“Is that what you came to investigate? The dam? Or are you here about that artifact in the lake?”
Yara’s lips flattened. Sicarius drew his black dagger with a slow, deliberate rasp.
“I’m not intimidated by your master,” Yara said, “and I won’t answer questions that will help you destroy the city. Kill me if you wish.”
Master? Not likely. “As I said before,” Amaranthe said, “we wish to help.”
“You’re probably responsible for all this,” Yara said. “How could you go rogue? I used to look up to you. People always said good things about you. We all thought you’d plant the tree for the rest of the women on the force to climb.”
Amaranthe rocked back on her heels. “You’d heard of me? Before, er, when I was still an enforcer?”
“Of course! There was only a handful of women across all the precincts. Your record was flawless. We all figured you would be the first to make sergeant, maybe more.”
For a moment, Amaranthe forgot her questions and her reasons for pulling Yara out. Why hadn’t any of those women talked to her? Sent her a message? But then, she had never sought them out either, since they worked in other districts in the city.
“It looks like you made sergeant first,” Amaranthe said.
“Last month,” Yara said. “Me and another woman. They were special promotions from the emperor.” An awed tone crept into her voice. “I didn’t know he knew I existed.”
Amaranthe closed her eyes. It seemed Sespian had found another enforcer to admire. Or perhaps his disappointment in what he believed Amaranthe had become had led him to reward others. Either way, it stung. If she had never attracted Hollowcrest’s attention, maybe she would have had her promotion by now. Maybe—
“How could you betray him?” The fury snapped back into Yara’s voice. She shifted her weight, as if to pull away from Sicarius, but he did not let her move an inch. “How could you join forces with a dung-kissing assassin to kidnap the emperor?”
Basilard, who stood back where he could keep an eye toward the camp, signaled: Time.
“It’s a long tale,” Amaranthe said, “one you wouldn’t believe right now.” Perhaps ever. “But I give you my word we’re here to help. Both of us. Do you know how the artifact got in the lake? Do you know who made it?”
“Of course, I know. My partner and I were the ones to come across his lair. How do you think enforcers got involved in all this?”
“What lair? Where is it? Who’s responsible?’”
But Yara seemed to have decided she had said enough. Her lips flattened, and she lifted her chin.
“Please,” Amaranthe said. “Tell us what we can do.”
Yara snorted. “You want to help? Get that thing out of the lake and those monsters out of the dam.”
“We will,” Amaranthe said, drawing another snort of disbelief from the woman. “Tell us more about the person who did this. Is it a single man? A magic user? Is it a Mangdorian?”
“Find your own answers, rogue.”
“Sergeant Yara,” a man called from the camp. “Where’d you go?”
“Let her go,” Amaranthe told Sicarius.
She expected an argument, but he released her without comment. Yara sprinted toward the camp.
“Time for us to disappear,” Amaranthe said.
Sicarius led the way into the woods. Amaranthe hustled after and left Basilard to cover their trail. She did not know if Yara believed anything or not. Either way her duty would demand she try to capture—or kill—Sicarius and Amaranthe.
Thrashing sounds behind them verified her guess. Sicarius pressed deeper into the woods. Twilight descended, casting darkness across the forest floor. Basilard had fallen behind, so Amaranthe called a halt. Fog curled in from the lake. She no longer heard their pursuit.
Sicarius crouched with his back to a tree to wait. Amaranthe sank down beside him.
“Did you learn anything?” he asked.
She puzzled over the question. Since he had been there and heard everything she had heard, she feared it might be sarcastic, though that was not an attitude she associated with him. He was dry on occasion but rarely sarcastic, unless he was irked at her.
“Are you saying that was a waste of time?” she asked.
“No.”
“Oh.”
Frogs croaked out in the marsh. The bird chatter had fallen silent, but mosquitoes whined.
Sicarius gave her a sidelong look, his face cloaked with shadows. “Do I ever not say what I mean to say?”
