“I’m a practiced artist, you idiot. You’ve seen my carvings.”
“Yes, and if I needed a tree etched into this rock, you would be the first person I’d ask.”
Dak started walking around, ostensibly watching the road in either direction, but he was probably bored. Or wondering why he had ever promised Yanko that favor.
“Here, go ahead and try,” Yanko said. He felt bad for sniping at her, even if she had been as sarcastic as he. “Address it to the honored prison warden and—”
“Rekanogee,” Dak said out of nowhere.
“Pardon?”
“That’s the name of the prison commissioner.”
“You’ve been here before?” Yanko stood up, relinquishing his rock desk to Lakeo. He recalled that Dak had known exactly what Shark had been talking about when he had referenced the caves south of town.
“Yes.”
“Because you were breaking some people out? Or because you were interred?”
Dak’s eyebrow twitched. “Yes.”
“I see. Were some of the former inmates in those barrels you were loading onto that skiff?”
Dak faced south, pointing to the cliffs the road followed, cliffs that overlooked a maze of pinnacles and sharp boulders sticking up out of the deep water. “The one and only entrance to the prison is halfway up the cliff side down there, a large opening that usually has two guards inside of it along with artillery weapons to defend against sea attacks. There may be more men there now, due to recent prison breaks.” Dak’s eye glinted, a rare hint of pleasure showing on his face. “The main cavern branches with numerous tunnels leading back into the rock, each lined with cells, some large and some small. There were groups and individuals in the cells when I was there.”
Yanko noticed the way Dak avoided answering his question, but he accepted this new information as a fair alternative response. It would be handy if Shark’s crew was all being held in one cell, but he could not count on being that lucky.
“There are more guards back in the complex,” Dak continued. “Two at the front of each tunnel, and more that sleep on the premises and can be called up at any time. There are also defensive measures that can be activated if there’s a break-in—or an attempt to break out. I didn’t see all of them, but the portcullis that can drop over the cave entrance can be inconvenient.”
“How did you get out?” Yanko wondered how many days had passed since Dak had staged the breakout. He didn’t need to deal with extra alert guards.
“Organized violence.”
“So... in the traditional Turgonian way.”
“Yes.”
“How is it that your people are more technologically advanced than mine?” Yanko looked down at the pen in Lakeo’s hand.
“Necessity. We don’t rely on magic to solve our problems.”
Yanko hoped for an opportunity to show Dak what magic could do. So far, the Turgonian had only, as he had mentioned, seen Yanko heal a fern.
“How’s this?” Lakeo leaned the page toward the lantern so they could see it. She had only written the salutation, but she had done a nice job emulating Zirabo’s penmanship style.
“Good. All right, here’s the rest.” Yanko crouched on the balls of his feet. “It has come to my attention that you have a prisoner who smuggled an important artifact out of the Golden City. Arayevo Den Lo. I require she be turned over to Warrior Mage Akaron Sun Dragon—”
“Sun Dragon?” Lakeo protested. “From the legend? The one who singlehandedly held back a Turgonian invasion force of thousands?”
It figured that this would be one piece of history she actually knew.
“Those exploits are a part of legend now, but it’s a real family with a long history of serving the great chiefs. I can’t use my own clan name. As I found out last week, it’s well known here, thanks to my mother’s indiscretions.”
“Sun Dragon.” Lakeo snorted. “Next you’ll be claiming descent from Selas the Great.”
“Just write the words.”
“Are you sure you want to imply your girlfriend is an even greater criminal than she is?”
“She’s not my girlfriend.” Yet. “And she’s not a criminal.”
“Right, I’m sure her work for Smuggler Captain Shark has been very noble.”
“Have you written what I said yet?”
Lakeo grumbled, but she hunched over the page and went back to penning the note in the prince’s hand.
“You’re only seeking to get the girl out?” Dak asked. He didn’t point out that retrieving only one crew member wouldn’t win them passage from Shark, but he didn’t need to. It was on Yanko’s mind.
