“There you go,” the archer said. “That’s much more helpful.”
Gurond struggled with the rope, veins straining against his moist, leathery skin.
“Where are they?” Dayne said. “What did you take them for?”
“I remember,” Gurond said again. “I remember . . . this fancy rope . . . can’t hold me, Thorn.”
The archer stumbled back away from him. “What the blazes?”
At the same time, the sound of bells—deep, resonant ringing—echoed through the passage.
“And I remember!” Gurond shouted, pulling his arms hard. It was as if the bells had given him newfound fury. The rope came flying off, almost hitting the archer in the face, knocking him to the ground. His image shimmered, and the shadow over his face faded. Terror washed over his young face—young, easily Jerinne’s age or younger.
“Who—” the archer said, scrambling away.
“I remember you!” Gurond screamed. Even upside-down, he smashed his arms and legs against the wall. The stone cracked and shuddered at the impact. “I remember you’re a goddamned mage!”
He smashed the wall again and again, and a horrifying sound filled the room. Once more, Gurond kicked, and with that he came free.
As did the roof of the chamber.
Huge slabs of rock came plummeting down. Dayne did the only thing he could think to do: put his body over the archer, holding up his shield while tons of stone fell on them.
Chapter 13
ASTI EXPECTED TROUBLE. THE HAIRS on the back of his neck were up, the danger was in his nose. He knew that whoever had taken Tarvis and who even knew how many other children were evil bastards. Following that Delmin kid down this tunnel, he was certain he was dealing with nefarious people, a depravity deeper than he had suspected.
The metallic tracks were imbedded into the passage floor, and steam pipes along the ceiling. He and Verci had been tracking the people behind the Andrendon Project, the people who had burned down their home and shop to claim the land on Holver Alley, and he believed what was being built beneath the Firewing house had been a part of that.
But this, whatever it was, was something else altogether. He knew these tunnels went deeper and farther than anyone in Maradaine suspected, and perhaps the Andrendon folks were just a front for whatever was going on here.
The tunnel suddenly dropped out, revealing a wide chamber below. This room had machinery—no, a machine, an enormous one with several pieces. Verci had told him about the death machine on the Parliament floor, and this put Asti in that same mind. Titanic and dark in purpose. The metal lines and the pipes fed toward it.
Whatever it was, it was quiet for now. Asti shuddered to think what it would do when fired up.
The kid had scrambled down to the machine floor, sputtering and swearing.
“Kid!” Asti wasn’t sure if it was safe to shout, and tried to yell and whisper at the same time. He didn’t see anyone else here, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be heard. “What the blazes are you doing?”
“What are they doing?” the kid said, looking up to Asti. “I mean, it boggles me.”
“They?” Asti wished he had brought a rope instead of just knives. Not that he couldn’t get down there easily enough. Getting back out would be harder. Getting out with folks after them, near impossible. Even still, he started to work his way down.
“Whoever built this,” Delmin said. “I mean, it’s fascinating. The way the numina swirls and pools, and then is drawn up through the big statue, redirected through the little ones, and then is sucked into the spikes.”
“Statues?” Asti asked, having reached the floor. He looked up at the machine and saw. “Great rutting saints.”
There were eight statues, all green jade: the one in the center of the machine, at least the size of a man, and the ones around the perimeter, each only a foot tall.
Asti had seen one of those small ones. Liora Rand had taken it out of Lord Henterman’s lockbox. And the large one, that had to be the one they had stolen in that first gig after the fire.
“What the rutting blazes is this?” he asked.
“I wish I knew,” Delmin said, coming back over to Asti. “I . . . I had fed just a hair of numina into it, well, a centibarin, if we’re being specific, which was not enough to actually activate it—thank Saint Marian—but enough for me to see how it all flows and pools.”
“What would activating it do?” Asti asked.
“Nothing good,” Delmin said. “I mean, there’s parts that have nothing to do with the numinic flow at all—those copper cages, the gear work, and those pipes?”
“Steam pipes,” Asti said. “Verci could explain it better, but if there’s a water source and a firebox, you can push steam through the pipes, and use that to push parts of the machinery.” He went over to one of the copper cages and gently pushed it. It was on some sort of moving gimbal. Perhaps when fired up, those parts would all spin. But why?
“That might explain why here, Mister Rynax,” the kid said. He knelt on the ground, placing his palm on the stone. “Feel that.”
Asti did. It was hot. “What’s going on?”
“Parts of the city are over natural hot springs. That was why the Kieran Empire built the city here over two thousand years ago, for the hot baths.”
“Why do you know that?”
“I study history,” Delmin said. “The bathhouses on the University grounds are fed from those same hot springs, as are a few others around town.”
Asti remembered the one Verci liked to go to, at Larton’s Bath and Shave. “So that’s the same heat?”
“A natural source,” Delmin said. “The rest, I can’t even fully fathom. But I noticed—it’s incomplete.”
“How?”
Delmin pointed to one section. “There should be another spike and statue here. The numina is bouncing and pooling in these perfect geometric shapes everywhere except this spot. Here it just becomes a mess.”
“So that means—”
Delmin’s voice grew agitated. “It means
