Encrypted

CHAPTER 13

The door opened with a bang, and cold air flooded the room. Tikaya sat up. Wan morning light silhouetted Bocrest.

Confusion disoriented her for a moment. She remembered falling asleep at the desk with her cheek pressed against the pages of her journal, but now she sat in the bunk, a blanket pooled about her waist. Rias lay on the floor before the stove. He rolled his head toward the door, eyes slitted.

Bocrest looked from the nearly full applejack bottle on the desk, to Tikaya, and finally to Rias. “This is pathetic. You’ve got a private room, a bed, booze, and a woman, and you spent the night on the floor like a hound.”

“ Ass,” Tikaya grumbled, wondering if she was too old to hurl pillows at people.

Rias yawned, stretched, and rolled to his feet. “Careful, Bocrest. You’re starting to sound like your brutish sergeant. Officers are supposed to be an influence on their troops, not the other way around.”

Bocrest snorted and walked to the desk. He picked up the top sheet of paper and scrutinized it, appearing as enlightened as a rock. “Did your big genius brain figure out where that rocket was launched from?”

“ Yes.”

“ And?”

“ I’ll lead a team to the location, but I have conditions. I want ten men who have taken the mountaineering course. Give me a tracker too. I need a rifle, a pistol, a knife, and I want these chains off.” Rias rattled them for emphasis. “Permanently.”

Bocrest gaped at this list of demands. “Is there anything else this humble captain could lay at your feet, Master Prisoner? Perhaps I could grovel while I fulfill your wishes?”

“ He wants me to come too,” Tikaya said.

“ Absolutely not,” Bocrest said.

Rias arched his eyebrows at her. “Are you sure? It’d be difficult even without an injury.”

Tikaya hesitated. She did not want to make more work for him, but what if they found a cache of weapons and needed help disarming a rocket poised to launch? “You may need me up there.”

“ As you wish,” Rias said.

“ Emperor’s spit,” Bocrest said. “She’s got you leashed, and you’re not even screwing her.”

The manacles ensured Rias’s punch was not pretty, but he got a fist on the captain’s nose all the same. Bocrest saw it coming and partially blocked it, but the force still sent him staggering backward. His own fingers curled into a fist, but he snorted and released them.

“ You’ll have your team.” Bocrest unclipped keys from his belt and tossed them to Rias. “But she should go with the main force to set up the base camp. What’s she going to do up there besides be a liability?”

“ She’s found more ways to be useful than any of your men thus far.” Rias beamed her a proud smile.

Tikaya smiled back, ignoring the captain’s disgusted huff.

“ What’s she actually translated?” Bocrest asked. “Did that rocket say anything?”

“ I’m still working on what appear to be instructions,” she said. “I believe the simple phrases on the side say ‘caution’ and ‘this side up.’”

Bocrest snorted. “That’s as useful as goat spit. Great.”

“ Captain…” Rias warned.

“ Whatever. I don’t care. If she needs to be carried, none of my men are doing it. She’s your responsibility.” He stalked out the door, not bothering to shut it. “Team leaves in fifteen minutes!”

Tikaya slid her legs off the bed and grabbed her boots. It was the only thing Rias had presumed to remove before tucking her into bed. Her heart ached. Even if he had not leapt to her defense, she could have loved him just for being a gentleman up here in this savage land so far from the mores of civilization. She almost confided her suspicions to him, her fear that Bocrest’s mission would prove less about saving the Turgonians and more about getting the emperor a stockpile of terrifyingly powerful weapons.

“ Something wrong?” Rias sat beside her to put on his own boots.

How could she tell him? A man whose every choice proved he still felt loyal to the empire, even after they had taken everything and exiled him. “I’m worried I made a mistake,” she said instead of bringing up the weapons. “I spoke hastily. I don’t want to be a burden on you. Maybe you could just copy any runes you find for me.”

“ Do you want to go?”

