Conspiracy

Chapter 10

Akstyr leaned against the wall in the navigation room, watching with some amusement as Books tried to coax flying instructions out of Harkon. Their tattooed pilot was making Sicarius seem talkative. Books had a journal out and scribbled a note every time the man flipped a switch or pushed a lever. Akstyr wondered if Harkon knew they planned to oust him as soon as possible. The dirigible was heading east, over the foothills beneath the mountains that held the dead shaman’s mine, and it probably didn’t matter if the pilot knew of that destination, but they needed to figure out something to do with him before they headed to the Scarlet Pass.

Harkon yawned, and Akstyr thought it might be a good time to go exploring.

“Anyone want something to eat?” he asked.

Both men waved negatives. Akstyr stepped into the corridor, wishing the navigation cabin had a door he could shut. He hoped Harkon was too busy to look over his shoulder. Hands in his pockets, Akstyr strolled to the trapdoor. With a little fiddling, the handle ring popped up, and he pulled the square slab open. Lighter than he expected, it almost flew all the way open to clang against the floor, but he caught it first and eased it down. A narrow ladder led into a dark compartment. The hum of an engine had grown louder. Right spot, he thought.

Akstyr crept down the ladder and crouched in the darkness. The cabin held none of the heat he associated with furnaces and boilers. In the dimness, he could make out vertical pipes running up the walls. Soft clanks emanated from the rear of the compact compartment, and a dark waist-high shape-the engine? — squatted in the center of the floor.

Before risking a light, Akstyr closed his eyes and stretched outward with his senses, trying to detect traps or dangers about the engine. The presence he had felt earlier remained, but nothing about it changed as he probed with his mind. The engine, or whatever powered it, didn’t seem to have intelligence or awareness, not like a soul construct. Maybe it was no more than a simple artifact, crafted to power the dirigible.

“Let’s take a look, shall we?” Akstyr muttered and lifted a hand.

A flame flared to life above his fingers, and the shadows receded. The light illuminated the engine, a squat steel shape punctuated with brass rods and shafts. Pipes ran out the back and disappeared into the wall behind it.

Akstyr took a step toward the engine, but halted when something stirred in the darkness lingering behind it. His flame flickered, and four reflections winked back at him from the shadows. Eyes.

Street rot, he hadn’t thought to check for people.

A metallic clack sounded. A gun being loaded? Akstyr’s concentration broke, and his light disappeared. He spun and raced up the ladder rungs.

Something clicked off the wall beside him. A crossbow quarrel instead of a bullet. Not that big of an improvement.

At the top of the ladder, Akstyr yanked his legs up and rolled into the corridor. “Books!”

He slammed the trapdoor shut and groped about for a lock. There wasn’t one. Clangs rang out from below-someone climbing the ladder.

“Books,” Akstyr hollered again and pulled out his short sword. He wished he had a pistol. “Are you-”

Something shattered in the navigation cabin, and the vessel tilted, dumping Akstyr against a wall.

The trapdoor flew open. A man’s head popped out, a black bandana wrapping his hair. He lifted a crossbow. Akstyr kicked the weapon out of the man’s hands with enough force to hurl it to the ceiling. He aimed a second kick at his attacker’s head, but the stowaway saw it coming and had time to duck. By luck more than design, Akstyr managed to snatch the falling crossbow from the air after it bounced off the ceiling.

He aimed it at the opening and eased backward, finding the door to the cargo bay with his heel. He risked taking a hand off the crossbow to try the latch. If he could get inside, he could use the doorjamb and wall for cover. Someone had locked it.

“Cursed ancestors,” Akstyr growled.

A metallic canister spun through the trapdoor opening and clanked down at Akstyr’s feet. It was one of the smoke grenades he had brought on board. The conniving bandits were attacking them with their own weapons.

Green smoke hissed into the air. Akstyr held his breath and squinted his eyes against the haze, but he didn’t let go of the crossbow.

Something stirred the smoke near the trapdoor. Akstyr fired.

