The Archimage's Fourth Daughter

by Lyndon Hardy

  “No!” Briana said. “They might see us.” She pointed to the sky. “The moon is full. If we are careful, it will be enough. See. We can make out the cable car up ahead.”

  They conversed no more and turned to concentrate on the slope. Passing the lower terminus, they saw a single small gondola suspended above like a huge and exotic fruit.

  After they passed the shed protecting the cable car from the elements, the slant steepened sharply. The pace slowed to a deliberate walk, one careful step after the other. Jake could see Briana’s impatience radiate from her as, with each stumble, she redoubled her efforts to make up for mere seconds of lost time.

  The black cables were hard to see against the night sky, but by carefully ascending parallel to their path, few of their steps were wasted. An hour and a half later, panting from the effort, they approached the upper terminus.

  As they grew closer, Jake spotted the parked truck and heard that its engine was still running. Every stride now became shorter. The pair hunched over and concentrated on placing each boot carefully so there was only a soft crunch of gravel and no cascade of the tiny stones. They had to be quiet. Discovery would mean disaster.

  The pair halted when they had gone as close as they dared. Jake put back on the goggles and looked about. “There’s a winch on the front of the truck,” he whispered. “It is attached to a loop of chain that is running farther up the slope.”

  “The summit is not too far away,” Briana said. She folded her arms about herself. The wind was picking up, and the temperature was dropping. They both shivered, but not only because of the cold. They were so close, so very close.

  “They must have put the chain loop in place when they first got here,” Jake whispered. He handed her the goggles. “See. They put a cylinder on a dolly, and then attach the dolly to the chain. There is a lot of bouncing around, but it works. They are towing everything almost up to what must be a summit viewing area.”

  “But no one is swathed,” Briana said.

  Jake took back the goggles and swung them back and forth. “No, only five thugs. Two loading the cylinders to the chain lift here and two more taking them off at the top. Where is the other… There he is by the side of the truck. What is he doing? It looks like he is erecting an antenna of some sort and pointing it back downhill toward the retreat.”

  Jake paused a moment. “No, two antennas, back to back. One pointed downslope and the other toward the peak. Like a relay or something.”

  Before Jake could say more, a loud voice boomed, “Testare. Uno, due, tre.”

  Jake frowned. He wasn’t sure, but it sounded like the words were being repeated, sent farther up the slope. Was the sixth man back at the refuge, originating the message?

  Jake looked to where the cylinders were being collected. One of them was being strapped down on a complex mechanism and then suddenly without warning flung far into the air. He watched in amazement as it arced up the mountainside like a missile and then fell into the Etna’s crater.

  “What are they doing?” He thrust the goggles at Briana. “It looks like they are sending the cylinders right into the volcano.”

  Briana grabbed the glasses. After a moment, she lowered them, and her shoulders sagged.

  “There will be no swathed exiles here tonight,” she said. “A catapult. Of course. They have figured out a way so that hundreds of hands are not needed.”

  “You are making no sense,” Jake said.

  “Etna is erupting. There is lava in the crater, boiling hot. Thousands of degrees. The cylinders containing the SF6 will melt through. Or maybe only the valve structure at the top. How it happens doesn’t matter. The gas is liquefied, under high pressure. It will escape and spew out as soon as the containment is breached.”

  “So the ‘Uno, due, tre‘ was a test signal to start the catapult?”

  “How do you know what the words mean in English?” Briana asked.

  “I took a year of Italian at UCLA,” Jake said.

  “Why?”

  “I never get tired of answering questions like that,” Jake said. “Because that is where the women are, duh.”

  Another voice cut off Briana before she could reply.

  “Allora, cosa succede?“

  JAKE’S HEAD snapped back as his vision filled with stars. The blow was a glancing one, professionally delivered, but it hurt painfully nevertheless.

  He struggled to keep himself upright with his arms tied firmly behind his back. If it were not for the wall of rock he had been placed against, that would have been impossible. He glanced at Briana sitting next to him and bound the same as was he, but did not see any fear in her eyes, at least not yet.

