Tremble in the Dark: A Gwen Farris Novel Read online

  "Samuel Waters, ma'am. Thirty-eight. I normally live in Bracksburg, up north and east of here. I'll be with this train for the whole trip though, since the line has been having trouble getting people to work the North section lately. The missus and I have another little one on the way, so I need the mets." There was a simple and heartfelt manner to his words.

  Gwen sort of liked it. He was lacking in a lot of the stuffy pretension that people often seemed to have in the Kingdom. Even Europa was better that way, as long as you stayed away from their politicians.

  "Oh? Congratulations! You must both be very pleased. How many do you have?"

  "Just the one other, my boy, Howard. He's just now turning seven." There was a look over her shoulder, at the main door, which probably meant someone else was actually going on the trip with them. Sam the porter nodded at them and started to move, then froze.

  "I should see to this gentleman?" There was a question in his voice that showed a lot more awareness of the situation than most of the entitled people of this world would have gotten. He was, after a fashion, being questioned by the police and knew it. Just as a witness though. For now.

  "Of course. If we can speak later?"

  "Yes, ma'am." Then he moved past smoothly, the decently wide aisle a lot of turning even. Gwen realized that she was staring at the back of him as he moved, his muscular behind shifting in his tight porter's slacks enough to catch her attention, in a way that no doubt meant she was being crude and lusty. It was a nice enough view that she didn't let go of it for a moment, meaning she was slow on the uptake as to who was trying to board the train, ticket in hand.

  It was a vaguely familiar face, but she didn't get it until Beth, in her analytical state, spoke the name out loud. She sounded flat and unexcited about the announcement though. Everything in that mode would, Gwen knew. She'd seen it before.

  "Martin Cordell."

  Of course it was him. Gwen didn't know what to do at first, but then decided that, if she had to be faced with an unpleasant person, she could at least do it with grace and enough style that she wasn't the one that looked bad.

  "Martin! Over here!" She let her hand go up, and waved to the man, who at first looked confused, took in the uniforms and seemed momentarily scared, then, a second later he...

  Waved back.

  "Ah, Miss Farris! Miss Westmorland! So nice to see you both. Are you traveling on business?" The porter had his bags, and moved toward them, with Martin right behind.

  Sitting with her smart, but ferrety looking friend, Clara the bigot looked mightily baffled at the scene. She clearly understood who Mr. Cordell was, but didn't get what he was doing, speaking in a friendly manner with an evil Westmorland.

  That made two of them, possibly three, so Gwen couldn't blame her at all.

  "We are. Here, sit with us. You can keep the mashers from taking liberties." That was a thing here. Apparently, as socialized as most women were, they wouldn't mention it if some man rubbed up against them in public, being too mortified in general to speak up about it. The men would be beaten by any other men around, if they were caught at it, but the risk was considered a small one, most of the time. No one had ever tried that with her really. Well, once, but she'd done the beating for that one herself, so it might not count. Then, she didn't get out in public a lot. Not alone.

  To his credit, wacko bigot or not, he smiled and gestured to Sam, as if saying that his bags should go into the rack over the four facing seats where Bethany and Gwen were standing.

  "Naturally. I'm actually going to visit some friends. You know, hate rallies to plan, Telesar programs to speak on." He waved this away as if trying to make it seem only natural that he'd be sitting with them, out of all the people, or even empty seats on the wheeled box they were in.

  Considering the first thing he'd ever said to Beth had been calling her a Westmorland whore, that seemed a little out of place. They all got situated, and Sam looked happy enough about everyone's manners, clearly thinking that this wasn't a chance meeting at all, but rather their chaperone. If anything the porter seemed to relax a bit. Why that was she didn't know.

  Only, she did, didn't she? It made sense. His job would be protecting them, Gwen and her, from mashers and that sort of person. If it came down to it, his job, along with the conductor and anyone else that was nearby, would be in delivering those beatings if they were needed. Gwen really thought she could handle that part, and had mentioned being armed, but the presence of a man with them seemed to make him feel a lot more at ease.

  That or he really liked Martin Cordell.

  Gwen smiled at him, and then leaned into her friend, all of them still standing.

  "Beth, would you please return to your normal state?"

  She did, instantly, actually smiling.

  "Mr. Cordell! So nice to run into you like this. Gwen and I were just speaking of you the other day in fact."

  The man looked suspicious then, but finally sighed.

  "All good, I take it?" Now he was a bit more like his normal self, Gwen thought. Sarcastic. She'd heard him on the TS, and he only ranted about a third of the time. The real danger he held was that he was smart enough to make himself sound intelligent, even when saying stupid things. There was a smooth and controlled presence about the man, most of the time. Worse, he was sort of nice looking. Cute enough, at least for her standards, but he actually looked like he should be a friendly and gentle person. He was clean cut, and his dark brown hair and slightly olive colored skin were both close to flawless, without being pretentious. It was annoying in the moment, but that feeling passed quickly enough. She was probably just feeling too tired for things like this at the moment. That and her head still ached all the way through.