The quarrel clanged off metal instead of thudding into flesh, but someone cursed and ducked out of sight. A curse on his own lips, Akstyr plucked the grenade from the floor and darted toward the trapdoor. Acrid smoke stung his eyes and his nostrils puckered, but he held on long enough to drop the canister through the hole.

He leaped over the trapdoor and slammed it shut. For lack of a better way to secure the entrance, he stood on top it. The smoke would irritate the men below, but probably wouldn’t hurt them or make them pass out. Too bad. He wished Amaranthe had given him some of the knockout gas too.

Through bleary eyes, Akstyr checked the crossbow. It was a twin-loader with one quarrel remaining.

A thump sounded in the navigation cabin. From his position in the corridor, Akstyr didn’t have a good view, but he glimpsed Books’s face being smashed against a console.

“Not good,” he muttered, but if he went to help, the two thugs below would escape.

As if to validate his thought, the door rose an inch beneath Akstyr’s feet. He braced himself against the wall and bore down.

“Stay down there, you prick suckers!” he hollered.

“Mountain!” That was Harkon’s voice, not Books.

Furious poundings battered the trapdoor beneath Akstyr’s feet. A few more acrid green fumes escaped through the cracks.

After a moment of indecision, Akstyr decided he ought to be skilled enough by now to handle a couple of smoke-choked gutter rats.

He slid off the trapdoor. More thumps sounded before the men realized their doorstop had moved. The trapdoor flew open, clanging against the metal deck. A cloud of smoke wafted into the air. Akstyr shot at the first person to come into view. This time, the quarrel didn’t miss. It sank into the man’s throat, and he tumbled off the ladder.

The other stowaway hung a couple of rungs lower and was too busy gaping at his falling comrade to notice someone creeping up on him. Akstyr dropped the empty crossbow, reached in, and hauled the man out. That he could do so surprised him-he hadn’t realized how much strength he’d gained in the last nine months.

Akstyr shoved his foe against the wall and pressed his sword into the tender flesh at the base of the throat. Tears and snot streamed down the man’s face.

“Listen,” Akstyr said. “What’re you people-”

The dirigible lurched again, and Akstyr stumbled back a step.

The man used the distraction to jerk his arm downward, his hand darting toward a dagger. Akstyr tried to whip his sword back into place, but the tilting floor unbalanced his swing, and his blade bit into the man’s jugular.

“Donkey balls,” he muttered. How was he supposed to get answers from a dead man?

Remembering that Books might need help, Akstyr kicked the trapdoor shut again and ran past it. Sword at the ready, he sprinted into the navigation cabin.

Books knelt, a knee in Harkon’s back, while the tattooed man struggled, attempting to escape. The ivory-handled pistol lay on the floor a few feet away. Blood trickled from Books’s nose, but he wore an expression of smug triumph. Until the vessel tilted again.

The floor sloped downward, and Akstyr almost tumbled into the control panel. He gripped the doorjamb for support. Enough daylight remained that he had no trouble seeing the rocky hillside straight ahead of the dirigible. They were close enough that he could also see a goat lift its head to stare at them.

“Akstyr.” Books lifted his head to study the control panel. “I need to-”

“Yes, do it.” Akstyr scrambled across the tilted floor, grabbed the pistol, and pressed the muzzle into the back of the pilot’s neck.

Books leaped up and yanked a lever. The floor leveled, but the vessel was too low, and they were veering straight toward a mountainside.

“You did watch him for long enough to learn how to fly this thing, right?” Akstyr asked.

“I watched him, but it’s unlikely the intricacies of aviation can be mastered in such a short time.”

“That’s not your pompous way of saying we’re going to crash, is it?”

“Actually, we’ve reached our destination, so I was hoping to land.” Books’s eyes searched the control panel.

“I hope there’s a difference.”

The goat had faded from view when the ship leveled, but another one scampered into sight. Brilliant, their crash was going to be the evening entertainment for the mountain critters.

