Hands gripped her waist, hoisting her until her head was level with the hole. That worked.
“Thank you, Basilard,” Amaranthe whispered.
“State your name,” a man said. A pair of shiny black boots waited to the side of the hatch.
“Retta,” Amaranthe said.
“You’re not on the list.”
“I work for Ms. Worgavic. I’m the one who flies the… ” Amaranthe groped through her memories for the official name of the Behemoth. “Are you aware of the Ortarh Ortak? There’s a problem on board. I need to speak with Ms. Worgavic immediately.”
The greeter, or whatever he was, did not answer. Beneath her, the men shifted as much as they could in the confined space. More than one pistol had appeared. Sicarius crouched on his seat, one foot on the backrest as he faced the hatch, a throwing knife in hand.
Hoping to see more of the area, Amaranthe eased her head as high as she could without opening the hatch farther. A wide stone ledge rose on the other side of the pool, and it supported four sets of legs wearing shiny black boots and facing in her direction. She couldn’t see the men’s upper bodies, or what weapons they might hold in their arms, but she had no trouble making out belts laden with ammunition pouches. No powder tins hung on those belts, so she assumed the ammo was for the new multi-shot rifles.
Waves undulated across the surface of the pool. A few feet away, something black broke the surface. Amaranthe glimpsed a fin, a large fin, before it disappeared beneath the water.
“Show yourself,” the man above said.
Amaranthe lifted the hatch a few more inches, hoping she could crawl out without revealing everyone inside. Unfortunately, the man had other ideas. Perhaps thinking he was helping her, he pulled the hatch the rest of the way open. Amaranthe grabbed the lip and scrambled out. Maybe if she got her feet under her quickly enough, she could block his view of the interior.
It didn’t work. The man raised a shiny new rifle and blurted, “There’s a bunch of—”
A hand gripped his ankle and yanked him into the vehicle. A flying elbow caught Amaranthe in the ribs, and she barely avoided tumbling into the water. She scarcely had time to note a floating dock arranged in an X across the pool, with submarines tied up alongside it, before four rifles were being lifted in her direction.
Amaranthe had only a split second to decide what to do. She should have jumped back down into their craft to avoid being shot, but, with some deluded notion that she needed to draw fire so the men could climb out, she leaped off the craft and onto the dock. She sprinted several meters and, anticipating a barrage of gunfire, dove off the backside, landing on the square hatch of a long, tube-shaped submarine. She winced when she came down on one of her bruise collections, but managed to yank her pistol out anyway.
The dock hid the men from view—and, Amaranthe hoped, provided an obstacle they couldn’t shoot her through. When a couple of heartbeats passed without gunshots, she lifted her eyes over the level of the wood planks. Nobody shot her. Three of the men who had been standing on the ledge were lying on it now. The fourth had fallen into the pool. He paddled one-armed, trying to reach solid ground again, though pain contorted his face. Something silver stuck out of the front of his shoulder. Just as he found a grip on the ledge, the water stirred next to him. Amaranthe blinked, and he was gone, pulled beneath the surface. Bubbles floated up, but nothing except stillness followed. She realized the men on the ledge weren’t moving and rose to her knees.
Sicarius stepped into view on the dock. He lowered a hand toward her. Amaranthe accepted it, letting him pull her up beside him. Akstyr was sticking halfway out of their vehicle, staring at the downed men on the ledge.
He turned his stare to Sicarius. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
Without comment, Sicarius jogged off the dock and circled around to check the men. No, not to “check” them. To verify that they were dead and to pull his throwing knives out of their chests.
“He popped up and threw all four at once,” Akstyr said. “Two in each hand. I didn’t know that was possible.”
Sicarius gave Amaranthe a look, like he might be concerned that she’d chastise him for the deaths, but how could she? He’d likely saved her life—as usual—and he’d even kept the men from firing. She had no idea how far away this meeting place was, but she doubted it was so distant that people there wouldn’t hear gunshots fired in the parking pool.
“See if there’s anyone else nearby that we need to worry about, please,” Amaranthe told Sicarius.
