Encrypted

CHAPTER 9

A boom rattled windows, shook the earth, and knocked Tikaya’s chalkboard on the floor. Rias’s group must have arrived, though she could not imagine him flinging blasting sticks wantonly.

Chalk still in hand, she ran to the window to peer between the sloppily nailed boards and through the frosted panes. Darkness had fallen, but flames burned in a building down the hill. Two figures with rifles ran through the light before turning down an alley.

She shivered, wishing for warmth in the office. The already frigid temperature had dropped noticeably after the sun had set.

Footsteps sounded at the end of the hallway.

Tikaya lunged for the rifle, but caught her heel on the downed chalkboard and skidded to her backside with a noisy thud. Great. If they hadn’t known where she was before, they knew now.

She scrambled to her feet and grabbed the rifle. She hopped over the bodies and slid into the shadows thickening the corner across from the door.

Finger on the trigger, butt pressed into her shoulder, cheek against the stock, Tikaya waited. In the stillness, she could feel her heart pounding in her ears. The footsteps thudded closer, the steady pace of someone jogging.

The door bumped against the furniture barricade, eliciting a surprised grunt that sounded familiar.

“ Rias?” Tikaya hazarded before she could think better. What if he was as crazy as everyone else out there seemed to be?

“ Tikaya!”

Rias burst into the room, bringing lantern light with him. He did not seem to notice the artifact or bodies; he searched until he spotted her in the corner, started forward, but stopped, gaze dropping to her weapon. He was missing his cap, his hair stuck up in places, and blood trickled from a gash on his temple. A cutlass was strapped across his back, two bulges in his parka suggested pistols, and he carried a rifle as well as the lantern.

“ Are you…you?” Tikaya asked.

“ I’m not murdering people and trying to kick the ore out of everyone’s cart if that’s what you’re asking. Just a little-” Rias cocked his head, almost like a dog listening. “Actually, it’s strange but I feel normal in here.”

Tikaya lowered her rifle. “Yes, I think the device creates some kind of normalcy field around it, probably so the operator isn’t affected by whatever it’s emitting that’s causing everyone to be on edge.”

“ On edge, that’s an understatement.”

Rias closed the door and hopped over the upturned furniture. Tikaya joined him in the middle, intending to show him the device, but he dropped his rifle on a desk and wrapped her in a hug. Surprised, she found herself crushed against his chest. There was a desperate fierceness to the grip, but she managed to get one arm around to his back to return the embrace.

“ I’m relieved you’re not hurt or…” Emotion thickened his voice.

“ I’m guessing you’ve had a worse afternoon than me,” she said, relaxing against him. The fear that had tensed her shoulders since Agarik left disappeared, and she felt warm for the first time in hours.

Rias released her and stepped back. “Sorry, I just… I wasn’t sure if you…” He cleared his throat. “It’s dangerous out there. Half the people are mildly affected by whatever’s in the air, and the other half are crazier than the bloodthirsty maniacs I left on Krychek.” His gaze skimmed the bodies in the room, and he frowned thoughtfully as he took in the furniture barricade and the half-boarded windows.

“ I’m glad you were able to get to me,” Tikaya said. “I need your help. Maybe Agarik can stand guard while-wait, where is Agarik?”

“ I don’t know.”

“ I asked him to go find you.”

Rias spread his arms, palms up. “I haven’t seen him. When I realized what was going on, I worried that one of these lunatics would shoot you, so I escaped at the first opportunity. I’ve been hunting around, dodging packs of the more aggressive people, and just now found you.”

Despite the situation, she smiled. Escaped at the first opportunity. By what creative means had he eluded his shackles this time? She almost felt sorry for Captain Bocrest.

“ I hope he’ll be able to stay safe.” Tikaya tapped the box and nodded at the collection of symbols hovering in the air. “I need your help. I think this device is responsible for what’s happening out there.”

Rias walked around it, shaking his head and massaging the back of his neck before he even saw the side with the runes and indentations.

“ If you press those, the representations appear in the air.” She demonstrated as she explained.

“ Oh, Tikaya,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, but you’ve got the wrong person. We Turgonians may be good engineers, but students go to different nations if they want to seriously study alchemy.”

