Amaranthe bit her lip. Maldynado looked likehe would survive, but if his crash had cracked one of the vials,they might all end up unconscious.
“I’ll thank you to keep your bodyguard by thedoor,” Spectacles growled. He had his feet under him and wasstraightening his jacket.
“That wasn’t necessary,” Amaranthe said. “Itold you we’d work with you if you release my men.”
“That brutish behemoth was going towork my face into the floor.”
“Brutish?” Maldynado had recoveredenough to manage an indignant tone. “Brutish? I’m a child ofthe warrior caste, descended from generations of noble warriors anddistinguished matrons of exquisite manners and taste. I’m nobrute.”
“I’m sure he was only coming to help you,”Amaranthe told Spectacles.
“Er, yes.” Maldynado staggered to his feet.“That’s right.”
“Stop blathering,” the rangy man said. “Thehull has been breached in the upper port wing. I’ve closed it offfrom the rest of the Areyon, but if we take on too muchwater, we’ll never be able to leave the bottom of thisAkahe-forsaken lake.”
“It’s time to accept your losses and escapewhile you can,” Amaranthe said.
The two men argued with each other in theirown tongue. Another explosion went off, this one too far from theporthole to view the flash, but Amaranthe felt its power in thetremors that rocked the vessel. The accompanying groans and creaksof the structure sounded ominous. How much damage was thefortress-no, laboratory was the better term-designed totake?
“We agree,” Spectacles told Amaranthe. “Youcan have your two men, but we will keep the rest of the testsubjects.”
If you can find them, Amaranthe thought, butshe kept her sneer inward and shrugged. “I’m only concerned aboutmy people.”
Spectacles strode to the barrier again. Heleaned into the box, and the field winked out again. “You first,”he said.
“Very well.” Amaranthe lifted her helmet andfastened it as if it were a typical Turgonian thing to do. Shecaught Maldynado’s eye and gave him a nod. He put his helmet on aswell.
Spectacles watched with a frown. “What areyou doing? We’re not going outside to get to the engine room.”
Amaranthe pointed at the ceiling. “With thosemarines dropping charges, I’m not taking any chances. What if onelands right on top of us?”
The men gave her exasperated looks. That wasfine. So long as they didn’t find her suspicious.
“Mind if we collect our weapons?” she askedbefore the group started down the corridor.
“Yes,” Maldynado said. “It’d be unforgivableto leave my fine blade on that grungy floor.”
“No weapons,” Spectacles said. “Walk.”
Though the two practitioners stood more thanan arm’s length away from her, Amaranthe felt a nudge of pressureagainst her back. The sensation sent an uneasy tingle down herspine, and she worried they could do much more than “nudge” herwith their powers.
When they reached the ladder, Amaranthe wavedfor Maldynado to descend first. The helmets made it hard to seeone’s feet, and she had little trouble feigning a clumsy climb. Atthe bottom, she deliberately missed a rung and tumbled intoMaldynado. He caught her and pressed a vial into her hand. Thankhis ancestors for hiding a brain beneath all that arrogance.
She straightened before the practitionersreached the bottom. “Perhaps donning the helmets wasn’t such a goodidea after all.”
“Nah,” Maldynado said. “This way if you tripand hit your noggin, it’ll be protected.”
“Stop dawdling,” Spectacles growled.
Amaranthe headed for the intersection. Low,excited voices came from around the corner. She imagined theforeigners saying, “We’re almost in….”
She stopped to wait for the two practitionersto pass her, but Spectacles said, “You first,” and applied anotherinvisible nudge of force.
Unwilling to walk into a den of wizardsunannounced, Amaranthe called out, “New allies coming around thecorner. Don’t shoot or incinerate us or do other unpleasantwizard-ish things, please.”
That drew snorts from the men behind her.Arms spread, and the vial pressed to the underside of her hand withher thumb, she stepped around the corner.
Six faces stared at her. Sixpractitioners’ faces, she reminded herself. Suddenly herplan with the vial seemed ridiculously simple and doomed tofailure. As soon as she dropped it, they would figure it out andraise magical defenses.