  “In English, tonto“, the Mafioso bending over him said. “No more of your poor Italian.”

  “Now one more time.” The captor held up one of the credit cards with the name of Jake’s father on it. “Tell me his address so the package can be mailed to him.”

  “I don’t know!” Jake said. “He moves around a lot. San Francisco, New York, …”

  Another slap knocked Jake’s head sideways, and the stars began swimming again.

  “Wrong answer. Look, tonto. You and your donna here are wearing clothes only the wealthiest could afford here in Sicily. You had ten thousand Euros in your wallet. Ten thousand! And for the final proof, you drive the latest Maserati. There has got to be a lot more where that came from.”

  “You’re wasting your time,” Jake managed to say. “He has… has disowned me. You won’t get a cent from him.”

  “We will see.” The Mafioso turned to Briana and leered. “No purse with euros,” he said. “Instead, a backpack, of all things.” He scooped up the canvas bag and turned it upside down. The contents fell to the ground in a cacophony of tinkles and crashes.

  “The usual donna stuff.” He kicked at the array at his feet. “Nail polish, a comb, and trinkets. Nothing of any real use.”

  “My dad is deep into internet security,” Jake said. “He knows all about that stuff. He will think a message saying we have been captured is a hoax and ignore it. You won’t be able to craft anything convincing enough.”

  “Not an email,” the Mafioso said. “The postal service. It takes a few days, even with airmail, but the result is much more effective.”

  He held up a pair of long-handled pinchers. “You see these? They leave you with nothing. Nothing at all.”

  He reached forward and roughly cupped Briana’s chin in his hand. “I will give you an hour to come up with an address from your tonto. If not, then we will start by sending his padre everything… everything between his legs.”

  Jake startled. No! No, no, no. The full impact of what was happening hit him. They had failed. They had failed miserably. The SF6 was going into the volcano unimpeded. They were no closer to finding out where any exiles were than they were over a month ago. In fact, they had lost ground. The exiles were a step closer.

  But more important to him than that, more important than anything else could possibly be in his life, he had been captured and threatened with… He shuddered. With unthinkable harm.

  Mount Bagana

  MAURICE WATCHED the anchorage of Kieta disappear to the stern. The maritime reports had the Mizuno Maru heading north to Loloho instead. Jake’s credit card had taken a big hit for the extra distance. Dangerous, the skiff’s captain had said. The independence of Bougainville Island from Papua New Guinea still had not occurred. Lots of talk, new ceasefires, and several years of peace. But then rumors of reopening the copper mine at Panguna would pop up again like the flowers from a stubborn weed. The native tribesmen were suspicious. Once more, they had not laid down their arms.

  Loloho Harbor was sheltered only from the north by a slip of flat land jutting into the Pacific. Along the slip’s southern side, a narrow road ran along its entire length. Near the middle stood a single isolated wharf where the cargo ship had docked.

  As the skiff swung around and slowed to a small jetty nestled near the inland end of the r
oad, Maurice’s eyes opened in surprise. A large crowd of tribesmen had converged on the Mizuno Maru. Unlike most of the modern-day islanders, they were not dressed in shirts and pants. Instead, their faces glistened a brilliant red with eyes and mouth outlined in white. Feathered headdresses adorned the brows and many strands of shells looped their necks. A bamboo band stroked a complex beat, barely audible above a communal chant.

  Maurice and Fig disembarked and walked toward the excitement, but were stopped by uniformed men with side arms strapped to their waists.

  “It is best you remain here,” the nearest one said. “It is a protest about the mine — a demonstration of a native culture being lost, so they say.”

  “We need to get closer to the ship as it is unloading,” Fig said. “Don’t you have to inspect the cargo?”

  “Tomorrow will work fine,” another voice said. He wore a blue cap with the word ‘Customs’ stenciled on the brim and carried a clip board in his hand. “They will dance and shout until sundown and then disappear back into the interior, leaving the shipment littering the dockside. I’m stopping for the day. Be back tomorrow.”