Books tapped an altitude gauge, mumbled something, and finally seemed to spot what he wanted. He spun a wheel. At first nothing happened, but then the goat slipped out of view to the side of the glass shield. The dirigible was slowing turning to fly alongside the mountain instead of toward it. Too slowly. A jolt ran through the craft, and a squeal of metal arose from outside.

“That didn’t sound good,” Akstyr said.

“We’re fine,” Books said. “We glanced off a boulder.”

A thump reverberated through the dirigible, and an ominous crack came from below.

“What was that?” Akstyr asked.

“It was a tree.”

An image flashed through Akstyr’s mind-a giant hole being torn in the bottom of the dirigible and the engine falling out. No, he told himself. The hull was metal. It was sturdier than that.

Another thump battered the ship, this one hard enough to send tremors through the hull. Harkon’s muscles bunched, as if he were preparing to try something. Akstyr pressed the pistol into his skin.

“I already killed the two stowaways down below,” he growled, doing his best to sound menacing. “I have no problem shooting you too.”

“Do it then,” Harkon snarled.

Akstyr thought about obeying the man. Sicarius would. Hostages were more likely to be trouble than not, but they might yet need help flying-or landing.

Books’s fingers gripped the wheel so hard the tendons on the backs of his hands were trying to leap out of his flesh. The craft shuddered again, and the quietness of the fancy engine meant Akstyr had no trouble hearing cracks and thunks from outside-rocks sheering away from the mountainside and bouncing into the depths below. Beads of sweat rolled down Books’s temples and dripped onto the control panel. Finally, the dirigible veered far enough from the rocky slope that the scrapes and squeals faded away.

Books wiped his brow. “Two stowaways?”

“They tried to shoot me when I went to look at the engine,” Akstyr said. “How’d we end up so close to the mountains anyway?”

“We heard you fighting, and the pilot decided it’d be a good time to attack me as well.”

“Oh.” So Akstyr’s investigation had started things. Oops. “Any idea who those blokes were?” Akstyr glanced at Harkon, but he didn’t look like the sort to be intimidated into sharing information.

Books hesitated. “No.”

Akstyr wondered if he had an idea, but wasn’t going to share in front of the pilot. Before he could ask further questions, Books pointed at something outside.

“What?” Akstyr didn’t want to step away from the prisoner to peer through the window.

“There’s a road below that leads into a large, fresh landslide. I do believe we’ve reached our first destination.”

“Good. Now what?”

“Now, we figure out how to land. Any chance you can convince the pilot to instruct me on a way to accomplish that maneuver?”

“Lick my right sack,” Harkon said.

“That’s a no,” Akstyr said.

“I’ll admit I’m not as versed in Stumps’ street vernacular as you are, but I did deduce his meaning.” With rocks and trees no longer assaulting the dirigible, Books relaxed enough to turn around and check on Akstyr and their prisoner. “What is that smell?”

“Am’ranthe’s smoke grenades work real good,” Akstyr said. “What’re we going to do with this thug?”

Books rubbed his lips. “Did you find any closets during your explorations?”

The first two days on the train passed without incident. Basilard and Maldynado played dice while Amaranthe nibbled her fingernails down to nubs and wondered if she was flexible enough to start in on her toenails. She hadn’t spoken to Sicarius. That first morning, he had slipped out to find his own berth and had not returned. In truth, she’d been relieved. When he’d killed the men on the farm, it had arguably been in self-defense, or at least in her defense. With these assassinations… he’d gone out and, in a premeditated manner, killed more than twenty men and women. Even if they’d all been Forge loyalists involved in plots against the city and the emperor, they still would have deserved a chance to face the magistrate and explain themselves. For Sicarius to execute them based only on the fact that their names appeared in Books’s journal…

Amaranthe could forgive Sicarius for his past crimes; when he’d worked for the throne, he’d been raised- indoctrinated — to obey Hollowcrest and Raumesys. But he’d chosen to assassinate the Forge people of his own volition. It was murder, through and through. Even if it’d been born of frustration and a need to protect his son, it upset her. That she could care for someone capable of cold-blooded murder made her question her own integrity.

