If Sicarius had meant to take over theengines, the possibility of succeeding was not looking good.
He tore a pipe from a wall, and steam burstforth. He shoved the pipe through the wheel on the door.
A pipe against three wizards? Basilardsigned.
“Six,” Sicarius said.
What?
“There are six practitioners out there now.At least.”
What’s the plan?
“The plan is to come up with one.”
Basilard searched his face, wondering if thatwas a joke, but no hint of humor softened Sicarius’s stonyexpression.
Amaranthe tugged at the thick water-repellentmaterial pooled around her boots, boots two inches too large. Ifthere were such things as diving suits for women, she had notencountered them yet. Maybe it would not matter. In the water, thematerial ought to float, right? Or it would cause her to becomehopelessly tangled in seaweed where she would be an easy-to-catchsnack for a kraken.
“Less pessimism, girl,” she muttered, thenraised her voice for Maldynado and Akstyr. “How are your suitsfitting?”
They were gearing up around the trapdoor inMs. Setjareth’s warehouse. Amaranthe had agreed to give the woman adiscount on future work in exchange for the use of her building fora couple of hours-a deal to which Setjareth had magnanimouslyagreed, possibly because no shipments had been due in that morning.Fortunately, she was not around to see the pile of harpoons andhand-held launchers sitting next to her trapdoor. The tub labeledSkelith Poison was probably not a typical warehouse store either.Books promised the tar-like substance, which they had smeared onthe harpoon tips, would survive the water, at least for a couple ofhours.
“This thing weighs a thousand pounds.” Akstyrtugged at the collar.
“Only one-eighty, including the helmet,”Amaranthe said, “or so Books tells me.” Saying his name prompted aglance toward the door. They were waiting on him to return withanother weapon to use against the kraken. He had rushed off beforesharing the details, and Amaranthe had a hard time not worrying.Six months later, she still had nightmares of that printing presscareening down the icy street with Maldynado riding it like acontestant in a log rolling competition. That had been one ofBooks’s ideas, too.
“My helmet is fabulous,” Maldynado said, “butthe suit binds across the chest. Whatever runty treasure huntercommissioned this piece lacked my substantial musculature.”
“And your ego, too, I’d imagine,” Amaranthesaid.
Wearing everything but the helmet, sheshuffled over to a high window facing the lake. She had to clamberatop a crate to push open the shutters and peer outside.
Early morning sun glittered on the calm lakewater. A few fishing boats meandered away from the docks, headingout for the day’s work. Given what was going on below, Amaranthethought the scene should be less idyllic.
She stuck her head out, twisting her neck forthe view she wanted. Dozens of docks away, the Saberfistfloated in its berth. Plumes of smoke rose from its twin stacks anda thrum of excitement ran through her. Had Mancrest done it?Convinced them to send divers down to investigate? Marines bustledabout on the deck, and the activity had doubled since the last timeshe took a look.
“Books is back,” Maldynado called. “And hedidn’t bring anything useful.”
Amaranthe hopped down in time to catch thescowl Books sent Maldynado’s direction. Books was carrying a woodenkeg labeled SALT into the building. Amaranthe’s earlier excitementfaded. Harpoon launchers might harm a kraken, but salt? There hadto be more to it than that.
“That’s your secret weapon?” she asked,joining the men. “Salt?”
“Actually, it’s empty,” Books said.
“So you brought a wooden keg?” Maldynadoasked. “Genius strategy, professor.”
Amaranthe frowned, aware that this might betheir only chance to retrieve Sicarius and Basilard. If theSaberfist was en route, and it found and attacked theunderwater structure, the kidnappers would flee. She couldn’timagine them sticking around once they knew they had beendiscovered. And who knew where they would go after that?
“Tell us,” she prompted Books, who wasscowling at Maldynado.
“As it turns out,” Books said, “krakens arequite difficult to kill. There are more stories of them sinkingships than there are of people slaying them.”
“How comforting,” Maldynado said.