He continued along the ledge toward a pair of tunnels. The underwater cavern had a twelve—or fifteen-foot ceiling, all chipped and hewn by tools rather than by nature. Gold-gilded lamps burned on the walls and in holders on the dock, spreading light about the chamber. At least twenty other submarines, or other types of underwater conveyances, were tied up in the wide pool, a variety of hatch styles and paint jobs on display in the portions that peeped above the water.
Someone jostled Akstyr from below.
“As much as we appreciate the view of your scrawny backside,” Maldynado called up, “we’d like to get out.”
Akstyr scrambled onto the dock.
“Be careful climbing up here,” Amaranthe said. “Whatever that thing in the water is, it finds humans tasty.”
“Joy,” Books said.
As the men were climbing out, a creak sounded behind Amaranthe. A hatch lifted, and a pair of eyes came into view. She dropped to a knee and aimed the pistol between those eyes.
“Nothing going on out here, friend,” she said, guessing this was someone’s servant or pilot left behind to watch the craft. “I suggest you lower that hatch and forget you saw us.”
The eyes sank out of view. Clanks drifted from within the man’s craft, as he not only shut himself in but bolted a lock or two.
“I have to say you’re looking particularly grim and serious today, boss,” Maldynado said.
He and the others were lined up on the dock behind her. Everyone carried weapons, Sespian included. Her team looked ready for a fight.
“It’s been a grim couple of weeks,” Amaranthe said. “Sire, any orders? Is there a way you have planned to go about this?”
“Planned?” Sespian pushed a hand through his pale brown hair. “My plans fell over a cliff more than a week ago. I’m still hoping to learn what Forge is up to—besides attempting to kill me and replace me with a warrior-caste puppet—but I don’t know how plausible that is at this point.”
Amaranthe lifted a shoulder. “They didn’t seem to know we were coming. Not these guards anyway. It might be useful to question someone.” She pointed toward the open hatch of their vehicle. “Is the first man still… ?”
“He’s alive,” Maldynado said. “Not entirely conscious though. Questioning might be hard.”
“Well, there are only two tunnels.” As long as those two didn’t branch into fifty more, Amaranthe figured they had decent odds of picking one that would lead them to the Forge people. Sicarius had already disappeared into one. “Let’s see what we can find.”
She led the team off the dock. She was about to ask if anyone had seen which tunnel Sicarius had gone down when he emerged from the closest one.
“Lodging, baths, and kitchens are in that direction,” he said.
“Not tents and campfire pits, I’m guessing,” Amaranthe said.
“Forty separate domiciles carved into the stone walls, each with room for servants.”
“Under my family’s island?” Maldynado asked.
“Some of it is under the lake,” Sicarius said.
“It must have taken them years to hollow all of this out. I can’t believe my parents didn’t know. Or, if they knew all along… that’s hard to believe too. How long have these people been scheming?”
“It’s been ten years since I studied under Ms. Worgavic,” Amaranthe said, “and, if she recruited one of my classmates to learn the ancient technology, she must have known about it for at least that long.??
? At the round of blank looks the men gave her, Amaranthe remembered that she’d spoken of her old teacher only to Sicarius. “I’ll explain later. Forge has been a number of years in the making.”
“I’ll scout ahead,” Sicarius said.
He disappeared into the second tunnel without waiting for an acknowledgment.
“Was that a stay-here order or an invitation to follow?” Sespian asked.
Amaranthe eyed the submarine-filled pool. “Either way, we shouldn’t linger here. Since the guards didn’t shoot us as soon as we popped up, they must have been expecting at least one more party to arrive.”
“Good point.”
Amaranthe led the team into the tunnel Sicarius had chosen. It angled downward. More gold-gilded lamps lined the chiseled black walls, each one worth more than an enforcer’s annual salary. The display of wealth couldn’t take away from the fact that the team was walking through a dank, underground—no, under lake—passage. Dampness clung to the walls, and a musty smell floated in the air. At least the tunnel was tall and broad with an even floor one could have driven a truck over.
