“Do we really have time for this?” Kemp whined as Nikha set up the targets. She’d found plenty of bottles in Tarasov’s room, long since emptied of vodka and plum brandy. She lined them up in a row on a table pushed against the far wall of the shop. Kemp remained by the steam engine, looking apprehensive.

“We’ll have a better chance of finishing this if you can defend yourself,” she said lightly. “Besides, it shouldn’t take very long.” She finished up and went over to him. He truly did look nervous. “Unless you really don’t want to, of course.”

“No, no, I’d like to learn. It’s just…do I really have to use that gun?” He waved a hand at the pistol Tarasov had used to end his own life, which sat with its ammunition on another workbench in front of them.

“It’s all we have, besides my rifle- and I hope it won’t offend you to hear that I can make better use of it than you can.” He shook his head, and Nikha eyed him speculatively. “Besides, a gun is just a tool. It’s no more good or evil than a hammer is.”

Kemp sighed. “Okay. I understand. Let’s hear it.”

“Good! First of all, safety.” Nikha did her best to recall the speech Papa had given her when he’d taught her to shoot the tiny little rifle he’d bought her for Ascension Day when she was eight. “Like I said, guns are tools. You give them the proper respect, and they won’t let you down. You mess around, do what you aren’t supposed to, and you or someone else will end up hurt. Understand?”

Kemp gave her a solemn nod. “Da says the same thing about the forge. Fire’ll let you work iron, but if you aren’t wary of it you’ll burn your house down.”

“Exactly. So. There are four main rules.” She counted them off on her fingers. “First of all, you treat any gun like it’s loaded and ready to fire, even if it isn’t. Like I said, you always give it respect. Second, never point a gun at anything you aren’t willing to destroy. That means monsters and stuff, not me or yourself or that boiler behind us. You always keep track of where the muzzle’s pointing. The end of the barrel, I mean. Third, guns go off when you pull the trigger, so you don’t touch the trigger until you’re ready to shoot. That means aimed at a target. Not when you’re carrying it, not when you’re waving it around.”

“When would I ever wave it around?” he asked.

“Never! Bad example,” Nikha muttered. “And last, know what you’re shooting and what’s behind it. Say you want to shoot one of those bottles, but I’m standing behind it. Do you shoot?”

“Of course not!”

“How come?”

“Because I’d end up hitting you!” He sounded exasperated.

“Exactly. Always keep that kind of thing in mind. Even a pistol like this will punch through more things than an arrow. That means no shooting at steam boilers or anything like that, either. Know your target. The last rule, finally-“

“I thought you said there were only four.”

“Four main ones!” she snapped. “I’m adding a fifth. If you ever break one of these rules and shoot me by accident, I’m shooting right back.” She gave him a wide-eyed stare. “And I don’t miss.”

He looked suitably cowed. “Um, okay. But you’re joking, right?”

She crossed her arms and looked down at him. “Don’t mess up, and we won’t have to find out, hm?”

“R-right. So, how does this thing work?”

“It’s pretty simple.” Nikha picked up Tarasov’s gun, making sure to keep it pointed downrange. The weapon was long and svelte, nearly the length of her forearm. “This is a Belvecher Blitzen. Some Thurnian designed it, but it’s also made under license at the Imperial Rifle Works in Zhdanovsk. It’s a single-shot breech-loader, with a five-line bore. That’s the same as my rifle, except it shoots a lighter, slower bullet. And if you look at the serial number here, we can see that this one was manufactured-“

“Do I really need to know all this?”

“W-well, of course you do!” Nikha sputtered. “It’s important!”

“How come?” he asked, looking skeptical. “You haven’t even shown me how it works.”

“Because…because it’s-ugh.” She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Pay attention. First you’d load a round, then pull back the lever up here. That cocks the hammer and closes the breech. See?” Kemp nodded. “Now you’re ready to fire. Aim and pull the trigger.” The weapon clicked in her hands as she demonstrated. “Then push your trigger finger forward to hit this catch, and the breech snaps back open so you can load it again. You try.”

He carefully accepted the gun. “Heavy…” he murmured.

“It’s made of steel. Of course it’s heavy.”

“You make yours look pretty light.” He nodded at the rifle slung across her back.

“It’s not. I just have practice. Now, try dry-firing.”

Kemp gingerly turned the gun over in his hands and worked the mechanism a few times. “Now, how do I aim?”

“Focus on the post up front. Put it in the middle of the notch in back, and then put both just under your target.”

He squinted down the barrel. “Like this?”

