“Much more slowly,” Powell admitted. “Letters delivered by couriers. Though our overall perception on mining was different then.”
“It’s fascinating,” she admitted. “But I fail to see how this relates to the Dragons saving Loom?” Saying the words singed her tongue; her body physically rejected the notion.
“Look here again.” He tapped the papers he’d carefully spread out on the table. “This is one mine and this column is the overall output for all minerals over time.”
Her eyes skimmed the years and the numbers. It went back over six decades, a virtual eternity. The figures became more reliable with time, but it wasn’t until the year the Dragon King became Loom’s sovereign that all the rows were consistently filled in. Despite this, Florence could see the trend clearly.
“It was a lot more before the Dragons.”
“It was,” Powell agreed, as if she’d suddenly understood. Florence gave him a look that said she didn’t. “For generations, the mines sprawled as if the earth went on forever and the minerals we found would never run out of resources. When we found new pockets, we’d pursue. When we ran out, we dug deeper, and deeper, and deeper.”
Florence was reminded of the cavernous chasms they’d crossed to reach Faroe.
“The Harvesters had produced the most addicting drug Loom had ever known: progress. We never questioned if we should, only if we could, and the idea spawned the rest of the guilds. We asked and asked, what would we find if we pushed just one peca further into the earth?”
“But because Loom had those resources, the Alchemists made medicine, the Rivets created engines, the Ravens laid track, the Revolvers built guns.” She had yet to see the flaw in it.
“And all of these things enabled us to dig further and further. It was a self-feeding system, a chain linked by the need to produce.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“What happens when it runs out?”
Florence looked back to the window, to the endless sprawl of mines. She tried to imagine what the land might have looked like before the Harvesters carved into it. “Can it run out?”
“Some mines have already been abandoned as barren.”
“Then what?”
“Then we blast and dig until we find a new place to blast and dig farther.”
“So the problem is solved.”
Powell chuckled. “What happens when there are no more places to blast and dig?”
“There will always be…”
“This world isfinite, Florence.” He motioned to the records and tables. “What you see before you is all we have. The Dragons saved us from ourselves. Magic vastly reduced the consumption of resources. The Ravens now make trains that run purely on it.”
“Magic travel, magic moving anything, still requires gold,” she pointed out.
“Yes, but the steel only needs to be tempered into gold once. Then it can be used for an eternity,” he countered. “The Dragons’ existence helped, but the King’s oversight of our resources was what pushed the Harvesters’ Guild to not just take from the world, but truly try to understand it. We began to pay attention to mines drying up. How fast we’d run out of this or that and how much deeper or farther we’d have to dig to find more. How these scars we’ve made upon our earth will never heal.”
“The Dragon King made new scars.” Florence scowled.
“You’re bitter about the tests.”
“Are you sure you’re not a Master?” She checked his cheek for a circle. His mannerisms reminded her far too much of a certain Rivet Master she knew.
“Not yet. My name sits with the Vicar Harvester right now on recommendation, however. It’s why I returned to the guild from Ter.4.5.”
“Oh…” Florence was immediately humbled. That was one thing the Dragon King had not changed. Mastership could not be tested; it was earned in the eyes of peers. Only a Master could award another Master’s circle, and the approval to do so came directly from the Vicar.
“In any event,” he said, “when the Dragons introduced the idea of families...” The concept made Powell as uncomfortable as every other Fenthri she’d ever met. “Which, I grant you, is an odd one. Free and unlimited access to reproduction and fertility chemicals widened our talent pools. But we could not sustain that demand on our resources.”
“So the pools needed to be culled.” She was one such person who was not talented enough to earn her life.
“They do.” There was an appropriately sympathetic note to his tone. “The first culling happens before the children grow enough to be any real drain. The second ensures a known population. We know exactly how many people we need to supply at all the guilds. Exactly how much food to produce, how many resources to dig up.”
