Broken Devices

by Karen Myers

“D’ya have anything that’ll burn?” she asked Munraz. He’d said little since she’d swarmed awkwardly down the shaft with her armful of sticks pulled from the wreckage of the vendor booth.

  She dropped the wood bits at her feet now and lowered herself to the floor. Munraz was probably waiting for her to talk about the murder, but she had more urgent things on her mind. Later, maybe. She could feel both his shock and his wariness of her, but she pushed it aside and made sure the shield around the two of them was tight and impervious.

  “I’ve already burned the loose material I had with me,” he said. “I could start on my shirt…”

  “No, wait. Let me think.” She had plenty of power-stones—what could she do without an actual device? She should’ve made a lighting device framework before she came, a rysefeol, but there was no help for that now.

  What was a device but a way of holding power-stones in tension at set distances to provide efficient control? A stone by itself… she could make it glow for a while, if she didn’t mind spending the power, and there was plenty of that in her chain. It would get warm, or course. Better if she could stick it to a wall so that it shone above her work, but the walls felt smooth.

  “How did you hold the lights you made?” she asked Munraz.

  Instead of an answer, she heard Munraz sit down. There was was a rustle of clothing, and then a boot was shoved in her direction, upside down. She grabbed it, startled, then followed her nose to the smell of charred leather.

  “Perfect,” she said. She carefully loosened the thongs that tied the small pouch of power-stones she’d had Talqatin get her, and she fingered out a single stone before carefully tying it shut again against an accidental spill.

  She pushed the stone down into the surface of the burnt sole, and then handed the boot back to Munraz. Instead of releasing it, she kept her hold and guided his hand with her free one so that he could feel the power-stone lying there, precariously attached. Then she let him take the boot away.

  “I’m going to load that stone until it shines, and we can treat it like a torch while I make some real devices for light. I’m not sure it’ll stick, so try to keep that sole level. Don’t get your hand too close, now.”

  “I’m ready,” he said.

  Penrys smiled grimly to herself—he sounded anything but ready. She drained power from her chain into the stone until it began to glow. There was no way to tune it, without the structure of a device, so it produced heat and light indiscriminately.

  She cast a superficial glance around the tunnel, fading into gloom in either direction, and then pulled out the smallest of her knives and went to work on the broken sticks.

  By the time the smell of burning leather could no longer be ignored, she had two power-stones secured in the slots of an ad hoc device. With a little fiddling, she managed to adjust it so that it produced a cold light that was in no danger of consuming the wooden rysefeol framework that held it. She left the rest of the stick fairly long, rather like a short torch, to make it easier to carry for a long hike.

  “I’m going to kill the one you’re holding now,” she told Munraz. He’d maintained a tense silence the whole time, and she imagined his conflicting motives—not wanting to distract her, not wanting to talk about what had happened but needing to, not sure how she might react—but she had no patience right now to indulge him.

  Anger burned in her like the torch she’d made of his boot, and she couldn’t afford to let it out quite yet, or even think about it. She stamped it down and focused on the task at hand. There would be time to dwell on it.

  “Don’t know if there will be anything left to wear, but we can let it cool down for a while and see.” She stopped feeding the power-stone and sucked any energy it still held back into her chain. When she took the boot from Munraz’s hand and examined the sole by the light of the new device, she was pleased to see the power-stone hadn’t quite charred its way through the full sole.

  “I’ll take the stone back once it can be handled, but you’re in luck. Might not keep out water anymore, but I think you’ll still find it useful. Now take this.”

  She gave him the device to hold overhead by its long handle and busied herself making two more—another one with a long handle, and a small one that could be held with the palm of a hand. She slipped that one unpowered into a pocket, in case they ran out of boots to use for emergency torches.

  There was no way to tell how long the devices would continue working on a single charge from her chain, but she suspected it would be an hour or two, and that was nothing to her.