Her breath caught. “Alchemy?”

He stabbed one of the indentions and a symbol flared to life. “That’s iron, isn’t it?” Another stab. “And copper.” He shrugged apologetically. “I only remember the ones that we use in alloys. Since the Turgonians deny magic exists, we won’t publish anything in our textbooks that was only discovered through the use of magic. Aren’t your people the ones who first talked about atoms and electrons and such? We don’t have a microscope that can see anything that fine. We’ve only got fifty things on our table of elements.”

Scarcely breathing, Tikaya dropped an incredulous stare to the symbols. Was he right? Were they looking at the alchemical table of elements? If so, then this could be her Tekdar Tablet. She had to be sure before she based translations on it. “There are almost two hundred symbols. Are you certain? Our table has seventy-five, I think, and it’s the most complete of any in the world.”

“ But your people are still finding new ones, right?” Rias ticked his fingernail on the top of the device. “You’ll believe me when you see the tunnels, but for now just trust me when I say these people were more advanced than us.”

“ More advanced?”

He had hinted of that in his tale of the tunnels, but she had not truly thought it possible. Though, advanced technology might explain how this device had dug its legs into the earth, piercing tile, wood, and permafrost to do so. She clasped her hand over her mouth and stared at the runes. There was no existing evidence that a people more advanced than modern man had ever lived. This was rewrite-the-history-books kind of stuff. Incredible. If it was true.

“ I just want to be certain. I don’t see what you’re seeing to make these identifications. Nor does the layout of the symbols look like the table I’m familiar with, but I’ve only had a cursory introduction to alchemy. It wasn’t anything I thought I’d come across studying ancient languages.” She realized she was making excuses and decided to still her lips before it grew more obvious. Rias had thought so highly of her intelligence; she hated to give him reason to think less of her.

“ I’ve spent my life looking for patterns and trying to find the predictable in situations others see as unpredictable. If this odd skill can be of use to you now, I’m delighted.” Rias slid next to her in front of the interface and poked one of the simplest runes and brought it to life before their eyes. “The atomic structure is incorporated into the symbol itself.”

“ Oh!” As soon as he said it, she saw it. “Hydrogen.” She slapped herself on the forehead. “I thought these might be numbers. It never occurred to me that an ancient people might have this kind of scientific knowledge, with specialized symbols for…”

Rias tapped hydrogen again and another rune. The symbols appeared in the air. “How do you-” he started, but bonds formed on their own.

“ Water.” Tikaya grinned. The symbols were not nearly as simple as the diagrams her people used to represent the various elements-indeed, these reminded her of the bizarre perception puzzles a professor had distributed during a lesson on optics-but if one knew what to look for, the structures were there.

The water molecule flashed twice, then disappeared to be replaced by the far more complex image she had been seeing all afternoon.

“ I guess that isn’t the answer.” Rias gave her a sad smile. “I’m afraid that’s about the extent of my knowledge in this area. I haven’t an idea what that could be.” He swiped his finger through the dozens of linked symbols hovering in the air. The image did not waver. “Something we haven’t invented yet, probably. I can look through the shelves in the offices. It’s a long shot, but there might be a book that has our mediocre table of elements in it. Maybe that’ll help you with translating. Sorry I don’t have the answer.”

“ Sorry!” Tikaya grabbed his arms. “You have no idea how much this helps. I mean, this could be the key to translating this whole language. You’re amazing!” She kissed him on the cheek, then danced back to her chalkboards. Now that he had pointed out the structures so cunningly crafted into the symbols, she could pick out ten or twelve she remembered from school. That was enough to get her started. Although…

“ Actually, yes, I could use a book with your table in it.” She turned back and was about to ask him to look, but he was staring at her, his fingers touching the cheek she had kissed.

“ Yes, of course.” He lowered his hand.

She bit her lip, tickled at his reaction. “Do you not get praised often?”

“ It’s been a while,” he admitted. “And before Krychek, uhm, more often by men than women.”

“ Not even your wife?”

He snorted. “Especially not by her.”

