A Riddle in Ruby by Kent Davis

still and quiet as possible.
    â€œCram!” The voice was familiar and urgent. “Let us in! We know you’re in there! We’ve searched the rest of the ship.” It surely sounded like his master. Of course, what was a human shape to one that had so recently mastered the art of barrels?
    â€œDon’t think you are pulling it over my eyes, demon!” he shot at the barred door through clenched teeth. “If you hain’t already broke through the door, there must be some kind of prevention on you, like them bloodsuckers my mam told me about. If you need permissions to come in, you ain’t getting them from me!”
    â€œCram, it is Ruby and Athen!” The beast’s voice had switched to the girl’s. Clever. “We need to get in there and out of the open!” It was very talented. It even captured that hint of frustration or scorn that was part of most of her conversations with him.
    He inched closer to the door and said clearly, “Not for a thousand pounds or all the tea in Araby will I open this door. There’s monsters and huge naked men about, and you’re most like one or t’other.”
    The beast switched back to his master’s voice. “Cram, you must recognize us. How can we prove it to you, so that you might unbar the door?” It was a coiled, controlled anger, as when you might speak to a child who was doing wrong, but who would just do worse if you got angry with it. It reminded him of Mam.
    The memory weakened him. “All right, but you only get one chance. I and my master, whose voice you now wear, recently had a sit-down regarding my long-term contract with him. I declared myself at said time as a certain type of man. What did I call myself?”
    â€œA coward.”
    â€œUntrue.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, ‘untrue’? It was only a few hours ago! I remember it clear as noontime sun!”
    â€œClearly you do not remember correctly. My master came to me in fear and appealed for my aid in counseling his afraidness.”
    â€œI did no such thing!”
    â€œI am sorry to say that that is how I remember it.” Cram folded his arms.
    The voice oozed menace through the cracks in the frame. “You open this door, Cram, or you will soon be utterly alone on this ship.”
    â€œBetter alone and alive.” Cram leaned back against the wall.
    â€œWe will simply break it down.”
    â€œSee, your true colors are shining through.”
    There was a silence on the other side of the door.
    â€œYou know that you’ll never get off this ship alive without the other two of us.” It was the sneaky voice, the girl’s again. “Also, if you let us in, I’ll show you where my father keeps his secret stash of rum.”
    He pulled the bolt and cracked open the door.
    A small, bony, incredibly sharp foot lashed through the opening and cracked against his shin. He howled, and two bodies tumbled through the door in the dim half-light. One replaced the bolt, and the other kept kicking him.
    â€œOw! Ow! Stop it!” he said, trying to fend off the little lightning strikes aimed at both his shins.
    â€œIt is us, you muttonhead!” the smaller figure whispered. “Ruby and Lord Athen.” The kicks were painful, but not nearly as strong as the terrifying strength of the previous monster.
    â€œAll right, all right. We’ll see if you don’t turn yourselves into muskets or barrels or worse,” he whispered. “Please stop the kicking.” The two figurescalmed a bit, and the one that looked like Ruby took a tinker’s lamp out of a bag and turned up the light. They were a mess, a mass of cuts and bruises.
    They stared at one another.
    Cram spoke first. “What about that rum then?”
    The girl looked him up and down. “I lied,” she said.
    Perhaps it was them after all.

CHAPTER 14
    Laugh at the Rain.
    Laugh at the Reaper.
    Run from the Reeve.
    â€”Old Irish