“Good morning, all,” Amaranthe said. “I heardyou could use help getting a couple of pesky escaped prisoners outof there.”
“Just talk to your men,” Spectaclesgrowled.
The practitioners parted to let her pass. Theman closest to the door held some sort of baton that was spouting astream of fire. It had burned three sides of an access panel intothe hatch, leaving smoke drifting from perforated singe marks.
Amaranthe tried to see through one of thetiny holes, but the room appeared dark behind it. Or maybesomething else blocked the door. If her men were barricaded inside,it would take time for them to come out and help if a fracasstarted. She had to assume she and Maldynado were on their own forthis.
As she drew closer to the door, she wiggledthe cork loose with her thumb. The gloves stole some of herdexterity, and she fumbled, almost dropping the vial.
Inside the stuffy helmet, a bead of sweatrolled down her nose. Too bad she had no way to wipe it.
The cork came free in her hand. Yellow smokecurled between her fingers, and she lowered her arm, swinging it tohide the evidence.
She pointed at the hatch. “Should Iknock?”
“Stop him,” someone blurted behind her, thenswitched to another language.
Cursed ancestors, they must have seenMaldynado opening his vial. Two men reached for him, and a womanstepped back, her eyes growing glazed.
Amaranthe threw the vial at her nose. Itbopped her between the eyes, breaking her concentration. The twomen had tried to grab Maldynado’s arms, but he thrust them away. Hedid tower like a behemoth over these people. Too bad itwasn’t going to be a solely physical confrontation. But if theycould keep the practitioners busy until the smoke kicked in…
A man grabbed Amaranthe’s wrist even as aprickle on the back of her neck alerted her to a magical attackfrom elsewhere. She kicked her captor’s shin and twisted her arm,yanking it free from the man’s grip. She jammed her knee into hisgroin and spun about, seeking the practitioner targeting her.
The man with the baton torch lunged at her.She ducked and whipped her arm up in a hard block. The baton flewfrom the man’s grip, hit a wall, and spun into the fray. Someonescreamed.
Nearby, a glassy-eyed male practitionerraised a hand toward Amaranthe. She lunged and launched a punch,twisting her hip to put her whole body into the maneuver. Her fistsmashed into the man’s nose with bone-crunching force. He hadn’tmade an attempt to block, and he went down like a brick. He wasn’tthe only one with slow reflexes.
The vials. They were working.
Relief welled and caught in her throat. No,not relief. Something was tightening her airway. Though the helmetprotected her neck, a force pressed in from all sides, as ifsomeone were strangling her.
Amaranthe stumbled back, fighting the urge toclutch at her throat. That would do nothing. She whirled about,searching for her attacker.
Six of the eight practitioners were sprawledon the deck. Maldynado had crumpled to his knees, his facecontorted in a rictus of pain behind his mask.
The rangy navigator stood in theintersection, his focus on Maldynado. A gray-haired woman had afist clenched as she stared at Amaranthe with fierce concentration.Neither appeared affected by the smoke that wafted from thevials.
Lightheadedness swept over Amaranthe. Lack ofair scattered her thoughts, and desperation crept in. She wheezed,groping for a plan while her body cried out for oxygen.
She tried to stalk toward her attacker, tostop the assault, but she bounced off a barrier protecting thewoman. Hadn’t Akstyr always said practitioner
s could onlyconcentrate on one thing at a time? That they couldn’t attack anddefend simultaneously? That was why Arbitan Losk had conjured upthat deadly soul construct to watch his back. Maybe someone downhere was working on protection tools-artifacts, that’s whatSicarius called such things-and the woman had some physical objectthat could be destroyed.
Blackness crept into the edges of Amaranthe’svision as she squinted, searching for some sign of a tool on thewoman’s person. There. A blocky square jutting against the fabricinside her jacket. Little good the knowledge did. As long as thetool was inside the barrier, Amaranthe could do nothing toit.
A tight smile curved the woman’s lips. Shehad Amaranthe and she knew it.
We’ll see, Amaranthe thought. She glancedtoward the fire baton. It had gone out when it hit the deck, butmaybe she could turn it on again. And maybe one artifact couldfight another.