“Almost. Choke up higher on the grip. Put your thumb here. Elbow just a little bent. Feet farther apart, and blade your body at the target.” She nudged him around until he stood in a proper pistoleer’s stance, the same that she’d been taught. “Now dry-fire a couple more times, hmm? And be gentle when you squeeze the trigger! You aren’t strangling livestock anymore.” That one earned her a dirty look, but he did as she said.

“Think I’m ready as I’ll get,” he said after a minute or so.

“Good.” She passed him a stubby cartridge, about the size of her thumb. “You’d better make a hit first try. You had a good teacher.”

“…I’ll do my best.”

“No need to sound so dry. Now go on! I think I heard that one on the left say something about your mother.” Nikha couldn’t keep the smile off her face. Papa had taught her to shoot, it was true, but she’d never shared a hobby with someone her own age. Rulia and Jyatis had never even tried it, for the Martyrs’ sake.

With exceeding care, Kemp loaded the Blitzen and aimed. After several seconds he set his finger on the trigger and fired. Bang! The pistol coughed smoke, and the vodka bottle on the left exploded.

“I hit it! Nikha, I hit it!” He turned towards her, grinning.

“Watch your muzzle!” she snapped.

“Oh! Sorry.” He pointed the gun back downrange.

Only now did she return his smile. “It’s fine. And that was great! I didn’t think you could do it, but bang! Dead center hit.”

“Why not? How could I miss when I had ‘the best teacher in the world?’”

“I never said that!” She jabbed a finger at him. “And I only thought so because shooting a pistol is hard. It took me a few tries before I hit anything, so-“

“So maybe I’ve a knack for it, right?” He smirked a little. “Maybe we’ll be trading guns soon.”

“Not on your life!” she huffed. “Now reload and try again! We have plenty of ammo.”

“Right. Sure.”

Here it comes… thought Nikha, trying to hide her smile.

Kemp grabbed a fresh round and looked down at the pistol. “Okay,” he muttered. “Press the catch, and-“

The spring-loaded breechblock snapped down, ejecting the spent case with a ting! It shot straight back out of the gun and nailed Kemp directly in the forehead. “Ow! Damn it!” He clapped a hand to the spot as Nikha started to giggle.

“You-! You knew that would happen, didn’t you? Why in the Blazes didn’t you tell me?”

She laughed harder, an arm wrapped around her stomach. “Be-because it’s hilarious! Why do you think Papa let me do the same thing when I learned?”

“It isn’t funny!” he retorted, but she could see he was trying not to smile.

“Besides, you keep sneaking up on me and making fun of the sounds I make, so I had to get you back.” She almost managed to stop laughing, but then Kemp moved his hand and gave her a look at the round red welt right between his eyes. “You look ridiculous!”

Despite the mark, he got a cagey smile on his face. “So you admit you made all those silly cat noises!”

“I-I never said that! I just said you made fun of me!”

“Oh, sure.”

“Just shoot already, would you?” Nikha finally managed to get herself under control. “And next time, just tilt the gun sideways when you empty it. It still sends the cases at you but they mostly go over your shoulder.”

“Oh, that’s good to know,” he said archly as he took aim. He went through most of a box of ammo, hitting more shots than he missed.

“Your trigger press needs work,” Nikha said, “but I suppose it’s serviceable. You learn fast, Kemp.”

He smiled. “Maybe I really did have a good teacher.”

She couldn’t help swelling with pride. “Um. Yes. Perhaps. Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah. Except, how am I going to carry all this?” They looked around and soon found Kemp an old leather tool belt of Tarasov’s.

“It’s not as good as a real gunbelt,” Nikha remarked as he buckled it on, “but it’s better than nothing.”

Kemp put the pistol through one of the loops and filled the pouches with ammo boxes. He even found room for the blocky pathfinder. “It’ll have to do. Anything else?”

“Mm…Oh! Yes.” Nikha went and refilled the canteens from Tarasov’s sink, and they both took the opportunity to use the washroom- by which Kemp seemed quite impressed.

“Alright, ready?” he asked when he was done.

Nikha took one last look at Tarasov’s room, then nodded. They closed the doors carefully behind them when they left.

Kemp consulted the pathfinder, and it pointed them farther down the hall. The brickwork was obviously old, coming apart in some places, but at least it was dry. The flat planes and sharp corners of the corridor had heaved and softened with age, reminding Nikha of the unsettling, surreal paintings now being produced by the Remulian avant-garde.