They were in the middle of a mission, though, and there wasn’t much she could do about the choices Sicarius had made. She still needed his help. At sunset on that second day, she talked herself into seeking him out to make sure he intended to give it.

Amaranthe slid the freight door open and eased outside. As she climbed the ladder toward the top of the car, cold wind whipped at her clothing. They were passing through the same mountains where they had run their exercises the week before. Snow now blanketed the craggy hills. The train was approaching the Scarlet Pass, which meant they were five thousand feet above sea level, and up there it already felt like winter. When she reached the top of the rail car, a dusting of snow coated it as well. She glanced skyward, wondering if she might glimpse Books and Akstyr, but, if they had gone east to check on the shaman’s mine, they would be behind the train. Nothing more interesting than an eagle glided through the air.

Prepared to have to search each car to find Sicarius, Amaranthe was surprised to find him sitting cross-legged in the snow near the head of the train. His back was to her as he faced the mountains, a small black figure surrounded by a white world. Something about his posture made the word “forlorn” come to mind. She shook her head. Someone who had slashed two-dozen throats wasn’t somebody to pity.

And yet… he’d never had a choice about his career, about what he was. Hollowcrest and Raumesys had spent years- decades — molding Sicarius into a weapon, a blade as deadly as that black dagger he wore at his waist. Could one turn a man into a sword and then blame him if all he knew how to do was cut?

Wondering if the others were right and she was crazy, Amaranthe picked her way toward Sicarius. Every time she leaped from snow-slick roof to snow-slick roof she risked a fall. Sicarius had to hear her coming, but he didn’t look back. The train started up a slope and slowed down, so the wind wasn’t battering her so fiercely by the time she sat down beside him, though the cold snow chilled her backside.

“Fair evening,” she said, the first thing that entered her head. Maybe she should have rehearsed.

Sicarius acknowledged her with an impassive look, nothing more. He wasn’t wearing anything thicker than his usual trousers and long-sleeved shirt, and she recalled that he hadn’t been carrying any gear beyond his weapons when he leaped into the train. Killing up to the last minute, she supposed.

“Aren’t you cold?” Amaranthe asked.

“No.”

She touched the back of his bare hand, concerned he might be neglecting his health and risking frostbite, but his skin was warm beneath her own already-chilled fingers. “How is that possible?”

“In their natural habitat, mammals become cold-adapted in the winter, burning summer’s fat stores to efficiently heat the body. When humans clothe themselves in parkas and sleep in artificially warm environments, they fail to achieve this adaptation and do not thrive in the cold.”

“So… what you’re saying is that you have no physiological need to cuddle.”

That comment earned her another impassive look. Maybe someday she’d learn to stop joking with him. He didn’t seem to appreciate it, and trying to make him smile seemed destined to remain a fruitless endeavor anyway. Besides, his cool look reminded her that, murdered men not withstanding, he had a reason to be irked with her too.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Sespian’s… bump,” Amaranthe said. “I didn’t think your knowing could change anything, and I figured you’d worry for no reason.” Though he didn’t pin her with one of those soul-piercing stares, she felt compelled to add, “And I was worried you’d do something… rash if you found out. Which, as it turns out, you did.” She tried to keep her tone light, but a hint of censure crept into it anyway.

“Those who are dead will not trouble us further. Those who I could not reach will be afraid to leave the security of their homes. Men who live in fear rush when patience is called for, and they question their decisions at every turn. They falter and make mistakes.”

Nothing in his tone suggested he would apologize for his action or admit he might have made a mistake himself. Amaranthe wondered if they would ever see eye-to-eye on questions of humanity.

“Now that you’ve taken the action you meant to take, can I have Books’s journal back?” she asked. “He’s not happy that you… Well, he wasn’t done with his research, and I want to give it back to him.”

Though he continued to face forward, a hardness came to Sicarius’s eyes, and she half-expected him to refuse or say he wasn’t done with it, but he reached into a pocket and handed it to her.

“Thank you.”

Amaranthe flipped through the pages, and a chill that had nothing to do with the snow crept through her when she saw the neat, precise check marks penciled next to many of the names. Pencil. Something so sinister and cold ought to be drawn in blood.