“ Yes.” A self-deprecating laugh spilled from her lips. She had never craved field work; she’d always preferred to stay in the lab, letting agile adventurous sorts bring their finds to her. When had that changed? “I don’t want to miss anything.”

“ I wouldn’t want that either.” He smiled, but it soon faded. “Besides, I’m concerned about your assassins. The bodyguard may be tortured and dead, but if the wizard is still around, he’ll feel he’s running out of time. It’ll be dangerous on the mountain, yes, but I’d prefer you with me rather than with a bunch of men who don’t care.”

By now his admission that he cared was no surprise, but hearing him say it almost brought tears to her eyes. If only he weren’t a Turgonian.

She leaned against his shoulder. “I care too.”

“ Good.” He leaned back. “About me, right?”

She grinned and swatted him. She thought about doing more, but a pair of marines tramped past the door, pausing to peer inside. Then Bocrest hollered for his guide. Sighing, she finished tying her boots.

Tikaya eased along the narrow ledge, her metal crampons scraping and clinking against the ice. Sheer granite towered to her left while equally sheer rock plummeted on her right. A snowy canyon stretched hundreds of feet below. Though the white drifts appeared soft, she had no illusions of a landing being anything but deadly. Wind buffeted the face of the cliff, tugging at her thick braid and whipping stray strands of hair against her spectacles. Frost crystals glittered on the scarf snugged over her nose.

“ We’re close,” Rias called, voice muffled by his own scarf.

He led the single-file squad of marines inching along the cliff face. Tikaya came second with Bocrest third. At first, the captain’s presence had surprised her, but a few curt words here and there had given her the impression he was there to remind everyone ‘Prisoner Five’ was most definitely not in charge of the team, even if he led.

A shadow fell across the group as a black raptor as large as a man sailed overhead. This was its third appearance. The way it coasted past made Tikaya think it was scouting the group. Her imagination, no doubt.

The sun glinted off sharp ebony talons as it flexed its legs to land on a perch a couple dozen feet above the ledge ahead of them. It cocked its head to stare at her through a calculating black eye.

“ I’m getting tired of that bird,” a marine grumbled.

“ We could make a meal out of it,” another said, voice loud and threatening, as if the creature would understand and leave.

Tikaya caught Bocrest glancing at the bird, but he otherwise paid it little attention. He did, however, carry his loaded rifle in one hand, barrel leaning against his shoulder. Earlier, he had worn it strapped to his rucksack.

The hair on the back of Tikaya’s neck rose as they walked under the creature’s perch. She had not felt the tingle of the mental sciences being used since the night the Nurians attacked. She paused to study the bird.

“ Quit gawking,” Bocrest said.

“ What species is that?” she asked. “Are they common?”

“ How would I know? Do I look like I keep a summer estate here?”

“ Ice condor.” Rias turned and held up a hand to halt the squad. “They’re predators but scavengers too. It’s unlikely it’ll attack a group of armed men. It’s probably just waiting to see if one of us falls.”

Lovely thought. “They’re usually natural creatures, then?”

“ Of course, it’s a natural creature,” Bocrest said. “What else would it be?”

Tikaya pointed at it. “This one’s a-”

The condor dropped from its perch, plunging straight at her, beak agape, talons extended.

With nowhere else to go, Tikaya smashed herself against the cliff. The giant bird filled her vision, wings pressed against its body for speed. She raised her good arm to guard her face.

A rifle cracked. Someone pulled her up the path.

The condor squawked, clipped the edge of the ledge, and bounced away. Rock crumbled and fell into the canyon. The bird flapped its wings and recovered before tumbling far, but blood spattered the ice on the ledge. The condor sailed on a draft and disappeared from sight before Tikaya recovered.

“ Thanks,” she rasped.

It was Rias who held her, Bocrest’s rifle that smoked.

“ That was peculiar,” the captain said.

“ More than that.” Rias checked Tikaya for injuries and released her. “A familiar?”