As they rounded a bend, Books touched the porous black stone. “You said they’d acquired the mining rights? I haven’t noticed any promising veins.”
“Or promising anything,” Maldynado said. “This place is dreary.”
Up ahead, Sicarius glided out from behind another bend.
“The tunnel slopes steeply downward and ends at two closed double doors,” he said. “There are forty people waiting in a chamber outside, servants, I believe.”
“Forty?” Amaranthe asked. How were they supposed to sneak past forty people to spy on the meeting? “Any other tunnels that branch off along the way?”
“Many.”
Ugh. Many tunnels was as bad as forty people. Unless there was a handy map somewhere that proclaimed, “Spying Balcony this way,” Amaranthe feared they’d either get lost or spend so much time wandering that someone would notice the missing dock security men.
Sicarius tilted his head, indicating the team should follow. They soon reached the first of the tunnel branches he’d mentioned, and he paused in front of it. “There are four more before the doors. This is the only one that is unlit.”
Amaranthe peered into the darkness. The passage might lead to a secret nobody was meant to explore, or it might lead to a storage closet. Though she didn’t care for the idea of splitting up her team, especially when she had no idea how long these side tunnels might extend, all they needed was for one person to make it within earshot of this meeting.
“Let’s split up,” Amaranthe said. “Maldynado and Yara—”
Sicarius jerked up a hand. Voices drifted down the passage from somewhere ahead, voices that were drawing nearer.
Amaranthe pointed at the tunnel. Never mind. We’ll all check this one.
She hustled into the passage, but Sicarius, before they’d gone beyond the influence of the light, waved the others onward and drew Amaranthe aside.
Do you want me to keep them from reaching the dock?
By tying and gagging them? Amaranthe asked, well aware that these might simply be servants with little to do with their employers’ schemes.
Yes. I will find a dark nook in which to store them.
Only Sicarius would think of a person as something to “store.” So long as he didn’t kill anyone.
Do it, Amaranthe signed.
More aware than ever of the limited time, Amaranthe hurried into the darkness to catch up with the others. After groping around a couple of bends, the walls disappeared on both sides. A draft caressed her cheek. They must have entered a larger space.
A soft scrape sounded, and a match flared to life. Basilard, his pack open at his feet, lit a lantern.
Brass and steel glinted in the shadows. Basilard moved in that direction, lifting the lantern. The small flame revealed a row of sturdy tunnel boring machines. Eight steam lorries with open cargo beds occupied a second row.
“The carriage house?” Amaranthe mused.
Books gazed toward the rocky ceiling. “It was reckless of them to hollow out these big tunnels with the lake right above. A single hole, or any seismic activity in the area, and water would flood the entire complex. It’s hard to believe they’d do all this just to create a secret meeting place.”
“We can ask them what they were thinking if they capture us,” Amaranthe said.
“If that’s the only way to find out, I can live with not knowing,” Yara said.
“Yes.” Maldynado gave Amaranthe a pat on the back. “It doesn’t look like they treat their prisoners well.”
Everyone turned sympathetic eyes toward Amaranthe. She couldn’t fault her team for their sympathy, but she’d rather forget the entire experience, or at least push it to the back of her thoughts and move on.
Perhaps sensing her discomfort, Maldynado added, “If that hat you were wearing earlier is an example of the type of clothing they force their prisoners to wear, I truly couldn’t withstand such exquisite torture.”
Amaranthe decided not to mention that she’d been nude. She didn’t need anyone speculating about that.
A tunnel left the vehicle chamber on the far side, and Amaranthe was of a mind to keep exploring—and put this conversation out of its misery—but Sicarius hadn’t rejoined them yet. She walked around the area, searching for more clues as to what Forge had been doing down there. The “carriage house” lacked any sort of symmetry; it didn’t seem to have been excavated with any design or purpose in mind. It was more like people had simply been digging, looking for something, and had stopped when they’d found it.
“Oh,” Amaranthe said.
Once again, all eyes swiveled in her direction, this time with curiosity.