She tucked the notebook into an inside pocket on her parka. “Do you still intend to join us in the train infiltration?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Business concluded, his silence seemed to say. Amaranthe ought to leave him be, but she found herself reluctant to do so. Even if he’d been forged into a blade from his earliest years, he’d been born a human being. Deep down, he must have the same emotions and needs that everyone else was born with. Knowing someone cared and wanted to offer him comfort would have to matter. Wouldn’t it?

“Are you sure you don’t want me to bring you a blanket? I’ve been sleeping in a pile with the boys to stay warm, so I don’t need mine.”

“No.”

“I’m sorry about the implant,” Amaranthe repeated. “Sespian must know about it and have some plan to deal with it. Maybe this request of his is part of that plan. I’ve only ever talked to him when he was under the influence of that drug, but he seemed bright even then.”

Silence.

“He’d have to be smart, right?” Amaranthe said, thinking he might feel the situation was less hopeless if she could remind him that Sespian had the wherewithal to help himself. “You’re no dull blade, and I never heard anything to suggest Princess Marathi was either.”

Sicarius continued to stare straight ahead.

“I’m sure we’ll get him, and it’ll all work out in the end.” When Amaranthe’s comments elicited nothing but silence, she admitted defeat and placed her hands in the snow, ready to push herself to her feet.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Sicarius said.

Amaranthe froze. She’d only wanted to help, but his words sounded like an accusation.

“Oh?” she asked carefully.

“Yes.”

“And?”

He was still gazing straight ahead, and she almost missed his soft words: “I appreciate it.”

Amaranthe blinked. Three words shouldn’t mean so much, but a lump swelled in her throat nonetheless. Not trusting her voice, she gave him a hug made awkward by their seated positions and the moving train, then released him and returned to the others.

Akstyr ducked behind a stump and flattened his hands over his ears. Books knelt beside him, watching a flame dance up a long fuse attached to a cord of blasting sticks nestled at the base of the rockslide. At the last moment, he, too, ducked his head and covered his ears.

Even in the open, with nothing but a field of stumps to reflect echoes, the boom was deafening. Boulders bigger than Maldynado flew into the sky, and rock shards slammed down, battering the earth like a hailstorm. More than one chunk hammered Akstyr in the back, and he tried to tuck himself into a tiny ball.

A long moment passed, and something tapped him on the shoulders. Books.

Akstyr lifted his head. A dust cloud filled the air, and a moment passed before he could make out the results of the explosion. So many rocks littered the stump-filled hillside that it looked like a quarry had vomited. However, a dark tunnel opening waited in the hillside where only boulders had smothered the slope before. Though rubble half-buried the entrance, Akstyr and Books ought to be able to wriggle inside.

“Huh,” Akstyr said.

“You needn’t sound so surprised.” Books dusted off his clothing and headed for the mineshaft.

“I didn’t know professors knew how to do useful things. Like setting explosives.”

Books gave him a withering scowl. “You don’t believe some of my ecumenical knowledge might be useful in determining where to place blasting sticks to achieve the desired result?”

Akstyr climbed over one of the rocks in the entrance. “I guess.”

Before following him in, Books stopped to light a lantern.

“I can make light, you know,” Akstyr said.

“I should not wish to rely on you. If you were hit on the head by a falling rock, where would that leave me?”

“Carrying me out?” Akstyr grinned.

Books didn’t. His scowl hadn’t entirely disappeared either. There were too many stodgy oldsters in the group. Akstyr always felt like they were judging him.

Books looked back toward the stump field where they’d landed the dirigible. “I hope nobody was around to hear that explosion. I shouldn’t like to return to find our borrowed conveyance had been stolen.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t stand around all day and talk then, eh?” Akstyr had already crawled over several meters of rock, and he willed one of his globes of light into existence.

“A valid point.” Rubble shifted as Books clambered after him, the lantern banging and clanking as he went.

