Blood and Betrayal

Chapter 21

Guided by Sicarius’s hands, the UWMTV crunched over the bumpy rocks and swaying seaweed of the lake bottom, scaring up schools of fish that flitted away posthaste. Amaranthe sat next to Sicarius in the only other seat, peering into the gloom beyond the glass shield bulging from the front of the globe-shaped vehicle. During the slow, underwater trek from Markworth back to Marblecrest island, she hadn’t spotted anything stranger than an eel with two tails, but they’d picked up the rest of the team and were heading for the boundaries of Forge’s “mining rights” territory now. Who knew what they might see? She hoped they had the time they needed to explore. Pabov had sworn not to mention the team’s visit to the enforcers when they returned, but the promise of the man Amaranthe had bruised had been less heartfelt.

A soft clunk came from behind her chair.

“This is intolerable,” Books said. “Someone’s ludicrous pink hat feather keeps jabbing me in the nose.”

“This isn’t a pleasant experience for me either,” Maldynado said. “When was the last time you washed that armpit you have thrust in my face?”

“My armpit wouldn’t be so close if you weren’t taking up so much room. Did you have to eat three servings of Basilard’s meal?”

“Yes, those were the most excellent eel filets I’ve ever had. And I don’t know what those dumpling things were, but they were also fabulous.”

Though the men had insisted on it, Amaranthe felt guilty sitting in a seat while Yara, Sespian, and the rest of the team crowded the specimen-storage area behind her. Shoulder-to-shoulder and backs bent, they were constantly clunking body parts against the exposed pipes and the overhead hatch. Weapons and rucksacks full of lanterns, rope, and other gear they’d salvaged from the steamboat further cluttered the space. Only Basilard had arm-room, but he’d had to volunteer for the task of cranking the human-powered engine to receive it. Interestingly, Sergeant Yara, who stood on Maldynado’s other side, hadn’t voiced any complaints about “touching.”

“The dumplings were good,” Sespian said, speaking for the first time since everyone had crammed into the vessel.

Basilard paused his cranking for long enough to offer a half bow to his peers.

Though he could barely move his arms in the limited space, Sespian hesitantly signed, You good chef.

Basilard’s eyes widened. That must have been the first time Sespian signed something to him. It tickled Amaranthe to see that he’d been paying attention and trying to learn some of the hand code. After Basilard’s surprise wore off, he offered another half-bow, this time to Sespian alone.

“We’re entering the trapezoidal area,” Sicarius said.

Amaranthe faced front again though she hoped Sicarius had seen the exchange-in particular that Sespian was willing to get to know even the most brutish-looking member of the group. Granted, Basilard had a gentle soul beneath the scars, but the fledging camaraderie ought to give Sicarius hope.

Sicarius nudged the vehicle to the left, toward a wide, dark area in the lake floor.

“How well do you know these waters, Maldynado?” Amaranthe asked.

“I swam and fished out here as a kid, but, as far as I know, nobody in the family has been down since I was twelve or thirteen. More than fifteen years.”

“You never explored beneath the surface?” Amaranthe leaned forward as their vehicle’s treads rolled closer to the dark area. Fish and eels swam through the light seeping down from above.

“No diving suits in the boathouse,” Maldynado said.

“You mean you didn’t go spelunking in any caves down here?” Akstyr snickered.

When more snickers answered his, Amaranthe peered over her shoulder at the tightly packed men. Books and Basilard wore identical smirks. Maldynado rolled his eyes upward while a blush colored Yara’s cheeks.

“I think we missed a joke,” Amaranthe told Sicarius.

Without bothering to glance at the men, Sicarius lifted a hand from the throttle. “We can’t go farther in this craft.”

They had crawled to the lip of a drop-off. A sharp drop-off. Utter blackness lay below. The bottom might be dozens of feet down or hundreds. It reminded Amaranthe of the area in the lake back home that had hidden that underwater laboratory.

“No chance of exploring down there?” Amaranthe asked.

“This is pure imperial technology,” Books said, “with no magical enhancements. It appears to have been designed for operation in the lake’s littoral zone. The increased water pressure beyond more than fifty or one hundred feet down could result in leaks.”

“It lacks buoyancy,” Sicarius said. “We can’t drive off a cliff.”

“Ah, yes, that too,” Books said.

“Given how often we end up cruising around on lake bottoms,” Maldynado said, “perhaps diving suits should be part of our regular gear.”

“Or we could get a submarine,” Akstyr said. “That’d be golden. We could go anywhere there’s water and nobody could find us.”