They shared a chuckle, and she admitted herself curious about the woman, though it should not matter. Rias’s past relationships were none of her business, and they had more important things to worry about. Besides, he had left her anyway. Tikaya blinked. Or had he? Maybe she was something, like his land and his name, that the empire had taken from him as punishment. Still, he did not sound disappointed.

“ Horrible woman?” she asked, fishing.

“ No, but we weren’t a good match from the start. It never would have lasted as long as it did if I hadn’t been away at sea so much of the time. She had my home, my money, and the freedom to spend time wherever-” he winced, “-with whomever, she pleased.”

Tikaya grimaced in sympathy. Like her, Parkonis had not been perfect, but he had always been faithful. “How’d you end up together to start with?”

“ I was twenty, she was pretty, and our parents thought it would be a good idea.” Rias laughed ruefully. “But mostly I was twenty and she was pretty.” He waved away further discussion. “I’ll get that book.”

“ Be careful.”

He waved an acknowledgment on his way out, and Tikaya shifted uneasily, as worried for him as for herself. Agarik had walked out, and she had not seen him since. Rias was only going to search this building, she told herself, and settled into work.

A few moments later, Tikaya had three chalkboards lined up, all full. She listed the translations for the atoms she recognized. Also, she listed runes she remembered from the rubbings, those displaying what she now recognized as molecular structures. The elements came up surprisingly often in what she had assumed was normal writing. Perhaps the subject was always science. Or maybe these people-this race? — had a language specifically for scientific matters. The Herdoctans had a different written language for religion, so why not?

A hand touched her shoulder, and she jumped, dropping her chalk.

“ Sorry.” Rias held a book with his finger marking a page.

“ No, don’t apologize. My fault for not paying attention.” Tikaya picked up the chalk and accepted the book. She glanced at the cover. “ Torture and Interrogation Methods Technical Manual?”

Rias cleared his throat. “Yes, ah, just stick to the chapter on chemical applications.”

“ Oh, I will. I don’t want to chance upon any Turgonian brutality secrets.” Or pictures more gruesome than the bodies on the floor.

He surveyed the chalkboards with bemusement and scraped at dried blood on the corner of one. “You know, some women wouldn’t be willing to work in a room full of corpses.”

She had already started writing and almost missed the comment. “What?”

Rias chuckled. “Nothing. Continue your work. I’ll stand guard.”

Tikaya straightened, wincing at the ache in her lower back. She stretched her arms toward the ceiling and shook out a cramp in her hand. Midnight had to be near, maybe past. Her stomach growled. Fatigue numbed her brain, and her mouth battled unsuccessfully against yawns. Even if the lighting had been better, her notes and the symbols on the device would have blurred and swam before her bleary eyes.

Rias stood guard by the door, checking the hallway from time to time, but mostly staying silent and letting her work.

A scream raced down the street below the hill. What if she translated the writing too late? After the entire team killed each other? She eyed the bodies in the corner. Rias had dragged them out of the way, muttering something about funeral pyres in the morning, but she worried about getting to morning. If enough people attacked at once, she and Rias could end up like that before dawn.

No, she decided, watching him standing with his ear cocked. Despite the hour, he was alert, rifle across his arms, hand on the stock, finger near the trigger. Not tense but relaxed and ready. She imagined he could fight off superior odds for a long time, but he would not want to do so. He’d be shooting his own people, the very men they were supposed to help later on.

Rias saw her watching him and lifted his eyebrows.

Tikaya felt silly to have been caught gazing at him. “I was wondering if you could get my mind off this for a moment.”

Rias joined her. He set the rifle butt on the floor and rested his forearms across the muzzle. He surveyed her, and she felt a self-conscious twinge. No doubt she had strands of hair sticking out in all directions and dark smudges assailing her eyes. And her baggy Turgonian uniform and parka did not flatter her form under any circumstances.

“ A question.” Rias’s gaze rested on a chalkboard, though he did not seem to focus on anything. “If someone from Kyatt were to decide to marry a Turgonian, would they be allowed to live on your island?”

Tikaya was not sure what she had expected him to ask, but that was not it. “That wasn’t a marriage proposal, was it?”

