“What do you mean, High Froman, when you say ‘the elves shut it down’? How?” Bane wondered.
“I don’t know!” Limbeck shrugged helplessly.
“But you’re sure it was the elves?” Bane persisted.
“Pardon me, Your Highness, but what difference does it make?” the dwarf asked bitterly.
“It could make a big difference,” said Bane. “If the elves shut down the Kicksey-winsey, it could be because they’ve discovered how to start it up.”
Limbeck’s expression darkened. He rumbled at his spectacles, ended up with one side dangling from one ear at a crazed angle. “That would mean they would control our lives! This is intolerable! We must fight now!”
Bane was watching Haplo from out of the corners of the blue eyes, a faint smile on the sweetly curved lips. The boy was pleased with himself, knew he was one up on the Patryn in whatever game they were playing.
“Keep calm,” Haplo cautioned the dwarf. “Let’s think about this a minute.”
If what Bane said was right, and Haplo was forced to admit that the kid made sense, then the elves had very probably learned how to operate the Kicksey-winsey, something no one else had been able to do since the Sartan mysteriously abandoned their great machine centuries ago. And if the elves knew how to work it, then they knew how to control it, control its actions, control the alignment of the floating isles, control the water, control the world.
Whoever rules the machine, rules the water. And whoever rules the water, rules those who must drink it or perish.
Xar’s words. Xar expected to come to Arianus a savior, bringing order to a world in chaos. Xar did not expect to arrive and find a world choked into submission by the iron fist of the Tribus elves, who would not easily loosen their grasp.
But I’m as bad as Limbeck, Haplo told himself. Getting worked up over what might be nothing. The first thing I have to do is discover the truth. It’s possible the damn machine simply broke; although the Kicksey-winsey was, as he knew from Limbeck’s past explanations, quite capable of repairing itself and had done so all these many years.
But there is one other possibility. And if I’m right and that’s the real reason, then the elves must be as puzzled and worried over the shutdown of the Kicksey-winsey as the dwarves.
He turned to Limbeck, “I take it you move about Outside only during the times when it’s storming, use the storm for cover?”
Limbeck nodded. He’d finally managed to adjust his spectacles. “And it won’t last much longer,” he said.
“We have to find out the truth about the machine. You don’t want to commit your people to a bloody war that may be all for nothing. I need to get inside the Factree. Can you manage it?”
Bane nodded eagerly. “That’s where the central control must be located.”
Limbeck frowned. “But there’s nothing in the Factree, now. There hasn’t been for a long time.”
“Not in the Factree. Underneath it,” Haplo amended. “When the Sartan—the Mangers, as you call them—lived on Drevlin, they built a system of underground rooms and tunnels that were hidden away, protected by their magic, so that no one could ever find them. The controls for the Kicksey-winsey aren’t anywhere on Drevlin’s surface, are they?” He glanced at Bane.
The child shook his head. “It wouldn’t make sense for the Sartan to put them out in the open. They would want to protect them, keep them safe. Of course, the controls could be located anywhere on Drevlin, but it’s logical to assume that they’d be in the Factree, which is where the Kicksey-winsey was born—so to speak. What is it?”
Limbeck was looking extremely excited. “You’re right! There are secret tunnels down there! Tunnels protected by magic! Jarre saw them. That… that other man who was with you. His Highness’s servant. The one who kept falling over his own feet—”
“Alfred,” said Haplo with a quiet smile.
“Yes, Alfred! He took Jarre down there! But”—Limbeck looked gloomy again—”she said all she saw were dead people.”
So that’s where I was! Haplo said to himself.* And he didn’t particularly relish the thought of going back.