“I don’t think a submarine is in the budget,” Amaranthe said.

“Why not? Don’t we have all that money the emperor brought?” Akstyr lifted his head, clunking it on the ceiling. “Who has that money anyway? We didn’t leave it on the steamboat, did we?”

Amaranthe twitched a shoulder. She’d never seen it.

“It’s safely hidden,” Sespian said.

Rocks crunched beneath them as Sicarius turned the craft around.

“That’s good,” Maldynado said. “We don’t want imperial money to be wasted. Extra funds should be set aside to hire a sculptor to immortalize our team in statue form.”

“The team or you?” Yara asked.

“I’m thinking of everyone here,” Maldynado said. “Don’t imply I’m a more selfish lout than I am.”

Sespian cleared his throat. “Is that some sort of illumination up ahead? Or simply sunlight from the surface?”

“No,” Sicarius said.

Sespian looked at Amaranthe, the way he might if he needed a translation of Basilard’s hand signs.

“He’s a little selective in which questions he chooses to answer,” Amaranthe said.

“I wouldn’t mind a return to the surface,” Books said. “Did you see that library full of books in the house? I’m certain some of them could help with my current project, a project that was severely derailed by that fire in the engine room. I was fortunate to get most of my paperwork out before the flames spread.”

“Books was working on his project while we were being fired upon,” Maldynado said, “and yet I’m the one who gets blamed for the crash.”

Amaranthe had forgotten how much the men talked-and bickered. Part of her was glad to be back with them, but part of her missed the quiet of being alone with Sicarius.

“Maldynado,” Amaranthe said, “why don’t you give Basilard a break back there?”

Amaranthe thought he might object to being singled out for work, but Maldynado merely rolled up his sleeves and eased past Yara to take Basilard’s place. Amaranthe wondered how much of his willingness to accept the task had to do with the way one’s forearm muscles tended to flex and ripple while manning the crank. Yara’s gaze did follow him. Yes, Amaranthe would have to give up on her hope of setting Yara up with Sespian.

“There is light over there,” Akstyr said. “I see it too.”

Though Sicarius had been ambiguous with his answers, he had turned the vessel in the direction Sespian had noticed. A rocky cliff dropped down from the surface before leveling out where it met the lake floor. Amaranthe recognized the cliff; she’d stood on the top when checking out the hot springs above. The water bent and contorted the light, but it seemed to be leaking from a fissure.

The vehicle rumbled closer until Sicarius stopped it at the base of the cliff.

“The light may simply be the sun filtering through from an opening above,” Books said.

“What sun?” Akstyr asked. “It was raining harder than a pissing donkey by the time Am’ranthe picked us up.”

“Lovely imagery,” Books murmured.

“It’s wider than it looked from back there.” Amaranthe waved toward the fissure. “Think we can drive inside?”

Sicarius slanted her one of his unreadable looks.

“What?” All right, wider wasn’t the same thing as wide, but Amaranthe didn’t think the opening was that narrow. Just because it twisted and turned and one couldn’t see anything except darkness and rock ahead…

“I was wondering who would get blamed should the vehicle crash,” Sicarius said.

A few silent heartbeats skipped past before Akstyr whispered, “Was that a joke? Did he make a joke?”

“Nah,” Maldynado whispered back, “he doesn’t know how to do that.” He raised his voice and said, “It’s been my experience that it’s never the woman’s fault.”

“That is my concern.” Sicarius nudged the vehicle forward and gripped the control wheel.

Amaranthe smiled as they crept into the fissure, inching across a bottom that had changed from rocks to sand. “It’s good to have the team back together.”

“Says the woman who has her own seat and isn’t wearing Basilard’s elbow on her belt,” Books said.

Busy watching their progress through the fissure, Amaranthe didn’t see if Basilard signed a response, but something prompted a few snickers from the men.

Minutes passed as Sicarius guided the vehicle through a zigzag of turns that made a lightning bolt seem straight. They were climbing slightly, and Amaranthe wondered if this might be a secret passage up the inside of the mountain, one that would take them all the way to some hidden entrance below the house.

“Are you sure you didn’t know about this?” Amaranthe asked Maldynado.

“Uh uh.”

“If this passage comes up beneath your bed, we’re going to have trouble believing you.”

“The only thing beneath his bed is a stack of smutty Lady Dourcrest books,” Yara said.

“That’s not true.” The crank stopped rasping as Maldynado stood straight, clunking his head on the ceiling. “Actually… that might be true. I was eleven or twelve the last time we came down here. That’s about the age I got curious about biological matters.”

