CHAPTER 22

Books woke with a gasp, escaping some nightmare where he was falling—and suffocating. He lay on his back with cold darkness enveloping him. He blinked, trying to make out shapes, but his eyes failed to penetrate the blackness.

Memories hiccupped into his thoughts: the lake, the shaman, the artifact. He was alive, but was he truly in the dark or had he gone blind? Fear chilled him further. Maybe he had worked in the artifact’s blaze for too long.

“Easy,” he told himself. No panicking. Especially considering the numbness that had taken over his body in the lake was gone. “Definitely a positive development,” he muttered.

Either the shaman had healed him or the effects had worn off. The details did not matter. Figuring out where he was and getting back to the others—that mattered.

Cold seeped into his back from a rough, uneven floor. Stone. He rolled to his knees and landed in a puddle. A quick pat-down informed him the helmet and his tools were gone, though he still wore the diving suit.

He explored further. On three sides, dirt and rock walls rose to meet a low dirt and rock ceiling. Faint reverberations coursed through the stone, as if machinery labored somewhere in his underground prison. A different texture comprised the fourth wall of what he realized was his cell. Smooth and hard, it sent a buzz up his arm when he touched it. When he pressed harder, a stronger buzz coursed through him, making his hair stand on end. It reminded him of the power he had felt when he broke the artifact, and he decided not to risk hurling himself at it.

Books swept his foot along the floor, hoping to find something that could suffice as a latrine. No luck. A rusty bolt clattered across the ground. He found a few more scraps, but nothing larger than a hand-length scrap of twisted iron. It had a sharp edge, and he might have used it to file his way free if his captor had been considerate enough to put him in a cell with an iron gate instead of a magical barrier. He kept it on the chance the shaman might be foolish enough to come inside.

He pulled the top half of the diving suit down and was surprised when his movements did not bring pain. He pushed a sleeve up to check his wound. No fish tooth marks violated the flesh of his arm. The shaman had healed him. To what ends?

Books pushed the suit lower so he could relieve himself. At that moment, footsteps sounded to his left. A familiar white globe of light floated into view, illuminating a rough-hewn tunnel running past his cell. A rusty ore cart rail bisected the center of the passage.

He started to clamp things off, but a defiant thought curled his lip. Let the bastard find Books peeing on the floor of his hideout.

“What do you want me to do?” a female voice asked. Books’s eyes bulged. A familiar female voice.

“Just identify him.”

Two figures strode into sight behind the light globe. Books fumbled, hurrying to button himself in, though he feared she had already seen him in action. Heat flamed his cheeks. Why did these things happen to him? No villain would presume to walk in on Sicarius while he was peeing.

Vonsha and the shaman stopped before Books’s cell. She wore a dagger at her belt and carried a lantern. Her stance said “not a prisoner,” though it stung him to admit it. She did seem surprised to see him, so maybe she was not in on the larger scheme.

Something skittered along the floor behind them, a silver spider-shaped creature the size of a fist. A coin-sized circle on its front glowed red. As the spider passed below the shaman’s light, Books realized it was not a creature at all. The tiny “legs” moved mechanically, and metal, not skin, comprised the carapace. It disappeared into the darkness, heading deeper into the tunnel. Neither person facing Books reacted to it.

“You recognize him?” the shaman asked. His green eyes were calm instead of raging today. Lines creased the corners of those eyes, making him older than Books had first guessed. Fifty or sixty perhaps. Old enough to have mastered his craft.

Vonsha hesitated before answering. “He’s one of the party that came through the pass.”

She knew more than that. Was she protecting him? Maybe she truly liked him. But the fact that she was here with an enemy of the empire…

“I know that,” the shaman said. “Is he close to the assassin? Is he a murderer too?”

“I haven’t murdered anyone,” Books said, figuring he better speak for himself before he was condemned for more than wrecking the artifact. “I just came to thwart the threat to the city’s water supply.”