He coughed. “No, no, just hypothetical. If it were a proposal…” He offered his half smile. “There’d be soft music, excellent food, romantic ambiance…” He tilted his head toward the corner. “Fewer corpses.”

“ Ah, I wasn’t sure how they did it in the empire. Given your people’s reputation, I thought bloodshed and mangled bodies might be standard at social gatherings.”

“ Bloodshed perhaps.”

Rias watched her, waiting for an answer to his question, she realized.

“ The Kyatt Islands are major trade ports and learning centers, and we have numerous foreigners living there, either temporarily or permanently,” Tikaya said. “I can think of numerous Turgonians who studied at the Polytechnic over the years. And there have been cases of foreigners marrying natives and staying on the islands.”

“ Turgonian foreigners?”

“ Well, you would have been more welcome before your people tried to take over the islands.” She smiled, but no humor lightened his expression. “The president might ask you to leave if he found out you were among those sinking our ships and slinging cannon balls at our harbor, but if you said you didn’t take part in the war, I’m sure you’d be allowed to stay.”

“ So.” Rias laid the rifle across his shoulders and draped his forearms over the ends, reminiscent of a man in a pillory. “Refuge, if one was willing to lie for the rest of one’s life.”

“ Or just dodge questions about one’s name and one’s past. You’re good at that.”

She had not meant the statement to sound accusatory, but he flinched.

“ Listen,” Tikaya said, “I don’t mean to insult you, but whatever you did, or whoever you are to those marines, you’re probably less important than you think to the rest of the world. Chances are my people have never heard of you.”

“ Oh?” Leave it to the Turgonians: he looked faintly offended.

“ You could tell me your name-” Tikaya wriggled her eyebrows suggestively, “-and then I could let you know whether or not you’d be welcome on my island.”

She thought he might remind her that his original question had been hypothetical and that he was not asking about his own future, just some imaginary person’s. He did not. He took a deep breath. “You’re right. I don’t know if we’re going to survive the next couple weeks and, even if we do, I’m guessing Bocrest has orders to make me disappear afterward, but either way it’s not honorable of me to keep truths from you. I-”

Glass shattered.

Tikaya whirled, grabbing the heavy book as if she could use it as a shield. A shadow moved at the window. Something long and small slid between the boards and rolled onto the floor. Flame spit and hissed on the end of a string. Not a string, a fuse.

Rias yanked her off her feet. The furniture blurred past as Rias leaped over it, arm clenched around her waist. He landed in the dark hallway, and shadows swallowed them.

He sprinted but only made it three steps before the explosion tore away the darkness. A great boom roared, and a concussion pounded Tikaya’s back, ripping her away from Rias.

The wall filled her vision. She tried to bring her arms up to protect her head, but she crashed first. Something popped in her shoulder and agony seared her body. The book dropped from her hands. She landed on the floor, which sent a second jolt of pain rocking through her. She gasped, trying to stifle cries, not sure who might be nearby.

A door at the end of the hall opened, and lights swam in the darkness. Tears blurred Tikaya’s vision. She gritted her teeth and blinked them away. Half a dozen men raced into the hall, lanterns swinging, swords and pistols waving.

The door at the opposite end flung open. They were surrounded.

Tikaya staggered to her feet. Her shoulder flamed with pain. She gasped and braced herself against the wall. Next to her, a shot cracked with a flash of orange flaring from Rias’s rifle.

“ There she is!” someone shouted, voice ragged and rough, almost inhuman. “Give us the woman!”

“ This way,” Rias whispered.

She grabbed the book and ran into a room after him. A return shot echoed through the hall behind them.

“ Don’t shoot us, you idgeets!” came a cry from the opposite end.

Rias shut the door. A hint of starlight came through the window, but darkness reigned inside.

“ They sound drunk,” Tikaya said, words broken as she gritted her teeth through the pain.

“ Where are you hurt?” Rias snapped the lock, and furniture scraped as he shoved something in front of the door.

An image of the dead men in the other office invaded Tikaya’s mind. They had been trapped in a room, and this was exactly what they had done. It had not worked.

“ Dislocated shoulder,” she said.

