by Martha Wells
Alissa was looking down at the sphere, her nose wrinkled dubiously. Tremaine paced back toward the Liaison. He still wore that blank mask, the face of whatever controlled him. You’re too late. Her heart was starting to pound, and she was surprised her voice came out even when she asked, “Giliead, did you feel any other circles, in the past few minutes?”
“Yes, but it was our circle, that Gerard made.” Giliead looked up at her, suddenly appalled. “I thought it was our circle.”
Ilias swore softly, clapping a hand to his head. Tremaine lifted the pistol, telling Giliead, “Move.”
Giliead jerked back and she shot the Liaison in the head. Everyone in the court flinched as his body convulsed once and went still. Giliead pushed to his feet, stepping away from the corpse. Tremaine had already turned to Alissa. “Those crystals report everything they see. If you find any Gardier like him, with these things in his face, kill them. Don’t touch the crystals. Burn the bodies.” She leaned down, grabbed up one of the belt devices the Gardier used, this one a metal canister with something like a clock face, with a small crystal fused to the back. She dropped the device, ground the crystal to powder under her heel. “Break all of these.” She didn’t wait for an assent, already striding across the court.
Florian paced the Ravenna’s First Class lounge impatiently, holding one of the extra spheres, torn between excitement that Lodun refugees were about to arrive and guilt over a lingering resentment that she hadn’t been allowed to participate in the mission. That Ixion had somehow sensed her feelings before and tried to exploit them just made it all the worse. Really, she thought, I would have to be completely out of my mind to go along with him on anything. Or just stupidly blind to reality. But from what Giliead had told them, those were exactly the traits Syprian wizards looked for in their apprentice slaves.
The whole outside wall of the lounge had floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto the Promenade deck, filling the long room with shaded daylight. Niles had gated the ship to Ile-Rien perhaps half an hour ago, and Gerard’s message had arrived not long after that. Right now Viller Institute volunteers, Capidaran Ministry staff, and nurses and soldier-orderlies from the ship’s hospital were standing or sitting around on the couches and chairs, talking excitedly and waiting for the first group of Lodun evacuees to arrive so they could hurry them off for medical treatment or new quarters as needed. The double doors behind Florian were open to the ship’s smaller ballroom, where Niles had built his new circle.
Glancing back, she could see that all the lights were on, from the crystal prisms overhead to the milky white glass panels in the walls, etched with garden scenes. The chairs and tables had been stacked up atop the bandstands on each end of the room or pushed back into the adjoining lounge and the movie theater. The open expanse of floor was painted with the symbols of the new circle. And at least now they knew it worked, that the others were safe in Lodun.
On the Promenade outside Florian saw Colonel Averi walking past, with Kressein, several Rienish and Capidaran officers, and Balin, the Gardier woman prisoner. I wonder if she told them anything more about this Maton-First place and Castines. Hurrying, she went to the end of the lounge and through the doors, then out onto the Promenade. She walked quickly to catch up to the group. Averi had a map out, and was saying something to Kressein.
Florian felt the sphere in her hands flash with heat. Startled, she stopped, looking down to see it sparking, its insides spinning.
She looked up and her jaw dropped. Hanging in the air, low and threatening over the calm sea, was the massive black shape of a Gardier airship. Instinct made her throw herself to the deck an instant before the guns fired.
Glass shattered, wood splintered as the airship’s gun sprayed the ship, someone screamed. Huddled against the wall, Florian looked up. She saw bodies sprawled on the deck, blood. Several of the officers, Averi, Balin… Kressein was on his knees, braced against the ship’s metal wall, holding his sphere and shouting. Florian saw the airship’s nose tip up as it tried to turn away from the ship, red-orange stripes of fire already outlining the shape of the balloon. He got it, she thought, starting to crawl toward the injured and the dead.
But above the railing she saw another airship, and another. And another. She made a strangled noise, pointing.
Feet pounded on the deck behind her and crewmen ran past to help the injured.
