His voice was cut off as Jameson closed the waygate.
“What did he say?” Xander asked, frowning.
Jameson shook his head. “We go to battle with OberCorp tomorrow. Gods help us all.”
Chapter Twenty-Five: In the Dark
QUINCE AWOKE in darkness. She was lying on something soft.
Oh gods, I can’t feel my wings. She flailed about, trying to touch them.
“Shhhhhh,” someone whispered, taking her head in their hands. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”
She stilled. “Who… who are you?”
“My name’s Neamiah.”
It was pitch-black. She kept waiting for her eyes to adjust, but she couldn’t see a thing. “What is this place?”
“The old mines.”
“Mines?”
“Yes, in Errian.” The voice sounded petulant, as if that should have been obvious.
“You’re Erriani.”
“Of course.” A long pause. “Aren’t you?”
“No. I’m Gaelani.”
“Oh. I didn’t know they had captured any of your people.”
Neamiah’s voice wasn’t exactly feminine and not entirely masculine—maybe they were one of the tweeners. “Are there more of us here?”
“Two more.”
“I’m Jenner,” said a voice to her right.
“I’m Toree.”
Those voices were more recognizably masculine and feminine.
“No one else?” Where had they taken Robyn? They must have been captured by rangers or enforcers.
“No, sorry. Are you missing someone?”
She nodded and then realized they couldn’t see her. “Yes. We were separated.”
“I’m sorry,” the voice Quince recognized as Toree said.
She sat up. “What’s wrong with my wings?” She could feel now that they were there, behind her.
“There’s some kind of nerve blocker. To keep us from flying.” She felt Jenner come up and sit next to her. “Here, feel mine.”
Quince found his shoulder. She followed it to where the wing joined his back. There was something cold and hard wrapped around the base of each wing. “Motherless bastards.”
“What?”
“Those are military grade nerve cuffs. They must have been preparing for this for a long time.” To have them, and in sufficient quantities for a whole city….
She had underestimated OberCorp’s thirst for Titania and its riches. “What is this place?”
“It’s the mines—” Neamiah sounded exasperated with her again.
“I mean right here. Where we are being held?”
“Ah. It’s a storage room. The mines are full of them, cut out for cold storage when the ore went dry.”
“They didn’t bring my carry sack in here, did they?”
“No. You were just like this when they brought you.”
Damn. If they searched her bag… time enough to worry about that later. “I’m going to trace the contours of the room.”
“Go ahead.”
Quince stood hesitantly in the dark. She felt her way to the first wall. It was rough, but generally vertical. Feeling along the wall, she bumped into someone. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Toree’s voice said.
Quince slipped past her and found the first corner.
The next wall was narrower and had nothing unique about it, at least that she could tell by feel.
The third was long, and this time she called out and Jenner moved out of the way. This wall was smoother. There were places that might have held shelf brackets for storage, spaced as evenly as they were.
On the fourth wall, there was a change.
It was imperceptible at first, something her instincts noticed but her mind didn’t. It brought her up short.
She stood there, stock-still, for a long time.
“What is it?” Neamiah asked from behind her.
“Something….” She pulled herself up on her toes, trying to feel the difference. Cool air blew on her face. “There’s an opening up here. I can feel moving air.”
“It might just be a crevice.”
“Might be. Or it might be something bigger. Can one of you give me a boost?”
“I can.” It was Toree. The woman came up behind her, touching her shoulder. “Put your foot here. I’ll lift you up.”
Quince did as she was told, and then she was ascending. Toree was strong.
Quince felt along the wall in front and just above her. Nothing, just blank stone. The air was coming from higher up.
The wall was rough enough there to allow a few hand- and toeholds, though she had to find them by feel. “I’m going to climb higher.”
“Okay. I’ll try to support you as far as I can.”
Quince took hold of the wall and pulled herself up half a meter. She put her other hand up, and there it was.
“There’s an air grate up here,” she whispered, fearing there could be someone on the other side. “They must have put in ventilation for these storage rooms.”
“Maybe so.” Neamiah sounded uncertain. “These caverns haven’t been used much over the last hundred years.”
Quince felt around the edges of the grate. If she could move it, she could probably fit through the opening. She pulled herself up to where she could reach the grate with both hands. It was recessed into the wall.
“What’s happening up there?” Toree asked, sounding anxious.
“If I can get this grate free, I’m going to go for help.”
“Help from who?”
“The King of Errian.”
“There is no King of Errian.” Neamiah now sounded downright annoyed. “The last prince was killed twenty-five years ago. When they captured us four days ago, Errian had a regent, not a king.”
“Lyrin Madainn has returned. I’ve seen him myself.” She worked at the grate. It was loose on one side but wouldn’t move on the other. What she wouldn’t give for a pulse rifle right about then.
Wait. She felt the side and found a piece of metal sticking out at a forty-five-degree angle from the edge of the grate. Could it be a release?
