A Riddle in Ruby by Kent Davis

in the colonies.”
    â€œContinue.”
    â€œFour, that he has been tortured before.”
    â€œI would have liked to have had a glimpse of that Big Bill.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œDo not call me sir, either.”
    The apprentice chewed his lip. “Affirmative.”
    â€œWhat else?”
    After quite a long pause the apprentice said, “Nothing.”
    â€œYou have questions.”
    â€œI do.”
    â€œWhat are they?”
    The apprentice began to pace.
    â€œRemain still. Pacing shows a lack of discipline.”
    The apprentice stopped, though he still moved his toes in his boots.
    â€œYour questions? I don’t have all day, boy, and you are due back at your post.”
    The apprentice straightened. “One. Teach claims there were no passenger lists on his passenger ship. Butships of that class almost always carry logs of some type. Why would he hide them or destroy them unless there were passengers?”
    â€œInteresting. What else?”
    â€œWhy was MacDevitt so interested in the passengers unless they were searching for them in the first place?”
    â€œIndeed.”
    â€œIf the finest ship in His Majesty’s Navy and its elite crew were hard-pressed to subdue a ship full of mismatched scalawags, who are these scalawags?”
    â€œOne more, I think.”
    The apprentice straightened a button on his frayed but spotless uniform jacket.
    â€œWho and where are these most important missing passengers? And why is the combined power of military and chemystral England searching for them?”

CHAPTER 16
    RULES
    Â Â Â  1. All iron to be checked at the door.
    Â Â Â  2. All flasks to be checked at the door.
    Â Â Â  3. Civil discourse at all tymes.
    Â Â Â  4. Any body scraps or scuffles, yew shall exit the back way.
    Â Â Â  5. We take pounds sterling, manufactory marks, or horn silver.
    Â Â Â  6. England, Frenches, or Other Continentals are UNWELCOME. Yew shall exit the back way.
    Posted at the Alembic Coffeehouse, UnderTown
    I t was Philadelphi. Of course it was. A tinker tug would be towing the Thrift toward the city that had become the center of the colonies. It was almost too cruel that they had been headed there to begin with. As Cram and Athen rowed the leaking lifeboat up the river toward the steamy, glistening shoreline, Ruby cradled her wrist and tried to keep what they were fleeing out of her head. So she filled it with old, familiar landmarks.
    To the south squatted the ever-expanding maze of the Benzene Yards. Even in the dark of the earliest morning, the great wheels, towers, chutes, and steam stacks were lit orange and purple from odd angles, shimmering in the heat of the great chemystral furnaces, pulsing from fairyland to nightmare and back. To the north, its dark mass blocking out the sky, loomed the Great Keep of the Rupert’s Bay Company, with its fancy shops and fancier folk.
    They were headed for the center, the valley between those two mountains on the shore of the Delaware River. The heart of Philadelphi, called the Shambles, was a bubbling cauldron of hard work and hard times.
    There were two cities, one stacked on top of the other one. The old town was built on the earth of the shore, and the other hung above it, resting on an artificial shelf built by the Tinkers. The whole thing looked like the mouth of some gigantic beast sticking up out of the river, and their little rowboat was headed straight down its gullet.
    There had been little time to talk as they fled the Thrift . Cram and Athen had both set to their oars as if the devil himself were chasing them, and perhaps he was. Ruby had sat in the prow of the boat, ankles slowly going numb in the frigid standing water. Whatever Athen had done to seal the hole had worked. She had poked at the spongy mass stopping it up until he had whispered at her to stop it.
    It did not feel sturdy. She thought about just reaching for the stopped-up hole, ripping up a