“ Very curious if all the dog-eared pages are an indicator,” Yara said.

“Lady Dourcrest,” Books said. “Such erudite literature.”

“They’re sure to be classics,” Maldynado said, then poked Yara. “What were you doing snooping around in my room anyway? You must find me fascinating if you thought to research my childhood.”

Yara sniffed. “I was merely searching for secret passages, as I was instructed.”

“Continue cranking.” Sicarius’s voice cut through the chatter like a knife slicing butter.

Maldynado grumbled something and went back to work. The vehicle continued to climb, the light growing brighter as it advanced. The walls lining the fissure changed from the water-eroded edges of a natural formation to the jagged contours of something carved out by men. The passage straightened as well.

Without warning, Sicarius halted. Though they hadn’t been going fast, the abruptness threw Amaranthe forward in her seat, and she had to brace herself with a hand on the controls. An inch of air had appeared at the top of the viewing window. Uh oh. That meant the access hatch and a foot of the vehicle’s domed hull would be visible above the water if anyone was out there to see it.

“There are four people on a ledge,” Akstyr said, his voice stiff with the concentration he used for applying the mental sciences. “And a bunch of other things with us in the water.”

“ Things? ” Amaranthe asked, envisioning giant lake monsters.

“Inanimate objects, I think. Boats maybe. Or-”

“Submarines.” Sicarius pointed at something ahead and to the right of them.

The dark shape was hard to make out, but Amaranthe agreed that it might be the hull of a submerged vessel.

“Are the people armed?” Sicarius asked.

“I can’t tell,” Akstyr said. “Maybe.”

“There’s four of them and… uh… seven of us,” Maldynado said.

“Your counting skills are impressive,” Books said. “Are you volunteering to go first? Because we can only pop out of this sardine tin one at a time.”

“My job is to turn the crank,” Maldynado said. “I can’t be spared for target practice.”

A thump sounded on the roof. Sicarius leaped from the controls, somehow finding a spot to land where he faced the hatch. His black dagger appeared in his right hand, a loaded pistol in his left. The latter he pointed at the hatch.

Three bangs sounded. Not bangs, Amaranthe realized. Knocks.

“Do we answer that?” Books whispered.

“Uhm.” This was so unlike what Amaranthe had expected-not that she’d known what to expect-that she didn’t know what to say or do. She met Sespian’s eyes, wondering if she should defer to the emperor-or, more specifically, wondering if said emperor had a plan.

Sespian opened his mouth, but whoever was standing on the hatch spoke first.

“Go forward fifteen meters,” came a man’s muffled voice. “Then turn right after the black submarine and dock at the end of the row.”

Sicarius looked to Amaranthe instead of Sespian for instructions.

“Better do as the man says.” She waved him back to his seat.

“We’re not supposed to be expected,” Sespian murmured.

“Not cordially expected anyway,” Books said.

Sicarius pressed the pistol into Amaranthe’s hand and returned to the controls. As he maneuvered their craft, following the directions, other vessels came into view. Akstyr was right. They were all submarines. Or at least, all underwater conveyances of some kind. There was no uniformity amongst the eclectic designs, and Amaranthe had the sense of looking at custom furnishings in a woodworking show. Or perhaps, she mused, custom-designed yachts for the wealthy. What if everyone except Maldynado’s sister-in-law and those on the Behemoth had come down the river in these underwater crafts to ensure no one would witness their passing?

“Any reason why your sister-in-law wouldn’t have one of these?” Amaranthe asked Maldynado.

“She’s claustrophobic?”

“Are you asking her or telling her, you dolt?” Books said.

“Either way, I wasn’t talking to you.” Maldynado nodded to Amaranthe. “She is claustrophobic. There’s a family rumor about her being unwilling to, ah, service my brother on conjugal visits when he was a young LT staying in the barracks. She found the tiny rooms too constricting.”

“Thanks for the details,” Amaranthe said. “I think.”

“According to my network of trusted spies in the Imperial Barracks,” Sespian said, “Mari Marblecrest was the only one likely to be tracked. Perhaps everyone else did have submarines crafted for this meeting.”

“You have a trusted spy network, Sire?” Amaranthe asked, surprised he had managed to find allies amongst all the Forge infiltrators. “It’s good that you’ve been able to suss out loyal people and make use of them.”

“Actually… I’m the network. I spy by crawling through the old hypocaust ducts in the Barracks. In my socks. So as not to make noise.” Sespian studied the floor. “I haven’t particularly trusted my ability to choose loyal people since the debacle with Lieutenant Dunn.”