The dust continued to harass Akstyr’s nose, and he sneezed repeatedly. It disturbed his concentration and his light winked out several times. Some brilliant Science practitioner he was.

“I hope nothing’s left down here to hear our clamor,” Books said.

“I’m sure anything down here would have starved by now.”

“I wasn’t thinking of living beings.”

“Oh.” Akstyr remembered the battle he and the others had fought against all those mechanical constructs. Yes, there might be booby traps and Made creations yet about. “I’m not sure if any of those things we fought last spring had ears.”

“Comforting.”

The dust faded and the debris on the ground dwindled until they could walk on the wooden ties of the old mine cart tracks. An intersection waited up ahead, and Akstyr increased his pace. He hadn’t had a chance to see the shaman’s laboratory, and the idea of exploring it now filled him with anticipation. While Books was looking for those implants, maybe he could find some small artifacts to take with him and study. Or more books. He’d never had a chance to learn anything about Mangdorian magic.

“The cart’s been moved,” Books said, and Akstyr paused before reaching the intersection.

“What?”

“Remember that cart that rolled up to us as we were leaving? It was here.”

Yes, that cart carrying the message had been creepy. “Maybe the soldiers moved it.”

Books grunted dubiously. “Amaranthe said the workshop is to the left there.”

Akstyr walked into the intersection and into a puddle. With his mind, he nudged his light ball higher and farther out. The tunnel straight ahead sloped downward and disappeared into water.

“Nobody around to fix the pump,” Books said.

“It doesn’t look like the laboratory will be affected.” Akstyr headed left, swinging his glowing sphere back around the corner to light the way, and he almost stepped onto a skeleton. A human skeleton. Startled, he let his concentration slip and the light winked out again.

Books, holding his lantern aloft, joined him. Tiny teeth marks marred the bones, and only scraps of gray fabric remained. In the shadows ahead, Akstyr could make out the white skull of another skeleton.

“It seems the soldiers attempted to explore before blowing up the entrance,” Books said.

“Seems.” Senses stretched outward, Akstyr stepped over the skeletons and headed deeper into the dark passage.

Books knelt to take a closer look at the skeleton, maybe trying to figure out what had killed them. Or what had eaten them. Akstyr just wanted to get to the workshop, though he was careful to probe every inch of the way, searching for the residual tingle of an area touched by a Maker.

He reached an open wooden door, and stepped over two more skeletons to enter a long, rectangular chamber with a ceiling and walls chiseled from the rock. Workbench after workbench ran down the length of one long wall, while cabinets and machines occupied the opposite one. Disassembled equipment and tools scattered the surfaces, and more than a few metallic heads, hooks, and articulating arms appeared to be from the sorts of constructs that had attacked Akstyr and the others the spring before. The team had been eager to leave the mines after being mauled so thoroughly, so he had never seen the workshop before, and he couldn’t tell if anything had been touched. He wanted to explore everything, but the skeletons on the floor were disconcerting. But they’d been Science-ignorant soldiers. He ought to be able to detect traps before he triggered them.

It was hard to focus on the idea of hunting for traps. Residual energy plucked at his senses from all sides, begging him to investigate. He’d love to take back souvenirs to study. In particular, a half-orb set into the body of a knee-height brass spider drew his eye-it pulsed a soft purple, creating an interesting play of light and shadow on the walls and equipment in a far corner.

“Don’t play with anything,” Books stood in the doorway, the ex-pilot’s pistol loaded and in his hands.

Akstyr sniffed. “Practitioners do not play. They study, they ponder, they-oh! Is that a mind foci artifact?” He veered toward a fist-sized golden ball with a lustrous shell.

“Shiny,” Books said dryly. “Can you look for the implants, please? I’m assuming that whatever killed these soldiers could still be a threat.”

Akstyr pocketed the ball to study at a later date. “We’re not even sure those devices are here, are we?”

“If they’re not, this trip was a waste of-”

A clank sounded in the tunnel behind Books. He jumped inside, spinning in the air to land with his pistol up, poised to fire. The wooden door slammed shut in front of him, smacking the pistol and nearly tearing it from his hands. Gears ground behind one of the stone walls, followed by a soft click. An armoire near the door emitted an ominous hissing sound.

