by C. M. Hayden
Ven was fitting his finished lens onto the inside of the metal telescope tube. His arm got caught in it for a moment, and left a red ring on his skin when he yanked it out.
“I don’t like that look on your face,” Ven said when he pulled his arm free.
“What look?” Taro asked sheepishly.
“That one.” Ven made an exaggerated pointing gesture. “That one right there.”
“It’s nothing,” Taro said, and took a step forward. “I need a diagram for an Artificium project, but it’s in the vaulted archives. There’s no way Kyra will let me see them, but you could slip in without a problem.”
Ven stared back suspiciously. “What kind of project?”
Taro cleared his throat and leaned in. “The Carcerium.”
Ven couldn’t have looked more shocked if Taro punched him square in the face. He took two huge steps back and shook his head indignantly. “No, no, NO. Taro, tell me you’re not—”
Taro shushed him. “Not so loud.”
“Oh, you’re lucky I’m not being a lot louder. You could be hanged for this, or—”
Taro held his hand up. “I know what would happen to me.”
“But do you know what would happen to me. Please, tell me this is some sort of a joke. You’re better than this.”
“She knows,” Taro said with an exasperated voice. “She knows how to find Nima. There’s this dowsing compass, and—”
“Shut up for a second.” Ven wiped the sweat from his forehead and chest with a dirty rag and pulled up a wooden stool from under the table. He looked around their immediate area to make sure their conversation was private, then continued to whisper loudly. “I already know how this conversation turns out. You beg me to help, I say no for a while, then you say it’s ‘for your sister’ and I’m supposed to roll over like a pup. That it?”
“It is for her,” Taro said, stone-faced.
Ven did a double take toward the back of the Artificium, past scores of recruits and artificers tinkering away on a hundred different projects. He bit his lip and made a furious face. “You unbelievable son of a bitch. Why would you ask me to do something like this?”
“I’m sorry. I wouldn’t ask if there was any other—”
“No, you’re not. You’re not sorry at all. If I was caught, it would destroy everything I’ve worked for. My family. My friends. My commission.”
Taro wrung his hands. “You’re my only option.”
Ven frowned. “I never believed any of it. Not one word, not ’til now. Kyra said you were a traitor.”
“I’m not a traitor,” Taro insisted. “I won’t let her out of my sight. When I get what I need, I’ll hand her over to the dragonkin.”
“You think you can control Vexis? You’ve seen what she’s capable of.”
“I have a plan for that. I can handle her. Can you get the schematics?” Taro asked insistently.
Ven leaned over the table, grabbing up a handful of gears with his right hand and lenses with his left. As he hunched, his chest heaved, and he threw his freshly carved lenses onto the floor grate, shattering them into a dozen pieces.
He glared furiously at Taro. “Damn you.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jailbreak
TARO STOPPED AT HOME once more. Much of the mess had been cleaned up, and his mother was sweeping shattered porcelain pieces into a dustpan. They were what was left of her antique wax warmer. The room was noticeably quiet as Taro trotted up the last stair and into the living room. His mother’s eyes briefly glanced to him, then back to the boys playing in the corner.
“The boys seem to be doing well, all things considered,” Taro said.
His mother looked at them with a half-smile, but didn’t respond, and Taro didn’t want to press her. Instead, he went to his room and changed out of his magisterium uniform and into something more befitting a journey through the desert. Light-weight trousers, a thin shirt, and a wool over-cloak with a hood that could hide his face if needed. He strapped his father’s old hunting knife to his pant leg and filled his travel bag up with rope, a needle and thread, coins, and long-lasting food like fruit and dried meat. He also packed his inscriber, a few books, a variety of inks, and finally stuffed the two-way parchment into a side pocket along the seam of his shirt.
When Taro stepped back into the living room in his new clothes, his pack swung over his shoulder, Decker practically leapt from the corner.
“You’re really leaving,” Decker said, pulling at his sleeve.