Amaranthe didn’t know if she’d met that lieutenant, but he might have been the one who’d tricked Sespian into entering Larocka’s clutches the winter before.

“We have arrived at the designated docking space,” Sicarius said.

Something bumped into their craft, rocking it to the side. If not for a control lever she could grasp, Amaranthe might have ended up in Sicarius’s lap.

“What was that?” Maldynado asked.

A dark shadow swam across the front of the craft, blotting out the view for a moment. It was too close to identify features, but the length made Amaranthe think of those eels Basilard had caught and frizzled up. Except this had been far too large to fit into a frying pan.

“The welcoming committee?” Amaranthe suggested.

Three more knocks struck the hatch. Maybe it was her imagination, but they sounded rushed and nervous this time.

“I’ll stick my head out first.” Amaranthe looked for a place to tuck the pistol, but her dress lacked a belt. She settled for tucking it into an apron pocket and wondered if any other mercenary in history had charged into battle wearing a farmwife’s smock. “If they’re expecting more people, maybe they’ll think I’m a Forge member arriving late.”

“Or they’ll recognize you and shoot you,” Sicarius said.

Amaranthe patted his arm. “Your cheery optimism always bolsters my spirit.”

Sespian snorted.

Amaranthe slipped out of the seat and grabbed the wheel that controlled the hatch’s locking mechanism. It squeaked as she turned it. A couple of footfalls sounded. Their greeter stepping off the hatch? There wasn’t much room for walking around on top of the sphere-shaped vessel.

Amaranthe opened the hatch an inch. “Hello?”

Their vehicle lacked a ladder, so Amaranthe would have to fling the hatch open before she could pull herself out. She didn’t want to expose the interior though. Maybe she could-

Hands gripped her waist, hoisting her until her head was level with the hole. That worked.

“Thank you, Basilard,” Amaranthe whispered.

“State your name,” a man said. A pair of shiny black boots waited to the side of the hatch.

“Retta,” Amaranthe said.

“You’re not on the list.”

“I work for Ms. Worgavic. I’m the one who flies the… ” Amaranthe groped through her memories for the official name of the Behemoth. “Are you aware of the Ortarh Ortak? There’s a problem on board. I need to speak with Ms. Worgavic immediately.”

The greeter, or whatever he was, did not answer. Beneath her, the men shifted as much as they could in the confined space. More than one pistol had appeared. Sicarius crouched on his seat, one foot on the backrest as he faced the hatch, a throwing knife in hand.

Hoping to see more of the area, Amaranthe eased her head as high as she could without opening the hatch farther. A wide stone ledge rose on the other side of the pool, and it supported four sets of legs wearing shiny black boots and facing in her direction. She couldn’t see the men’s upper bodies, or what weapons they might hold in their arms, but she had no trouble making out belts laden with ammunition pouches. No powder tins hung on those belts, so she assumed the ammo was for the new multi-shot rifles.

Waves undulated across the surface of the pool. A few feet away, something black broke the surface. Amaranthe glimpsed a fin, a large fin, before it disappeared beneath the water.

“Show yourself,” the man above said.

Amaranthe lifted the hatch a few more inches, hoping she could crawl out without revealing everyone inside. Unfortunately, the man had other ideas. Perhaps thinking he was helping her, he pulled the hatch the rest of the way open. Amaranthe grabbed the lip and scrambled out. Maybe if she got her feet under her quickly enough, she could block his view of the interior.

It didn’t work. The man raised a shiny new rifle and blurted, “There’s a bunch of-”

A hand gripped his ankle and yanked him into the vehicle. A flying elbow caught Amaranthe in the ribs, and she barely avoided tumbling into the water. She scarcely had time to note a floating dock arranged in an X across the pool, with submarines tied up alongside it, before four rifles were being lifted in her direction.

Amaranthe had only a split second to decide what to do. She should have jumped back down into their craft to avoid being shot, but, with some deluded notion that she needed to draw fire so the men could climb out, she leaped off the craft and onto the dock. She sprinted several meters and, anticipating a barrage of gunfire, dove off the backside, landing on the square hatch of a long, tube-shaped submarine. She winced when she came down on one of her bruise collections, but managed to yank her pistol out anyway.

The dock hid the men from view-and, Amaranthe hoped, provided an obstacle they couldn’t shoot her through. When a couple of heartbeats passed without gunshots, she lifted her eyes over the level of the wood planks. Nobody shot her. Three of the men who had been standing on the ledge were lying on it now. The fourth had fallen into the pool. He paddled one-armed, trying to reach solid ground again, though pain contorted his face. Something silver stuck out of the front of his shoulder. Just as he found a grip on the ledge, the water stirred next to him. Amaranthe blinked, and he was gone, pulled beneath the surface. Bubbles floated up, but nothing except stillness followed. She realized the men on the ledge weren’t moving and rose to her knees.