She dropped to one knee, pretending defeat-itwasn’t much of a pretense-and rested her hand near the torch. Shegripped the smooth material, using her body to hide the action.
Involuntary gasps for air tore through her,but they were ineffective and nothing could pass her constrictedthroat. She did not have long. If her attack failed…
Another charge exploded near by, and thecorridor rocked. The lights flickered. For an instant, the pressureon Amaranthe’s throat disappeared.
She gasped and jumped to her feet, forcingair-deprived legs to support her. She thumbed the only thing thatfelt like a switch on the smooth baton, and a six-inch flamestreamed from the tip. Amaranthe jabbed it at the invisibleshield.
The baton didn’t pierce the barrier, but theflame flared in a brilliant flash, startling the woman. Shebackpedaled, tripped over a fallen comrade, and crashed to thedeck. Something crunched beneath her. The tool?
Amaranthe dove in, hoping the shield hadfailed. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a dark shapearcing toward her-the male practitioner’s boot.
She flung herself to her belly, but hurriedto find her feet again as soon as the kick whispered overhead. Shedropped the baton and caught the man’s boot as he was retractingit. She sprang up, heaving his leg into the air. The man tumbledonto his back.
“Maldynado,” Amaranthe rasped through heraching throat. “Keep that one busy.”
He was on his back, panting, but he rolledonto his side to obey.
The woman had found her knees and was tryingto rise. Amaranthe planted a foot on her back-the barrier haddisappeared-and forced her flat on the deck. She snatched the batonand raised it, but paused. Maybe she need not kill anyone else.
She spotted the vial Maldynado had dropped,grabbed it, and held it to the woman’s nose. Already thepractitioner’s eyes were glazing and her struggles were weak, sothe effects of the powder must not have faded yet.
A thump sounded behind Amaranthe. She leapedto her feet and whirled, baton in hand, ready to thrust the flameup an attacker’s nose.
“Easy, lady grimbal.” Maldynado raised hishands over his head. The male practitioner lay at his feet,gasping-and inhaling-the lingering odor from the other vial.“You’ll need that for getting in if Sicarius won’t answer thedoor.”
“True.” Amaranthe lowered her hand, but shedid not relax until she had ensured nobody was in a position totrouble them. The practitioners all lay prone. One was snoring.Good.
“You might want to do it before this stuffwears off and these magic-spewing people wake up,” Maldynadosaid.
“Yes, but how do we know when the air isclear? We don’t want our men to walk out and pitch over,snoring.”
“I wouldn’t mind seeing Sicarius snore,”Maldynado said.
“Do you want to sling him and Basilard overyour shoulders and tote them out of here?”
“I could. I’ve carried many women on thesebroad shoulders.”
“Many women at the same time?”
“On occasion, yes.” He winked.
“Just watch them, please.” Amaranthe noddedto the slumbering people and knocked on the hatch. “Sicarius?Basilard? You can come out now. We’re pushing the unconsciouspeople into neat piles.”
The clomp of footsteps came from around thecorner, and she winced. Maybe calling out had been foolish. Ifthere were still guards around, someone must have heard thatbrawl….
The people who tromped around the corner werenot guards however. Books and Akstyr led the way, wearing theirsuits but not their helmets. Seven, no, eight nude men and womentrailed them. More than one naked body sported smears of blood, andseveral people gripped knives or pistols. Books carried a familiarblack belt full of daggers.
Amaranthe lifted a hand, intending to warneveryone to stay back, but she did need to know if the airwas still tainted. Nobody dropped to the ground and startedsnoring.
“What took you so long, Booksie?” Maldynadoasked.
“We took the tour and beat some heads in.”Akstyr grinned at one of the girls, but she showed no inclinationtoward returning it.
“Why are you wearing…?” Books started, butstopped to study the inert forms. “Should we all be wearinghelmets?”
“I think it’s worn off.” Amaranthe unfastenedher helmet. “Tie these people up, will you? No, we need more thanthat. They can use their minds to choke us-as I have reason toknow. Akstyr, is there a way to keep them unconscious?”
“Shoot them?” Akstyr said.
“You’re supposed to be a Science advisor,”Books told him, “not a Sicarius acolyte.”
