Skykeep by Joseph R. Lallo Page A

I
could show you any of the others if you’d like,” said the
shopkeeper. She was an older woman, dressed in a gown that seemed
simultaneously too formal and too complex to be appropriate for a
storekeeper. It was a full gown, complete with bustle, and her hair
was put up in a beehive that was tall enough to be bordering on
architectural.
    “But are they more pretty or less pretty? I
only want to see them if they’re more pretty,” Coop said. “The lady
this is for has got a real good eye for this sort of thing, and I
don’t want her to look at what I bring her and say ‘Why didn’t you
get the pretty one?’ You get my meaning?”
    “I’m sure your lady friend will be quite
satisfied.”
    “Okay. You’re a lady, so I reckon you’d know
what a lady would like. They all look the same to me,” he said.
“Now how about the insides? They pretty?”
    “You’re looking at them right now, sir,” the
shopkeeper said with a raised eyebrow.
    “Not this inside. The inside of the inside.
Where the fiddly bits are. Are there lots of fiddly bits? This
lady, she likes the fiddly bits. Fiddlier the better.”
    “I assure you that the workings are of the
highest quality, and stunningly intricate. Quite… fiddly, sir.”
    “This’ll be the one then. You said this’d be
fifty, right?”
    “Seventy-five, sir.”
    “That’s a mite steep.”
    “You pay for beauty, sir.”
    “Well sure, but you said beauty’s a matter of
taste. This here tastes more like fifty.”
    “I’d be willing to give it to you for
seventy.”
    “I’d be willing to let you keep it for
seventy. Might take it with me for sixty.”
    The proprietor sighed. “Sixty-five might be acceptable.”
    “That’ll be fine,” Coop said, clicking the
lid shut and setting it down so that he could count out the payment
in fives. It was a task that pushed him to the very limits of his
mathematical knowledge. Once he’d worked out the right amount, and
the shopkeeper was counting to keep him honest, he dug around in
his pocket.
    “Since you’re a lady, maybe you could tell
me. I got started on this poem here. You reckon a lady would like
it?” He unfurled the page and cleared his throat.
    There was a terrifying crackle, then a deep,
rumbling roar that rattled the contents of the shelves.
    “What the hell is that?” Coop said.
    “I don’t know. It sounds like it came from
the mines,” said the shopkeeper.
    “The mines? But Lil’s at the mines! And Nita
too!”
    He snatched his purchase and sprinted onto
the wooden slats of what passed for streets in Lock. There he
quickly found that the whole of the town had chosen to do the same.
He shouldered, elbowed, and when necessary punched his way through
the crowd, rushing for the courtyard at the mouth of the mines. The
courtyard was flooding with people, both from townsfolk rushing to
see what had happened and miners rushing out for fear of what would
happen next. Dusty air was pouring out of one of the entrances.
Someone in a very official-looking uniform shouted something as
Coop sprinted past, and someone else stopped him with a hand to his
chest.
    “You can’t go any farther, sir. It’s too
dangerous,” the man said.
    “My sister’s in there!” he cried, shoving the
man aside.
    The man grabbed him from behind and held him
back. “Sir! I’m the safety officer of the mine. You can’t go
inside. It is too dangerous! ”
    Without looking, Coop reached back and
grabbed the man’s belt, then, with a swift hook of his heel, kicked
one of his legs out from under him. As the man stumbled to get his
balance, Coop pulled at his belt and overbalanced him, pivoting him
as he fell so that he landed square on his back. Before the safety
officer could reclaim the wind that had been knocked from him, Coop
cocked his pistol. He leaned low and pushed it beneath the man’s
chin. The deckhand had a terrifying, manic look in his eyes.
    “My sister is in there. And if you mean to
keep me from her, then it’s