A Riddle in Ruby by Kent Davis Read Free Book Online Page A

her dress might call the attention of the beast outside. She couldn’t chide him, or move, or even breathe. There would be fangs. Many fangs. And claws. And she had to stop imagining what it might look like, because the imagining was making her want to scream.
    The ship had been seized, and some sort of monsterprowled outside the secret door. The monster’s keeper, who had a rough voice with no good in it, was also in the hold, and the only thing standing between them and savaging and chomping was a few new boards, a flimsy secret panel, and a pail full of oakum. Clever on Athen’s part. If not for that, they surely would have been already discovered.
    Ruby cocked her head. It couldn’t smell them because of the oakum. Which Athen had brought into the hidey-hole. So he knew this beast might be here!
    If she dared move, she would have struck him. If she dared speak, she would have lit into him like a raging bosun. If she dared breathe, she would, well, she would breathe him to melting with the devil’s breath of Gwath’s Goat, and that would set him straight.
    But she could do none of that.
    So she sat.
    It felt like a very long time.
    All at once there was sound. A muffled voice called down into the hold. A jumble of scrambling, gears, clumping, and whuffling sounded as the searchers, onemetal and one not, climbed out of the hold and then were gone.
    Silence. She dared not move. If she were searching a ship, she would play savvy and wait out the final stowaways, silently leashing her snuffling monster until some stupid innocent popped her head out of the hold like the youngest of chipmunks. Ruby would not have her little furry head popped off from lack of caution. Gwath and her father had taught her better.
    Sometime later they were jolted about. Cram stifled a whimper. She reached across Athen and squeezed his shoulder. He started, and it sounded as if he had banged his head on the ceiling. She listened to the waves and took in the motion of the Thrift. They were moving, but slowly. Perhaps the business had been dealt with, and the Royal Navy had gone on its way, taking its ship, noise, guns, and monsters far away from here. But she didn’t believe herself.
    There was a soft breeze that smelled of mint. Athen’s lips were right up on her ear.
    â€œHow do we get out?” he whispered, light as a june bug on a leaf.
    She thought a moment. Then she leaned over and whispered, just as lightly into his ear, “I have no idea.”
    It was quiet again for a good while.
    She felt him lean away, and he whispered something to Cram that she couldn’t hear. Then Cram whispered, in a voice more raspy foghorn than careful whisper, “Well, sir, she have to know how!”
    The muffled thump that came after must have been Athen’s glove over Cram’s mouth.
    And then no one came.
    It had been hours at least since the last sounds of the monster and its master had dissolved. Now there was only the steady motion of the waves, the occasional creak of the Thrift ’s beams, and a faint growling that must have been Cram’s stomach.
    She scooted closer to the door panel. Athen held on to her arm for a moment, but she grabbed at his wrist once, firmly, and he relented. She suspected he wanted out as badly as she.
    Ruby pushed hard on the panel. It didn’t budge. She pushed again. It didn’t even wiggle. She couldn’t breathe.She didn’t know why, but she hit the panel, hard. It made a thump. Athen quickly pulled her back, but not before she had hit it even harder. She started beating her feet against the wall until Athen and Cram lay on her feet and hands. She eventually stopped struggling and lay there in the dark.
    She might, she thought, be going a little mad.
    She tried to calm herself by taking deep, quiet breaths. Athen risked a very low light from her tinker’s lamp, which he gave her to hold.
    In the half-light he rummaged around in his bag, and he pulled out a