“My idea is to fill this keg with poison,”Books said. “I tinkered with the design, so it’ll implode whensqueezed. There are also razor-sharp caltrops inside to cut thekraken’s flesh to ensure the poison enters its bloodstream.”
“How do we convince the creature to grab it?”Amaranthe asked. “And will a little poison injected at the end of atentacle really incapacitate it? It’s quite…large.”
“Ah, but we won’t target the tentacle.Squids, and presumably krakens, travel by sucking water into theirmantel cavity, then streaming it out behind them in a jet, muchlike a fireman’s hose. Perhaps if we could propel this keg towardits mantle, the creature would inhale it, so to speak, and it’d belike getting pepper up your nose.”
“Couldn’t we just use pepper?” Maldynadoasked.
“Do you want it to sneeze or to die?” Booksasked.
“Maybe if it sneezed hard enough, it’d goflying into the air, land on the Saberfist, and the marinescould hack it to pieces with their swords.”
Books threw Amaranthe an exasperated look.“Is it necessary to have these louts present during planning?”
“This mantle cavity,” she said, trying toimagine Books’s scenario, “is up under all the tentacles? I can’timagine anyone being able to get close without getting killed.”
“We could send in someone expendable,” Bookssaid, eyeing Maldynado.
“Oh, no,” Maldynado said. “When I get mystatue, I don’t want it to be an image of me going up a squid’sbutt.”
“All right, gentlemen.” Amaranthe lifted herhands, struggling not to snap at them for being silly. It must bethe lack of sleep stealing some of her patience. “We’ll go downwith the keg and harpoons. With luck, the marines will figure out away to kill the kraken through attrition, and we won’t need toimplement any of this.”
“When have we ever had that kind of luck?”Books asked.
“I don’t remember any,” Amaranthe said, “butwe ought to be due, eh?”
The men traded skeptical looks. She forced asmile. Someone had to be optimistic after all.
Basilard waited with a rag pressed to theback of his shoulder, watching as Sicarius shoved equipment againstthe hatch. Soon everything that could be moved, or torn free,blocked the only entrance. Like the pipe in the lock wheel, it didnot seem enough against wizards, but maybe they wouldn’t want torisk destroying their own engine room.
Basilard dropped his hands so he could sign,What now?
“Back up plan,” Sicarius said over thegrinding and chugging of the engine. “If we can’t steer to thesurface, we may be able to float there.”
Float? Basilard stared at him. Hecould not imagine this sprawling maze of tunnels and chambersmoving at all, much less bobbing about at the surface of thelake.
“The air you’re breathing would typicallymake us buoyant,” Sicarius said, “so this craft must have ballasttanks.”
Basilard occasionally found Books too verbosefor his tastes, but he wouldn’t have minded more of an explanationjust then. Sicarius turned his back to study symbols onpanels-writing presumably, but not in Mangdorian or Turgonian, theonly two languages Basilard could read.
He walked about, in part to see if he couldfind some way to help and in part to distract himself from themetal ball grinding against his shoulder blade.
He found a storage locker holding a pair offlintlock muskets that appeared only a model or two up from the oldmatchlocks. More weapons that would prove useless againstpractitioners who could generate shields. There were a couple ofaxes, too, and he suspected this was a supply the engineer and hismate were supposed to use to defend their station.
Which raised a question: where was theengineer?
Had he fled the room at the sound of thealarm? It still throbbed in the corridors outside, along with a fewbangs and scrapes. The practitioners up to something, no doubt.
Basilard took one of the axes-they had asatisfying heft, and he imagined smashing some of the machinerywith it. If Sicarius could not find these ballast tanks, perhapsthey could convince the structure to rise to the surface bydestroying the engines. At the least, they could make sure thisvessel never navigated into imperial waters again to harass itscitizens.
That thought made him freeze mid-step. Whenhad he come to care about the empire and its citizens? This placehad done little enough for him, and the old emperor had beenresponsible for the ruthless assassination of Mangdoria’srulers.