“Well. You never say what I wish you’d say, and you frequently say nothing at all when it’s clear you should say something, so it’s not entirely fantastical that you’d say a certain thing when you mean something else entirely.”
He opened his mouth, shut it, and considered the ground briefly before responding. “I remember studying Fleet Admiral Starcrest’s Mathematical Probabilities Applied to Military Strategies as a young boy and finding that less confusing than what you just said.”
Now it was her turn for a stunned pause before answering. “Sicarius?” She laid a tentative hand on his shoulder. “Was that a joke?”
“A statement of fact.”
“Hm. It tickled me, so I’m calling it a joke. Stick with me, and I’ll help you develop your sense of humor.”
He sighed.
She withdrew her hand but not her smile. “I didn’t understand your first question. You were there, so you know what I learned.”
“You learn things others don’t when you speak to people.”
“If that were true,” she said, “I’d get a lot more from you.”
“You get more from me than most.”
Though it sounded like another “statement of fact,” the words warmed her. “Maybe you give me more than you give most.”
Basilard caught up before Sicarius could deny her comment. Amaranthe had to squint to make out his signs in the dim light.
Injured soldier comes from dam. Tells enforcers go to fort, bring reinforcements. They leave search, leave camp.
Amaranthe thought about taking her team into the dam and helping those soldiers, but Sicarius was right: the artifact in the lake was more important. The creatures had likely been put in the dam as a distraction or to keep the workers from reporting to the city.
An agitated howl echoed through the darkening forest.
Basilard gripped Amaranthe’s arm and pointed toward the water. She let him lead them through the trees to a nearby beach.
Out in the center of the lake, a subtle green glow emanated from the water.
• • • • •
Books shifted from foot to foot as Maldynado stroked back to shore. He was an adept swimmer, and he had been underwater a long time. Long enough to get a good look at the submerged device?
With night’s fall, the location was unmistakable, but its distance from shore suggested depths one could not reach by swimming. Unless, instead of lying on the bottom, it hung suspended somewhere beneath the surface. The fact that the light was visible gave him hope. He had already run the calculations, figuring the brightness an object had to possess to be visible through twenty, fifty, and one hundred feet of water.
Across the lake, the large fire at the soldiers’ camp was burning down. Books paced about the beach, nominally on watch, while Akstyr read his healing tome. The eyes of youth apparently had no trouble picking out sentences in the deepening gloom.
Naked and shivering, Maldynado splashed out of the shallows. Books handed him dry clothes.
“Did you see it?” Books asked. “What did it look like? Fragile? Destructible?”
“Mind if I dress first?” Maldynado’s teeth chattered. “Nobody wants to be interrogated in his brothel suit.”
Books paced. He had let Amaranthe down by sleeping with Vonsha instead of investigating the house, and he felt the need to redeem himself. She was too nice to do more than raise an eyebrow at his bedroom exploits, but he knew. He had failed. He wanted to succeed here.
“
It was too deep for me to see,” Maldynado finally said. “The glow got brighter as I went down, but that’s it.”
“Emperor’s eternal warts.” Books clenched his fist. “We can’t stop it if we can’t get close to it.”
“I reckon they’ve had the same problem.” Maldynado waved toward the camp across the lake.
“If we could fish it up somehow,” Akstyr said, “and I could look at it, maybe I could figure out a way to destroy it.”
“Not happening,” Maldynado said. “It’s got to be one—or two-hundred feet down.”
“We do have that much rope back in the lorry,” Books mused. “And I imagine we could fashion a hook. It’d take a lot of luck to find it down there, but the light would be something of a beacon. I wonder if it’s magnetic.”
“It’s big,” Akstyr said. “Probably too big to lift. I can sense that much.”
“Someone lifted it to chuck it in the lake in the first place,” Maldynado said.
“Telekinetics,” Akstyr said in Kendorian, a word Books knew only because he had been teaching the young man enough of the language to read those magic texts. Turgonian had no terms to describe the different mental sciences. It was all “magic” in the empire, and none of it existed supposedly.