“ Let me see-feel-it.”

“ Don’t worry…about me. I’ll-”

But he was already sliding her parka off. She clenched her teeth, trying not to whimper.

Footsteps thundered down the hall, and light slipped under the crack in the door.

“ Which room?” someone barked.

Rias unbuttoned her uniform jacket and probed her shoulder. “Bite down,” he whispered, putting something wooden in her mouth. Knife handle, she guessed. It was smooth and hard. He gripped her arm and shoulder, then jerked with one powerful motion.

Agony erupted. Tikaya clenched her teeth on the handle, panting to keep from crying out. Blackness encroached on her vision, and her legs gave way. Rias caught her and held her gently.

“ You hear something?” someone asked.

“ That room.”

“ No, that one!”

“ It’s whichever one’s locked, you halfwits.”

“ Sorry,” Rias whispered, cupping the back of her head. He leaned his forehead against hers, and even in the darkness she sensed his distress over hurting her.

“ Not your fault,” she said.

Someone rattled the doorknob.

Tikaya found the strength to stand again. Already the pain was fading to a manageable ache.

“ I’m ready,” she whispered.

“ Strong lady.” Rias squeezed her good arm before pressing a pistol into her hand. “Back corner. Find something to crouch behind, but stay where you can aim at the door. If they get past me, shoot them. Here, take this too.” He loaded her up with the second pistol, a powder flask, and an ammo pouch.

“ Shoot to kill?”

He hesitated. “Do what you have to do to stay alive.”

She nodded, then, realizing he would not see it, added, “I understand.”

Someone pounded on their door. “They’re in here!”

Tikaya set the book on a chair and slid behind a cabinet where she could see the window and the entrance. She gripped the pistol. At least the wall had been considerate enough to mangle her left shoulder instead of her right. “Maybe we’ll get lucky, the blasting stick will have destroyed the device, and everyone will return to normal any second.”

“ Maybe.” Rias’s tone made the possibility sound unlikely, and Tikaya wondered if he had seen explosives used on the strange technology before.

More pounding-louder pounding-hammered the wood, and something snapped. A crack of light appeared, but the desk kept the door from opening wide. Rias waited in the wall’s shadows.

She glanced toward the window, wondering if they could escape that way. Lantern light danced past-men were out there, too, perhaps counting rooms to figure out which office she and Rias occupied.

The door opened wider, and the slash of light broadened, illuminating the corner of the desk and a coatrack.

A rifle barrel slid through the gap.

Tikaya tensed, expecting Rias to shoot first. Despite the chill, sweat dampened her hands.

The rifle slid in farther, and Rias burst into motion. He grabbed the barrel, yanked it into the room, and slashed upward with his cutlass. The attacker yelped in surprise and pain, releasing the weapon. Rias planted a foot, thrust the other man back, and slammed the door shut.

“ One man disarmed, seven to go.” He shoved the desk against the frame again.

Muffled voices came through the door-the sound of people plotting. The next attack would not be so easy to thwart.

“ There are men milling around outside too,” Tikaya said.

“ You think I don’t know that?” Rias snapped.

She stared at him, startled. He had never so much as looked crossly at her. Then she remembered: “I guess the protection from whatever the artifact is putting out was limited to that room.”

After a silent beat, Rias said, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. It’s like before; something’s making it hard to keep my equanimity.”

“ Your breakdown is a lot less disturbing than that of most of your countrymen.”

He grunted.

“ I feel it too,” Tikaya said. “It’s nothing you can see, nothing you smell or feel. Maybe I’ve been going about this the wrong way. Like a, well, like a philologist. But maybe I don’t need to translate the writing on the bottom in order to cut the device off. If we can guess what its purpose is, maybe we can switch it to another purpose, something less troublesome. It has all those options you can put in-doesn’t that imply you ought to be able to get more than one thing out?”

“ What could it be putting out that would affect us mentally? It’s nothing we’ve seen or heard or smelled.”

“ An odorless gas?” Tikaya guessed.

“ Ah, being disseminated through that pipe, perhaps?”