“Even if I can only see her for a couple of minutes, it may be enough. If she can let me know where the others are being kept, then I believe I can drill down from above. We can lower a rope without the guards knowing about it.” He nudged the coil of rope he had stopped to pick up on the way out of the city.
“Drill down. Yanko, there’s at least thirty feet of solid rock between the top of the cliff and the cave ceilings.”
“Yes, but I study the earth sciences. I can manipulate rocks, make holes.” He hoped he wasn’t making a promise he couldn’t follow through on. Thirty feet of solid rock was daunting, especially if his attempt was not to collapse it but to find a way to winnow through it. “It might not be a particularly straight hole, but I should be able to make one.”
Dak grunted dubiously.
“Oh, he can do the rocks,” Lakeo said. Yanko was on the verge of feeling pleased by her faith in him when she added, “Passing himself off as some great and powerful warrior mage from a great and powerful family is a lot more questionable.”
“You do know that I’m from a once-great family and that my mother was—is—extremely powerful, right?”
“Doesn’t mean anyone is going to believe you are. You’re too young. You barely look your age. And your age is young.”
“I’m eighteen. That’s not that young.”
“You have three chin hairs.”
“Because I shave.”
“Yeah, but you only have three chin hairs to shave.”
Yanko took a deep breath and relaxed the fists that had somehow become clenched. “I’ll make it work. Just finish the letter, please. I require she be turned over to Warrior Mage Akaron Sun Dragon, who will bring her back to the Golden City for questioning. Your cooperation in this matter is appreciated. Prince Zirabo, son of the Great Chief.”
Fortunately, Lakeo returned to writing without further comment on his age. Or his chin hair.
Dak was watching them, perhaps still wondering about the feasibility of the hole-making. Though his new bodyguard hadn’t objected further, Yanko felt the need to explain in more depth, to bring him around to his way of thinking.
“Even though I’m certain we could retrieve the men using some of your organized violence,” he said, “I’m not comfortable with the idea of hurting—or more than hurting—region-appointed guards in order to free prisoners that, as you pointed out, may have been justly incarcerated. These are my own people, and I’m already questioning the fact that I’m going to break a law here. I don’t want to hurt anyone. Not for this. You strike me as an honorable man, Dak. I’m sure you can understand not wanting to make trouble for the authorities.”
“I like making trouble for the Nurian authorities,” Dak said.
“But not killing people who are just doing their jobs, I hope.”
Dak didn’t respond. Hm.
“Who took your eye, Dak?” Lakeo blew on the ink, finished with the forgery.
“Nurians,” he said bluntly and gave Yanko a flat look.
Yanko did his best not to wither under his stare.
“Here’s your letter,” Lakeo said.
Yanko examined it under the light, relieved to find the words all spelled correctly. He never got the impression that Lakeo had received a lot of schooling. “Thank you.”
He rolled it into a scroll, then carefully removed th
e deep purple seal from his own note and applied it to the new message. A slight warming of the wax, and it affixed itself to the paper. Zirabo’s seal. Who could question it?
No one, he hoped.
“We ready to go?” Lakeo picked up her pack and her bow.
“Not quite. I need to change clothes.”
* * *
“How do I look?” Yanko asked, smoothing the crimson robe that fit him far better than he had thought it would. They had reached the fork in the road and turned onto the path that angled down the cliff face. From here, they couldn’t see the cavern entrance, but lamps glowed in the darkness down there, lining the wide ledge where the path ended.
“Better than I thought you would when you said you were putting on your mother’s clothes,” Lakeo said.
Dak’s glower wasn’t friendly. “You look like someone I should be shooting.”
Yanko tried not to find that disturbing. He hoped it meant the garment lent authority to him, making him appear like a true warrior mage rather than some upstart who had failed his entrance exams.
“How old are we saying you are if they ask?” Lakeo asked as they started down the path.
Hoping nobody would ask, Yanko tugged the robe’s hood over his head to shadow his features. “I’ll do the talking. If they ask, I’ll say I’m eighteen. And a protégé. I entered Stargrind at thirteen.”
Lakeo snorted. “Does that ever happen?”