“-life,” Books finished bleakly.

“Uhm,” Akstyr said. It wasn’t his most brilliant utterance.

Books tried the door, but it seemed to have locked itself. It was the only exit from the workshop.

Books strode to the armoire and pointed to pink gas flowing out of a vent near the top. “Can you stop that? I’m guessing it doesn’t promote haleness and longevity.”

Akstyr joined him, crinkling his nose as a scent like mildew and fungus wafted toward him. Books had already pulled his shirt over his nose. Akstyr doubted that would be effective. Instead, he concentrated on the idea of a filter, something that formed over his nose and mouth, a tight mesh weave that allowed air through but blocked out larger particles. Though it never grew visible to the naked eye, he thought he was successful in creating it. He sniffed experimentally and no longer detected the mushroom odor.

Good for him, but that probably didn’t help Books. If he passed out, Akstyr would have to fly the dirigible himself. He paused, intrigued by the off-hand thought. If he could figure out how to fly it, maybe it’d be his chance to leave the empire forever.

Though the idea tickled his mind for a few seconds, he told himself that Books would die, not pass out, if the skeletons were any indication, and, anyway, leaving the team in a lurch would be pretty despicable. It was surprising to realize that mattered to him, because there had been a time when it wouldn’t have. None of the people he’d grown up with would have thought twice about ditching him for a chance to steal a dirigible.

“Well?” Books asked.

“I made a filter for myself, but let me see if I can make the gas stop,” Akstyr said.

Concentrating on two things at once was an intense challenge, one Akstyr hadn’t mastered yet, but by keeping the picture of the filter in his mind, and imagining his thoughts probing outward through it, he managed to sense of the armoire’s otherworldly properties. Or he would have if it had any. Surprisingly, he didn’t feel anything. What he did sense was a complex mechanical miasma behind the doors, a maze of levers, gears, and pipes that he couldn’t guess how to work.

“I think it’s just a machine,” Akstyr said.

“Meaning there aren’t any booby traps?” Books reached toward one of the cabinet knobs.

“Meaning the booby traps aren’t magical.”

Books’s hand froze. “Ah.”

“Maybe your great knowledge of science and history would be useful here.”

“Perhaps so. Why don’t you find those implants?”

Books started coughing, and Akstyr hustled away. He poked through boxes and cabinets, alarmed by how many were locked. It’d stink donkey butts if what the emperor needed to save his life was in the room, but they couldn’t get at it.

Akstyr pulled a small wooden box out from beneath a bench. Intricately carved with a pattern of vines and leaves, it looked like something that would hold jewelry or other tiny, precious items.

Books coughed again, phlegmy coughs this time, like those of someone suffering from consumption. He was standing in the corner by the door, head bent, hands in front of him. Akstyr couldn’t tell if he was doing something or not.

“You need some picklocks to open that door?” he asked.

“I don’t believe… that’ll be necessary… no.”

“You have another way out?” Akstyr opened the box and found himself staring at dozens of tiny brass and silver spheres, each one less than a centimeter in diameter. The different colored metals created a patchwork pattern on the surfaces that reminded him of tiger stripes.

“Yes. Did you find something?” Books had joined him. His shoulders drooped, his eyes were red and bleary, and he looked like he was about to drop to the floor.

“Maybe. What do you think about these?”

Books bent over the box. “They’re the right size,” he said between coughs. “I don’t suppose… there are… directions or a… schematic… so we can… ascertain their function.”

“Maybe you should use shorter sentences when you’re coughing like that.”

Books poked a finger into box, touching a couple of the balls. Several of the “tiger stripes” sprang away from the surfaces, unfurling tiny needle-sharp hooks. At the same time as Books yanked his finger back, Akstyr slammed the lid shut. A patter of thunks sounded beneath the wood.

“I’m thinking their function is something eerie scary,” Akstyr said.

Books gaped at his finger, though it didn’t appear to be bleeding.