“Huh?” Maldynado asked.
“He said we either need to hire a gifted shaman,” Books said, “or we need to physically get down to the bottom of the lake to examine this artifact up close.”
“He said all that in one word?” Maldynado asked.
Books heaved a sigh. “Go stand watch, you uneducated lout.”
“You’re enjoying ordering me around far too much. I can’t believe I dove into a frigid glacier-fed lake for you. Next time I’m making sure Amaranthe puts me in charge.” Maldynado adjusted his belt and swaggered toward the head of the beach, though he paused to question Akstyr on the way by. “You didn’t really say all that, did you?”
“Naw,” Akstyr said.
Books turned his back on them and rested his chin on a fist. “What we need,” he muttered to himself, “is a diving bell.”
Perhaps he could make one, something they could lower down by rope that would be big enough for Akstyr and perhaps one other to fit inside. It would have to be spacious enough to cup plenty of air beneath its concave form. That would allow Akstyr to take short trips out to investigate the artifact. Unfortunately, the forest would not provide anything suitable for the purpose.
“I wonder what kind of tools and equipment are in the dam,” Books said.
An owl hooted, a cranky sound rather than the usual inquisitive one. Twilight lay thick amongst the trees, and more eyes than the owl’s glowed from the shadows. The effect was…eerie.
“Should we light a fire?” Maldynado asked.
“It’d be visible from the soldier camp,” Books said.
A mosquito nipped at Books’s neck, and he slapped it with more urgency than normal. What if being bitten by something that drank the water could pass along the strange symptoms?
“Do we care?” Maldynado asked. “Maybe they’ve got some hard cider or brandy over there. When the forest is full of creepiness, humans should band together.”
Something that sounded like a dog whining came from behind them. Books turned his back to the lake. He could no longer make out Maldynado and Akstyr’s faces.
Leaves rustled. A thunk came from Maldynado’s direction, the sound of a hammer being cocked. Books tensed.
“It’s us,” Amaranthe called.
Three figures appeared out of the darkness.
“Find anything, Books?” Amaranthe asked.
“Not yet, but I have an idea.” He explained his diving-bell concept.
“That would provide enough air to stay down long enough to study the device?”
She sounded more impressed than disbelieving, and Books allowed himself to feel a touch of pride. Had she not heard of such a thing? Perhaps all the trivia nestled in his brain had a use for this group after all. He went on to detail the historical precedent, citing instances where diving bells had been used within lakes as well as the sea. Maldynado groaned several times during the spiel, but Amaranthe listened patiently.
“You think you can make such a thing?” she asked when he finished.
“I should not wish to oversell my manual abilities, but—”
A hand clamped over Books’s mouth.
“Yes,” Maldynado said. “Yes, he can make it.”
Books shoved his hand away. “I need supplies. I’m hoping I can find them in the dam.”
“And I’m hoping we don’t have to spend the night out here amongst the plagued and eerie,” Maldynado said.
Silence fell after their words. Amaranthe faced Sicarius for a long moment. He said nothing, as usual. Books wondered what she got from exchanges with him.
“Something wrong?” he asked when the silence continued.
A retching sound came from the woods. A snarl followed, then a snapping of jaws and a squeal of pain.
“Wronger,” Maldynado said.
Sicarius spun and fired into the dark. Books jumped. Something dropped to the ground. Wordlessly, Sicarius reloaded.
“The dam may not be safer than the forest,” Amaranthe said, “but if your supplies are there, we will go.”
Books’s earlier pride faded as he wondered what trouble his idea would land them in.
CHAPTER 18
The iron door opened soundlessly on oiled hinges, uncovering a narrow tunnel. Though night had fallen over the lake, a denser darkness waited within.
Amaranthe adjusted her rucksack and steeled herself. “Who’s got the lamps?”
