded a pretty penny indeed.

“We are familiar with this word,” said Tabun. “Djinni. It is a crude, reductive term. We dislike it. Almost as much as we dislike when the newcomers term us demons."

"Newcomers?" I shot a look at Rufus. He caught my implication immediately. Others like me.

The half-badger shook his head. "Humans, elves, and other outsiders. Lanclova was long-deemed too dangerous to explore."

I looked back to Tabun. "I see. So you're not demons or djinni. How do you call yourselves?"

"We are Ifrit.”

Alright fine, so there is a difference.

“Sorry about that,” I said. “I meant no offense. Ifrit it is.”

The ifrit bowed again. “Your humility honors us,” it said. It walked across the surface of the table, toward a pair of gawking engineers who were putting together a set of ceramic gears for a winch. It touched the gearing and part of the gauze wrapping deflated. The winch began to spin in the goblin’s hands, much to the creature’s shock. It squawked and dropped the piece. The ifrit flowed back into its wrappings.

“Interesting application of gear ratios. This allows one of your goblins to lift something greater than his own weight, yes?”

“That’s one of the potential applications, yes, Tabun.”

“Tabun’ Quo’Horal. To call us simply ‘Tabun’ diminishes the union of Quo and Horal, whose voice you now hear. I am acquainted with the fleshling habit of familiar brevity. If you must shorten our name, please call us Taquoho.”

So there was more than one entity inhabiting those wraps. Made sense, really. I mean, as much as anything in this world did. Clearly these were magical creatures in some way, and this was the first hint I’d seen of magic’s actual existence other than the explicit denial of it to goblins by the System that indirectly implied its presence. Still, several fires can join to become a single blaze, right? “Sure thing. Taquoho. I’ll try to remember it.”

Taquoho bowed again. “When our honored friend Rufus told us of you, we must admit we thought it some strange jest or poison of the mind. It is our great shame that we thought you so. The City has not encountered a goblin king in many years, and the last one was certainly not inclined to trade or practice artifice. This material you’ve created, we believed it was some machination of the newcomers. We are glad it is not, because we greatly desire more of it.”

He moved on to the next station at the tables. A pair of Sally’s goblins there was assembling an impeller. Taquoho again diminished and flowed into the device. The impeller was much larger, and the ifrit was able to squeeze the entirety of its body into the gadget. It vibrated on the table and started blowing back the loose skin of the engineer’s face like a dog leaning its head out the window on the highway.

A voice issued from the ceramic shell, echoing in the hollow chamber. “Fascinating. Less mechanically efficient than bellows or a fan blade. It impresses us what you have achieved with such primitive means” He flowed out and filled out the gauze wraps again. “If we provide you with schema, are you able to produce parts in your ceramic material?”

“Hold up,” I said. “Did you just possess my impeller?”

“That is a crude, reductive description. But accurate.”

“Can you possess larger devices?”

Taquoho stopped. I got the feeling of ephemeral eyes on me. “It is the basis of our culture. We craft bodies that let us interact with the world in ways the True Form cannot. It is the reason many of the newcomers assume us to be demons. Ever, we seek to better our vessels. Please provide an answer to our query.”

I’d gotten so excited so fast that I’d forgotten the ifrit had even asked me anything. I thought back. “Yes. I can produce ceramic versions of parts you provide. How large an object could you possess?”

“By what frame of reference?”

I looked around at the projects Sally’s engineers were currently working on and pointed to a new iteration of the goblin-powered propeller. I pointed to it. “Could you move something like that?”

The ifrit leaned over, peering at the assembly. He did his vanishing trick again, and the prop began to turn, slowly.

“I’m afraid it is much too heavy and tiresome for us to move with alacrity. Perhaps a stronger Ifrit might. Pray tell, what is this device for?”

Rufus glanced over at me “Are you going to tell him?”

I shrugged. “Easier to show him.” I stood on the table and whistled up at the tower. “Eileen! Prep the heavy!”

Taquoho filled out his gauze wraps again. “You have a working of artifice for us to view?” he asked, not quite hiding the excitement in their voice.

Rufus barked a laugh. “You could call it that! Bloody deathtrap, it is. Impressive bit of machining, though.”

“Aww, don’t say that, Rufus,” I said. “You’re coming too!”