“ It’d have to be something invisible but heavy enough to float down and blanket the town. Something designed to irritate people, to outright anger them, even make-”

A shot fired.

Tikaya jerked her head up in time to see Rias slam the door shut again. The scent of black powder tainted the air.

“ Only two in the hallway now,” Rias said. “They’ve either lost interest or they’re going to try another way in.”

“ We have to get back to the device,” Tikaya said. “If we punch in another gas, maybe it’ll change the output. Something innocuous that won’t hurt anyone.”

Thumps continued at the door, probably more for the purpose of distracting Tikaya and Rias than getting in. The lanterns previously visible through the window had disappeared, which made her think the marines had stopped planning and were now engaged in that plan. She shifted her stance, readying herself to fire toward the window if necessary. The last thing she wanted was to dodge another blasting stick.

“ Innocuous gases,” Rias said. “Oxygen? Hydrogen?”

“ We tried those, albeit on accident. And you pressed in water, which should be deliverable as a vapor. Except the device didn’t like any of those.” Tikaya groaned. “Maybe my guess is completely wrong.”

“ Or maybe the machine is only designed to create synthetic or organic compounds,” Rias said. “Though I don’t know any molecular structures that might qualify. Do you?”

“ No, but maybe there’s something in your book.” She tapped it with the pistol butt.

“ There aren’t many innocuous somethings in that book.”

“ I know it’s a long shot, but-wait, no. When your people captured me, they knocked me out with something sweet-smelling in a rag. When I breathed in, I passed out. Do you know what that was? Would it be in there?”

Rias shifted away from the door. “Chloroform. Yes.”

The thuds stopped.

“ Let’s try it.” Tikaya had a feeling it would be better to find a light and check the book in a different room. “Can we get down the hall?”

Rias cracked the door. A rifle fired, and the ball smashed into the frame, hurling wood splinters. He closed the door.

“ Not at this time.”

Tikaya snorted. She pressed her nose to the icy glass window panes. At the edge of her view, shadows and lanterns moved.

“ Not this way either,” she said. “Unless we can-oh!”

“ What?”

“ Maybe nothing, but Agarik and I had to shove our way into the room with the artifact. The window was boarded, the door barricaded, so whoever killed all those men must have come in through-”

“ Attic,” Rias said. “There must be space to move around up there. Watch the door.” He hopped onto the desk and thumped the ceiling. Wood scraped against wood. “Here.”

Outside, the lanterns headed toward their window.

“ I need help up.” Annoyed to be a burden, Tikaya stuffed the pistol in her pants and joined him, book clutched against her chest. “I don’t think I can lift my arm over-”

Still standing on the desk, Rias caught her by the waist and lifted her over his head as if she weighed nothing. Blackness waited above, though an icy draft touched her cheek. That meant a way out. She hoped.

“ Hurry,” Rias said, giving her a final boost.

Tikaya scrambled into the dark attic. Even with his help, she came down on her shoulder and had to stifle a curse. When she tried to stand, she bumped her head on a beam.

Below, glass shattered.

“ Rias?” She started to lean over to check on him.

He jumped through and a thud sounded-his head hitting the ceiling-but he did not pause to acknowledge it.

“ Go, go!” he barked, pushing her ahead of him.

Half running, half bear-crawling, Tikaya maneuvered past beams and supports.

Light flashed and an explosion rippled through the floorboards beneath her. The force sent her crashing into Rias, and they went down in a tumble.

“ Ooph,” he grunted, voice sounding odd.

Then her mind caught up to the situation. Rias had been behind her, not in front of her.

Tikaya tried to jump back, but the man grabbed her. She dropped the book. His grip kept her from reaching for the pistol. He unshuttered a lantern, illuminating beams, trusses, and his snarling face. One of the marines.

“ Got her!” he yelled.

Rias charged past Tikaya and tackled the man. The lantern flew free. In a lucky lunge, she caught it before it hit the floor and went out. Though her shoulder protested, she held it with her left hand and yanked the pistol free with her right.

Rias needed no help though. He knelt over the marine, arms locked around his neck. The man’s face turned purple, and he passed out.

A shadow moved behind Rias.