Taro knelt and squeezed Decker and Enam tight. “For a while.”
“Last time you said that you were gone for a really long time,” Decker said.
“How long is a while?” Enam added.
“Probably a very long time,” Taro admitted. “Take good care of your mom.” He stood and looked back at his mother. Their eyes met for a long moment. In that time, a hundred things passed Taro’s mind. He said none of them.
His mother had finished picking up the last bit of her shattered wax warmer and was going to toss it in the trash. Taro stopped her just before she threw the fragments away and silently sat the porcelain shards on the kitchen table. He retrieved his inscriber and marked the larger pieces one at a time.
“Gran gave you this?” Taro asked, as he arranged the pieces, marking each one with a fine rune.
“Just after you were born,” his mother said. Her voice was still stern, but she had a curious look as she watched Taro arrange the pieces. “It’s ruined now.”
“A somewhat wise man named Ishal Valharis once wrote that anything whole can’t be permanently broken. There’s always a tether of energy leading them back together.”
“His seventh truth,” his mother said knowingly.
Taro looked at her with a bewildered expression. Then he smiled, nodded, and went back to etching the runes as he spoke. “Sometimes we can’t always see it. Sometimes the pieces are so broken it seems like no amount of effort can piece them back together.” Taro finished off the last rune and touched one of the pieces. The many disjointed runes glowed white, wobbled, and slid back together. After several seconds, the runes and cracks faded away and the wax warmer was whole again.
Taro peered up at his mother. “I’ll bring her back,” he said.
With no more words between them, Taro kissed his mother on the cheek and left.
_____
Trezu was at the agreed upon spot in the woodlands surrounding the Carcerium. He laid on his stomach in the grass and twigs, peering at the prison walls.
When he approached, Trezu motioned Taro to get down. “No one saw you come this way, did they?”
Taro crouched and looked in the same direction as Trezu. The Carcerium wall was a hundred yards away, largely obscured by foliage.
“Have there been any patrols?” Taro asked.
Trezu nodded and sat up with his back against a large birch. “A warder passed earlier. He didn’t see me. Did you get the plans?”
Taro unfurled the schematics that Ven had retrieved for him. They showed the layout of the entire facility: every wall, every room, every duct, and every passageway in the Carcerium. In the lower levels, on the easternmost side, were the cell blocks.
Trezu ran his finger from one side of the wall, through a duct, and to Vexis’ cell. “This would be the most direct route. Through the air ducts.”
“Those aren’t air ducts.” The line led directly into four exits surrounding Vexis, and Taro immediately knew what they were. “Those are filled with flammable gas. They’ll flood the room with fire if Vexis tries to leave her cell.”
“Then they’ll never expect us to use them,” Trezu said.
“They’d never expect it because it would be suicide. The gas alone would—”
“You’d be fine so long as you were quick.”
Taro pointed to a relay station at the base of the ducts. “If you could turn off the gas, it could work.”
“That increases our chance of being caught,” Trezu said, peeking ove
r at the Carcerium again.
“No,” Taro said, “that increases your chance of being caught. And increases my chance of living.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know much of machinery and valves. I’m just as likely to make it worse.”
“It’s easy.” He pointed to where the ducts ended on the diagrams. “You find the valve here and turn it right until it can’t be turned anymore.”
Trezu didn’t look too sure of himself, and Taro seized him by the face and forced him to look him in the eye. “The Shahl wants Vexis, right? What will happen to you if he discovers you had a chance to free her and failed?”
Trezu licked his lips nervously before nodding. “How exactly do I get to the valve?”
“The Sun King promised you open audiences with Vexis, right?” Taro asked.
“That’s correct.”
“Use one. Meanwhile, I’ll sneak in through the side. The more the warders’ attention is fixated on you, the better.”
The bald Helian looked exceedingly nervous, but nodded. “I’ll try.”
Trezu skirted around the woodlands toward the exit. He told Taro that he had a carriage not far off. Taro stayed low and made his way closer to the Carcerium gates. There weren’t many guards along the outside of the wall (most were stationed inside) and the few present were relatively easy to avoid.