She tugged on it. It was slow to move, but finally it did, and the grate came loose and fell past her toward the floor. “Watch out,” she hissed, nearly losing her grip.
The grate clattered to the ground.
“Everyone okay?”
“Except for the heart attack you just gave us,” Jenner said, but she could hear him stifling a laugh.
“Good.” She tested the sides of the opening. She should be able to make it through, though the dead weight of her wings wouldn’t help. “I’ll go find help and come back for you.”
“Go quickly,” Neamiah called. “Who knows what the landers have planned for all of us?”
“I will.” Damn, I hope this shaft doesn’t get any narrower. Like many skythane, she had a thing about dark and enclosed spaces.
Quince dragged herself into the shaft, her legs dangling over the edge for a moment before she pulled them in behind her. She needn’t have worried. The shaft was only about a meter and a half long.
She found the grate releases on the other side, and in a moment was through, but she hadn’t counted on coming out the other side headfirst. Quince decided to turn on her back and pull herself out, grasping at the rocks above the shaft entrance.
She felt like a butterfly coming out of its chrysalis as she heaved herself out of the hole, her wings dragging behind her like dead things. It took her a good twenty minutes to extricate herself, bit by bit, while clinging to the rock for dear life.
Quince had no idea how far down the ground was, but had to guess it was the same as on the other side—two to three meters. Not enough to kill her, but she could break a couple bones if she fell the wrong way. She eased herself down a handhold and foothold at a time until she was holding on to the lower lip of the vent entrance.
She should be okay if she dropped straight down and let her knees take her weight. “One, two,
three….” Quince let go and dropped.
JAMESON RUBBED his eyes. He’d managed to get a little sleep after a couple hours reacquainting himself with Xander. What a reunion that had been. He was relaxed, if tired, and ready to take on the day. With the sun due to rise at any moment, he had one more card to play before the battle was joined.
Morning light shone through Torr Talam’s casements, brightening the round white room.
“Are you sure he’ll cooperate?” Xander was staring at the battle plan, his wings twitching in irritation. They had to be ready to fall back at a second’s notice if OberCorp should follow through on its threat to bomb Errian.
Xander had been doubtful about Rogan’s part of the plan all along, and given his experience with the Slander boss, he had every right to be.
Jameson took a deep breath and shrugged. “For now, yes. He wants the pith. I think that will keep him on a short leash, at least until he realizes we may never get back to the Common Worlds.”
“Would you want to? Go back, I mean?” Xander was looking over the map in their “war room,” making last-minute adjustments to his battle plan.
“Not really. There’s not much left for me there.” He closed his eyes. “I wouldn’t mind seeing my parents again. One more time.” His adoptive parents had treated him as their own son and had never told him he wasn’t theirs. Sure, they were religious and conservative, and who knew what they would make of his wings and the rest of it, but they had always been there for him. He had a hard time accepting that they were gone forever.
Xander nodded. “I feel like I don’t even know my own mother, and she’s here.” He looked northward. “I wonder what they found?”
“Quince is getting an earful from me when she comes back. Assuming we all make it through the next day alive.” He kissed Xander. “I should go.”
“Be careful of Rogan. The man’s the devil.”
“I know. And he has his eye on this.” Jameson held up the key.
“He knows about it?”
“It was kind of hard to hide it when I used it to drag him halfway around the world.” He stepped away from the hollow tree and opened a waygate to Rogan’s estate, being careful to choose a different exit point than before. “I’ll see you soon.” He stepped through and closed it behind him.
He was in the courtyard of the estate house. It really was a beautiful home, three sides surrounding a central courtyard and a well-trimmed garden.
He leapt into the air and landed on Rogan’s balcony. “Rogan, I’m ready to collect on my part of our deal.”
The double doors swung open, revealing the Syndicate boss with his young slave. “Here he is.”
Taylor had a big bruise across the left side of his face, and he limped as he walked toward Jameson. His eyes, though, shone with hope.
Jameson growled under his breath. “You’ve done as I asked?” He took the boy under his wing. Taylor clung to him.
Rogan nodded. “And a lot more.”
Jameson wanted to knock that sick smirk right off the man’s face, but for the moment, he had to restrain himself. The time would come soon enough.
“We need you to move against OberCorp, now. Lay siege to the corporate office. But keep casualties at a minimum.”
Rogan’s sly grin said he’d been itching for this chance for years. “We’ll have our men in place within the hour. Do you want us to bring the building down?”
Jameson shook his head. “We just want to scare them, for now.”
“We’re good at that.”
Taylor shivered under his touch. “Here.” Jameson handed the man a communicator, one of the pair Alix had sent him for this purpose.
Rogan took it and looked at it suspiciously.
“Where will you be?” Jameson asked.
“The empty warehouse where we first met. I’ll set up operations there.”
Jameson nodded. “Understood.” He picked the boy up. “We’re going to go somewhere far away from here.”
“Away from him?” There was a damp spot in the boy’s pants.