“Once. Three hundred years ago. To Se Mon the Star Flyer.”
Lakeo shook her head, apparently not familiar with the name.
“That was one of your great chiefs, wasn’t it?” Dak asked. “The one who razed the capital city to cow the resistance, then took over by force?”
“Yes.” Yanko tried not to find it disconcerting that Dak knew more about his people’s history than Lakeo did.
They stopped talking after that, padding down the rock path in silence. Two guards stepped into view before they had gone half way. One wore a black and white robe with the runes of a mind control specialist lining the sleeves.
Yanko kept the alarm off his face—he hoped—and raised his chin. Inside, he panicked. He hadn’t expected to find another mage here. In retrospect, it made perfect sense that someone from that discipline would be assigned to keep an eye on the prisoners. With his telepathy skills, the man could ferret out prisoners planning breakouts while they were still in the incipient stages. But he could also read every thought in visitors’ heads, if he so chose.
“He wasn’t here before,” Dak murmured. From the warning tone in that murmur, he recognized the significance of the outfit. There was a coldness to his tone, as well, a forbidding quality that made Yanko uneasy, even if the accompanying glare wasn’t directed at him.
“Keep your thoughts as blank as possible.” Yanko added, “He’ll be a telepath.”
“I know.”
Yanko kept walking—anything else would be suspicious—but he contemplated Lakeo out of the corner of his eye as he did so. If Dak loathed mind mages, his hatred might actually help him. His thoughts of strangling the man, or whatever violence he fantasized about, might keep the more important thoughts from surfacing, such as that this was all a ruse and that Yanko should be thrown atop the pointy rocks far below for his audaciousness. He was less certain about Lakeo. Even if she used a hint of magic in her carving, something he had witnessed before when she thought nobody was watching, that didn’t mean she had a well-trained mind that could deflect the inquiries of a telepath.
“Honored Warrior Mage,” the mind mage said, pressing his hands together in front of his chest and bowing when Yanko reached the ledge.
Yanko returned the gesture, making his bow slighter, since society said a warrior mage outranked all of the wizards in the other disciplines. The man had some gray in his hair, and Yanko felt like a fraud before he ever said a word.
“Honored Mind Mage,” he greeted. “I apologize for my tardiness, but my carriage broke down some miles north of the Port of the Red Sky Wars. The recklessness of young drivers.” He flicked a dismissive hand toward Lakeo, even as he hoped the night shadows hid his own youth.
The mind mage tilted his head curiously. “Could you not repair it?”
The general populace, and other mages too, it seemed, had a notion that warrior mages could do anything. Odd, since so many of them specialized in little more than flinging fireballs and wielding swords.
“It was the power source. I never bothered studying Making.” Yanko offered his best haughty sniff to imply that tinkering with artifacts was beneath him. Either that, or he implied he was trying to keep snot from dribbling out of his nose.
“What brings you here, Honored Warrior Mage?” the second man asked, a young guard with bruised knuckles. He must have been punching people lately. Did he sound suspicious at this late-night unannounced arrival? Yanko couldn’t tell. Maybe he should study telepathy.
“I have a message to deliver to the man in charge, Commissioner Rekanogee, I believe.” Yanko resisted the urge to speak quickly, lest they find it suspicious, but the fact that the mage was contemplating Dak and Lakeo made him nervous. When he dipped into a pocket for the forged letter, he noticed the dampness of his palms. He hoped nobody would spot the sweaty smudge marks he left on the edges of the scroll. “I’ve been told I’ll be making a pickup, as well. Shall I wait here?”
“A pickup?” The guard scratched his head. “I didn’t hear anything about that.”
“That’s why there’s a note.”
“Uh, all right. But the commissioner is sleeping.” The guard glanced at the mage and made an I-don’t-want-to-be-the-one-to-wake-him-up face.
“I’ll take it.” The mage squinted at Yanko as he accepted the letter, and he felt the faintest brush at the edges of his mind, an attempt to read his surface thoughts without delving too deeply to attract notice. Someone who wasn’t a Sensitive wouldn’t notice such a light touch, and not every mage would, either.