  "Actually, it wasn't bad, as amazing as that might sound. Ethyl Vernor is having a party in a few weeks and Beth was thinking about asking if you'd attend with her, as her date? It will give you a chance to make the papers, as well as redeem yourself in Ethyl's eyes. We might have to bribe Robert Vernor and Merchant Admiral Welk not to beat you, but that can probably be done, if we start early enough." She let her eyes stay dead, not able to muster enough hardness to even seem mean at the moment.

  The bigot slowly started to let his head bob, side to side, and then he flipped his palms up.

  "Miss Westmorland, would you do me the honor of allowing me to escort you to the party?" It was a decently polite and formal way of saying things even. Men were supposed to do the asking, even if the woman was allowed to drop incredibly heavy handed hints that they wanted to be asked.

  Like saying, hey, invite me to this party, and things like that.

  Bethany smiled, actually seeming happy about it. She was very cultured that way, when you got down to it. After all, if you weren't seeing someone, and didn't have another date, you were supposed to say yes to an invitation. Gwen didn't know if it was a rule, but from what she'd seen, people didn't really fear being rejected all that much.

  Not even hate mongering bigots, who were humorously enough, asking out the object of their derision.

  "I'd love to. Thank you so much for asking. I know that everyone will be pleased to see you there."

  So. It wasn't really news to Gwen that Beth could lie like a pro. Her job sometimes demanded it, and really this entire culture did too, after a fashion. It was their social rules that did it. Like right now, how both of these people, ones that had every reason to personally hate each other, at least in theory, had to make nice and pretend they weren't as close to enemies as could be without bloodshed.

  Not that her world had been a lot better. As an outsider she'd noticed it, perhaps more keenly than someone with a lot of good and healthy interaction would have been able to. There was a difference though. Her people told little lies to get ahead, or to preserve the peace. These people lived the lies they told, and embraced them as if nothing else was holding the world together.

  Maybe it really wasn't that different? Her tiredness was filling her with both doubt and a strong
urge to simply start beating people until they confessed to the murders. It would work, if they used enough nails. Just run them through people's finger with a hammer, until one of them confessed to the crime. Maybe it would be all of them? Except, no doubt Martin Cordell, who was clearly going to change his ways, and stop being half the asshole he used to be.

  Her head flared with pain that was nearly as severe as anything that she'd ever felt, at least without being hooked up to one of the Westmorland training devices. Both of the others looked at her, and seemed to be actually concerned as she slapped both hands to her head and bit her lip, trying to keep herself from screaming.

  After a minute, thankfully, the worst of it passed.

  "Are you well, Miss Farris?"

  She shook her head, but decided that if the man wasn't going to be a complete pain in the tookus she might as well explain it all to him.

  "I'm trying to learn enough magic to get along here. You know about, well, you do, since you keep calling me Miss Farris. I'm not from here. We don't have magic really, where I come from, so it's all new to me. Powering a world on the efforts of human beings directly is incredible, but not what I'm used to at all."

  Martin Cordell, Westmorland hating bigot, and man that felt he was less than others, due to his own lack of magical power, leaned forward slightly, as if fascinated by the idea.

  In fact he sounded like he was suddenly filled with awe.

  "I do know, of course. I can't imagine it. A whole world built without magic? Do you live in mud huts and roast things on sticks to get by?"

  That at least got her to chuckle a little, which made her head hurt even worse.

  "Nope. In most ways this place is a bit more primitive than where I come from. Not much. We have more of everything. We use, you know I haven't tried to really explain fossil fuels to people here. There are things in the ground, which can burn. Gasses and oils. We use a lot of that. We also use electricity for a whole lot of things that you use magic for. Our cars, which are like lorries, are a lot faster than what you use, and more people drive them. Our planes, well those fly, but aren't like airships at all, and can travel faster than the speed of sound. Even the ones that carry passengers can go nearly four or five hundred miles an hour. So things are different that way. A lot of the culture is too. I'm probably not a very good example of that though." She yawned again, but the man didn't seem less interested at all.

  If she hadn't known better she would have thought he was trying to get into her good graces by listening to her clearly mad tales of this mythical world she was supposed to be from. Rather than scoff, he smiled, his clean shaved face managing to seem more than a little friendly. Not leering at all, she didn't think, which was good. If he tried that right now, she was going to have to be rude and tell him no.

  She was engaged after all.

  Plus extremely sleepy.

  He asked another question, or at least made a statement that showed that he might not really understand people at all.

  "It must be a paradise! All people are equal, and there's no hunger or poverty, I bet."

  She looked at him, not really understanding him for a bit. It was like he wasn't quiet working from the same place she was. Which, naturally, he wasn't.

  "Why would you think that? We're still people, even if a little different. All people aren't treated as equals at all. Women are still treated like they're a little less than men, even if it's slightly better than here, at least where I come from. We don't have people looked down upon for having too much, or too little magic, but we find plenty of things to get after each other over. Most of them just as stupid as that, too. We fight over religion, politics, people wanting to have lovers of the same gender and hundreds of other really moronic things. Yes, I know that you have problems here too. Especially that thing with the Westmorlands and the low magic people. The solution there is so obvious that I'm really surprised that none of you have ever figured it out."