Sicarius stepped into view on the dock. He lowered a hand toward her. Amaranthe accepted it, letting him pull her up beside him. Akstyr was sticking halfway out of their vehicle, staring at the downed men on the ledge.

He turned his stare to Sicarius. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

Without comment, Sicarius jogged off the dock and circled around to check the men. No, not to “check” them. To verify that they were dead and to pull his throwing knives out of their chests.

“He popped up and threw all four at once,” Akstyr said. “Two in each hand. I didn’t know that was possible.”

Sicarius gave Amaranthe a look, like he might be concerned that she’d chastise him for the deaths, but how could she? He’d likely saved her life-as usual-and he’d even kept the men from firing. She had no idea how far away this meeting place was, but she doubted it was so distant that people there wouldn’t hear gunshots fired in the parking pool.

“See if there’s anyone else nearby that we need to worry about, please,” Amaranthe told Sicarius.

He continued along the ledge toward a pair of tunnels. The underwater cavern had a twelve-or fifteen-foot ceiling, all chipped and hewn by tools rather than by nature. Gold-gilded lamps burned on the walls and in holders on the dock, spreading light about the chamber. At least twenty other submarines, or other types of underwater conveyances, were tied up in the wide pool, a variety of hatch styles and paint jobs on display in the portions that peeped above the water.

Someone jostled Akstyr from below.

“As much as we appreciate the view of your scrawny backside,” Maldynado called up, “we’d like to get out.”

Akstyr scrambled onto the dock.

“Be careful climbing up here,” Amaranthe said. “Whatever that thing in the water is, it finds humans tasty.”

“Joy,” Books said.

As the men were climbing out, a creak sounded behind Amaranthe. A hatch lifted, and a pair of eyes came into view. She dropped to a knee and aimed the pistol between those eyes.

“Nothing going on out here, friend,” she said, guessing this was someone’s servant or pilot left behind to watch the craft. “I suggest you lower that hatch and forget you saw us.”

The eyes sank out of view. Clanks drifted from within the man’s craft, as he not only shut himself in but bolted a lock or two.

“I have to say you’re looking particularly grim and serious today, boss,” Maldynado said.

He and the others were lined up on the dock behind her. Everyone carried weapons, Sespian included. Her team looked ready for a fight.

“It’s been a grim couple of weeks,” Amaranthe said. “Sire, any orders? Is there a way you have planned to go about this?”

“Planned?” Sespian pushed a hand through his pale brown hair. “My plans fell over a cliff more than a week ago. I’m still hoping to learn what Forge is up to-besides attempting to kill me and replace me with a warrior-caste puppet-but I don’t know how plausible that is at this point.”

Amaranthe lifted a shoulder. “They didn’t seem to know we were coming. Not these guards anyway. It might be useful to question someone.” She pointed toward the open hatch of their vehicle. “Is the first man still…?”

“He’s alive,” Maldynado said. “Not entirely conscious though. Questioning might be hard.”

“Well, there are only two tunnels.” As long as those two didn’t branch into fifty more, Amaranthe figured they had decent odds of picking one that would lead them to the Forge people. Sicarius had already disappeared into one. “Let’s see what we can find.”

She led the team off the dock. She was about to ask if anyone had seen which tunnel Sicarius had gone down when he emerged from the closest one.

“Lodging, baths, and kitchens are in that direction,” he said.

“Not tents and campfire pits, I’m guessing,” Amaranthe said.

“Forty separate domiciles carved into the stone walls, each with room for servants.”

“Under my family’s island?” Maldynado asked.

“Some of it is under the lake,” Sicarius said.

“It must have taken them years to hollow all of this out. I can’t believe my parents didn’t know. Or, if they knew all along… that’s hard to believe too. How long have these people been scheming?”

“It’s been ten years since I studied under Ms. Worgavic,” Amaranthe said, “and, if she recruited one of my classmates to learn the ancient technology, she must have known about it for at least that long.” At the round of blank looks the men gave her, Amaranthe remembered that she’d spoken of her old teacher only to Sicarius. “I’ll explain later. Forge has been a number of years in the making.”

“I’ll scout ahead,” Sicarius said.

He disappeared into the second tunnel without waiting for an acknowledgment.