“Avrain!” Florian yelled to the other sorcerer back in the ballroom. She shoved to her feet and bolted back toward the inside doorway, twisting and ducking to avoid being trampled by the officers and crewmen running out. They found us, like they kept finding Tremaine and Gerard and the others whenever they used the point-to-point circles. “Avrain, it’s an attack, get out there!”
She almost slammed into him at the doorway to the ballroom. “God, no,” he gasped, staring past her out the broad windows. He looked down, saw the sphere she was holding. “Go to Lodun, tell them to wait, don’t send anyone through yet!”
The ship’s Klaxon belatedly began to sound an alarm. Florian nodded rapidly. “I will.” Avrain ran for the lounge doorway and Florian hurried into the empty ballroom. The Gardier already knew about them, using the circle again couldn’t hurt. Putting aside her fear of what had happened the last time she had tried to use a world-gate without any help, she stepped into the circle.
Tremaine broke into a run when she reached the gate, heading back along the side of the lodging house, through the garden court with its damp laundry. Giliead and Ilias passed her but she couldn’t make her legs move any faster. They didn’t send troops through because this was a distraction. Idiot. And both times the Liaisons had managed to find them, they had been looking specifically for Gerard.
Back through the alley and she was running around the corner of the Philosophy College. She heard gunfire but it was muffled by distance, and the court was a confusion of running and shouting people, students, townsmen, but no Gardier. Tremaine looked desperately for Gerard but there was no sign of him or Niles either.
Then Florian appeared in the circle. Tremaine skidded to a halt on the grass, demanding, “Florian, what are you doing here?” Ilias had stopped to listen but Giliead was running for the college gallery.
Startled at the confusion, Florian blurted, “The Ravenna’s under attack—airships appeared right around us.”
“Great,” Tremaine snarled. “We’re under attack too. Come on.” Without waiting, she ran for the gallery. Ilias caught up with her easily and the bells were still pealing urgently as they took the broad steps two at a time. Digging in her bag for more ammunition, Tremaine crossed the portico to the big open double doors. The high-ceilinged hall just inside was dark except for a few oil lamps, smelling of dust and aged wood and books. She saw Giliead, Niles, Barshion, a dozen others looking out the windows in the far wall that opened onto another court.
Niles’s brother Cathber glanced back at their arrival, saying grimly, “It’s a standoff.”
Past the other men, through the wide arched window, Tremaine could see perhaps twenty Gardier. They were all armed, except for a Liaison who still stood within a gate circle, holding a sorcerer crystal. The circle was small, barely ten feet across, and burned into the grass. They had three hostages, a young woman and two men, all dressed as students. The Gardier were holding them with pistols to their heads, making a human barrier in front of the circle. Four other bodies already lay sprawled on the grass, one of them in Gardier uniform. “Where’s—” Tremaine started to ask, then her throat closed in shock.
Gerard was a short distance from the other hostages, two Gardier gripping his arms, a third holding a pistol to his head. He looked barely conscious and only the Gardier seemed to be keeping him on his feet.
Niles stood out on the open portico, holding a sphere, Adel Kashani and two student-sorcerers flanking him.
The Liaison spoke, too quietly for Tremaine to hear. She did hear Niles, on the portico, breathe the words “No, damn it, no.”
Then the
three Gardier dragged Gerard over the edge of the circle and vanished with the Liaison.
Tremaine yelled in pure horror, barely conscious of the shocked gasps and dismayed murmurs of the people around her.
The remaining Gardier looked as horrified by it as she was. A Gardier officer stepped back, lifting his pistol, but with the sorcerer crystal gone he was as good as unarmed. Niles didn’t even gesture and the officer dropped his weapon, then fell to the ground, clutching his throat. The other Gardier shifted, still holding their hostages; but they were frightened, uncertain. Niles’s face was a stony mask. He started down the stairs, saying in Aelin, “If you surrender, you won’t be injured.”
In the sudden silence, the officer’s gasps for air as he writhed on the grass were clearly audible. Two of the Gardier dropped their weapons, hastily backing away as their hostages pushed free. The last Gardier shouted angrily, but in his agitation he moved the pistol away from his hostage’s head, and she grabbed his hand, sinking her teeth into it. The pistol went off but the bullet struck the ground as the other two hostages leapt to help her.
