Undermine

By David Townend Ward

Thirteen year old Axel and three apprentice engineering friends must use all their inventive skills to rescue their city from the most dangerous enemy their world has ever faced.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Sep 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781480881761

David Townend Ward

David Ward is a professor and a writer of fantasy and fiction for children. He lives and writes with his family in British Columbia Canada.

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Copyright © 2019 David Townend Ward.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4808-8177-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-8176-1 (e)

Archway Publishing rev. date: 9/4/2019

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

About the Author

PROLOGUE

Third week of summer,

Sticky Wicket Inn, Hazelwood

My dear Talus, You asked about the origin of the keys to the cities. In the beginning, five keys were made for the five cities. Over many years, some were lost while others were forgotten. We know the whereabouts of one. A note of caution in regards to your other question: in my judgment, the keys were a mistake from the beginning, a product of trust rather than reason. Remember the warning that lies underground: let the dead bury the dead. In the matter of the keys … trust no one.

(Excerpt from Sarugus, the Deathbed Letters)

CHAPTER 1

I am an engineer.

I pledge to uphold the highest standards of my profession. I pledge my skill and vow to serve humanity by making the best use of Earth’s precious wealth. In humility and with the need for divine guidance, I shall be honest. When needed, my skill and knowledge shall be given without reservation for the common good. In duty and faithfulness to my profession, I shall give my utmost.

(Engineers’ Code of Conduct)

IT TOOK A HUNDRED YEARS TO BUILD THE city of Ballista and only six days to ruin it. Thirteen-year-old Axel stood on the ramparts and looked out in dismay. The ancient stone fell into long shadows that stretched across the empty moat below. The drawbridge was up and the heavy portcullis down, closing the city to the outside world. Under the endless sun, dust clouds blew over barren ground where green fields had once flourished and orchards had once blossomed.

When would the rain come? All that remained of the water supply was an ancient spring, found miraculously by the engineers six days ago. There certainly wasn’t enough to keep the city alive much longer. Already, several cows and untold chickens had died, and the stench of rot reached the heights. Ordinarily, Ricasso the butcher would have dealt with the meat before it spoiled, cutting it into portions to hang in his shop, and the Faber brothers would have used their handcarts to take the meat to the butcher. But as everyone was currently rioting in the marketplace, including Ricasso the butcher and the Faber brothers, there was no one to deal with the dead cows.

These days, even the church was empty of all but a few. Instead of kneeling, worshippers threw bricks at the engineers as they made their way to the agora. Worse followed. Flies gathered, and rumors spread when the first of the old people died in the heat. As the son of the chief engineer, Axel felt the weight of Ballista’s troubles pressing down on his father as if it were sitting atop his own shoulders.

The city’s survival depended on the engineers, and the responsibility was telling in the lines on his father’s face and the dark patches beneath his eyes. There were white hairs gathering in his beard where only a short time ago there had been none.

Axel groaned. What good was he to his father anyway? I’m short, and I can barely carry a paving stone, he murmured.

He wiped the sweat from his nose with a dirty sleeve. His tunic was no longer white but gray, since washing clothes was prohibited under the new restrictions. His face and thick mop of curly brown hair needed a good wash too. In most respects, people said he looked like his mother, with his dusky skin and wide, very large brown eyes. Yet not even his mother, ambassador though she was, could have secured enough water for a bath. Not since the river had stopped flowing.

What now? muttered Axel. Soldiers assembled in the courtyard below, and the tips of their spears caught the sunlight. With little food and even less water, the people were restless, thirsty, and desperate. Not long ago the same space had been filled with a wedding party, complete with flowers and banners and tables and cakes. Five days after the wedding had come the rumor of war. On the sixth day, chaos broke loose. With the fear of war spreading like a disease, the people of Ballista began to rebel against the engineers—the very ones who could save them. Now the noise of panic clamored again through the streets like pans attached to a prospectus’s cart.

War!

It’s the Hydra, king of Aqueous, shouted another. He’s threatening Ager.

Will he come here? Will Aqueous attack Ballista?

Not quite as loudly—yet loudly enough—someone added, Where are the engineers? Many grumbling voices joined in with this last comment, and it was followed by defiant shouts. A few people raised their fists.

With the sound of the townspeople’s cries fresh in his ears, Axel waited not a granule of the hourglass longer and ran to find his father. He sped across the flagstones, and the jingle of tools in his apprentice sack echoed through the courtyard.

The flag on the pole had hung limp for many days. Not a breath of wind! He squeezed his way through the marketplace and into the hot, stinking throng. They were too worked up to notice one small boy ducking in and out of the pressing crowd. He reached the agora.

Axel stopped short and stared in disbelief at the massive stone entrance. Never before had the doors been shut. The engineers’ symbol of a large letter E stared back at him in stony silence. Every day his father worked with Ballista’s engineers, poring over charts in the scriptorium or huddled around a model of a new building or bridge.