“ That’s…” She mulled over the Turgonian word options. “Close enough. I’m guessing it’s a regular creature that someone is manipulating with thought control.” She remembered the snatch of conversation she had overheard the night the Nurians attacked her; the practitioner had read someone’s thoughts to find her. If he had studied telepathy on humans, controlling animals was not a stretch.

“ How would you know?” Bocrest asked. “I thought you weren’t a wizard.”

“ I’m not, but I’ve grown up around practitioners. I can sense when the mental sciences are being used nearby.”

Bocrest scowled at Rias. “Get moving. I want to finish up and get off this mountain quick.”

When they reached the top of the cliff, long shadows darkened the snowy plateau despite the early afternoon hour. They had climbed less than halfway up the mountain, and another granite wall rose to the rear, blocking the sun. Nothing on the plateau caught Tikaya’s eye, but the fantastic view to the north made for a memorable perch. Miles of unbroken tundra stretched to the horizon with ridges and swirls roaming like striations in stone.

Though nothing but drifts adorned the plateau, Rias strode across it as if he expected to find something. He stopped at a protruding edge and pointed.

“ Perfect view of the fort from here,” he called.

“ But there’s nothing here.” Bocrest gestured for his troops to fan out and investigate.

Tikaya floundered through deep snow to join Rias. He held a thermometer and a round bronze device she had seen him consult a few times. She had thought it a compass, but the numbers on its circular face did not represent degrees.

“ Barometer?” she guessed.

Rias nodded once, though his eyes rolled upward as if he were busy with some calculation. Bocrest shuffled up behind them.

“ Worried about a storm coming in?” she asked when Rias’s attention shifted to her.

He chuckled. “No, calculating our elevation. As long as you know the temperature, the air pressure at sea level, and the air pressure where you are, you can-”

Bocrest jerked his hand up. “Nobody cares, Five. Is this the spot or not?”

Rias’s sigh had a long-suffering quality, and, as he turned to face the captain, Tikaya wondered how many times in his career he had been cut off by officers with Bocrest’s temperament.

“ We’re either here or we’re very close,” Rias said. “I was expecting a launching platform, but I suppose it’s possible the rocket was self-propelling.”

“ You brought us up here to find nothing?” Bocrest demanded.

While the men debated, Tikaya removed her spectacles to clean them. She tilted them toward the sky to check for specks and almost dropped them when she spotted a sliver of familiar black metal on the cliff top above.

“ Gentlemen.” She pointed, ending their argument.

“ Ah.” Rias put away his tools. “Another fifty feet.”

“ Thought your math was better than that.” Bocrest smirked.

Rias’s eyebrows disappeared under his wool cap. “My math is impeccable. The tools are imprecise.”

Tikaya grinned, always amused when his Turgonian arrogance peeped out.

Bocrest only snorted and called to his men: “Get some grappling hooks out. We’re climbing.”

“ We’ll go first.” Rias pointed to his chest then at Tikaya. “I don’t want overeager young men thundering around up there before we’ve ascertained the danger.”

“ I’ll go first,” Bocrest said. “You can come after and pull your wounded librarian up.”

Tikaya grimaced. She held her own on the walkable terrain, but even without a shoulder injury, she would have needed help up the cliffs. Already, Rias had pulled her up two, while she scraped and pushed with her crampons, trying use her legs and burden him as little as possible.

“ Doing all right?” Rias patted her on the back as Bocrest stomped away.

“ I’m fine. Do you always volunteer women to lead the way with you into potentially dangerous situations?”

He winked. “Only if I know they can handle it.”

Not for the first time, she wondered if he thought too highly of her.

When Rias pulled Tikaya over the edge, she knelt to catch her breath. Even with his help, the climb had been taxing.

The first thing she noticed was the dead man. The second thing she noticed was that he had not died the same way the marines in the fort had. An enormous amount of blood spattered the snow around him, and methodical cuts marked the body. Bocrest already stood over it, arms crossed, lips dragged down in a scowl.

“ Tortured,” he said. “Same as the one in the fort.”