The echoes of their footsteps changed, and a minute or two later they found themselves at the bottom of a square shaft. Its ceiling was so high as to be lost in darkness, but a gas-lit brick staircase spiraled up its walls.

“That’s a lot of steps…” Nikha groaned.

“Seems we’ll be finding out exactly how many,” said Kemp as he fiddled with the pathfinder’s dials. “It wants us to go up.”

Nikha let out a dramatic sigh and got to climbing, Kemp on her heels. The steps themselves felt solid, but the wrought-iron railing was decayed to rusty strands that broke between her fingers. Best to keep my balance. The climb seemed interminable. Nikha’s legs burned and sweat ran into her eyes. Her pack felt full of stones and her rifle was like a pillar of lead across her back.

Kemp must have noticed her struggle. “Um…Do you want me to take any of that f-“

“No!” she barked, pushing faster. Maybe it would have been the smart thing to do. But it was her gun, her pack, and letting someone else carry them for her would have felt like giving up. She glowered down at her feet, focusing on just putting one boot in front of the other. Even the huge drop seemed to disappear as she ground onward.

Finally, her foot tried to land on a step that wasn’t there, and she stumbled. “Nikha!” Kemp grabbed her shoulders and steadied her. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” she huffed out between breaths. “Yes. Thank you.” She might have gone off the edge if not for Kemp, but she was almost too tired to be scared. “What-oh.” She’d been tripped up again by one of the weird solid holes. Now that she looked around, there were more of them than she’d seen so far. They checkered walls and steps alike with swathes of black. As she watched, a couple more bricks just fell backwards into nothingness. “That’s, um…that’s-“

“Not good,” Kemp finished. They started climbing as fast as they could. More and more bricks began to slowly fall away, sinking into the strange blackness behind the walls like it was viscous fluid. They reached a point where a whole step or two had fallen away, leaving nothing but empty darkness. Nikha gingerly poked it with her toe. It felt less solid than before, yielding and almost sticky, but still good enough to walk on.

“Nothing for it,” she said to Kemp. “Come on!”

“Are you su-Nikha!” She jumped as far as she could into the gap and landed on all fours. The feeling was skin-crawlingly strange, as though she were on an invisible ramp. She could dig her fingers into it and pull herself up, but it had no texture and hardly any friction. It was like solidified air. She tried not to look at the void beneath her and scrabbled upward, leaving Kemp no choice but to follow. “This is-ugh! I really don’t like it!” he sputtered.

Nikha dragged herself onto the next solid step and reached back to pull Kemp up with her. They made one more circle of the shaft, the bricks drifting away beneath their feet. There was more void than brick in the walls, now. “Look!” Kemp shouted. Nikha glanced up and saw what he was pointing at: a door, two more flights above them. It was surrounded by a patch of bricks that seemed to hang unsupported in the void. The steps leading up to it were mostly gone.

They had to move quickly. Nikha turned back to Kemp. “We have to stay on where the stairs used to be, see?” She dropped a spent case from her belt onto a patch of void. It rolled on nothingness for a few inches before going over the invisible edge and falling. Kemp gulped and nodded.

Nikha led the way, probing ahead with her rifle like it was a blind man’s stick. The need for caution was tempered by the fact that their invisible stairs were deteriorating. A minute ago they’d felt like a soft surface, but now it was more like wading though tar. She refused to imagine what would happen if it got so thin they sank through it.

They thrashed on, high-legged and half-tripping. Nikha nearly pitched forward and fell when she poked out with her gun and met no resistance. Quick as she could she took another empty case and stuck it into the nothingness at the edge. “There’s the corner, Kemp!” she said raggedly. “Don’t…don’t go past it!”

Just one flight left. There were almost no bricks left except for the ones around the door. They were moving blind with nothing but memory and feel to guide them. The darkness got thinner yet, her gait going from a half-walk to half-swim. She was almost there, the bricks so close she could see their grain, their little porosities and imperfections. She sank further. Suddenly a lurch as one of her feet went through the bottom of the invisible track, dangling in thin air-

And her hand closed on the little brick island around the door. She thrashed her way up onto it, gun, pack and all, turning as she did to help Kemp. “Nikha!” He was flailing about as if in water, just barely out of reach of the platform.

“Here!” She lay flat on her belly and extended a hand. Kemp caught it and she pulled him up onto the brick.

“Thanks, I’m sorry, I can’t swim, you saved me-“

“Let’s go!” She cut him off by yanking the door open. Bright light blinded them and they tumbled through.