Amaranthe pushed a few stray strands of hair behind her ears. The intensity in Sicarius’s eyes made her believe that obeying him would be a good idea, but Sespian stepped past her.
“We’ll keep going,” he said. “If they’re that deadly, it won’t matter if we’re behind them or in front of them, right? We’ll have to hope they don’t get activated.”
Sicarius’s eyes grew grim. Amaranthe supposed it wasn’t the time to point out that, if he’d had a certain discussion with Sespian by now, he could legitimately threaten to turn the young man over his knee for a spanking instead of having to succumb to orders he found distasteful.
Despite the emperor’s announcement that they’d keep going, Yara and the men looked to Amaranthe before moving. Sespian’s lips flattened. Amaranthe didn’t want him to feel slighted, so was quick to say, “As you wish, Sire.”
Sespian took Basilard’s lantern and looked like he meant to lead the way, but Sicarius slipped into the tunnel ahead of him. As they traveled deeper, the passage continued to slope downward. Soft hisses grew audible, and heated currents stirred the air. In spots, cracks emitted tendrils of steam. Openings appeared in the walls, ceiling, and occasionally the floor. Vents? Most of them were fist-sized, but they passed a few holes large enough that one might crawl inside.
“Are we under the lake?” Amaranthe whispered. Thanks to the bends and turns, she’d lost her sense of direction.
“Yes.” Sicarius stopped beside one of the largest vents they’d seen and peered inside.
“Does it go anywhere?” If the team crawled into a maze of vents, Amaranthe would lose not only her sense of direction but herself as well. Still, if there was a chance one led to the meeting room…
Without responding, Sicarius shimmied into the vent, his boots soon disappearing from sight.
“We’re not supposed to follow him, are we?” Maldynado asked. “I don’t think I’d fit. I’m a bigger man than him.” He propped a hand on his waist, fingers pointed downward, and added, “In all senses of the word.”
Yara snorted.
Basilard signed, Should you say things like that when he might still be in earshot?
“Er.” Maldynado dropped his hand. “Perhaps not.”
Sicarius’s head popped out of the vent, cobwebs cloaking his short hair. “This way. Do not bring the light.” He slithered into the main tunnel long enough to turn around. Before heading back in, he paused to add, “Someone should stand watch, but there’s room for everyone,” with a dismissive glance toward Maldynado.
After he disappeared again, Maldynado muttered, “I may be in trouble when our training exercises start up again.”
Basilard signed, My grandfather used to say bees are worth braving for their honey, but only fools delve into a hornets’ nest.
Amaranthe, not certain Sicarius would stop to ensure everyone had followed him, didn’t wait to see where the conversation would go. “Who wants to stay and stand-”
“Me,” Books said.
Amaranthe had figured he wouldn’t be enthused about crawling into that tight vent, but she couldn’t agree with the choice. “If we do find a way to spy on the Forge people, we may need you to help us figure out what they’re talking about.”
“Oh.” Books’s shoulders drooped. “Of course.”
“I’ll stay,” Akstyr said.
“Good,” Amaranthe said. “Maldynado, you and your big body back him up, please. If people come, hide. If deadly technology comes… warn us somehow, please.”
“And then hide?” Akstyr asked.
“Precisely.”
Maldynado smirked. Amaranthe frowned at him to let him know she meant the bit about hiding. She hadn’t seen anything worry Sicarius the way those black cubes had, not even the deadly makarovi or Arbitan Losk’s soul construct.
Amaranthe crawled into the vent on her hands and knees. She trusted that Sicarius wouldn’t take them somewhere they’d all get stuck, but it was hard not to feel the panic of claustrophobia in the utter darkness of the tight passage. Especially after his warning about those cubes. This would be an awful place to get trapped.
The uneven walls jabbed at her shoulders, and she had to run a hand along the ceiling to locate protuberances before her head smacked against them. At times she had to drop to her belly to avoid them. The incline grew steeper, evoking images of sliding backward and crashing into the men below. Scuffles and grunts floated up from behind her as the rest of the team followed. Sicarius didn’t make a sound. He might have been five feet in front of her or fifty.
Whispers of hot air flowed from cracks and heated the rock beneath Amaranthe’s hands. Unlike the machine-hewn tunnels below, the vent had the rounded contours of a passage carved by water over thousands of years. She tried not to think about what would happen if a crack opened up in the lake floor, one that would allow water to enter the cavity once again.
“Just keep climbing,” she muttered.
Maldynado leaned against the wall next to the vent, the lantern dangling from his arm. If he were the one crawling into a black shaft of indeterminate length, he would have taken a light with him.
A few feet away, Akstyr sat cross-legged on the floor, eyes closed, doing whatever it was fledgling wizards did when they were supposed to be on watch. Maldynado didn’t know how much time had passed since the others had disappeared up the hole, but it had been a while. He thought of Yara’s words about statues and who deserved them. Maybe he ought to do more than stand around.
“Stay here, and pay attention,” Maldynado said. “I’m going to check ahead, see if there’s anything useful.”
Akstyr opened an eye. “You mean you’re going to look for good hiding places?”
“Ah, sure.”
Maldynado dug a second lantern out of someone’s pack, lit it for Akstyr, then headed deeper into the tunnel with the other light. More of those vents, appearing at all different levels, dotted the walls. He wondered if they were a result of water passing through or the remnants of lava flows. He seemed to remember some vague trivia about the lake being part of an extinct volcano.
After passing through two excavated chambers with nothing in them, Maldynado came to another vehicle storage area. This one held a steamroller and a couple of haulers. A workstation scattered with boxes and parts lined one rock wall. He perused the latter, though he wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Something that might prove useful if some lackey stumbled across the team and sounded an alarm. Nothing in the work area inspired him, but the steamroller did draw his eye more than once. The horizontal rolling tube at its front was taller than he was. He smirked as he imagined barreling through the tunnels, rolling over any Forge minions who dared to stand in the path with guns raised.
Maldynado started to dismiss the thought, but propped a fist on his hip. “Enh, why not?”
Given how long it took to fire up a steam engine, one couldn’t simply grab a truck on a whim. Why not start it now, and if the team didn’t end up needing it, who cared? Forge could afford to waste a few pounds of coal.
The smirk returned as Maldynado crawled about the machine, checking fuel and water reserves. He decided it wasn’t a sign of immaturity that he found himself tickled by the idea of Forge people flinging themselves out of the way to avoid being flattened. They’d tortured Amaranthe after all. He was just returning the favor.
Chapter 22
Amaranthe was utterly and hopelessly lost. Sweat beaded on her forehead and dripped down the sides of her face. The vent had crossed other vents, widening and then narrowing again, as it continued an upward path. How far upward, she didn’t know, but she worried that they’d come out on one of the Marblecrest beaches instead of anywhere useful.
Her knuckles brushed against something that wasn’t as hard as the surrounding rock. Sicarius’s foot? It