“Was that a stay-here order or an invitation to follow?” Sespian asked.

Amaranthe eyed the submarine-filled pool. “Either way, we shouldn’t linger here. Since the guards didn’t shoot us as soon as we popped up, they must have been expecting at least one more party to arrive.”

“Good point.”

Amaranthe led the team into the tunnel Sicarius had chosen. It angled downward. More gold-gilded lamps lined the chiseled black walls, each one worth more than an enforcer’s annual salary. The display of wealth couldn’t take away from the fact that the team was walking through a dank, underground-no, under lake — passage. Dampness clung to the walls, and a musty smell floated in the air. At least the tunnel was tall and broad with an even floor one could have driven a truck over.

As they rounded a bend, Books touched the porous black stone. “You said they’d acquired the mining rights? I haven’t noticed any promising veins.”

“Or promising anything,” Maldynado said. “This place is dreary.”

Up ahead, Sicarius glided out from behind another bend.

“The tunnel slopes steeply downward and ends at two closed double doors,” he said. “There are forty people waiting in a chamber outside, servants, I believe.”

“ Forty?” Amaranthe asked. How were they supposed to sneak past forty people to spy on the meeting? “Any other tunnels that branch off along the way?”

“Many.”

Ugh. Many tunnels was as bad as forty people. Unless there was a handy map somewhere that proclaimed, “Spying Balcony this way,” Amaranthe feared they’d either get lost or spend so much time wandering that someone would notice the missing dock security men.

Sicarius tilted his head, indicating the team should follow. They soon reached the first of the tunnel branches he’d mentioned, and he paused in front of it. “There are four more before the doors. This is the only one that is unlit.”

Amaranthe peered into the darkness. The passage might lead to a secret nobody was meant to explore, or it might lead to a storage closet. Though she didn’t care for the idea of splitting up her team, especially when she had no idea how long these side tunnels might extend, all they needed was for one person to make it within earshot of this meeting.

“Let’s split up,” Amaranthe said. “Maldynado and Yara-”

Sicarius jerked up a hand. Voices drifted down the passage from somewhere ahead, voices that were drawing nearer.

Amaranthe pointed at the tunnel. Never mind. We’ll all check this one.

She hustled into the passage, but Sicarius, before they’d gone beyond the influence of the light, waved the others onward and drew Amaranthe aside.

Do you want me to keep them from reaching the dock?

By tying and gagging them? Amaranthe asked, well aware that these might simply be servants with little to do with their employers’ schemes.

Yes. I will find a dark nook in which to store them.

Only Sicarius would think of a person as something to “store.” So long as he didn’t kill anyone.

Do it, Amaranthe signed.

More aware than ever of the limited time, Amaranthe hurried into the darkness to catch up with the others. After groping around a couple of bends, the walls disappeared on both sides. A draft caressed her cheek. They must have entered a larger space.

A soft scrape sounded, and a match flared to life. Basilard, his pack open at his feet, lit a lantern.

Brass and steel glinted in the shadows. Basilard moved in that direction, lifting the lantern. The small flame revealed a row of sturdy tunnel boring machines. Eight steam lorries with open cargo beds occupied a second row.

“The carriage house?” Amaranthe mused.

Books gazed toward the rocky ceiling. “It was reckless of them to hollow out these big tunnels with the lake right above. A single hole, or any seismic activity in the area, and water would flood the entire complex. It’s hard to believe they’d do all this just to create a secret meeting place.”

“We can ask them what they were thinking if they capture us,” Amaranthe said.

“If that’s the only way to find out, I can live with not knowing,” Yara said.

“Yes.” Maldynado gave Amaranthe a pat on the back. “It doesn’t look like they treat their prisoners well.”

Everyone turned sympathetic eyes toward Amaranthe. She couldn’t fault her team for their sympathy, but she’d rather forget the entire experience, or at least push it to the back of her thoughts and move on.

Perhaps sensing her discomfort, Maldynado added, “If that hat you were wearing earlier is an example of the type of clothing they force their prisoners to wear, I truly couldn’t withstand such exquisite torture.”

Amaranthe decided not to mention that she’d been nude. She didn’t need anyone speculating about that.

A tunnel left the vehicle chamber on the far side, and Amaranthe was of a mind to keep exploring-and put this conversation out of its misery-but Sicarius hadn’t rejoined them yet. She walked around the area, searching for more clues as to what Forge had been doing down there. The “carriage house” lacked any sort of symmetry; it didn’t seem to have been excavated with any design or purpose in mind. It was more like people had simply been digging, looking for something, and had stopped when they’d found it.