But Amaranthe, Maldynado, and Books wereTurgonians and they were the first friends-the first family-he hadbeen allowed to have in years. He wished he could see his daughteragain someday, but, coward that he was, he feared her reaction. Shewould see his scars, know the violence he had been involved in, andwould condemn him. She had to. That was his people’s way. It painedhim to think that he might have more in common with thesewarmongering Turgonians these days than his own kin.
He flexed his fingers around the axe haft,bringing his attention back to the moment. This was no time fordaydreaming. He prowled around the flywheel to consider an angle ofattack and almost tripped over two bodies in Turgonian armyfatigues. Their throats were slashed. Basilard glanced at Sicarius.He supposed it had been a matter of defense, but if they werealive, they might have been coerced into helping with the engines.Basilard shrugged and stepped past them.
A glint of light near the ceiling caught hiseye. A small, transparent cylinder floated in the air beneath agrate-no, a vent. It was filled with something yellow. The samestuff that had incapacitated him in the stadium?
Basilard crept closer. It hung in the air foranother moment, then dropped, as if the invisible hand holding itlet go.
He dove for it, hitting the deck chest first.A fresh wave of pain erupted from his shoulder, but he flung hisarm out and caught the vial before it smashed to the floor. Heopened his fist, worried he might have cracked the glass. Itremained intact but now what was he supposed to do with it? For allhe knew, the practitioner who had levitated it in could snap theglass with his mind.
“What is it?” Sicarius asked.
Basilard showed him the vial, then pointed atthe furnace. Should we burn it?
“That’ll release the fumes, and the furnaceisn’t airtight.”
Sicarius found a flat sheet of metal, thenfished in the toolbox again and pulled out a screwdriver. He held ahand out for the vial. When Basilard gave it to him, Sicarius slidit back into the duct from whence it had come and screwed the metalsheet across the vent to block it.
They’ll try again, Basilardsigned.
“Yes. Continue to stand watch while Iread.”
You’re welcome, Basilard signed.
“What?”
For saving you-both of us-from a trip back tothe laboratory tables.
“At this juncture, it’s more likely they’dkill us.” Sicarius bent his head over a manual he had found.
Basilard remembered how he had not thought ofhim as one of the people he considered friends or family. Nomistake there.
You’re an ass, you know that? hesigned, sure Sicarius would not see with his head bent over thebook. I can’t believe I’m planning on not killing you when youare so deserving of being killed.
Basilard scowled at himself. That didn’t evenmake sense. Before he could stalk away in disgust, Sicariusspoke.
“What changed your mind?”
Basilard froze. Er. He lifted his hands, buthesitated. Trying to explain his emotions would be futile. Sicariushad saved his life in the corridor, and possibly on the laboratorytable as well, but Basilard did not want to admit to any feelingsof gratitude, not to someone who would brush them aside. He signed,Because Amaranthe would never forgive me if I wassuccessful.
“Huh.”
With that, Sicarius went back to reading.Basilard sighed and found a spot where he could watch the duct andthe door. He wished Amaranthe were there with them. If nothingelse, she would have convinced Sicarius to find clothes by now.
CHAPTER 16
There was water in Amaranthe’s boot. Withevery step, her toes sloshed about in it. At least she couldtake steps. The size and heft of the suit on dry land hadworried her, but the air inside her pack and helmet made hersurprisingly light as she walked-sloshed-down the lake’ssteep slope. Indeed, the suits required weights to keep one fromfloating to the surface.
Maldynado, Books, and Akstyr strode at herside. Well, it wasn’t “striding” exactly. Between the swords beltedat their waists and the harpoon launchers in their arms, they werenot the most agile creatures moving about in the lake. Bookscarried his keg instead of a launcher, but that was just asawkward, and he had already stumbled twice. Each time somebodyslipped, Amaranthe’s heart jumped into her throat. If anybody cutthemselves on the harpoon tips, the poison would kill them asquickly as it would kill a kraken-much more quickly infact.
The helmets made it difficult to speak toeach other-though sometimes a muffled curse reached her ears assomeone slipped on the seaweed-slick lake bottom-but they weremanaging with Basilard’s hand signs.
