29. Florence

“How did the Dragons save Loom?” Florence was utterly baffled. All her life, she’d felt the negative effects of the Dragons’ presence in her world.

“How old are you?” Powell asked.

“Sixteen. I’ll be seventeen later this year.”

“And you’re still an initiate?” He raised his eyebrows, referring to her outlined mark. “You should have taken the second round of tests for Journeyman by now.”

Florence stayed her tongue, choosing to look out the window.

“I see.” She had no doubt Powell actually did. “Revolvers, then?”

She neither confirmed nor denied the fact.

Powell merely chuckled at her silence. “Come with me, Flor.”

Florence followed the Harvester away from the outer ring of windows and into a narrow hall lit by biophosphorous. She took note of the same lanterns she had seen in the tunnels below. “Does Faroe have no generators?”

The man glanced at the lanterns. “There isn’t much room for anything unnecessary here. Generators take up precious space that could be otherwise dedicated to the essentials.”

“I see,” she mumbled as they pressed onward and upward.

The stairs wound straight up into an open second floor. Large tables made a ring by each of the windows. Men and women, all bearing a sickle on their cheeks, walked between them, stopping at smaller tables to check things and make notes along the way. Chimera sat in an innermost ring of chairs, their brightly colored ears betraying their black blood.

“This is where we plan new mines,” Powell explained. “We have a bird’s eye view of the immediate area. Each of the other cities in Ter.1 has towers of their own that function for the same or similar purposes. To the north, it’s mostly plotting farmland. On the coastlines, they serve as lighthouses for the sailors as well.”

He led her over to one of the tables that sat flush against a window, strategically picking one with the least amount of activity.

“On the maps we mark the depth and location of existing mines, as well as what they’re producing.”

The map was covered with marks, crossed out and marked again and again. Lines in different colored chalk wound around and between them. Dust from past coloring hazed the paper.

“The chalk is for veins and pockets of minerals, which we then—” He directed Florence to the inner table that sat opposite. “Mark and note how much is harvested. These numbers are compared against historic numbers and reports from the guilds to estimate how much needs to be pulled from the earth.”

He motioned toward the Chimera sitting in the middle, engaged in conversations seemingly with their palms, fingertips touching their ears, or with the other Harvesters who walked around the room.

“Then the reports go out to the mines, as well as to another group of Chimera upstairs who then communicate with the Ravens to see the resources are ultimately moved to where they need to go.”

“How did the communication happen before magic?” Florence couldn’t help but wonder.

“Much more slowly,” Powell admitted. “Letters delivered by couriers. Though our overall perception on mining was different then.”

“It’s fascinating,” she admitted. “But I fail to see how this relates to the Dragons saving Loom?” Saying the words singed her tongue; her body physically rejected the notion.

“Look here again.” He tapped the papers he’d carefully spread out on the table. “This is one mine and this column is the overall output for all minerals over time.”

Her eyes skimmed the years and the numbers. It went back over six decades, a virtual eternity. The figures became more reliable with time, but it wasn’t until the year the Dragon King became Loom’s sovereign that all the rows were consistently filled in. Despite this, Florence could see the trend clearly.

“It was a lot more before the Dragons.”

“It was,” Powell agreed, as if she’d suddenly understood. Florence gave him a look that said she didn’t. “For generations, the mines sprawled as if the earth went on forever and the minerals we found would never run out of resources. When we found new pockets, we’d pursue. When we ran out, we dug deeper, and deeper, and deeper.”

Florence was reminded of the cavernous chasms they’d crossed to reach Faroe.

“The Harvesters had produced the most addicting drug Loom had ever known: progress. We never questioned if we should, only if we could, and the idea spawned the rest of the guilds. We asked and asked, what would we find if we pushed just one peca further into the earth?”

“But because Loom had those resources, the Alchemists made medicine, the Rivets created engines, the Ravens laid track, the Revolvers built guns.” She had yet to see the flaw in it.

“And all of these things enabled us to dig further and further. It was a self-feeding system, a chain linked by the need to produce.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“What happens when it runs out?”

Florence looked back to the window, to the endless sprawl of mines. She tried to imagine what the land might have looked like before the Harvesters carved into it. “Can it run out?”

“Some mines have already been abandoned as barren.”

“Then what?”