“Sire,” Amaranthe asked, “do you still have that black whatchamacallit? The thing for tracking?”
“Yes.” Sespian removed a knapsack and poked through a tangle of socks and shirts.
Amaranthe thought of the meticulous way Sicarius packed his clothing and gear. Fastidiousness must not be hereditary.
“Nobody here knows how to use it, though.” Sespian finally found the egg-shaped device and handed it to her.
Amaranthe held it and rotated it, pointing it in different directions. “No noticeable change. Too bad. I thought it might glow or get warm or something. Unless they’ve removed everything and there’s nothing left around.”
“Uh, boss,” Maldynado said, “did you forget something? Like to explain that yarn ball of musings rolling around in your mind?”
“Sicarius said he first encountered this technology at an archaeological dig site. Maybe someone in Forge found this, figured out how to use it, and—”
“Employed it as a tuning fork that led them here?” Books nodded. “Yes, of course.”
“We had better press on,” Sespian said. “Time isn’t on our side.”
Yes, he’d given up much to come down here, so he’d be even more aware of the need to hurry. Sicarius hadn’t rejoined them yet, but Amaranthe headed for the tunnel on the far side anyway. She trusted him to find them again.
They’d only gone a few meters when a small alcove opened to one side. An ordinary wooden table sat in it, providing a resting place for five extraordinary black cubes.
“I guess there are artifacts left around, after all,” Amaranthe said.
Akstyr stuck a finger out toward one of the cubes.
“Don’t touch them!” Sicarius barked, jogging out of the tunnel behind them.
Everyone jumped, both at his abrupt appearance and at the shout. Amaranthe couldn’t remember ever hearing him shout, and he’d certainly never let that much urgency seep into his voice, not that she’d heard.
“Back away,” Sicarius said, his tone calmer, though it left no doubt that he was giving an order.
Akstyr, who had frozen at his initial shout, lowered his arm and took an exaggerated step in reverse.
“We should go back,” Sicarius told Amaranthe.
r /> “Because these are… ” She waved toward the table.
“Deadly. And indestructible with the gear we have.” His gaze flicked toward the cubes. “They fly. And incinerate you.”
“Really?” Akstyr sounded more intrigued than alarmed.
“If they’re here to guard the tunnel,” Sespian said, “perhaps that’s a sign that we’re going in the right direction.”
“How’re they activated?” Amaranthe asked.
“I don’t know,” Sicarius said, “but if we’re standing here when they are, we’ll all be dead.”
Amaranthe pushed a few stray strands of hair behind her ears. The intensity in Sicarius’s eyes made her believe that obeying him would be a good idea, but Sespian stepped past her.
“We’ll keep going,” he said. “If they’re that deadly, it won’t matter if we’re behind them or in front of them, right? We’ll have to hope they don’t get activated.”
Sicarius’s eyes grew grim. Amaranthe supposed it wasn’t the time to point out that, if he’d had a certain discussion with Sespian by now, he could legitimately threaten to turn the young man over his knee for a spanking instead of having to succumb to orders he found distasteful.
Despite the emperor’s announcement that they’d keep going, Yara and the men looked to Amaranthe before moving. Sespian’s lips flattened. Amaranthe didn’t want him to feel slighted, so was quick to say, “As you wish, Sire.”
Sespian took Basilard’s lantern and looked like he meant to lead the way, but Sicarius slipped into the tunnel ahead of him. As they traveled deeper, the passage continued to slope downward. Soft hisses grew audible, and heated currents stirred the air. In spots, cracks emitted tendrils of steam. Openings appeared in the walls, ceiling, and occasionally the floor. Vents? Most of them were fist-sized, but they passed a few holes large enough that one might crawl inside.
“Are we under the lake?” Amaranthe whispered. Thanks to the bends and turns, she’d lost her sense of direction.
“Yes.” Sicarius stopped beside one of the largest vents they’d seen and peered inside.
“Does it go anywhere?” If the team crawled into a maze of vents, Amaranthe would lose not only her sense of direction but herself as well. Still, if there was a chance one led to the meeting room…