but the shaft turned, and deep underground something vibrated.
“The water is too deep to pump directly,” Kitarak said while he worked the crank. “Atmospheric pressure will only raise water thirty-five feet at this elevation. So we must pressurize the containment vessel to provide more lift.”
“Right,” Jedra said. He hadn’t understood a word of what Kitarak had said. He looked over to Kayan, but she merely shrugged her shoulders as well.
Kitarak went on without pause. “Unfortunately the cistern leaks after ail these many centuries, so I must pump fast to keep it pressurized. In another century or two, I fear someone will have to descend into the tank itself to replace the seals.”
“In another century?” Jedra asked incredulously. “You seriously think this thing will last that long?”
“Why not?” Kitarak replied. “It has lasted until now. I and other travelers have had to repair the handles, and once a valve stuck on the lifting piston, but other than that—”
“What’s all this valves and pistons stuff, anyway?” Jedra asked. “I’m completely lost here.”
Kitarak bent down farther and switched from his lower arms to his upper ones on the crank. “It is tinkercraft,” he said. “An ancient discipline, lost to time for all but we few scholars who struggle to keep it alive.”
Kayan had been watching silently the whole time. Now she spoke up. “I’ve heard of it. It’s the opposite of magic. Or of psionics for that matter. Using mechanisms to replace sentient beings. Some say it helped bring on the destruction of Athas.”
Kitarak stopped cranking for a second. The below-ground vibration stopped as well, and now they could hear a faint hissing from around the base of the levers. Then Kitarak resumed cranking. “Not so,” he said. “Not so to all your points, except possibly the first. Magic is a lazy attempt to duplicate tinkercraft without the hardware. What magicians don’t understand is that every action has an opposite and equal reaction. Every act of creation is an act of destruction. Each spell they employ uses life-force, which is then gone forever. It is magic that destroyed Athas. Not tinkercraft.”
Kayan looked like she might have argued the point, but just then the pipe began to gurgle. “Ah, we have built up enough head!” Kitarak said happily. “Now we can help it along a bit.” Switching to his lower arms on the crank again, he used his upper ones to work the conventional pump handle. “Get your waterskins ready,” he said. “When it comes, it will be a deluge.”
Jedra and Kayan quickly dropped their packs and dug out their waterskins. They were none too quick; Jedra had just gotten his unstoppered when a fount of rusty water gushed from the spout, then a heavy stream of clear, cold water splashed onto the rocks. He and Kayan thrust their waterskins beneath the stream side by side, holding them there until they filled completely. Water!
They splashed it over themselves and drank thirstily from their cupped hands.
Kitarak pulled back on another of the levers and stopped pumping. The flow dwindled to a stop while he rummaged in his pack for his own waterskin—waterskins, it turned out. He had five of them, each twice the size of Jedra or Kayan’s. “If you don’t mind…” he said, holding the skins out to the two of them, then he turned back to the pump and the crank. He threw the lever forward again, and water flowed once more.
Jedra and Kayan filled Kitarak’s waterskins as well, then drank their fill and splashed each other with the remainder. At last, soaking wet and exuberant at their success, they began splashing Kitarak as well.
“Hold!” he cried out. “What are you doing? Did I ask for a shower?”
“Yes,” Kayan said, giggling. “I’m sure I heard you. Right, Jedra?”
“Of course,” he said, scooping a double handful of water and throwing it over the tohr-kreen’s iridescent back.
“Stop that!” Kitarak said. He stopped cranking and pumping, but the water continued to flow, and Jedra and Kayan continued to splash him and each other.
“What wasteful creatures!” Kitarak said, backing away. “I suppose you will wish to bathe next.”
Jedra laughed. “No thanks. We did that a couple of nights ago.”
The water finally quit running out of the spout, so Jedra and Kayan backed away and sat side by side on a rock, laughing and wringing the water from their robes. “I can’t believe it,” Kayan said. “We actually found water here. Who would have thought?”
Kitarak’s entire body quivered, spraying water droplets everywhere. “Did I not promise you?” he