“Oh,” Amaranthe said.

Once again, all eyes swiveled in her direction, this time with curiosity.

“Sire,” Amaranthe asked, “do you still have that black whatchamacallit? The thing for tracking?”

“Yes.” Sespian removed a knapsack and poked through a tangle of socks and shirts.

Amaranthe thought of the meticulous way Sicarius packed his clothing and gear. Fastidiousness must not be hereditary.

“Nobody here knows how to use it, though.” Sespian finally found the egg-shaped device and handed it to her.

Amaranthe held it and rotated it, pointing it in different directions. “No noticeable change. Too bad. I thought it might glow or get warm or something. Unless they’ve removed everything and there’s nothing left around.”

“Uh, boss,” Maldynado said, “did you forget something? Like to explain that yarn ball of musings rolling around in your mind?”

“Sicarius said he first encountered this technology at an archaeological dig site. Maybe someone in Forge found this, figured out how to use it, and-”

“Employed it as a tuning fork that led them here?” Books nodded. “Yes, of course.”

“We had better press on,” Sespian said. “Time isn’t on our side.”

Yes, he’d given up much to come down here, so he’d be even more aware of the need to hurry. Sicarius hadn’t rejoined them yet, but Amaranthe headed for the tunnel on the far side anyway. She trusted him to find them again.

They’d only gone a few meters when a small alcove opened to one side. An ordinary wooden table sat in it, providing a resting place for five extraordinary black cubes.

“I guess there are artifacts left around, after all,” Amaranthe said.

Akstyr stuck a finger out toward one of the cubes.

“Don’t touch them!” Sicarius barked, jogging out of the tunnel behind them.

Everyone jumped, both at his abrupt appearance and at the shout. Amaranthe couldn’t remember ever hearing him shout, and he’d certainly never let that much urgency seep into his voice, not that she’d heard.

“Back away,” Sicarius said, his tone calmer, though it left no doubt that he was giving an order.

Akstyr, who had frozen at his initial shout, lowered his arm and took an exaggerated step in reverse.

“We should go back,” Sicarius told Amaranthe.

“Because these are… ” She waved toward the table.

“Deadly. And indestructible with the gear we have.” His gaze flicked toward the cubes. “They fly. And incinerate you.”

“Really?” Akstyr sounded more intrigued than alarmed.

“If they’re here to guard the tunnel,” Sespian said, “perhaps that’s a sign that we’re going in the right direction.”

“How’re they activated?” Amaranthe asked.

“I don’t know,” Sicarius said, “but if we’re standing here when they are, we’ll all be dead.”

Amaranthe pushed a few stray strands of hair behind her ears. The intensity in Sicarius’s eyes made her believe that obeying him would be a good idea, but Sespian stepped past her.

“We’ll keep going,” he said. “If they’re that deadly, it won’t matter if we’re behind them or in front of them, right? We’ll have to hope they don’t get activated.”

Sicarius’s eyes grew grim. Amaranthe supposed it wasn’t the time to point out that, if he’d had a certain discussion with Sespian by now, he could legitimately threaten to turn the young man over his knee for a spanking instead of having to succumb to orders he found distasteful.

Despite the emperor’s announcement that they’d keep going, Yara and the men looked to Amaranthe before moving. Sespian’s lips flattened. Amaranthe didn’t want him to feel slighted, so was quick to say, “As you wish, Sire.”

Sespian took Basilard’s lantern and looked like he meant to lead the way, but Sicarius slipped into the tunnel ahead of him. As they traveled deeper, the passage continued to slope downward. Soft hisses grew audible, and heated currents stirred the air. In spots, cracks emitted tendrils of steam. Openings appeared in the walls, ceiling, and occasionally the floor. Vents? Most of them were fist-sized, but they passed a few holes large enough that one might crawl inside.

“Are we under the lake?” Amaranthe whispered. Thanks to the bends and turns, she’d lost her sense of direction.

“Yes.” Sicarius stopped beside one of the largest vents they’d seen and peered inside.

“Does it go anywhere?” If the team crawled into a maze of vents, Amaranthe would lose not only her sense of direction but herself as well. Still, if there was a chance one led to the meeting room…

Without responding, Sicarius shimmied into the vent, his boots soon disappearing from sight.

“We’re not supposed to follow him, are we?” Maldynado asked. “I don’t think I’d fit. I’m a bigger man than him.” He propped a hand on his waist, fingers pointed downward, and added, “In all senses of the word.”

Yara snorted.

Basilard signed, Should you say things like that when he might still be in earshot?