Akstyr fastened the clasp on the lid and turned over the box to examine it more closely. Free of etchings or paint, the wooden bottom was unremarkable, except for…

He nudged it sideways. A panel slid open, revealing a shallow cubby holding a folded piece of paper. Not paper, parchment. Like people used in the old days. “This might be your schematic.” Akstyr unfolded it to find two hand-drawn depictions of the sphere, one showing the innards and one the outside. Foreign words scrawled all about the margins. “You’ll have to translate this for me.”

Books was leaning against the workbench, bracing himself with both hands. “We better get out of here,” he rasped, then scrutinized Akstyr. “Aren’t you… feeling the effects?”

“No, my filter is working.”

Books grumbled something uncomplimentary under his breath, then handed Akstyr the lantern. “You pick the locks, then.”

The lantern puzzled Akstyr for a moment, until he looked toward the door. Strings dangled from the metal hinges.

Books held up a blasting stick with the fuse missing and the end hollowed out. “I very carefully performed a surgery. Should be enough on there to blow the hinges without bringing the ceiling down upon us.”

Akstyr considered the carved rock over their heads.

“A little hustle, if you don’t mind,” Books said, his last word breaking off in a coughing spasm. He wiped his eyes with one hand and waved Akstyr toward the door with the other.

“Right.” Akstyr jogged to the exit with the lantern in hand. Tarry dabs glistened on the hinges. Before lighting the fuses, he tried the latch again. It’d be silly to blow the hinges off a door that wasn’t locked, but it didn’t budge. “Right,” he repeated and lit the two fuses.

Flames hissed and spat as they climbed the dangling strings toward the hinges. Akstyr sprinted for the far side of the room. He didn’t know how much explosive power the dabs had, but he doubted his “filter” would keep his head from being blown off.

Books was already hunkered down behind the row of workbenches, and Akstyr skidded in beside him, ducking low a split second before a pop sounded. A second followed, the noise substantial but not bone-shaking like that of the blasting sticks. Other than pillows of gray smoke joining the murky pink air around the armoire, nothing happened.

“It didn’t work,” Akstyr said.

The door fell inward, landing on the stone floor with a clunk.

“Never mind,” Akstyr said.

Books, a hand to his mouth, was already stumbling for the exit. Akstyr jogged after him with the box in hand. Books stopped at the intersection and bent over, hands on his knees, and retched. Figuring it was fresher out here, and safer, Akstyr let his filter fade away. He wiped sweat out of his eyes and was, as always, surprised by how much working his mind worked his body.

After a moment, Books stood straight again, his coughs having faded away. He took a step toward the exit, but paused and gazed back toward the workshop.

“What?” Akstyr asked.

“Nothing,” Books said. “I just wish we’d had more time to look around.”

“Why? I mean, I know why I’d want to look around, but I didn’t think you cared about the Science.”

“I don’t. I merely wondered if there might be some trace of Vonsha Spearcrest.”

“Who?” Akstyr scratched his head. He thought that was the woman who Books had nearly been blown up with in the real estate library the spring before, but he’d never met her and couldn’t remember for certain.

“I never found out what happened to her,” Books murmured. “Her house in the city has been empty since…”

“Is now a good time to chat about women?” Akstyr waved back toward the workshop where the pink gas was oozing into the tunnel.

A wistful smile crossed Books’s face, but he said, “Doubtlessly not,” and headed for the mine exit. “The others are waiting for us. I’ll translate that schematic for you, and you can spend our travel day figuring out how to get those out of people’s necks.”

“What will you be doing while I’m doing that?”

Books’s smile grew bleak. “In addition to pondering the ramifications of us having stowaways and a mutinous pilot on board, I’ll be determining how to take off and get that dirigible to the Scarlet Pass despite my utter lack of formal aviation training.”

“Should I be worried?”

“That depends. Can wizards fly away if a crash is imminent?”

“If they can,” Akstyr said, “I haven’t learned how to do it.”

“Then worry may be warranted, yes.”

“Oh.”