“Yes, far away.” To Rogan, he said, “I’ll be in touch soon.”
Then he leapt off the balcony, forming a waygate in midair, and took the boy to safety.
QUINCE HAD landed badly on her left ankle in the fall, and it hurt to walk on it. Not that she had any choice at the moment.
There was little light in the long cavern, apart from some kind of glowing fungus that ran in seams along the walls. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for her to find her way.
The floor was rutted, probably by the passage of wheels over a long period of time, taking whatever they had mined here out and—later—bringing goods in for storage. She figured if she followed the ruts, they would lead her out of the caverns eventually.
There were hundreds of rooms there, each one locked. She’d quickly determined that there were no captors in the mines with them. The skythane had been locked inside and apparently left to die.
At each one, she knocked and told the frightened men and women inside that she would help them. And as each one was left behind, she despaired of being able to do anything for them at all. Still, she had to try.
She hadn’t found Robyn, either. That weighed heavily on her heart. Where had she been taken? Quince didn’t think Robyn could bear to lose her wings again.
A deep rumbling sound gave her enough warning to duck into an alcove as the whole tunnel began to shake, showering her with dust and pebbles.
They rattled across the floor, and the air grew heavy. There were screams and cries from behind the doors.
It calmed down after a moment.
The quake reminded her that there was a larger game at play here than just landers versus skythane, and time was running short.
Somehow, she would find Jameson and Xander, and they would help her set things right.
She did catch one lucky break. As the tunnel reached a fork, where the light was brighter, she noticed a rusted metal door that was slightly ajar.
She pulled it open. It required considerable force, but she managed to get inside without falling on her ass.
In the dim light, she could see stacks of personal belongings. There were carry sacks, shoes, jewelry, and even some children’s toys, including a little carved wooden doll with a sad face that just about broke her heart.
After some digging, she found her own carry sack. She pulled it out into the brighter light of the hallway. Inside it was the key that Morgan had given her. She breathed a small sigh of relief.
She returned to the room, searching along the back wall to see if the jailers had left anything else behind.
On a dark shelf, she found another key—a human one this time—for the nerve cuffs she was wearing at the base of each wing. She matched the key to the magnetic lock. It took a little contorting, but after a minute they fell away, one after the other, returning feeling to her wings.
Quince felt like she was being poked by a thousand pins and needles, but that sensation was preferable to not feeling them at all. She spread them out behind her and felt better about her chances.
The fact that all these things, and even the key to the cuffs, had been left behind did not bode well for the trapped skythane. What did OberCorp have in store for them?
She resumed her walk, trudging up toward the source of the new light. It was sunlight—she could see that now. She was almost at the exit.
The light resolved itself into a series of bars. “Fuck no.” She hurried forward, hoping her eyes had betrayed her.
No such luck.
The tunnel was blocked by a sturdy metal gate, which had been fused shut.
Quince reached the gate and rattled the bars. They were too close together to squeeze through. The gate was firm and barely moved when she shook it with all her might.
She sank down to her knees, exhausted and sad. She had failed.
JAMESON LANDED in the clearing that was the heart of the activity in the skythane camp. He sought out Vestra, fin
ding her serving food to a bunch of the troops—a cooked grain that looked unappetizing. He figured it must be great for the body.
“Vestra, this is Taylor. He’s been through a lot the last couple of days. Can you take him under your wing and see that he gets fed and finds someplace safe he can sleep?”
She nodded. “Of course. I was just getting ready to eat, myself.”
Jameson knelt next to the boy. “Vestra here will take care of you. You’re safe now.” He tried to hug the kid, but Taylor pulled away. Well, he had been traumatized. He’d seen abuse cases before and knew it was going to be a long time, if ever, before things would be normal for him again.
Jameson patted the boy’s back, wondering if this was how Xander had been…. Had he been this young when Rogan had taken him? He would give that bastard what he deserved, one of these days soon.
“Go with Vestra. I’ll come check on you later.”
“She has wings too.”
“Yes, she does.” He shot a grateful glance at Vestra. “Thanks.” He turned to go find Xander.
Vestra’s hand on his shoulder held him back.
“What?”
She looked up at him, her long gray hair tucked neatly behind her ears and her face as serious as he had ever seen it. “Be careful out there. And bring back our people.”
He kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll do everything I can.”
XANDER WATCHED Jameson and Vestra from the entrance to Torr Talam, as Jameson handed off a child to her.
“How’d it go?” he asked, his gaze still fixed on the boy.
“As well as can be expected.”
“Who’s the kid?”
“He’s… he’s like you were, once.”
“Ah.” Xander’s hand tightened on the edge of the doorway, the knuckles showing white. He closed his eyes. So many kids like him. So much damage. He hated that they had to work with Rogan, again. He would have liked nothing better than to rend the man limb from limb. The boy was so young. So innocent. Like me once indeed. “What’s his name?”
“Taylor.” Jameson was looking at him curiously.
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