“Yes, we know about that,” the shaman said.

A tendon flexed along Vonsha’s neck, as if Books’s statement annoyed her equally. But she defended him. “He’s not a killer; he’s a history professor.”

“He’s working with that gutless butcher, Sicarius.”

“I know, Tarok,” Vonsha said. “But I don’t think Books would—”

Something clanked in the distance, and the shaman glanced the way the spider construct had gone.

“What are you doing with him?” Books mouthed to Vonsha.

She had time for nothing more than an apologetic shrug before the shaman’s attention returned to them.

“What are you to the assassin?” he asked Books. “Will he come for you?”

Of his own accord? Not likely. Amaranthe would, but Books did not know if she was alive. He dared not volunteer either piece of information. “I don’t know.”

“He’s the one who killed Yereft, too, isn’t he?”

“I don’t know who that is.” Books guessed it was the other shaman Amaranthe mentioned.

“Who is the Mangdorian who travels with you?”

“Nobody who’d be friends with someone like you. Why are you doing this? Attacking the empire?” Yes, there. Books ought to be asking questions. Amaranthe would have had this fellow’s story by now.

“Chief Yull was a friend,” the shaman said. “I’ve sought his killer for a long time, and now that I know who it is, he won’t escape me.”

Chief Yull? Books had a feeling Amaranthe had forgotten to tell him something crucial, but he could puzzle things together.

“You need to kill innocent people and make the whole city sick to get at one person?” Though Books was responding to the shaman, he watched Vonsha. She lifted her chin and stared back. Did she have a reason to want revenge on Sicarius too?

“I’m no killer,” the shaman—Tarok she had called him—said. “I simply make the artifacts. That’s the deal.” He hitched a shoulder. “They can be used for a number of purposes.”

“You knew what that device would do when you put it in the lake. Doesn’t your religion forbid you from hurting people?”

“I’ve not harmed anyone,” Tarok said.

“Your artifacts have.”

“Many people make devices that can be used for good or evil. You cannot blame the blacksmith when the swords he crafts are used to kill.”

“And can you also not blame the person who leads a pack of monsters into a dam to kill all the employees?” Books asked.

Tarok looked away, as if that particular part of the plot might not sit well with him. Books wished he knew how to use that information.

“Your people have killed thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of mine,” Tarok said. “You pushed us out of fertile valleys and into these inhospitable mountains. And that assassin…” The shaman’s calmness faded, and he gritted his teeth, glaring. “Do you know what manner of demon you travel with?”

Books did not answer. How could he? Sicarius was one person he could never defend, not on a question of morality.

“Tell me,” Books said instead.

While Tarok launched into a diatribe, Books nonchalantly leaned against the wall near the cell entrance. He checked up and down the tunnel, trying to see whatever device maintained his prison. Nothing on the far wall. He leaned his cheek closer to the barrier. The air crackled with energy. There. Less than a foot from the barrier, a small white box protruded from the wall on his side of the tunnel. Though it lacked the telltale glow of the device on the pipe in the dam, it did not appear like something Turgonian miners would have left behind.

“Enough about the assassin.” Vonsha touched the shaman’s arm. There was a familiarity in that gesture that turned Books’s stomach. “Can you fix your artifact?” she asked. “If the city water returns to normal…all this was time wasted, and your employers won’t be pleased.”

The shaman shook her hand away. “Yes, of course. But not now. I want that man dead first. I should have grabbed the woman.” He thrust a finger toward Books. “You’d better hope the assassin comes for you.”

He stalked back up the tunnel, taking his light globe with him. Shadows threatened, until Vonsha turned up her lantern.

“He leaves me in the dark a lot,” she said, “in all senses of the saying.”

Books pressed his hands against the invisible barrier, ignoring the jolt. “What are you doing with him? Vonsha, I thought…” What? That they could find happiness together? Form a family? Dear ancestors, surely he was too old to be that naive. To fall for a woman he barely knew, one whose placement and actions had been suspicious from the beginning.