Ten minutes later, Trezu’s carriage approached the gate. The warders stopped him, questioned him for several minutes, and patted him down. Satisfied, they opened the gates and allowed him inside. When the gate shut, Taro got to work. The guard patrol on the western side moved on, and he set the cutting disc against the wall. With a slight hum, it cut a clean circle into the stone, which Taro climbed through.
Taro’s first step was into loose sand. The entire area between the back of the Carcerium and the perimeter wall was sand with only a slim walkway between them. The reason was obvious: footprints in the sand meant that someone was sneaking around the place, and their location and direction would be easier to ascertain. With no guards in immediate sight, Taro did his best to pat down his footprints, but there was no way to eliminate the disturbed sand entirely. His only option was to work quickly and hope that by the time the patrol noticed them (and the gaping hole in the wall) he was long gone.
He checked the schematics once more, and headed to a brick Carcerium exterior. In the distance he could hear Trezu and Lord Commander Linos talking; it was mostly them going over the same rules he’d told Taro during his own visit.
Taro followed the wall until he found the spot he needed. He pressed the cutting disc against the bricks, and it carved a perfect hole into it. The longer he held it, the deeper the hole went, and eventually it ate all the way through. When he climbed inside, his hand brushed against the edges of the hole, leaving a long burn across his wrist.
“Damn it,” he whispered furiously, biting the welt on his hand but not slowing down.
Except for the light pouring through the hole, the inside was very dark. It was little more than a crawlspace filled with clusters of pipes covered in spider webs and dust. Shimmying through them took a lot of effort, and he peeled a layer of skin from his elbow as he tried to wedge his body through the tight space.
Through the dripping pipes he could hear the inmates chattering to themselves.
Taro recalled that Zerina the Mad and Azgal the Cannibal had cells adjacent to each other. Apparently, they could hear one another. Azgal’s crackling, dark voice sent a chill up Taro’s spine as it taunted Zerina.
“Hear that? They’re coming for you,” Azgal whispered through the pipes. “You know what they do to murderers, right? They’ll rip your fingers and toes off one by one, then—”
“Shut up, SHUT UP,” Zerina wailed.
“I’m sorry,” Azgal said. “I just wanted you to be ready. I’m your friend, Zee.”
“Y-you are?” she said meekly.
“Yes, and I want to help you. So when the guard comes, all you need to do is rip out his throat. Rip it clean out of his neck. Then we’ll escape together. You and me.”
“I-I-I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Zerina said.
As they spoke, Taro checked the schematics and found the hatch he needed to crawl through. It was screwed to the wall with eight thick, welded bolts. The runes to free the bolts were relatively easy; but with the suppression field present all around him, Taro found it exceedingly difficult to summon enough templar to activate them. He pushed his mind to the breaking point before he got any results. The runes activated part of the way, but Taro had to bash the grate with his fist several times to get it free. Panting, he caught it just before it was going to strike the ground.
“If you don’t kill him, he’s going to take you,” Azgal said. “And you’ll never see your family again. Is that what you want?”
“No…but…hurting people is bad,” Zerina whimpered.
“You’ve got it all wrong, Zee. It won’t hurt him. The magisters will fix him right up with their magic.”
Zerina sounded cautiously hopeful. “Are you sure?”
“Positive,” Azgal said.
A puff of putrid gas rushed out when the hatch lifted, causing Taro to cough and hack. When he did this, the voices coming from the pipes all stopped as if they recognized the presence of an unfamiliar voice.
“Sneaking, sneaking, sneaking,” Zerina muttered.
Azgal was practically singing. “Someone’s gonna die today.”
Taro hoped that the patrols hadn’t discovered his break in yet. With any luck, they’d be focused on Trezu; however, he knew better than to trust in luck. He needed a distraction.
“Zerina,” Taro whispered.