“ Nurian?” Tikaya asked.

Bocrest was too busy cursing under his breath to answer.

The ledge, similar to the one below, offered another ideal view of the tundra-and the fort. A second cliff to the rear shadowed a tent and a fire pit. The source of the black metal Tikaya had spotted rested near the edge: a flat circle mounted on tripod legs. A shaft tilted upward from the disk and appeared the right size for cradling the rocket. The launching apparatus was not large, but it would have taken more than one man to carry it up there. Or a telekinetics practitioner.

Tikaya walked over to look at the body. “Uh.”

“ Uh?” Rias asked.

“ I recognize this one too.”

“ Can’t be a practitioner,” Rias said. “He looks Turgonian.”

“ He is Turgonian. That’s Lancecrest.”

“ The fort commander?” Bocrest asked. “He’s too young.”

“ No, the Lancecrest I told you about. And actually I think he did study the mental sciences at the Polytechnic. Along with archaeology.” She filled Rias in with the information she had given Bocrest the night before.

“ Huh,” Rias said. “That he’s here is not wholly mystifying-Colonel Lancecrest could have taken command, found out about the tunnels, seen an opportunity for the family to improve its fortunes, and told his little brother to prepare for a relic hunt. But why would the younger Lancecrest have launched a rocket at his older brother’s fort? And why is he now up here tortured and dead? This is…unexpected.”

Bocrest spat. “If something expected happens at any point in this mission, I’ll shit myself in shock.”

Tikaya shook her head at the lurid speech. “Is he truly married?” she asked Rias.

“ Last I heard.” Rias knelt to examine the body more closely. “The empire has failed to keep me apprised of the latest gossip surrounding its officers.”

“ It’s hard to imagine that tongue wooing a woman.” Tikaya headed for the launch pad.

Bocrest dropped his arms. “Was that an insult? Did she just insult me?”

“ I believe she did,” Rias said.

“ I never know with her. She gives insults in the same tone as a scientist analyzing an experiment.”

Tikaya dug out her journal. “You do remind me of the lab rats they keep in the science wing of the Polytechnic.”

“ That was definitely an insult,” Rias said.

“ I know,” Bocrest said. “It’s hard to be offended, though. She’s so civilized when she delivers them. Tidy job on Lancecrest. Whoever ran the torture session was experienced.”

Tikaya scratched her head at the abrupt topic shift. Only Turgonians could go from casual chit chat to analyzing dead people in the same breath.

“ Body’s stiff but this doesn’t look like it happened long ago,” Rias said. “Yesterday maybe.”

“ There’s a mess in the tent,” Bocrest said. “Like someone searched it, same as the colonel’s office in the fort.”

Rias leaned over the ledge. “Koffert, come up. We need your tracking skills.”

Bocrest frowned at this presumptive order giving. Tikaya wondered when Rias had found the opportunity to learn people’s names and skill sets.

Long before the tracker reached the top, the launch device swallowed her attention. Runes ran down the tripod legs, giving her plenty to study. She sat in the snow with her journal, gloves off. Not knowing how much time Bocrest would give her, she risked the cold to make copying the symbols easier. The men’s conversations faded from her awareness as she worked. She brushed her fingers along a complex grouping of seventeen symbols, and a faint hum teased the edge of her mind. It startled her, and she dropped her journal. Surely the sensation did not come from the launch pad. The artifacts had not yet made her suspect the mental sciences were involved in their creation. Yet something here teased her sixth sense, reminding her of the communications pendant on the Nurian ship. The residual tingle of a practitioner-made device.

“ Tikaya?” Rias touched her shoulder. “The tracker is done. Are you ready to leave?”

She blinked and stood, surprised by the stiffness in her limbs. How long had she sat? Rias removed his gloves and held her hand in his warm ones, and she noticed white tipping her fingers.

“ Frost nip.” He rubbed her hands and raised an eyebrow. “Keep your gloves on. You’d have a hard time taking notes if you lost your fingers.”