When they reached the cliff, Amaranthe creptto the edge. A dark expanse yawned below. She had little feel forhow far the viewer had dropped, but no hint of the orange glow sheremembered seeped up from below. Since these suits wereself-contained, there was no tube connecting them to the surface,and the idea of stepping off and falling a hundred feet or moremade her hesitate.
Four hundred feet, Books signed.
To the bottom of the lake? Amarantheasked.
It’s a thousand at its deepest, but thisfirst ledge has been measured as a three- to four-hundred-footdrop, depending on where you step down. He tilted his head.We’ll be fine, but we should go slowly to acclimate our bodiesto the pressure change.
I was more worried about coming backup, Amaranthe signed.
Just remove the weights when it’s time, andyou’ll float up.
If there wasn’t a kraken waiting in themiddle to eat her.
Amaranthe took a deep breath and stepped offthe ledge. She kept her gloved fingers near the cliff, using therough stone to slow her descent.
Time trickled past, measured in the softinhalations that echoed in her ears. Fresh air whispered into thehelmet, brushing her cheek, while her used air escaped through anexhaust vent, creating tiny bubbles that floated away. Her earspopped, and pressure built in her sinuses. Had this been a trip formere fun or adventure, she would have turned back.
An orange glow grew visible below, and sheexhaled in relief. They were getting close.
She touched down in a bed of silt, stirring acloud of fine dust. The strange, two-story fortress waited sometwenty-five meters away. Translucent fish still swam about theperimeter, but Amaranthe did not see the kraken. With luck, it andthe crew of the vessel had turned their focus toward theSaberfist.
Something ticked against the back of herhelmet. Maldynado. He pointed overhead.
She tensed, expecting the kraken, and flexedher finger on the trigger of the harpoon launcher. No tentacleswaved in the distance though; Maldynado was pointing to diversdescending. Six of them. Two carried waterproof lanterns and woreswords. Two others bore weapons she could not name-they had theappearance of arm-sized cannons, but black powder would be uselessdown here. The final two carried harpoon launchers.
Did they believe us and come expectingtrouble? Amaranthe signed. The nearby illumination providedenough light for the hand gestures.
They’re marines, Maldynado responded.I bet that’s their typical underwater exploration gear.
She snorted, fogging her faceplate with thebreath. Probably true.
Akstyr came up between them and pointed at aschool of the guardian fish. Amaranthe grim
aced, remembering howone had charred some sea critter into a blackened husk. She hopedthey lacked the firepower to harm full-grown humans.
Let’s try to find a door, shesigned.
Little seaweed grew this far down, so theirboots stirred sand and silt as they advanced. Amaranthe kept an eyetoward the ground, thinking that those fish would blend in againstthe beige surface.
Even prepared, it caught her by surprise whenone swooped up from the sand right before her. Golden scalesshimmered, and an inner light pulsed, building toward adischarge.
Figuring the poison-smeared harpoon would beoverkill, Amaranthe slid her sword free and slashed at the fish.The water drag slowed her swipe, and the foot-long creature flittedaside easily.
Maldynado lunged, his rapier leading. Pokingwas faster in the water than swinging, but the agile fish stillslithered away, undamaged. Its tail fins fluttered, and it swamback a few feet before facing them again. It started pulsing again,more rapidly now.
Amaranthe pushed off the bottom, sword raisedagain. She tried to be subtle, to hold the weapon back so the fishwould not see the attack coming, but it moved again. Or startedto-it froze in the middle of a fin flap.
Quick to take advantage, Amaranthe skeweredit. The fish’s inner light winked out.
You’re welcome, Akstyr signed.
She removed the creature from her sword andgave him a salute. You’re turning into a useful youngman.
I know. I should get more respect.Akstyr glowered, not at her but at Maldynado.
It’s hard to respect someone who can’tgrow a decent mustache, Maldynado signed.
Akstyr pointed at Amaranthe and propped hisfists on his hips.
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