“Books, I tried to get you out of the way.” She slumped against the stone wall opposite him. “Why couldn’t you go off to the other side of the mountains, like I suggested?”

“Because you were lying.”

“Yes, but you weren’t supposed to figure that out.” She smiled sadly.

“What’s in this for you? Why are you working with him?”

“I’m protecting my parents. They wanted my family’s land, and they were offering a fraction of its value. My father refused—where would my parents go with so little money?—and those people would have killed him if I hadn’t intervened. I nosed around, ran into Tarok, and through him met the leader of this scheme. I found out why they wanted the land.”

“To build a dam and take over control of the city water supply?” Books said. “That’s what they’re doing on the other side of the river, isn’t it? Quarrying rock for the new dam.”

“I wasn’t dumb enough to try and blackmail the woman in charge,” Vonsha said, ignoring his questions, “but I arranged a better deal. My family will keep their land, and when the dam is built they’ll receive a share of the profits.”

“That’s blood money, Vonsha.”

“People would have been killed whether I did anything or not. And this way I know my parents are taken care of. It’s not ideal, and I know it, but it’s better than the alternative. You have to understand, I’m the reason my parents had to leave the capital, to move up here in the first place. My failure during the war was more than an embarrassment for the family. It was…” She folded her arms across her belly and gazed at the floor. “It doesn’t matter now. I have to make sure things are right for them.”

“But dealing with Forge? That’s foolish isn’t it? Aren’t they the ones who tried to blow us up in the library? What makes you think they’ll honor a deal with you?”

Until that moment, he had only known Amaranthe suspected the Forge organization—he did not think they had any proof—but Vonsha did not deny it.

“I wasn’t the target that night,” she said. “I’m told you triggered a magical alarm that had been placed on the map file in case the enforcers caught a whiff of the plan and investigated prematurely. Forge wasn’t anticipating you or your assassin friend, or they would have sent more qualified personnel. Those thugs probably didn’t even know who they were working for much less who I was.”

“Fine,” Books said, “they didn’t attack you, but these people are not to be trusted. Do you know they were the ones responsible for the emperor’s kidnapping a couple of months ago? They tried to kill him.”

“I’ve little reason to care for our emperors.”

“Sespian is different. You’re warrior caste. That entitles you to an audience, doesn’t it? If you’d gone to him with information about—”

Something moved at the edge of Books’s vision: the spider, or another one, skittering up the tunnel this time. It stopped before the cell and rotated, first facing Books, then Vonsha, then continuing along its route.

“What are they?” he asked after it disappeared into the darkness.

“His security constructs. They monitor the tunnels. He’ll know, through them, if your friends come.”

Not sure if he had “friends” coming, Books chose to focus on his more immediate concern. “What’s the name of the woman you dealt with? Do you know who’s in charge of this whole scheme?”

“I know enough to keep my mouth shut,” Vonsha said. “They’re powerful. They want the emperor’s law revoked and foreigner-owned businesses out of the city, so there’ll be no competition. Owning the new dam will simply be a side perk for them.”

“So…foreigners are being framed?” Books thought of Amaranthe’s newspaper article, of the successful Kendorian turned in for supposed magic use. “If citizens think outsiders are using magic to get ahead, they might believe foreigners are responsible for the water problems?”

“You haven’t seen the latest papers. People are assuming that. With enough pressure from the populace, Sespian will be forced to rescind his policy.”

“So innocent people will be blamed instead of Forge and the Mangdorian allies they’ve won by outing Sicarius,” Books said. “I can’t say I’m sorry I broke that artifact.”

Vonsha pushed away from the wall. “It won’t matter. Tarok will fix it, and he’ll put it deeper in the lake this time. Your friends won’t be able to do anything.”

She strode up the tunnel.

“Wait,” Books called. “Can’t you at least turn that thing off?” He nodded to the device on the wall. “Let me out of here?”

