“I don’t believe… that’ll be necessary… no.”
“You have another way out?” Akstyr opened the box and found himself staring at dozens of tiny brass and silver spheres, each one less than a centimeter in diameter. The different colored metals created a patchwork pattern on the surfaces that reminded him of tiger stripes.
“Yes. Did you find something?” Books had joined him. His shoulders drooped, his eyes were red and bleary, and he looked like he was about to drop to the floor.
“Maybe. What do you think about these?”
Books bent over the box. “They’re the right size,” he said between coughs. “I don’t suppose… there are… directions or a… schematic… so we can… ascertain their function.”
“Maybe you should use shorter sentences when you’re coughing like that.”
Books poked a finger into box, touching a couple of the balls. Several of the “tiger stripes” sprang away from the surfaces, unfurling tiny needle-sharp hooks. At the same time as Books yanked his finger back, Akstyr slammed the lid shut. A patter of thunks sounded beneath the wood.
“I’m thinking their function is something eerie scary,” Akstyr said.
Books gaped at his finger, though it didn’t appear to be bleeding.
Akstyr fastened the clasp on the lid and turned over the box to examine it more closely. Free of etchings or paint, the wooden bottom was unremarkable, except for…
He nudged it sideways. A panel slid open, revealing a shallow cubby holding a folded piece of paper. Not paper, parchment. Like people used in the old days. “This might be your schematic.” Akstyr unfolded it to find two hand-drawn depictions of the sphere, one showing the innards and one the outside. Foreign words scrawled all about the margins. “You’ll have to translate this for me.”
Books was leaning against the workbench, bracing himself with both hands. “We better get out of here,” he rasped, then scrutinized Akstyr. “Aren’t you… feeling the effects?”
“No, my filter is working.”
Books grumbled something uncomplimentary under his breath, then handed Akstyr the lantern. “You pick the locks, then.”
The lantern puzzled Akstyr for a moment, until he looked toward the door. Strings dangled from the metal hinges.
Books held up a blasting stick with the fuse missing and the end hollowed out. “I very carefully performed a surgery. Should be enough on there to blow the hinges without bringing the ceiling down upon us.”
Akstyr considered the carved rock over their heads.
“A little hustle, if you don’t mind,” Books said, his last word breaking off in a coughing spasm. He wiped his eyes with one hand and waved Akstyr toward the door with the other.
“Right.” Akstyr jogged to the exit with the lantern in hand. Tarry dabs glistened on the hinges. Before lighting the fuses, he tried the latch again. It’d be silly to blow the hinges off a door that wasn’t locked, but it didn’t budge. “Right,” he repeated and lit the two fuses.
Flames hissed and spat as they climbed the dangling strings toward the hinges. Akstyr sprinted for the far side of the room. He didn’t know how much explosive power the dabs had, but he doubted his “filter” would keep his head from being blown off.
Books was already hunkered down behind the row of workbenches, and Akstyr skidded in beside him, ducking low a split second before a pop sounded. A second followed, the noise substantial but not bone-shaking like that of the blasting sticks. Other than pillows of gray smoke joining the murky pink air around the armoire, nothing happened.
“It didn’t work,” Akstyr said.
The door fell inward, landing on the stone floor with a clunk.
“Never mind,” Akstyr said.
Books, a hand to his mouth, was already stumbling for the exit. Akstyr jogged after him with the box in hand. Books stopped at the intersection and bent over, hands on his knees, and retched. Figuring it was fresher out here, and safer, Akstyr let his filter fade away. He wiped sweat out of his eyes and was, as always, surprised by how much working his mind worked his body.
After a moment, Books stood straight again, his coughs having faded away. He took a step toward the exit, but paused and gazed back toward the workshop.
“What?” Akstyr asked.
“Nothing,” Books said. “I just wish we’d had more time to look around.”
“Why? I mean, I know why I’d want to look around, but I didn’t think you cared about the Science.”
“I don’t. I merely wondered if there might be some trace of Vonsha Spearcrest.”
“Who?” Akstyr scratched his head. He thought that was the woman who Books had nearly been blown up with in the real estate library the spring before, but he’d never met her and couldn’t remember for certain.
“I never found out what happened to her,” Books murmured. “Her house in the city has been empty since…”
“Is now a good time to chat about women?” Akstyr waved back toward the workshop where the pink gas was oozing into the tunnel.
A wistful smile crossed Books’s face, but he said, “Doubtlessly not,” and headed for the mine exit. “The others are waiting for us. I’ll translate that schematic for you, and you can spend our travel day figuring out how to get those out of people’s necks.”
“What will you be doing while I’m doing that?”
Books’s smile grew bleak. “In addition to pondering the ramifications of us having stowaways and a mutinous pilot on board, I’ll be determining how to take off and get that dirigible to the Scarlet Pass despite my utter lack of formal aviation training.”
“Should I be worried?”
“That depends. Can wizards fly away if a crash is imminent?”
“If they can,” Akstyr said, “I haven’t learned how to do it.”
“Then worry may be warranted, yes.”
“Oh.”
Chapter 11
The train arrived in Forkingrust after dark. None of the town’s buildings rose more than two stories, and the neighborhoods seemed quiet and rustic to Amaranthe’s city-bred eye. After Stumps’ one million people, Forkingrust and its ten thousand permanent residents seemed… quaint. Still, thanks to its location at the convergence of the Capital-Gulf and East-and-West railways, the town could support a few thousand travelers at a time, and the brisk autumn air couldn’t keep everyone inside. Numerous people walked the streets and gathered in eating houses, and the thumps of dancers’ drums flowed from more than one tavern.
Inside the team’s dark freight car, Amaranthe had the sliding door open a couple of inches, and observed through the gap, waiting for an opportune moment to jump out. The clickety-clack of the wheels on the rails had slowed, and they only had a mile or so before the train would reach the station, where there would be more eyes to view its arrival, eyes that might spot a pack of mercenaries hopping out of one of the cars.
When they drew even with a few dark warehouses, Amaranthe pushed the door open. “Time to go, gentlemen.”
She jumped from the moving train and landed in a crouch on the gravel. The speed and her heavy pack threatened her balance, but she caught herself before succumbing to an embarrassing nose-first topple to the earth. Maldynado, Basilard, and Sicarius flowed out of the train without trouble. The team waited for the rest of the cars to pass, then crossed the rails and jogged into a shadowy street between two warehouses. The windows were dark, and few people roamed that side of the tracks.
Amaranthe turned onto a wide street parallel to the tracks. The log and timber-frame buildings had cozy hand-carved architectural details that gave the area more personality than the modern warehouses in Stumps.