  “If we run into trouble, I’ll try to turn them off by draining them, but if you cover the shining stone with your hand, that’ll be surer and probably faster. Shouldn’t be hot to the touch.”

  Now she felt equipped to travel, but where to? In what direction? “Have you got a bit of cord to tie these sticks into a bundle?” she asked Munraz. “I’m not leaving them behind—might come in handy.”

  He shook his head. “Burned it all.”

  Oh, well. Penrys unraveled the colorful scarf given her by Char Pangfa, the one that was hiding her chain, and twirled it diagonally into a strap to fasten the sticks together.

  She looked over Munraz. He still had both skins of ale, one somewhat deflated, and there were still six pasties in the net bag. He followed her glance and said, diffidently, “Never know where the next meal might come from.”

  “Very wise.”

  “What are you going to do?” he ventured.

  He wasn’t specific and she dodged the deeper part of the question. “First we find out what else is down here. Then we decide where to go.”

  She scooted up against one of the tunnel walls and made herself relatively comfortable. “Come watch,” she said, and felt his attention over her mental shoulder. She walled away her personal feelings and started at the bottom of the mountain.

  *For searching, direction is easy, but estimating distance is hard. There’s nothing below us but rock and whatever it contains.*

  She showed him the little rodents that were scattered around the perimeter. *What does that tell us? Means there’s nothing to eat on the inside and there are openings to the outside. We can’t tell if there are tunnels this way—we can only tell if there are minds.*

  As she drew their attention closer to their own level but still below them, she found three scattered people, moving slowly—none of them wizards.

  *They’re not as high as we are, but it’s hard to say by how much. Probably they’re nothing to do with us. Now let’s look at the cages on the hoists.*

  She moved their view to the edge of the mountain point, and the clusters of minds moving up and down—very disconcerting to see.

  *No surprises so far. What’s on our own level, more or less? That’s where I expect problems, not to mention the ground above. We’ll catch the top levels of tunnels, and the lower levels of basements.*

  She tightened her shield around them. It limited her reach but reduced her visibility to other wizards, and the knowledge that there were chained wizards up here was a powerful caution.

  From where they were, outward to the cliff face, there were only a few blocks of buildings, apparently unoccupied below ground. To the north and northeast, however, it was a different story. She felt the tingle that warned of wizards very near the surface as she swept north from the west, and she found more above ground on the same bearing and apparent distance, as if they occupied different levels of the same space. Three of them, she thought, were chained wizards, but she made only the most cursory examination of them lest she draw their attention.

  When she swung further east, she found another cluster, below ground, and these she recognized. *Najud!* Munraz’s excited thought was echoed by her own.

  *Yes. Now quiet, please.*

  She focused on them—four wizards and one other. She knew Najud and Vylkar immediately, and it took but a moment to establish the others as Char Dazu and Mrigasba. The other man must be Gen Jongto, otherwise unaccounted
for. They were tired, hurt, and hungry, and several were sleeping.

  They had no shield, and that struck her as very foolish. Her own couldn’t extend that far, but if they were closer together…

  Well, sleeping or not, she had little choice.

  *Naj-sha… Wake up, Naj-sha. What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into now?*

  She listened for him as he slowly shook himself awake.

  He projected cautiously. *Pen-sha?*

  He felt less than healthy, but her heart sang, the part of it that wasn’t wrapped up tightly with anger. *I’ve been looking for you.*

  She felt his hesitation, before he added, *Have you heard about Ijumo?*

  Her rage flared up before she could rein it in again. *I was there. I saw it happen. I’m still there, in the tunnels, with Munraz.*

  *We escaped. Haven’t gotten very far. Gen Jongto knows the tunnels, apparently.*

  Penrys had a vision of Imperial Security trainees memorizing maps. Well, why not? It might be literally true.

  *How can we get together without leaving the tunnels?*

  Her question hung unanswered and she tried to wait patiently for a reply.