The agora was Axel’s favorite place. He loved to listen to the engineers and watch them solve the city’s problems. Fighting giants, his father called it. Every day there was a new giant to face: adding footings to a bridge, refurbishing a guard tower along the wall, or repairing an aqueduct. Sometimes there were emergencies that required immediate engineering, such as when the tellurium mine had collapsed with thirty men trapped underneath. Those were dilemmas that Axel found the most interesting, when ingenuity and science came together to solve a crisis. When smoke was billowing and the madness of catastrophe was blowing all around, Axel found solace in the problem. But he still couldn’t carry a paving stone more than a few strides like the other apprentices—an impediment to passing the final exams.

He stared at the imposing gateway. The agora was the center of Ballista, the city of stone. And now the doors were shut. He put his palms against the gate and pushed. Nothing.

It’s no good, said a voice. A figure pulled away from the shadows. It was a young man, several years older than him. He wasn’t an engineer or an apprentice. Rather, he was dressed as an operarius—one who ran messages and did the manual labor for engineering projects. He carried a long piece of metal in his hand.

Axel started at the weapon. He contemplated running but calculated the man could reach him before he’d even turned around. Why had he left the safety of the walls? Moreover, why hadn’t he learned to fight like Fulcrum and the other boys?

The operarius followed his gaze. Oh no! he said, raising his free hand in a gesture of peace. I’m harmless. He held up the metal rod. "This is a part for the water pump. It seized again this morning. I had to bribe the blacksmith’s son to bang a notch out of it because his father had gone rioting. And his head was on a swivel, I tell you. Everyone’s jumpy. Can’t tell who is going to attack who these days, God help us."

Relieved, Axel stared at the closed doors. Where was his father? Where were the guards? Why weren’t the agora doors open and protected? Nothing was normal.

What shall I do? the operarius continued. I can’t deliver the rod now, can I? The man indicated the doors.

How long have they been shut in there? asked Axel, tapping his lip thoughtfully. If his father wasn’t here, then he may have already started for home.

Not sure. But they need this part.

Axel leaned his back against the doors.

The operarius retreated to the shadows. Can’t wait long, he said. If those doors don’t open, I’m leaving. They stormed the agora earlier, and it was ugly. People are crazy. Unwise for the son of the chief engineer to be here, don’t you think?

The point was well taken. If the people were willing to attack his father, who had saved their lives a thousand times, then they wouldn’t hesitate to harm his son. If you see my father, tell him I’ve gone home, Axel said.

The man nodded. Good luck to you.

And you! Axel called over his shoulder. He took the long way, skirting the market to avoid the growing crowd and the stench. He was halfway home when shouts from the square drew his attention. A man wearing an extraordinarily tall hat, tattered colorful clothes, and boots that came up to his knees stood on a cart beside the city’s largest monument—a tall stone with the engineers’ E at its top—and shouted to the crowd. His cart was no less outlandish than his clothes. The stretched cloth tarp was covered in curiosities from outlying areas: strange metal tools, signs, glass bottles, and various kinds of stretched cloth. He was a prospectus, one of the few that the city allowed outside the walls to trade in the lands between. The city hired a prospectus or two from time to time to garner news when relations between cities were poor and trade had frozen. Wherever this prospectus had come from, he seemed to have a lot of wares to sell.

Axel wormed his way back into the market. He was a small boy for thirteen yet nimble and quick, and he reached the front of the crowd with ease. The prospectus was shouting now. The Hydra, king of Aqueous, has cut off the river at the mountains, he said. It’s part of the war against Ager. There will be no water for many days ahead unless it rains.

What of Venti? cried someone in the crowd.

The city of wind is still free, said the prospectus, but the soldiers of Aqueous were seen at the crossroads. Venti is worried.

What of Calor?

The city of fire is silent.

That was all of them—five cities from the plains to the mountains to the sea. Of course, there were probably many other cities in the wide world, but no one in the crowd, except perhaps the prospectus, knew what lay beyond the ocean.

Why aren’t the engineers doing anything? The prospectus held up his hands for silence, and another sound stopped him—marching feet. The crowd split apart to let the soldiers through. Axel tugged at his lip again. No wonder no one was guarding the agora. They were all here, ready to quell the riot in the market.

The captain of the guard stopped his troops at the foot of the cart. Come along. There’s been enough trouble for one today.

The prospectus nodded meekly and jumped down. The soldiers surrounded him. The crowd was restless and pressed against the guards. But my cart, the prospectus said. What about my horse and cart?

Axel watched until the prospectus’s tall hat disappeared in the crowd. Someone bumped him, and a shadow swept over him.

What’s all this about? asked a flaxen-haired boy. It was Fulcrum, one of the engineers’ sons. He towered over Axel, grinning. Fulcrum was well named, for his delight was in working with weights and balances of all kinds. When older, stronger apprentices teased Axel, Fulcrum defended him, raising his heavy fists and daring anyone to press the matter.

The prospectus came with news, Axel said, rubbing his shoulder. "The Hydra has dammed