“ Sorry, that was dumb. I needed to use the pencil, and, uhm.” She blushed. Of all people, he could probably understand an absent-minded streak, but she still avoided his eyes.

“ What I don’t understand is how someone else found this ledge,” Bocrest said, apparently resuming a conversation she had missed. The tracker stood before him, a sergeant with a lined face and beaky nose. “How many math geniuses are roaming around up here?” Bocrest added.

“ Perhaps our mystery man saw the rocket being launched,” Rias said.

Despite his suggestion that she keep her gloves on, Rias had not released Tikaya’s hands. Calluses hardened his palms, but his touch was gentle as he rubbed her skin. She made no move to pull away.

“ Wouldn’t he have died from the gas, too, then?” she asked. “And how do you know our torture-loving person is a man? The Nurians have female warriors.”

“ Walks like a man, pisses like a man,” the tracker said.

“ Uhm. All right.” Tikaya knew nothing about tracking, but supposed squatting and standing would indeed leave different yellow-snow signatures. “But what about the gas?”

Rias gazed east. “The pass is that way and at a higher elevation. The rocket released its load in the air above the fort, so perhaps that means the gas-or whatever it is exactly-was heavier than air and wouldn’t have affected someone above the detonation point. This camp, after all, is well within the twenty mile radius.”

“ Perhaps?” Bocrest asked. “You’re just guessing?”

“ Yes,” Rias said.

“ Good steel used for the torture,” the tracker said.

Rias and the captain nodded, though it took Tikaya a minute to follow. Right. The good steel and the possible entrance through the pass implied a Turgonian. And hadn’t the men in the dungeon suggested the same thing? That the torture was done by the book? The Turgonian book?

“ So, you’ve got an ally up here?” Tikaya asked. “Maybe he’ll show himself, and we can share your applejack with him.”

She smiled. The others did not. Rias and Bocrest appeared more grim than anything.

“ Ally,” Rias murmured, then found Bocrest’s gaze. “Did the emperor say anything about sending help?”

“ He made it clear he wanted the mission accomplished.”

Tikaya wondered if Rias derived more from that answer than she did.

“ You find anything useful on that rocket, Komitopis?” Bocrest asked.

“ I’m getting some fantastic data. If we find more samples in this scientific vein, I believe the shared contexts will allow me to-”

Bocrest hissed in frustration and jerked his hand up, much as he had to halt Rias’s explanation of the altitude calculations. “When I ask you a question, I want a yes or no response.”

“ Then, yes,” Tikaya said.

Rias chuckled and squeezed her hands.

“ Although if you’d listen to all I had to say, you’d learn that there’s some science about the device.”

“ Science?” Bocrest’s expression blanked.

“ Magic,” Rias said.

“ Oh,” Bocrest said. “How?”

“ I’m not sure yet,” Tikaya said. “Give me a moment.”

She started to bend down again, but Rias stepped in front of the launch pad. He picked up her gloves and handed them to her. Not until she stuffed her numb fingers back into the fur-lined interiors did he move aside.

“ Thank you,” she said.

Rias saluted her with a wink. Bocrest heaved a sigh.

She touched the launch pad again, checking several spots. It was weak, but she did sense something, especially close to the ground. On a whim, she tried to lift one of the legs. She expected the black metal to weigh too much, but she raised it with relative ease, revealing a leather-bound book flattened into the snow. Her heart sped up in anticipation. Rias grabbed the leg, so she could retrieve her find.

A pen was stuck in the spine, and it felt warm beneath her fingers. That was it: the practitioner-imbued item, probably crafted to never run out of ink or some simple thing. As far as she could tell, the book-no, journal-was mundane. She flipped it open, but had scarcely read the first couple words when someone tore it from her grip.

“ Our people will vet this and decide if it’s suitable for a foreigner to read,” Bocrest said.

“ Bocrest…” Rias started, but Tikaya lifted her chin and spoke.

“ Then I hope you brought someone who reads Kyattese, because the writing isn’t in your tongue.”