  *Gen Jongto wants to know where you are, exactly.*

  *Beneath the storm drain at the far edge of the stage at the Festival of Lights. That good enough?*

  More silence.

  *Gen Jongto knows where that is. He says your tunnels and ours connect. Do you have lights?*

  She smiled humorlessly and projected an image of Munraz holding a device torch.

  *Good. We don’t. He says he can guide you, turn by turn. Me, I think that’s too risky.*

  Penrys considered. With a light, they could mark the tunnel intersections and make their way back to their starting point. Theoretically.

  *Let’s do it.* She lifted her own bendu torch and the bundle of sticks, and waited for the first instructions. It would give her something to think about, other than bloody death and bloodier revenge.

  CHAPTER 24

  “Two hundred twelve, two hundred thirteen, …” Penrys counted her steps under her breath. It was apparent that three of Gen Jongto’s memorized steps made four of her own, so she had to convert his measurements before counting.

  So far, each intersection in the tunnels had been just about where he said it was, adjusting for step-length. The void of minds south of the cliff at this level made overall orientation simple, and she was able to confirm checkpoints with the relayed instructions from Gen Jongto, who was clearly relying on a map of some sort he’d seen.

  Najud must have felt something of her reined-in turmoil, but she turned away his questions for now. She caught him up with the fate of the others as she went along, and she imagined him reporting the news to the rest of them. It would’ve been better to tell them directly, but she was unnerved by the closeness of the wizards she’d sensed not far from their location—must’ve been where they were held—and relied on a tight link with Najud alone. They already knew about the deaths in that part of the attack that had resulted in their capture, but the survival of Chosmod and Mpeowake was welcome information.

  She left it at that—wizard guild news and all the rest could wait until she wasn’t concentrating on counting steps.

  Her route had taken her up and down vertical passages, not all of which seemed to be part of a drainage system, and through one locked barrier which Munraz was able to pick open. At one point, Gen Jongto’s instructions took her some distance in the opposite direction, with the repeated assurance that it really was the best way.

  When she tried extending her shield to Najud one more time, she was close enough that it worked. She stopped on the spot and swayed, chanting “three hundred thirty, three hundred thirty, three hundred thirty…” so as not to lose count. All she wanted to do was lie down somewhere and sleep. She felt like she’d been wandering through tunnels forever.

  “What’s wrong?” Munraz whispered.

  “Nothing. Just give me a moment,” she replied. She pushed the shield out to cover them all, then started walking again.

  *Turn left and you’re on the last leg, Gen Jongto says.*

  Najud’s tired but calm mental voice was like a beacon guiding her into harbor. It had taken maybe two hours to cover a distance of less than a mile on the surface, and she begrudged the moment it took to scrape one more blaze on the wall of the intersection to mark their back route. Each pause like that was fueled by a stubborn determination that seemed to be reaching its limit, but she’d done it, the whole long way, and she wasn’t going to stop now. Who knows—maybe Munraz’s entrance would prove to be the closest exit, after all.

  *How far to the last bend in your section? You all should come to me there, so the light won’t leak upward and give us away.*

  She felt the non-verbal agreement, and waited. Via Najud, Gen Jongto sent her one hundred and sixty-eight more steps to a curve, and she stopped there. From where she stood, with her device torch held beyond the bend, she knew her light would be visible to the others.

  Under her shield, she felt them slowly make their way to her, and she retracted the area covered by the shield as they shortened the distance. Her light would only give them a target, not illumination, so they had to move carefully.

  Munraz grunted an incoherent apology and trotted out to meet them and guide them with his own torch. He used his hand to shield it from shining upward, but it was still a rash risk to take. She couldn’t summon the energy to rebuke him, and just hoped for the best, and waited for them to arrive.

  The surprise on Najud’s face when he halted at the sight of a unexpected Kigalino brought a tired smile to her face. “Sorry, forgot to warn you.”