  “We cannot guarantee your safety if you approach too near,” the guardsman said as the agent retreated. “Some of those characters can be quite unsavory.” He shrugged. “Get close to them at your own peril.”

  “Buddha says we are to cultivate a limitless heart with regard to all beings,” Maurice replied.

  He and Fig hurried along the road. When they reached the rearmost line of protestors, the natives parted, and let them enter into their midst. Maurice looked upward and saw one of the gas cylinders dangling from the ships hoist moving overhead. Then to his surprise, the carriage line spooled out, and the tube of gas sped toward the ground into the middle of the crowd.

  Bodies moved aside at the very last moment, and the SF6 container alighted with a dull clang. No one was hurt. One of the natives adroitly removed the harness and tipped the cylinder horizontally. The boom lifted and swung back over the cargo ship’s hold.

  The unloading continued like the workings of a giant metronome. Cylinder after cylinder was hoisted and then placed at the feet of the dancers, hidden from view.

  Maurice looked to see where Fig was standing, and saw he was hemmed in also. He took a tentative step backward but immediately bumped into someone who did not move. He closed his eyes. What was going on here?

  Meditation alone would not yield the answer, Maurice decided after only a few moments of thought. He let his muscles relax and tried to call out to Fig to do the same. It might take several hours but, eventually the ship would be completely unloaded, and they would find out what would happen next.

  THE CHANTING continued until well into dusk — the entire time it took the Mazuno Maru to surrender all of its cargo. From what little Maurice could see in snatches between dancing arms and legs, the guards at the end of the road were giving up for the day.

  Finally, a last delivery appeared, a small oblong crate, reinforced with narrow bands of steel. As it lit on the dock, a native produced an axe and shattered one of its side panels. From where he stood, Maurice could see the contents — rifles, perhaps more than a dozen.

  “English, right?” a voice sounded in his ear. “You understand English?”

  Maurice tried once more to back his way out of the crowd, but when he did, he felt strong hands grab each of his arms. Old habits flashed in his mind. A few kicks and he could break free, but Fig would not know what to do. There were too many for him to take on them all. And, he told himself, merely escaping from a mob was not why they were here.

  “Yes,” he finally answered, as the guns were removed and distributed. “I speak English. But your fight is no concern for my friend or me. I do not understand why we cannot leave.”

  “We have a wagon,” the native standing beside him said. “But no petrol. The last horse died many months ago.”

  “That is not an answ — ”

  “It has been agreed. We carry the tubes of metal to Bagana and offer them there. In exchange, we acquire many rifles. Twenty today, and when the volcano has consumed all of the cylinders, twenty more. Maybe those will be enough, enough so the outsiders from the south, from the biggest of all islands, will now stay away.”

  “What has that to do with me and my friend?” Maurice persisted.

  “Many tubes. A long walk. Very heavy.” He laughed. “As in the old ways, you are now our slaves — our beasts of burden. Do as you are told, and you will live, at least until the task is done. Of course, what the tribe we will trade you to then will have in store is their business, not ours.”

  Maurice looked around hastily. There was no one nearby who could help. Worse, he and Fig were going to provide the transport of the SF6 to Bagana. Probably would have to help throw them into the volcano too. There were no strangers clad in white involved at all.

  “The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows,” Maurice cried out to compose himself, but it did not help. Their team was pushing against a ratchetwheel. What was happening felt like failure no matter what Buddha had said.

  Mount Kilauea

  ASHLEY JERKED herself to attention. She had been dozing. Staring at the unchanging CCTV feed was boring, especially in a quiet house with no one about. But now there was activity on the loading dock like there had been over a month ago. It was hard to see in the darkness, but it looked as if a flatbed truck was backing up to the dock. The thuglings were marshalling the gas transport cylinders from inside the warehouse.