Tremaine pushed through the crowd, ignoring the confusion as more people rushed forward to help. She hurried down the stairs, across the gravel path to the grass and the edge of the small circle. The Gardier had used something similar to Gerard’s new circle again; the symbols had burned into the grass, faint lines of white ash, already beginning to disappear.
Tremaine looked wildly around. “Florian! It’s going away!”
“Here.” Florian stepped into the circle, looking back at her, eyes wide and serious. “I can do it.”
“Tremaine, you can’t!” Niles shouted from the portico. “We can’t risk it!”
“You’re the only other one here who knows the spell, you have to stay,” Tremaine told him. She stepped into the circle with Florian. Ilias was right behind her and Giliead with him. She wanted to tell them not to come, but she knew she needed the help.
Niles had lifted his sphere, probably about to knock them all unconscious, but if he tried, Florian’s sphere deflected it hen the court and the gray daylight vanished.
Tremaine’s stomach lurched and the floor moved under her feet. They were in a sizable room with huge window panels on each side, looking out onto a sea of heavy gray clouds. Airship, she thought, lifting her pistol. One of the new prototypes, like the one they had stolen from Maton-devara. The circle they stood in had been hastily inked onto the floor, the cork mats ripped aside to expose the metal surface. Barely ten paces away was another circle, this one larger, more carefully drawn. In it stood the Liaison and the two Gardier with him, an unconscious Gerard hanging limply in their grasp.
Another Gardier stood outside the circle. He spun around, stared incredulously and stepped toward them, just as Tremaine fired.
The bullet struck his chest instead of the Liaison’s. As he fell, the Liaison, the other Gardier and Gerard disappeared.
“Goddammit!” Tremaine strode to the other circle, snarling. She dug into her satchel for an incendiary, pushing down the strike lever to arm it. “Come on.”
“Quick, before they break the other end,” Giliead said as they all stepped over the border of symbols.
Florian took a deep breath. “Ready?”
Tremaine heard shouts and running boot steps from the access corridor, and tossed the incendiary outside the circle. “Ready.”
Florian yelped and the room vanished in a blast of heat.
They were in a large stone chamber, lit by the harsh light of a carbide lamp, the circle carved in stone on the floor. A Gardier armed with a chisel and hammer was just stooping over one of the symbols. He had time to look up in horror just before Ilias kicked him in the head, knocking him over backward. Ilias stepped in to finish him off with a sword thrust.
“Tremaine,” Florian snapped. “Warn me next time. And that was our escape route.”
Looking around for more Gardier, Tremaine threw her a look. “You wanted to escape to a Gardier airship?”
“Point taken, but do warn—”
“We’re back in the mountain, in our world,” Giliead interrupted. The polished stone threw back reflections from the lamp, the distinctive half columns along the wall arching up the curves of the domed ceiling, the bands of carving that repeated the circle symbols. He was right, they were in the lower chamber of the mountain ruin. It was night and no daylight was showing through the cracks in the far wall that led outside.
“Why the hell did they come here?” Tremaine said to herself. And which circle had they taken? The one they were standing in had been the dud that she and Gerard had tried first when they were exploring the room. The Gardier must have used the circle in the airship to reconnect it, but they had modified it to cross from Ile-Rien back to the staging world, the way Arisilde had modified the circle at Cineth. They were catching up to us, Tremaine thought, sick with fear at what they might do to Gerard. Now they’re a step ahead.
“Quiet.” Ilias was standing with his head cocked, listening. Then he and Giliead ran for the stairwell. “They went up!”
Tremaine pelted after him, Florian behind her.
The stairs were pitch-dark and Tremaine kept one hand on the cold stone wall to steady herself. Behind her she heard Florian swear softly. “What?” Tremaine demanded.
“That sorcerer crystal is casting like crazy,” Florian reported, breathless as they climbed. The cold was chilling Tremaine’s sweat-soaked shirt, making it damp and clammy. “I think the sphere’s deflected a dozen spells. If we didn’t have it, we’d be paste.”