Tikaya reacted. She fired the pistol without thinking, and the ball hammered into someone’s chest. Rias spun to look.

Only after the man collapsed did her brain scream that these people were her captors and aiming to kill one might get her into a mess of trouble.

“ It’s Lieutenant Commander Okars.” Rias checked the officer’s pulse. “It was Lieutenant Commander Okars.”

“ Oh, no,” Tikaya breathed.

Rias picked up a knife. “Yes, but he was going for my back, so I must thank you for my life.”

Tikaya closed her eyes for a moment. “Let’s just get that horrible device cut off.”

By the lantern’s light, they found the source of the draft. The first explosion had left a ragged hole in the ceiling of the room with the artifact.

“ Walk softly,” Rias said as they neared it. “The structural integrity has doubtlessly been compromised.”

“ Thank you for that brilliant engineering assessment. Maybe when I fall through the floor, I can take out my other shoulder.” Her grumbling made her wince and long for the sphere of protection around the artifact. It would be easier to problem solve if she did not feel so cranky. She hoped. It could be worse; she could have become an unthinking aggressive lout who thought it was a good idea to throw blasting sticks at innocent-

Her boot went through the floor, and she pitched sideways. When her body struck, the footing deteriorating further. Rias grabbed her and tried to pull her free, but the floor had enough of them: it dropped away completely.

She smashed to the level below and landed on something cloth covered. Not cloth, she realized as she looked under her. Clothing. Clothing on dead bodies.

She lurched away, igniting pain in her shoulder. Rigid fingers tangled in her braid, and she pulled, trying to free herself without using her injured arm or touching the corpse again. A disheartened cry escaped her lips when the dead man’s hand lifted with her, fingers fully snagged in her hair. Tormenting ancestors, this was too morbid, and too damned much. Why couldn’t the idiotic Turgonians run a decent Polytechnic so they’d have their own philologists to kidnap for secret missions?

“ Sorry,” Rias murmured, crouching beside her. “As soon as we get this taken care of, we’ll find the sawbones to check your shoulder.”

“ The problem is less the shoulder-though that is irritating me every three or four seconds too-and more the bodies. And the being attacked. And the part where I’m shooting people to death, and-” She brought her fist to her mouth and squinted her eyes shut, struggling to keep from breaking into sobs. Slow breaths, she told herself. This was not the time for wheezing and gasping and flirting with an emotional breakdown. React later. “I’m all right. I’m just… I’m better in a classroom, I swear.”

Rias wrapped his arm around her back, and she leaned on him.

“ I suppose you’ll think I’m odd-odder-if I admit this is the most exciting my days have been in ages,” he said.

She rubbed her eyes. “I’ll forgive you for being a crazy odd Turgonian who probably has had a horrible life for the last couple of years, if you’ll kindly disentangle that dead man’s fingers from my hair.”

“ Oh.” Rias released her to undertake the task, then stood. “We’re back in the artifact room, but they’ll figure it out soon. That new window doesn’t hide much.”

The blasting stick had blackened the floor, turned furniture to shrapnel, and torn holes not only in the ceiling and a side wall but in the building’s exterior as well. In the center of the room, the device remained, unharmed, symbols still glowing.

Tikaya picked up the book, set her jaw, and strode over to it. There was not much time. Shouts on the other side of the building promised the men were still looking for her.

She flipped through the chapter on chemicals. “There.”

“ Find something?” Rias stood nearby, weapons loaded and ready.

Reluctant to speak too soon, Tikaya pressed the appropriate runes. The regular image blanked out to be replaced by the new symbols. They hovered until she finished. Then, by some alien consciousness, the artifact understood what she wanted, and it arranged them in a way eerily similar to the layout in the book. Even though it was what she hoped for, it sent a shiver down her spine.

A soft click sounded in the core of the device.

Tikaya arched her eyebrows at Rias who gave her an encouraging hand gesture. She gripped the edge of the device and waited. Nobody stirred nearby. She tried to decide if the distant shouts were diminishing. Minutes passed, and a deathly quiet fell over the town.

Rias walked to the door. He cocked his head, listening.

“ What is it?” she asked.