“I haven’t that knowledge,” she said over her shoulder. “And even if I did, I like you enough that I wouldn’t let you out. Tarok has deadly constructs guarding these tunnels. If we’re able to get things working again, I’ll see about getting you released.”

She continued on, leaving Books in darkness again.

•  •  •  •  •

Inside the dilapidated Kaker Mines office, Amaranthe opened a dented metal cabinet. A rat scurried out. She was too tired to do more than yawn in response. Her wounds throbbed, and with each movement her clothing abraded her fevered skin. She kept her hands and her mind busy, trying to ignore the fact she was getting worse.

Beams of morning sunlight slanted through holes in the ceiling, highlighting the cracked concrete floor. She and the men had driven all night along roads made treacherous by the dark. Their stolen enforcer lorry waited out front. Thanks to an overly efficient squad of soldiers, their own vehicle had been too well guarded to recover. Necessary though it may have been, the theft made Amaranthe all too aware that their quest to win favor with the authorities was not going as well as she had hoped.

“Stop cleaning, boss,” Maldynado said from across the room. “You’re injured.”

Amaranthe caught herself wiping the dusty shelves with a rag. “I’m merely removing a layer of dirt in case a map is cowering beneath it.”

While Basilard searched rusty filing cabinets, Maldynado inspected the drawers of a desk so old and water damaged it wobbled every time someone walked past it.

“And is that also why you scraped that fungus off those shelves in the corner?” Maldynado asked.

“No, that was a health issue. Inhaling those spores can’t be wholesome.”

“There’s nothing wholesome about anything here. There’s nothing in this desk either. Your enforcer buddy told us which mine the shaman is in, right? Why do we need a map?” Maldynado thumped the lower drawer shut. Wood cracked, and it dropped onto the floor. The desk trembled, then collapsed in a heap. “Oops.”

“You’ve a knack for destruction.” Amaranthe pulled out a book on the chance it contained information about the mines. Only numbers greeted her, an accounting of the ore pulled from the mountain.

“What if we don’t find anything here, and this was a waste of time? You look horrible, and Books is probably being tortured.”

“We didn’t all need to check the mine entrance.” Amaranthe leaned the side of her head against the cool metal of the cabinet door. “If the shaman has indeed returned to his hideout, Sicarius and Akstyr can let us know. If we find a map, maybe it’ll have a backdoor into the tunnels, one the shaman isn’t guarding. And it’s worth waiting a few hours to see if the seed I planted sprouts. If the soldiers come, they’ll be the ideal distraction at the front door.”

“If they come,” Maldynado said.

“If they don’t, I’ll think of something else.” In truth, she already had a distraction in mind. She needed to talk the shaman into healing her anyway, so she could keep him busy while the men sneaked in to rescue Books.

Maldynado pushed his hands through his hair. “I just don’t want Books getting killed because some crusty, magic-slinging Mangdorian wants revenge on Sicarius.”

Amaranthe froze. Maldynado had been close enough to hear her conversation with Sicarius.

Basilard halted his search and signed, What?

“That’s just a theory.” Amaranthe did not glare at Maldynado, not with Basilard watching, but she wanted to. “We don’t know why the shaman took Books. Keep looking for maps, please.”

She returned the accounting book to the cabinet and made a show of searching, hoping Basilard would not request clarification on Maldynado’s comment. But he joined her, face questioning.

Sicarius? His sign for Sicarius was a knife being drawn across his throat. Too apropos for the moment.

“The other shaman in the canyon recognized him.” Amaranthe spoke slowly to buy time to think. She did not want to lie to Basilard, especially not when she might be caught in that lie later, but to tell him the truth could irrevocably alienate him from Sicarius—or worse. Basilard would have been young when the Mangdorian royal family was slain, but not that young. Twenty, perhaps. He would remember the crime. “There was…loathing involved in that recognition,” she said.