  The doors were shut securely, and even though she was willing to bet that there were more than a few cars to the train, she could only see two others, one in front of them, which she had to turn around to see, and one behind. One of the blue and red clad porters was at each doorway, as if guarding them. Martin stared directly at her, as if riveted, but Beth noticed that and nodded.

  "I bet this means we're the only passengers for this leg of the journey. There should be hundreds of people, not seven. Most likely that downturn in riders will be about the murders." She looked back at Gwen, but she didn't know enough to really contribute yet. She'd never been on any kind of train before at all.

  "We're about to leave. Does everyone have all their bags? We won't be able to turn about if something is left, so we recommend a final check." This came from the older white man, who had gold material on his uniform near the front and the neck.

  As tired as she was, Gwen physically checked her bags, and then Beth's. As an afterthought, she gestured to Cordell, who didn't seem to get it at first.

  "Get a bag count?"

  "Huh? I don't think they mean for us to literally do it. They're just being polite." He sounded more like he wanted her to go on without interruption than anything else, but seemed to get that she wanted him to actually do the work. Standing he physically tapped all his bags, which, humorously enough, got most of the rest of the riders to do the same.

  "I'm good." He said it a bit loudly as if it were a joke, but Beth followed along.

  "As am I, and my companion."

  The University boy and the ferrety looking woman that had the awful friend went next and almost as if he was about to laugh at the comedy routine, the salesman fellow chimed in.

  "I have my two as well. It looks like we're all set then. If you will, conductor?"

  The older man seemed more serious and gave a single nod to the man with the mustache. Then he blew a single, rather high pitched, whistle and after a few moments, the whole thing started to move, with only a little bit of clanking from underneath. There was no roar of machinery, because it was magically powered. Probably with a large crystal and impellor on the front to pull them along. That was how airships and lorries worked, and the idea should hold for something on tracks like this as well.

  After a bit everyone went back to what they were doing before, except her, since she was enjoying the ride, or trying to. They didn't move very fast, but after about five minutes they seemed to be traveling about the speed they were going to. It was around twenty miles per hour.

  That explained why the trip was planned to take a while, didn't it?

  The man across from her didn't ask any more questions for a while, but finally, just as she was about to lose to the idea of sleep, and her eyes close on their own, he cleared his throat.

  "What's the answer?"

  "Uh, forty-two?" She had no clue what he was talking about, and the man blinked, but Beth saved her, explaining.

  "You mentioned that you saw something about the Westmorlands and the low magic people that we might have missed?" She seemed interested too, but to Gwen it was so obvious that she actually wondered if they were playing with her for a minute.

  "Oh, right. Well, it's pretty clear that what the low magic users are actually doing is responding with hate toward high magic users, of which they see the Westmorlands as being the easiest target. The largest single group of that kind to attack. What they actually want though, is greater opportunity and freedom. Which, really, they should have. The Westmorlands are in the same boat though. You all have a common goal, and if the low magic users would start trying to rally around them, instead of tear them down, they could easily be turned into a cause that would allow greater rights to be brought about for everyone, as well as more opportunities." She waved, keeping Cordell from talking. "I know, it seems odd, but as rough as you have it, not having a lot of power, they have it worse. The Westmorland children... Do you know how they're trained?"

  Beth stiffened, since it was a state secret, but Gwen figured that she could probably say
a little without it giving away how it was actually done.

  Martin looked at her as if she were stupid.

  "Of course I do. They're selected as youths and given the best opportunities for schooling and training, due to their natural advantages. They have the best tutors and situations at all times, and this is all paid for by the taxes and tariffs of the common man." He was clearly getting ready to build up into a moralistic hate rant, about the supposed privileges of the evil and monstrous Westmorlands, when she nodded, as if agreeing.

  She'd seen that trick used on a law drama once, to good event. It actually kept the man from starting into his speech, which was no doubt quite well rehearsed.

  "You have that last bit right. And the very first part. Children with no families are tested and the very strongest of them put in the program. Absolutely everything else you said is wrong though." She looked at Beth, who was shaking her head no, but went on anyway. "I won't tell you how it's done exactly, since I don't know all of it, but they let me try some of their beginner's programs. These are believed to be light and easy things for them. Literally things that they use on children under the age of ten."

  She wanted to either get up and pace or go find a bed, which she was assured was a thing on these kinds of trains, since it took so long to go from one place to another. That wasn't going to happen yet, clearly, so she soldiered on, noticing that everyone else was listening to her. She could feel their eyes, but didn't really care at the moment.

  "It's torture, Martin. I don't mean that it's a little hard, or difficult, or socially awkward either. I mean, they use pain inducing devices that make you feel like you're dying, that are worse by far than being stabbed in the heart, which as you may remember I've had done to me so I know what I'm talking about, and the Trainers use that to force them to do what they're told. The little training that I've done is... Pretty close to barbaric. I've killed people that I wouldn't let that be done to without a major reason. Not Debussey, but others in her group. I don't think I can explain it properly, you have to actually do it, to truly understand. We can set that up for you, I think. I don't mean that as a joke either. If you undergo some of those training sessions, maybe you'd think differently about the Westmorlands. Actually, I know you would."