  She knew Maurice and Fig were out of phone contact in the Pacific, so she called Jake to fill him in on what was happening. Perhaps Briana could continue monitoring Etna, and he could come to Hilo. But no answer after three tries.

  Ashley considered the possibilities and decided what she had to do. The feeling of her very first briefing, the one over two decades ago returned with annoying familiarity, but she pushed it aside. Only surveillance after all. She could handle it.

  The portal presented the challenge. Briana was no longer programming it, nor standing at her side when she performed a trial run from her kitchen to her den. She would have to take the setter with her and make double sure of each of her steps. But then, how hard could it be? It was no different from writing a program — a short one with only two steps.

  Speed was of the essence. Without any second thoughts that might make her change her mind, Ashley grabbed the setter and her cell phone and entered the portal. Then she immediately came back out. Lounging pajamas would not be proper on the streets of Hilo in the middle of the night.

  Properly dressed in a jogging suit, she entered again, set the destination to outside of the warehouse, and started the transition. Like a fleeting bad dream, the expected wave of nausea dissipated. In a trice, she was standing across the street watching the truck.

  Ashley felt a sense of exhilaration unlike anything she had ever experienced before. This was madness, total madness. No careful planning, no steps examined from every side before they were made. Only acting on impulses as soon as they occurred.

  She hailed a taxi and climbed inside. “See the truck across the street?” she asked. “I want you to follow it when it is loaded and pulls out.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the cabbie said. “Are you an author? One who writes the detective stuff? Absorbing the realism of Hilo as it sleeps? I’m a writer, too, well, an aspiring one. Maybe we can stay in touch and you can read my stuff and tell me what you think.”

  “Um, yes. Correct,” Ashley said. “Basically right, I guess. For now, keep alert.” The exhilaration swelled as she said, “The game is afoot.”

  “NOT TOO close,” Ashley said, several hours later as they sped along highway 11 toward the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. “I don’t want them to know they are being followed.”

  “Besides the truck, lady, we are the only ones on the road,” the cabbie said. “If they’re not suspicious, then they are pretty dumb crooks.”


  “Can’t be helped,” Ashley snapped back. She tried dialing Jake again, but still no answer. “I don’t have any backup.”

  The truck slowed and turned right onto Crater Rim Drive.

  She pulled up a Google map on her phone and studied it for a moment.

  “No, no, to the left,” she said. “It is a loop. They probably are going to get as close as they can to the Kilauea crater. We can approach them head on rather than from the rear.” She considered if she should say more. “And keep your eye open for hundreds of people completely bundled up in white.”

  “Okay,” the cabbie said slowly. Evidently, Ashley thought, he was beginning to doubt his passenger was all there. “This is going to be a cash fare, right?”

  Ashley fumbled for her purse. Damn it! It was not there. So much for acting on impulse. “When we get back to Hilo, I will have to duck out for a moment and then get you paid.”

  The cab screeched to a halt.

  “Okay, lady, I hate to do this, but unless you show me you have money, you will be walking back home.”

  “You can’t leave me here in the dark like this!”

  “I’ve tossed out drunks much bigger than you more than once. Show me the money.”

  Ashley looked at what she held. “Okay, how about my cell phone? Latest model, I’ll give you the password, all you need to get it transferred. That’s got to be worth more than the fare.”

  The cabbie considered for a moment. “Hmm. Give it to me now. But you know the charge is for time as well as distance, right? If this ends up too high, then you are out on your butt.”

  “Deal,” Ashley said and extended the phone for the cabbie to grasp. “I may want to copy down a few numbers when this is done. Um, do you happen to have a pencil and a scrap of paper?”

  The cabbie scowled.

  “Okay, okay. We can talk about that later. For now, let’s go find the truck.”

  THE DRIVE to the left was longer and curvier than the one to the right. By the time the truck came into view, Ashley saw it was already completely unloaded — and apparently abandoned. She hopped out when the cab stopped, nose to nose with the other vehicle and looked upslope toward the crater.