Azgal chuckled. “Bothering a crazy girl? You’re just awful!”
“You hear the voice, too?” Zerina asked.
“He’s not a voice. He’s someone creeping around. How exciting,” Azgal said.
“Why’s he creeping?” Zerina said.
“He wants to take you away.”
“But I’ve been so good,” Zerina whimpered.
“He’s going to take you…” Azgal said darkly.
Zerina smacked some part of her body on the pipe. “No.”
“And do to you what you did to that family in Tortune.”
Zerina’s voice grew manic. “But I’ve been good. I’ve been so good.”
“Not good enough,” Azgal said.
Zerina started to wail and beat at her cell walls.
“One, two, they’re gonna to take you,” Azgal said gleefully. “Three, four, they’re on their way to the door. Five, six, you’re getting a fix. Seven, eight—”
Zerina shouted and banged. A warder came to her cell and barked for her to shut up, and when she wouldn’t, he stepped inside and Taro heard a series of thumps as if he’d bludgeoned her with a cudgel.
“But he’s coming to get me!” Zerina wailed between smacks.
“I don’t give two shits what’s going on in your cracked head,” the warder groused.
Zerina’s ditsy voice turned sour. “You’re a very bad man.”
“One more peep and I’ll knock your crooked face in,” the warder said.
There was a silence for the space of three breaths, and suddenly the warder shouted in agony. His gurgling cries didn’t last long, and soon he was completely silent. Zerina’s whimpering echoed through the pipes.
“I…I did a bad thing again.” She spoke as if she were a four-year-old. “I’m gonna get in so much trouble. Can you help me clean this up? They’re gonna see.”
Taro could hear warders marching to the cell to see what the commotion was. Now was the time. He climbed inside the duct; it wasn’t big enough to stand or crouch, and he had to shimmy along on his stomach. He briefly entertained the idea of leaving his prosthetic behind to make crawling easier, but quickly dismissed the idea. If he got into a sticky situation, he didn’t want to be unable to walk.
A few feet into the walkway it was pitch black, and with the suppression
field in the air (and using much of his templar to loosen the bolts earlier) he was utterly unable to use templary to light the way. Fortunately, there was only one way to go. He followed the sloping pipe for several yards, and could hear shouting throughout the Carcerium. Most of the voices were warders trying to subdue Zerina, or the Lord Commander barking orders; but one voice stood out from the others—it was Sikes’.
He didn’t sound quite like himself, as if he were stuck somewhere between drunk and exhausted. “Could you please SHUT UP,” he said, pounding against his cell wall.
Taro only had a split second to decide his next move. Sikes would be able to hear him if he spoke, but he’d be taking a risk. If he was revealed, he was done for; but in the end, he had to help his friend.
“Psst, Sikes,” Taro said. There was no response, but Sikes stopped talking and hitting the wall. Clearly he’d heard him, so Taro continued. “Five minutes. Be ready.”
With that, he continued to the end of the shaft. Again he heard voices, this time it was Vexis and Trezu, both very close.
“Your father wants you back in Helia,” Trezu said.
Vexis’ voice crackled. She seemed to be doing her best not to sound weak, but she wasn’t doing a very good job. “When did he start caring about what happens to me?”
While Taro was positioning the disc to cut through the metal shaft, the door in the cell creaked opened and Linos blustered in.
“Excuse me,” Trezu said indignantly, “I was promised privacy.”
“You’ll have to get it another time. There’s a situation in the cells above, and she needs to be secured.”
Vexis coughed and Taro heard her beat her chest. “Little ol’ me?”
Taro pressed the disc to the metal and it cut a perfect circle. As soon as it cleared, Taro took the metal orb Trezu had given him and lobbed it into the cell.
“Cover your eyes and mouth!” Trezu shouted to Vexis.
There was a flash and a great plume of vapor that dissipated quickly after the initial blast. When Taro jumped down, he found Linos passed out on the floor. He patted through his pockets, found the door key and locked the cell from the inside.