“Er.” Maldynado dropped his hand. “Perhaps not.”

Sicarius’s head popped out of the vent, cobwebs cloaking his short hair. “This way. Do not bring the light.” He slithered into the main tunnel long enough to turn around. Before heading back in, he paused to add, “Someone should stand watch, but there’s room for everyone,” with a dismissive glance toward Maldynado.

After he disappeared again, Maldynado muttered, “I may be in trouble when our training exercises start up again.”

Basilard signed, My grandfather used to say bees are worth braving for their honey, but only fools delve into a hornets’ nest.

Amaranthe, not certain Sicarius would stop to ensure everyone had followed him, didn’t wait to see where the conversation would go. “Who wants to stay and stand-”

“Me,” Books said.

Amaranthe had figured he wouldn’t be enthused about crawling into that tight vent, but she couldn’t agree with the choice. “If we do find a way to spy on the Forge people, we may need you to help us figure out what they’re talking about.”

“Oh.” Books’s shoulders drooped. “Of course.”

“I’ll stay,” Akstyr said.

“Good,” Amaranthe said. “Maldynado, you and your big body back him up, please. If people come, hide. If deadly technology comes… warn us somehow, please.”

“And then hide?” Akstyr asked.

“Precisely.”

Maldynado smirked. Amaranthe frowned at him to let him know she meant the bit about hiding. She hadn’t seen anything worry Sicarius the way those black cubes had, not even the deadly makarovi or Arbitan Losk’s soul construct.

Amaranthe crawled into the vent on her hands and knees. She trusted that Sicarius wouldn’t take them somewhere they’d all get stuck, but it was hard not to feel the panic of claustrophobia in the utter darkness of the tight passage. Especially after his warning about those cubes. This would be an awful place to get trapped.

The uneven walls jabbed at her shoulders, and she had to run a hand along the ceiling to locate protuberances before her head smacked against them. At times she had to drop to her belly to avoid them. The incline grew steeper, evoking images of sliding backward and crashing into the men below. Scuffles and grunts floated up from behind her as the rest of the team followed. Sicarius didn’t make a sound. He might have been five feet in front of her or fifty.

Whispers of hot air flowed from cracks and heated the rock beneath Amaranthe’s hands. Unlike the machine-hewn tunnels below, the vent had the rounded contours of a passage carved by water over thousands of years. She tried not to think about what would happen if a crack opened up in the lake floor, one that would allow water to enter the cavity once again.

“Just keep climbing,” she muttered.

Maldynado leaned against the wall next to the vent, the lantern dangling from his arm. If he were the one crawling into a black shaft of indeterminate length, he would have taken a light with him.

A few feet away, Akstyr sat cross-legged on the floor, eyes closed, doing whatever it was fledgling wizards did when they were supposed to be on watch. Maldynado didn’t know how much time had passed since the others had disappeared up the hole, but it had been a while. He thought of Yara’s words about statues and who deserved them. Maybe he ought to do more than stand around.

“Stay here, and pay attention,” Maldynado said. “I’m going to check ahead, see if there’s anything useful.”

Akstyr opened an eye. “You mean you’re going to look for good hiding places?”

“Ah, sure.”

Maldynado dug a second lantern out of someone’s pack, lit it for Akstyr, then headed deeper into the tunnel with the other light. More of those vents, appearing at all different levels, dotted the walls. He wondered if they were a result of water passing through or the remnants of lava flows. He seemed to remember some vague trivia about the lake being part of an extinct volcano.

After passing through two excavated chambers with nothing in them, Maldynado came to another vehicle storage area. This one held a steamroller and a couple of haulers. A workstation scattered with boxes and parts lined one rock wall. He perused the latter, though he wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Something that might prove useful if some lackey stumbled across the team and sounded an alarm. Nothing in the work area inspired him, but the steamroller did draw his eye more than once. The horizontal rolling tube at its front was taller than he was. He smirked as he imagined barreling through the tunnels, rolling over any Forge minions who dared to stand in the path with guns raised.

Maldynado started to dismiss the thought, but propped a fist on his hip. “Enh, why not?”

Given how long it took to fire up a steam engine, one couldn’t simply grab a truck on a whim. Why not start it now, and if the team didn’t end up needing it, who cared? Forge could afford to waste a few pounds of coal.

The smirk returned as Maldynado crawled about the machine, checking fuel and water reserves. He decided it wasn’t a sign of immaturity that he found himself tickled by the idea of Forge people flinging themselves out of the way to avoid being flattened. They’d tortured Amaranthe after all. He was just returning the favor.