Inventing a Tinker

Part 6

My borrowed clothes were shabby by the standards of the cheapest Kheshi tailor, but mine were among the nicest of anyone among the crowds. Most garments looked cheap and flimsy, or worse, bulky and badly stitched. Gray and brown were the rule, along with bleached shades of white for some men's shirts. The only colors belonged to uniforms, flash for some business's reputation.

I walked arm in arm with Jennai, though it was less a sweet gesture and more a leash to keep me from wandering astray. Her hard-soled shoes clopped along with five paces for my every four precisely; every twentieth step our shoes struck the tunnel floor in time. The crowds were thick and drab and bore a weary pall that spoke of drudgery begun anew. The ground shook, and a massive carriage flew across a side tunnel, packed with passengers. Hardly anyone gave it a glance, except for me. Above the tunnel crossing, there was a clock, large enough for anyone to read it even at long distances. The hour was half past six.

"At least the clocks are familiar," I whispered to Jennai. I offered her a smile, hoping some sign that I was not completely inept in this... place... would cheer her.

Jennai ignored my comment. "We're taking Grundman Tunnel at the next crossing," she said. "It'll get us to the lift nearest the patent office."

"What is it that I do there?" I asked. "I mean, I can't very well show up and sip tea all day, I imagine."

"You might well have to," Jennai replied. "You're a filing clerk. Ideas come in from all across Ruttania, and they land on your desk. You sort the rubbish from the proper ideas, assign the proper ones a number, and file them away."

"How will I know which are which?"

"Erefan—and keep that name in your addled head—you might be the cleverest bastard in all of Korr," Jennai replied. "You're the only human on staff because even the kuduks know your worth. You've got a head for machinery, and that's carried over to Cadmus. That little game we played... all those inventions were ones you showed me. There's our crossing up ahead..."

I paid attention to the signage as we came upon the cross tunnel. The current tunnel continued on, while to the left and right were Merrybottom and Grundman, respectively. I steered us to the right, down Grundman.

"Aha!" Jennai exclaimed, still keeping her voice low enough for some privacy in our public conversation. "You can read it."

"Of course I can read it," I replied.

"What language is it?"

"I... well..." I looked up at the sign again as we passed beneath it. The sign was in no script I had seen in Khesh, not even the foreign scrawl that came on packing crates from across the Katamic Sea. But nonetheless, they sorted themselves into words as I looked at them, their meaning clear as diamond.

"It's Korrish, the only language worth knowing in this world. You're speaking it, too, I might add," Jennai said. "Which is a bloody good thing, because if you were yammering in Kheshi, I'd have had to keep you locked in your rooms until you got a hold of yourself."

"I am?" I didn't feel like I was speaking a foreign tongue.

"You are," Jennai confirmed. "Which means your brain's still got Erefan in there. This is all just hitting you a little too hard to handle. Take it easy today, do as little at work as you can, and meet me back at the apartment as soon as you're done. Oh, and don't piss off any kuduks."

"What's a kuduk?"

Jennai stopped. Locked arm in arm with her, I came to an undignified stop as well. "Maybe I should coop you up in the apartment today. If you don't know what a kuduk is, you could get in real trouble."

"Who are kuduks?" I tried again, changing pronouns in the hopes of eliciting a more useful answer.

Jennai pointed all around. "They run this place.We humans... we just work here."