Rias lifted a finger, cracked the door, and peered into the hallway. He leaned back in with a smile, and Tikaya heard the noise now too.

“ Snoring?” she asked.

“ The two men out there are sleeping, and the air has that sweet smell of chloroform.”

Tikaya exhaled slowly. “Good. That should mean we’re safe from being shot or knife-stabbed for the moment. Of course, now we have a lesser problem.”

“ How to wake everyone up, leave town, or even leave this room without succumbing to unconsciousness ourselves?”

“ That’s the one.”

She dropped to her back on the floor to gaze up at the writing beneath the machine. Before, she had been trying to translate it. Now, she just thought about cutting the artifact off. Only one of the groupings did not have alchemical elements in it. The first one. Nothing so obvious as a switch stood out anywhere on the machine, so she poked and prodded that grouping. They sat flush and she did not expect them to move, so she nearly cracked her head on the bottom of the box when they did. By pushing and twisting, she could rotate them.

“ What’d you do?” Rias asked. “The symbols are flashing.”

She could rotate them further, but she paused and peered up at him. “You sure you want those people awake again?”

He smiled gently. “I’ll possibly regret it later, but yes. We’ll need help to tackle the tunnels.”

“ Or you and I could devise some kind of masks, gather as many supplies as we need, take a couple of those dog sleds down the coast until we reach a port, and then sail somewhere far away, leaving the empire to deal with its own problems.”

Rias sighed and gazed into the night. “I cannot.”

“ Even though these people left you to die? Even though they probably got themselves into this situation?”

“ Even though,” he said. “But…” He took a breath and, with palpable reluctance, said, “If you want to go, I’ll keep them busy long enough for you to do so. It’s about three hundred miles south to Tangukmoo. If you grabbed a dog team and supplies, I’m sure you could make it in a couple of weeks. It’s technically an imperial town, but it’s eighty percent natives, and I suspect they’d hide you just to irk us. After the thaw, trade vessels come in to barter for whale oil and bone. With your skills, I’m sure you could bargain for passage and find a way home.”

“ Sounds like a lonely journey without any company,” Tikaya said.

“ Probably.”

“ Last week, you told me your people really needed my help. What’s changed?”

He looked back and forth from her to the dead bodies. “This is only the beginning, Tikaya. It’s going to get worse. I suspect this is also the only opportunity you’ll have to leave.”

That Rias offered meant a lot, but the journey he described would not be a speedy one. It was likely Bocrest would make it back to civilization first and send the order to have her family assassinated long before she reached home.

She rotated the grouping of runes as far as they would go. The crimson symbols in the air winked out. “When I’m complaining later about how horrible it is out here with your marines, remind me I had my chance and was an idiot who gave it up.”

The glum expression on his face waned, and one side of his mouth curved up. He pulled her to her feet and wrapped her in a hug, mindful of her injured shoulder. His stubbled jaw brushed her cheek, and a pleasant shiver ran through her.

“ Only if you remind me I was an idiot first,” he murmured.

“ Deal.” Tikaya wondered if that talk of marriage had been inspired only by the moment, by the uncertainty that they would live to see dawn, or if it meant something more. She lifted her good hand to brush strands of hair away from the cut on his temple.

Rias drew back slightly, eyes flickering, watching her face. Soft breaths frosted the air between them, and some distant part of her mind announced that this was a ridiculous place and situation for a first kiss, but what if they didn’t survive the coming weeks? What if there were no other opportunities to be alone together? What if…

Rias bent his head and kissed her gently, warm lips as welcome as the sun in this frozen wasteland. Forgetting about her injury, she started to wrap her arms around him, to pull him closer. Pain blasted her shoulder, and she gasped at the cruel reminder.

Rias drew back, wincing, eyes guilty. “Sorry, my fault. I’ll go find the sawbones.”

“ No, it’s all right. I was just…”

But he had already grabbed his rifle. He hopped through the broken wall with a quick wave before disappearing into the snow.

Tikaya wrapped her arms around herself. She already missed his warmth. And his last words sent a thrum of worry through her. The man who would come to deliver her medical attention was the brother of the man she had just killed.