“Can you talk to the crystal?” Ilias asked Giliead.
Giliead sounded bitter. “No, this one won’t listen.” That didn’t surprise Tremaine. Giliead had already talked two crystals into defecting; the Gardier must be onto his abilities by now.
They came to the top of the stairs and Tremaine saw Giliead charge down the passage, Ilias taking the last steps in one bound to follow. She scrambled after them, reaching the passage in time to see the figures of the Gardier and Gerard, etched in the light from another carbide lamp, framed against the jagged black opening in the wall. Then they vanished.
Tremaine swore, running after Giliead and Ilias. They came out into the open chamber, the cold wind off the river filling it with the scent and sound of rushing water. The two men stepped into the circle, and Tremaine followed, turning as Florian hurried after her. The other girl threw one curious look around the big room, then hastily stepped into the circle.
The circle Arisilde gave us in Capistown, Tremaine thought. She was certain now he had given them the last circle he took, before whatever happened had happened, perhaps his last coherent memory before he had fled to the sphere. The circle that had been dead after Nicholas had destroyed the other end in their Capistown house, dead until the Gardier had come through it. Gerard was right, the Gardier must have broken it at its original destination after Arisilde came through, because they were afraid he might come back. Then when they realized we were here, when they noticed we were using the other circles, they restored it so they could come after us. “Everybody, be ready,” she said, feeling inadequate. “I think this is the one.”
Giliead grimaced, Ilias just nodded, and Florian lifted the sphere, saying, “Right. Here we go.”
Chapter 19
This time the abrupt vertigo knocked Tremaine down. She shoved herself upright off a cool stone floor, looking around wildly. They were in a round rock-walled room, very like the one they had just left, the walls a mottled dark gray, curving up to meet in a dome high above their heads. There was a small opening in the very center of the dome, letting in sunlight and revealing a small patch of blue sky. She heard a shout and boot steps and twisted around, lifting her pistol.
Three Gardier were just disappearing through an archway in one curved wall, leading into another half-glimpsed room. Still near the edge of the circle, the last man spun around, raising his rifle. Tremaine jerked her pistol up but Giliead had landed near t
he man and he stood up suddenly, gripping the rifle and shoving it upward. Tremaine winced away from the blast of the shot, painfully loud against the stone.
The man had the sense to let go of the rifle but Giliead slammed him in the head with the butt before he could back away. As the Gardier collapsed, Tremaine scrambled to her feet. She reached the wall just as Florian and Ilias did. Ilias flattened himself against the stone, taking a careful peek into the next room.
He jerked back as two more shots rang out, spraying them with stone splinters from the edge of the arch. Ilias swore, throwing a look back at Tremaine. “Well?” he asked. On the far side of the archway, Giliead had dropped the rifle, edging close to try to see into the next room without getting his head shot off.
Tremaine grimaced. She couldn’t chance throwing an explosive, not if Gerard was in there somewhere. There was no other exit and the Gardier could keep them pinned here indefinitely. “Florian,” she said, “do something.”
“I’ve already done a concealment charm, but that’s not going to work well in close quarters. I don’t want to use the mechanical disruption, not with those around,” Florian muttered, nodding toward the satchel slung over Tremaine’s shoulder. “I don’t trust this sphere like I would Arisilde. I’ll make them drop the guns.”
“Right.” Tremaine had time to notice that the circle was carved into the floor and the walls weren’t mottled as she had first thought, they were smooth gray stone covered over with writing in black charcoal or paint that was coming off on her sweaty hands. Looking closely at the wall, she made out some of the more familiar symbols from the circles, scrawled wildly, in no discernible pattern or order, on top of each other. It had the look of something written by a madman, and was not reassuring. So where the hell are we?
Firmly gripping the sphere, Florian closed her eyes for a moment. Alarmed shouts and the clatter of weapons striking the floor sounded from the next room. Giliead and Ilias bolted through the archway and Tremaine flung herself after them, making sure Florian was close behind her. The sphere was the only protection for the explosives and her pistol, and she had to keep near it.