Basilard nodded once, as if to say that was expected. Who didn’t feel that way about Sicarius?

“If this other shaman hates Sicarius for the same reason, maybe he wants him dead too.”

What Sicarius do? Basilard signed.

Amaranthe twitched a shoulder and forced herself to meet his eyes. “He’s irritated a lot of people in his career. He doesn’t tell me the details.” True, though she had a knack for finding those details out on her own.

Basilard watched her, and she tried not to squirm.

Before I see dead in dam, Basilard signed, I think…stay quiet…not speak of…Mangdorians. He grimaced, and Amaranthe could tell he was annoyed with the limited signs of his hand code. He held up a hand, found a paper and pencil stub, and returned. He wrote out the rest and handed it to her.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to betray my countrymen. I didn’t know what plot they were a part of, but my loyalty has never been to the empire. I have a lot of reason to hate the empire and Turgonians.

As if he knew exactly where she was on the page, Basilard touched the scar tissue at his throat. Amaranthe nodded and finished reading.

You give me hope though. That we can eventually influence Emperor Sespian and I can communicate with him to find a better solution for my people. I have come to trust you.

“Thank you, Basilard,” she said, though his honesty only made her feel guiltier for withholding the truth from him. “I don’t know all of Sicarius’s secrets, and it’s not my place to share the ones I do know. I—”

“Found something,” Maldynado said.

“What?” Amaranthe rushed to join him for reasons beyond curiosity.

He rotated a cobweb-cloaked chalkboard standing on wheels in the corner. A giant diagram was tacked on the backside. Several warrens of horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines crisscrossed the paper.

“The mines.” She tapped a circle that represented the northernmost one.

“You’re welcome.” Maldynado puffed out his chest.

Amaranthe traced the line leading from the circle. “Different levels, twists, and forks. This is a maze.” She squinted at words scrawled in the faded ink. “Not to scale. Not representative of all tunnels. See Document Four A dash Six for complete map. Uhm, anyone seen that?”

Maldynado deflated. “Er, no.”

Basilard shook his head.

Amaranthe eyed the broken desk and surrounding furniture.

“We’ve searched everything,” Maldynado said. “If there were other maps here, I figure that fungal mass ate them.”

“I told you it wasn’t wholesome.” She ticked her fingernail against the chalkboard. “It doesn’t look like the adjoining mine connects to the shaman’s. The only other way into his is…”

Maldynado pointed to a long, vertical line that connected with the mine of interest. “Looks like a backdoor to me.”

“Looks like a long drop down a hundreds-of-feet-deep shaft to me,” Amaranthe said.

“Enh, we’ve got rope. And Sicarius has trained us all to be expert climbers. Of course, I was already an expert.”

Basilard’s eyebrows flew up. Last month, you fell.

“That wasn’t a fall. It was a premature release, due to that beautiful lady ranger who was strolling along the base of the cliff. She had the biggest—”

“Problem,” Amaranthe said.

“Hm?” Maldynado asked.

“I suspect this shaft only exists for water removal purposes. There’ll be a steam engine on top that was designed to power a pump far below.”

“Well, it won’t be working, right? Unless the shaman is doing a little hobby mining on the side. Maybe the shaft is big enough that we can climb down it around the equipment.”

Basilard shook his head slowly, catching on before Maldynado.

“If they needed a pump during the mine’s heyday,” Amaranthe said, “it was because the lower levels filled with water. If the pump hasn’t been operating…”

“Oh,” Maldynado said. “Guess we should have brought the diving suits along.”

Amaranthe tapped the vertical line. “I’ll have you, Basilard, and Akstyr check it anyway. If it’s flooded, you come back and go in the front. With luck, I’ll get the shaman out of his warren by then and give you time to search for Books.”

Maldynado shared a bewildered expression with Basilard. “How’re you going to do that?” he asked. “And what will Sicarius be doing?”

“Nothing he’ll be happy about,” Amaranthe said.