  She burrowed into his arms, cautious of the obvious bandages, and inhaled his scent—stale, rank, but still her husband, with a scratchy beard. Someone’s hand pried the device torch from her fingers and she let it go and just lost herself mindlessly for a time.

  The growling of Najud’s stomach brought her out of it. She blinked, and realized that everyone was eating one of Munraz’s pasties, and now he was offering the last two to them.

  She released Najud, and he made short work of his, but when Munraz offered her the last one, she shook her head. “I can’t eat.” She knew she should, but her body shut down at the thought. The skins of ale made the rounds, too, and she made herself drink some.

  After that, she pulled out the small light device from her pocket and powered it. She took a quick look at everyone. Mrigasba was the worst—there must have been serious concussion under those bandages. He assured her he was improving, but she was dubious. The others looked like they could travel well enough, though not for a while.

  “We need sleep, all of us. We’ll collapse where we stand, else,” she said.

  Najud and Gen Jongto exchanged looks. “Better to get further away,” Gen Jongto said.

  “No point. They’ve got three chained wizards up there.” She waved to indicate the direction. “My range is about five miles. What theirs?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve got you all shielded now, and I can hold that even asleep. One can only spot a shield as an unexpected void, and who expects people underground? But if they look hard enough, they’ll find us.”

  Her voice was fading into hoarseness, but she cleared it and went on. “Your grate’s still unlocked, right? If they spot that, they’ll see your marks in the dust below it. We can’t get far enough away to make a difference, not the way we are right now.”

  Gen Jongto nodded. “She’s right. Sleep as best you can, for as long as you can. We’ll talk and make plans in the morning…” He paused, as if realizing there was no sunlight here. “When we wake up.”

  “Do you need to charge the power-stones?” Najud asked Penrys.

  Of course. She did it, then said, “Don’t know long the charge will last, but if you wake up to darkness, don’t worry—I can power them again, soon as I wake up.”

  Nothing could make the gritty stone floor comforta
ble, but she picked out a spot along a tunnel wall and lowered herself cautiously. Najud joined her, and at least a part of each of them was cushioned by the other as they put the long day behind them.

  The stiffness of cramped muscles eventually penetrated Penrys’s sleep, and she blinked in the dim glow of the torch devices that were starting to lose their latest charge.

  With a light touch of her mind, she confirmed she was the only one awake at the moment. All was quiet, apart from the comforting buzz and rasp of assorted sleeping men.

  The satisfaction of finding them alive was more than counterbalanced by the wretched death of Ijumo. Every time she thought of the escaped captives, the image was overlaid with the sheet of blood, consolidated into one stream and slowly flowing across the stage from the slumped body.

  Maybe Najud and the others could tell her more about their captors. What did they mean to accomplish by that murder—other than blackening her name?

  Her gorge rose again in anger and she stamped it back down. I doubt it’s personal for them. They just wanted me out of the way, disarmed, for whatever reason. Did a pretty good job of it, too. But it’s as personal to me as a heartbeat. I won’t let them dishonor me that way.

  It took a few deep breaths to calm herself. I may have come to Kigali as a favor to Najud and to repay Tun Jeju for the caravan licenses, but it’s serious now. They’ve earned my complete attention, poking me with a stick like a bear in a den. No going back until this is settled, in their blood.

  She sensed a change and looked up to see Gen Jongto watching her. “Why are you dressed as a Kigalino?” He spoke quietly, so as not to waken the others.

  With a soft snort, she said, “I overflew Juhim Tep the night before and identified a nest of wizards. Thought all of you might be there, so I wanted to come back and check it out on foot up close and anonymously. That’s why I was here. I stopped to watch the show and literally stumbled over Munraz.”

  Her momentary grin was erased by the memory of what followed. “Must look a nightmare by now—some of this paint’s probably wearing off. No scarf anymore either.” She gestured at her bundle of sticks with its colorful binding. “Not that it matters—can’t go out in public now, anyway. Not after that performance.”