Maldynado cleared his throat. “For therecord, that would have been my response, too.”
“How surprising.” Books handed Sicarius’sknife collection to Amaranthe.
She struggled to hold all the blades and thebaton, so she settled for dumping them into her helmet.
“We can strap these bastards to the tablesand sedate them the way they did us,” one young man said.
“Can we cut them open, too?” anothergrowled.
Amaranthe grimaced, wondering what manner ofexperiments the practitioners had been conducting to create thosefuture warrior-caste babies. Thoughts for another time.
One of the young women caught her eye, a tallblonde with facial features similar to Fasha’s. She must be Keisha,the athlete whose disappearance had started everything forAmaranthe and her team. Keisha would need to know about hersister’s death, but now wasn’t the time.
She knocked on the hatch again. “Sicarius, ifyou don’t come out, we’re leaving you here.”
The athletes stirred and traded whispers of,“Sicarius?”
Something scraped on the other side of thehatch. Equipment or furniture being moved? Bangs, thumps, and morescrapes followed. A light poked through the perforations in thehatch.
Amaranthe crouched and peered through only tofind herself staring into a dark eye that gazed back from the otherside. She twitched in surprise, but did not draw back. Wasthat-
“Basilard believes we should have code wordsyou could speak so we would know if you were giving us legitimateorders or talking under duress.” Sicarius spoke the words asblandly as if they were discussing the men’s training regimen, andno hint that he had missed her or was relieved to see her seepedinto his tone.
By now, Amaranthe should have known betterthan to feel stung, but the emotion encroached upon hernonetheless. She pushed it aside and conjured a smile. “Basilard isa wise fellow. We’ll schedule it for discussion during the nextteam meeting.”
The eye disappeared, metal squealed, and thehatch tottered open on wobbly hinges.
Basilard exited first, his legs and feetbare, though he wore some guard’s fatigue shirt. He grinned andstopped to give Amaranthe a one-armed hug before moving on to greetthe others. Blood stained the back of his shirt.
“Basilard, did you get shot?” she asked.
Yes. I fashioned a bandage. It is fine fornow.
The pain lines creasing the corners of hiseyes belied the statement, but they did not have time to performmore extensive first aid, so Amaranthe let it go.
Sicarius strode out, utt
erly naked except fora technical manual in his hands. He didn’t bother to wield itstrategically to hide…anything.
Amaranthe gaped at him. After a startledmoment of surprise, she forced herself to keep her eyes focused onhis face. Mostly. “Sicarius. I, ah…” Have always wanted to seeyou like this, she thought. No, she couldn’t say that. Waswondering if you were blond all over. No, definitely not that. “Ihope that’s not your suggestion for the team uniform,” she decidedon as she handed him his gear.
“The lack of a place to hold weapons makes itimpractical,” he said in his usual monotone.
Behind Amaranthe, Maldynado leaned close toBooks and whispered, “So many jokes the man could have made, and hegoes with that.”
Sicarius strapped on his weapons belt, which,combined with the throwing knives sheathed on his forearm, createda style that would have earned anyone else a round of mocking.Nobody made a comment.
Sicarius lifted the manual. “If the way isclear, we can adjust the ballast tanks to bring this craft to thesurface.” He opened the manual to a diagram. “They’re located here,here, here and here.”
Straight to business. No hug or, “Thanks forcoming for us.” Professional as always. But then, she was the onewho had sent him on a task that resulted in his capture. Maybe hewas holding a grudge.
“Do you know how to do it, or do you needBooks?” Amaranthe asked him.
“I can do it,” Sicarius said.
“All right. Books, do you want to take yourteam to handle the practitioners?”
“My team?” Books eyed the young,bloodthirsty athletes. “How lovely.”
“Akstyr and Basilard, go with him, please.Maldynado, you’re with Sicarius and me.”
“Double lovely,” Maldynado said after aglance at Sicarius’s nude state, or perhaps at the streaks of driedblood smearing his arm and shoulder.
“Wait,” Books said. “The plan is to go to thesurface in this? The enemy vessel? With the marines sitting upthere with all their weapons firing?”
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