Metal clanked as Maldynado and Basilard withdrew lanterns from their packs. Amaranthe checked her rifle, missing the familiar heft of her crossbow, but she feared these creatures would be even less affected by her quarrels than the forest animals. Best to take firearms. Or maybe cannons.
“Ready.” Maldynado held his lantern aloft.
“Let’s get in, find Books’s supplies, and get out as quickly as possible,” Amaranthe said. “We’ll let the soldiers handle the creatures.”
“If they can,” Akstyr muttered.
The tight passage would force them to walk in a single line. While Amaranthe was debating whether it would be pusillanimous to suggest she and her tasty female organs should let someone else lead, Sicarius headed in first. She thanked him silently and followed.
Inside the tunnel, the scent of mildew permeated the air. Maldynado’s broad shoulders brushed against the gray concrete walls. Rifles and rucksacks scraped and bumped in the confining space.
The passage sloped downward as they traveled deeper. Moisture beaded on the ceiling and rolled down the wall. In spots it dripped with such enthusiasm Amaranthe feared for their lanterns’ flames.
“Should this place be leaking this much?” Maldynado asked.
“This dam would have been constructed one segment at a time,” Books said, “leaving enough room between the joints to allow for the expansion and contraction of the materials in cold and warm weather. Some seepage is to be expected. See that drain in the floor? The design would have—”
“Yes,” Maldynado said, voice raised to cut Books off. “The answer to my question is yes.”
“Forgive me,” Books said. “I thought you might wish to educate yourself on something besides womanizing and drinking.”
“Not at this particular moment.”
Sicarius lifted a hand and stopped. Amaranthe thought he might tell the men to shut their mouths, but he tilted his head, listening.
Gunfire. The concrete and the omnipresent roar of water muffled it, but the sound was distinct. Multiple weapons firing.
“At least we know the soldiers are still alive,” she said.
“That’d be more reassuring if we didn’t have bounties on our heads,” Books muttered.
A deep, guttural bellow sounded in the distance.
“I don’t think that was a soldier,” Maldyn
ado said.
Amaranthe tried to see Basilard, who walked at the end of the line, but the men blocked her sight. Did he recognize the bellow? Was it one of the creatures?
Sicarius was the one to answer her unspoken questions. “Makarovi.” He met Amaranthe’s eyes. “Continue?”
She waved him forward. “We have to find Books’s tools.”
Less than a minute later, the tunnel ended in a large chamber, perhaps a cavernous one. The weak flames of their lanterns did little to pierce the darkness more than a few meters away. The walls and ceiling disappeared in blackness. Only the roar of water flowing over their heads proved barriers existed.
Rows of unfamiliar machines stretched ahead of them. Amaranthe could identify some of the parts—flywheels, pistons, and rotating shafts—but boilers and fireboxes were missing, so they were not steam-powered. Whatever purpose they served, they were not serving it now; they simply loomed, giant metal skeletons. Mazes of pipes ran along the floor between the machines, and some rose vertically, disappearing into the dark depths above.
“What are these machines, Books?” Amaranthe asked.
The men had eased from the tunnel and fanned out, weapons ready.
“I’m uncertain,” Books said.
“Two words I never thought I’d hear him string together,” Maldynado said to Akstyr, who muttered something back and snickered.
“Perhaps they’re powered by the water,” Books said. “Some experimental technology?”
Another bellow echoed from the depths ahead, or perhaps to the side. The walls and tunnels distorted sound. Amaranthe had the sense of a vast subterranean complex within this massive concrete tomb. She frowned, not liking that her mind had chosen that last word.
Sicarius strode toward a dark shape on the floor ahead of them. Amaranthe followed with a lantern. A faint odor of blood mingled with the pervasive mildew smell.
“Dead soldier,” Sicarius said before she drew close enough to identify the shape.
The flickering lantern light revealed parallel gashes across the man’s shoulder and neck, so deep they had nearly torn the head off.
Sicarius crouched for a closer look.
“Why do I always end up stumbling over decapitated bodies when I’m with you?” Amaranthe asked him.