“Then we blast and dig until we find a new place to blast and dig farther.”

“So the problem is solved.”

Powell chuckled. “What happens when there are no more places to blast and dig?”

“There will always be…”

“This world is finite, Florence.” He motioned to the records and tables. “What you see before you is all we have. The Dragons saved us from ourselves. Magic vastly reduced the consumption of resources. The Ravens now make trains that run purely on it.”

“Magic travel, magic moving anything, still requires gold,” she pointed out.

“Yes, but the steel only needs to be tempered into gold once. Then it can be used for an eternity,” he countered. “The Dragons’ existence helped, but the King’s oversight of our resources was what pushed the Harvesters’ Guild to not just take from the world, but truly try to understand it. We began to pay attention to mines drying up. How fast we’d run out of this or that and how much deeper or farther we’d have to dig to find more. How these scars we’ve made upon our earth will never heal.”

“The Dragon King made new scars.” Florence scowled.

“You’re bitter about the tests.”

“Are you sure you’re not a Master?” She checked his cheek for a circle. His mannerisms reminded her far too much of a certain Rivet Master she knew.

“Not yet. My name sits with the Vicar Harvester right now on recommendation, however. It’s why I returned to the guild from Ter.4.5.”

“Oh…” Florence was immediately humbled. That was one thing the Dragon King had not changed. Mastership could not be tested; it was earned in the eyes of peers. Only a Master could award another Master’s circle, and the approval to do so came directly from the Vicar.

“In any event,” he said, “when the Dragons introduced the idea of families...” The concept made Powell as uncomfortable as every other Fenthri she’d ever met. “Which, I grant you, is an odd one. Free and unlimited access to reproduction and fertility chemicals widened our talent pools. But we could not sustain that demand on our resources.”

“So the pools needed to be culled.” She was one such person who was not talented enough to earn her life.

“They do.” There was an appropriately sympathetic note to his tone. “The first culling happens before the children grow enough to be any real drain. The second ensures a known population. We know exactly how many people we need to supply at all the guilds. Exactly how much food to produce, how many resources to dig up.”

Florence was silent. She was trying to see if she could reconcile herself to a system that would have her killed for not being a good enough Raven—despite being a damn good Revolver. But under the same logic, the Revolvers had their own quota. She didn’t have a place there either.

It made her want to scream.

She settled on a scowl instead.

“I understand, I believe, your turmoil on the matter.” Powell motioned to the windows and room. “But I want you to comprehend the logic woven behind the madness.”

“People should still be able to choose their guild. A finite pool, perhaps, but… The Ter.0 system of learning was better. Divide the finite pools from there. Let all test for all and then separate. It should—”

He rested his palm on her shoulder, squeezing it lightly. “I don’t disagree with you.” The words were a balm to the fervor that had been brewing in her gut. “There are better ways to execute this system. There are alternatives that would have been more in line with our culture, our way of life. Something the Dragons have yet to fully understand.”

At least he admitted that much.

“But we were a runaway train, headed for a half-finished bridge. In such a situation, you do not worry foremost about what wrong turn you took to get there. You reach for the brake and pull with all your might. Then you find the right way. But if we didn’t reach for that brake, Florence, and make the sacrifices we made, we would have run ourselves off that proverbial ledge and into extinction.”

She wanted to point out that she didn’t appreciate a very Raven analogy, because he was no doubt assuming it would resonate with her for the mark on her cheek. But Florence held her tongue. She felt bitter and suddenly very, deeply tired.

“This is a lot,” she confessed with a mumble.

“We may talk on it more, if you’re interested in learning.”

Florence considered it for a long moment. She’d learned from the Ravens, the Revolvers, and a Rivet. She’d always been so focused on completely transforming herself from one thing into another, it wasn’t until the endwig attack and the weeks that followed on the train that she’d discovered the true strength of combining all parts. Why not see what a Harvester could teach her? Who knew when it would come in handy?

“I am.”

“Very well.” Powell motioned for the stairs where they’d entered. “Let me show you to a guest room, for now. I am tired from the train and ready to wash and rest.”

“Thank you.” She hoped he interpreted her gratitude on the multiple levels it was intended.

“You are quite welcome.” He seemed to. “Rest up. Tomorrow, I will take you to the organ harvesting rooms.”