The Automaton's Treasure Read Free

blurted, and then cringed for a moment, expecting a reprimand for my rudeness. But I was a prisoner aboard a pirate ship, talking with a magical artifact. Rudeness was the least of my concerns.
    “I am an automaton.” He waddled up to my cot and reared up on his hind legs, his eyes appearing over the cot's edge. “I was stolen and brought onboard this ship.”
    “Oh.” An automaton. I'd heard about them, when I studied at university—they were magician's business, a specialty of metal-magic. Artifacts infused with sorcery. “I can understand you better tonight.”
    “Yes. I was able to do some repairs.”
    Silence fell over us. The ship rocked back and forth, wood creaking. I could hear the ocean on the other side of my wall, but it seemed lost to me. All I knew was this little room.
    “I was taken from my great treasure,” Safin said. “By a thief. But the thief is dead now.”
    I shivered. “One of the pirates?”
    “He tried to escape during the battle, to barter his way onto the other ship. Such terror! Guns firing and the smoke from the cannons. I did not have the words at the time, but I've learned them since. He was shot. He threatened to kill some important man.”
    Safin reported this all in a clicking, mechanical voice, as calm as if he were reporting the weather. I'll admit I found it reassuring that this thief wasn't killed on a whim. I'd taken for granted, naively, that the pirates really did plan to drop us at Starlight Rock.
    “I escaped during the madness, but I am still trapped. I long to return to my great treasure.” Safin dropped down on all fours and crawled away from the cot, pacing in circles around my cabin. “My great treasure! You would not be able to help me, would you?”
    I pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders. It wasn't cold in the cabin, only damp and dark, but I was shivering anyway. “I'm as trapped as you are, I'm afraid. Worse, because I can't leave here unless they let me.”
    But Safin didn't seem to hear me. He stopped pacing and stood facing the door, one foot lifted up, his tail sticking straight out.
    “Safin?” I asked hesitantly.
    He opened his mouth and hissed, a long, low, steaming sound. My heartbeat raced, my mouth went dry.
    The lantern flickered.
    “Must hide!” he shrieked. “Keep me secret!”
    “What do you—?”
    He scurried up the wall, squeezing through a narrow gap in the corner of the ceiling and disappearing.
    I was alone again.
    I sighed and slumped back against the wall. The lantern swung back and forth, growing dimmer and dimmer. Stupid, worthless thing.
    And then lines appeared on my floor.
    They glowed with magic-light—a bright white-blue, not murky green. They crisscrossed over my floor, forming lopsided loops around the cabin, tracing over the wall, to the gap where Safin had disappeared.
    Someone banged on my door.
    I jolted and sat up, disoriented by the noise and the veins of white light crossing over my cabin.
    A jingle of keys in the lock. The door swung open.
    “Dinner already?” I said.
    A pirate stepped into my cabin—a woman. I recognized her as the sailor I’d seen swinging through the ropes the day the ship was attacked.
    “I'll be damned, he has been in here.” The woman stomped into my cabin, pistol drawn.
    “Hey!” I shouted. “What are you doing?”
    The woman stopped and looked at me for the first time. She was Empire, black hair hanging in a single thick braid down her spine, and she looked nothing like the aristocratic women I was used to.
    “You see all this?” She gestured at the lines with her pistol. “This means the little shit has been in your cabin. Where is he?”
    “The little shit?”
    She sighed. I kept my eye on her pistol, although she didn't seem to have an inclination to point it at me.
    “It's a machine,” she said. “Runs on magic. Looks like a crocodile.”
    “I haven't seen anything like that.” I’d had plenty of experience with lying, and I knew to look her straight in