Bocrest flipped through a few pages and his lip curled into a snarl. “Kyattese?” His eyes narrowed. “Why would there be a notebook up here in your language?”

“ He spoke Kyattese.” Tikaya nodded at Lancecrest’s body.

“ Is it possible that journal is what our ‘ally’ was searching for?” Rias asked.

Bocrest jerked his head down, eyes scouring the pages as if he could translate them through will. With a disgusted grunt, he thrust the book at Tikaya.

“ You tell us,” he said.

She skimmed the opening pages and practically bounced at the massive number of the language samples within. Notes, mostly speculation, surrounded drawings of symbols she had not yet seen. No firm translations yet. “I’ll need time to read over everything, but it’s definitely Lancecrest’s journal, and it looks like he’s been in your tunnels a while. There are hundreds of pages here and dates go back almost a year.”

She turned to a dog-eared page, and her hand froze. Launch instructions for the rocket. It appeared Lancecrest had discovered how to operate the weapon through trial and error rather than true understanding of the language. Nonetheless, the instructions were there. And suddenly she knew: this book was exactly what their mysterious stranger was searching for, here in the tent and perhaps in the colonel’s office as well. It could explain the torture sessions too. He had been trying to locate these very instructions, but the Nurian had not known and Lancecrest must have held out to the end.

“ Find something?” Rias asked.

She flinched, knowing she had been silent too long to brush it off. “Just an interesting take on what the prime groupings imply.” She hated lying to Rias, but she was not going to hand Bocrest directions for launching the rockets. She could only assume there were more of the devices in the tunnels.

“ Find something useful?” Bocrest asked.

Since shadow covered the ledge already, Tikaya received little warning when the ice condor approached for the second time. Movement teased the corner of her eye, and Rias yelled, “Get down!” just as she was turning to check.

The condor swooped toward her head, talons outstretched. She flung her arms out.

Rias smashed into her, taking her to the ground. Her shoulder flared with pain, but the talons meant for her eyes grazed her forearm. They cut through her parka and stung flesh.

Bocrest and the tracker fired, but the condor banked before the balls hit. It swooped out of sight over the cliff above the tent.

“ Are you injured?” Rias asked, eyes locked on her as he shifted to let her up.

Tikaya pushed up her parka sleeve. “Just a couple scratches.”

Rias removed a glove and brushed his finger across one of the wounds, which had started to well blood. A green pasty substance mingled with the crimson drops.

“ What is it?” Dread hollowed her stomach.

“ Poison.” Rias jumped to his feet. “We have to get to the sawbones.”

Tikaya stared at her arm. She knew nothing about poison. “Is this a lethal dose? How much time do I have?”

He started to respond, but the condor swooped toward them again.

“ Someone shoot that slagging bird!” Bocrest shouted to the men below. He and the tracker were still reloading.

Rias had dropped his rifle to shield Tikaya. The bird landed on the launch pad as he grabbed the weapon. Unconcerned, the condor cocked its head, black eye studying Tikaya.

“ Yes, you got me.” Bitterness choked her words.

“ Sh.” Rias aimed the rifle, but hesitated. A calculating flash crossed his face, and he raised his voice. “Don’t worry, Tikaya. You’re not going to die. We’ve got the antidote in camp, and you’ve got plenty of time.”

Bocrest, the first to finish reloading, lifted his rifle. The bird flapped away. Several shots fired, but it weaved and banked with preternatural speed, and disappeared unscathed.

Rias lowered his weapon. He had not fired.

“ I’d like to be reassured by your words,” Tikaya murmured, “but I suspect that was for the benefit of the bird.”

“ Will whoever is controlling it understand our speech through its ears?” Rias asked.

“ I’m not sure. Maybe.” She might have stopped to consider what he hoped to accomplish with his words, but other thoughts stampeded to the front of her mind. “How much time do I really have?”

“ Plenty,” Rias said.

She had come to know him too well; she could tell he was lying.