As soon as he had seen the telepath, Yanko had bricked off his mind, and he knew the man wouldn’t get anything, but a warning might be in order. Thus to discourage further attempts.
Yanko sent his senses down into the ledge and the rock that supported it, quickly finding that much of the cliff wall had eroded under the relentless tides. It took little effort to shift one of the crucial veins that kept the ledge from falling into the ocean. He made sure the damage wouldn’t bring it down completely, then sheered off a few rocks. Audible snaps came up from below, and the ledge shuddered with tremors.
The guard squawked and ran inside.
The quake should distract the mage, too, but in case he was still monitoring, Yanko let one of his thoughts slip through, an image of the entire ledge collapsing, except for the path and the portion he and his comrades stood upon.
The mage’s eyes bulged.
“I do not appreciate anyone meddling in my thoughts, Honored Mage,” Yanko said, doing his best to make his voice steely. It was hard because he felt like an ass for trying to cow the man.
“No, no, Honored Warrior Mage. I just had to be sure. Anyone can dress in a costume.”
“Surely, you can tell this is not a fake robe.” Yanko spread an arm, thinking of the power he had sensed within the garment. Even if he didn’t know yet what it did, he knew it was there, and another mage should feel that too. To his surprise, the runes at the edges flared to life, a golden glow brightening the shadowy ledge. “Who would dare imitate a warrior mage?”
The ledge shivered again, not as a result of anything he had done. He hoped he hadn’t miscalculated and truly made the rock so unstable that this portion of ground would collapse.
“No one, Honored Warrior Mage.” The telepath bowed again, deeply and hastily this time. “You’re right. My apologies. Please come inside and wait while I notify the commissioner.” He glanced warily at the ledge. “I’ll have food and beverages fetched.”
Yanko inclined his head and spread his arm again, indicating the other
fellow should lead. Yanko glanced at his companions, feeling wary himself, anticipating being called an idiot again. Dak merely gazed back at him blandly. He had retreated a couple of steps—to the path, which was supported by different veins of rock than the ledge—but he didn’t comment on the quake.
Lakeo grabbed his arm. Instead of calling him an idiot, she whispered, “He was poking in my mind. I felt it. I tried to think about the carriage being broken, but I don’t know if it fooled him. I’m not—I never had any training for dealing with telepaths.”
“I know. Wait up top, will you? Just to be safe. And—” Yanko glanced toward the cavern. He had better not take long, lest the mage’s suspicions be aroused again. “If anything happens, let my brother know where I am—or was. Please.”
Surprisingly, she didn’t argue. The mage’s mind touch must have truly unnerved her. “I will,” she said and jogged back up the path.
Trusting Dak to follow him, Yanko strode inside.
Nothing about the flat, grassy cliff top had hinted of underground passages, so Yanko was impressed by the size of the chamber that opened up around them. The already-wide entrance widened farther, creating a large cavern, the ceiling soaring more than thirty feet above with stalactites leering down, dripping water into small pools. Yanko stretched up with his mind, judging the amount of rock that stood between that ceiling and the cliff top above. Dak’s estimate had been dead-on. In this spot at least, there was another thirty feet of rock above the ceiling. Numerous tunnels opened from that first chamber, several at higher elevations with wooden ladders leading up to them.
The mage was talking to another guard and pointing down a wide passage. While they spoke, Yanko turned his senses outward again, feeling out the different tunnels, trying to judge their length and how many people were housed down each one. Since he knew Arayevo, he hoped he might find her familiar aura as he searched.
But the telepath returned, and Yanko reined in his thoughts. He didn’t want to be caught gazing longingly down prison tunnels.
“The commissioner has been awoken,” the mind mage said, bowing deeply again. Yanko certainly had made an impression on him. So long as that ledge didn’t topple into the ocean before he and Dak had to leave. “He’ll meet you over there.” The telepath pointed to crude benches that had been carved into the wall and natural rock formations to one side. There was also a fire pit. Homey. At least by cave standards. Dripping water spattered on one of the benches, and a puddle lay at the feet of another.