“Are you sure you don’t want me to bring you a blanket? I’ve been sleeping in a pile with the boys to stay warm, so I don’t need mine.”
“No.”
“I’m sorry about the implant,” Amaranthe repeated. “Sespian must know about it and have some plan to deal with it. Maybe this request of his is part of that plan. I’ve only ever talked to him when he was under the influence of that drug, but he seemed bright even then.”
Silence.
“He’d have to be smart, right?” Amaranthe said, thinking he might feel the situation was less hopeless if she could remind him that Sespian had the wherewithal to help himself. “You’re no dull blade, and I never heard anything to suggest Princess Marathi was either.”
Sicarius continued to stare straight ahead.
“I’m sure we’ll get him, and it’ll all work out in the end.” When Amaranthe’s comments elicited nothing but silence, she admitted defeat and placed her hands in the snow, ready to push herself to her feet.
“I know what you’re trying to do,” Sicarius said.
Amaranthe froze. She’d only wanted to help, but his words sounded like an accusation.
“Oh?” she asked carefully.
“Yes.”
“And?”
He was still gazing straight ahead, and she almost missed his soft words: “I appreciate it.”
Amaranthe blinked. Three words shouldn’t mean so much, but a lump swelled in her throat nonetheless. Not trusting her voice, she gave him a hug made awkward by their seated positions and the moving train, then released him and returned to the others.
Akstyr ducked behind a stump and flattened his hands over his ears. Books knelt beside him, watching a flame dance up a long fuse attached to a cord of blasting sticks nestled at the base of the rockslide. At the last moment, he, too, ducked his head and covered his ears.
Even in the open, with nothing but a field of stumps to reflect echoes, the boom was deafening. Boulders bigger than Maldynado flew into the sky, and rock shards slammed down, battering the earth like a hailstorm. More than one chunk hammered Akstyr in the back, and he tried to tuck himself into a tiny ball.
A long moment passed, and something tapped him on the shoulders. Books.
Akstyr lifted his head. A dust cloud filled the air, and a moment passed before he could make out the results of the explosion. So many rocks littered the stump-filled hillside that it looked like a quarry had vomited. However, a dark tunnel opening waited in the hillside where only boulders had smothered the slope before. Though rubble half-buried the entrance, Akstyr and Books ought to be able to wriggle inside.
“Huh,” Akstyr said.
“You needn’t sound so surprised.” Books dusted off his clothing and headed for the mineshaft.
“I didn’t know professors knew how to do useful things. Like setting explosives.”
Books gave him a withering scowl. “You don’t believe some of my ecumenical knowledge might be useful in determining where to place blasting sticks to achieve the desired result?”
Akstyr climbed over one of the rocks in the entrance. “I guess.”
Before following him in, Books stopped to light a lantern.
“I can make light, you know,” Akstyr said.
“I should not wish to rely on you. If you were hit on the head by a falling rock, where would that leave me?”
“Carrying me out?” Akstyr grinned.
Books didn’t. His scowl hadn’t entirely disappeared either. There were too many stodgy oldsters in the group. Akstyr always felt like they were judging him.
Books looked back toward the stump field where they’d landed the dirigible. “I hope nobody was around to hear that explosion. I shouldn’t like to return to find our borrowed conveyance had been stolen.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t stand around all day and talk then, eh?” Akstyr had already crawled over several meters of rock, and he willed one of his globes of light into existence.
“A valid point.” Rubble shifted as Books clambered after him, the lantern banging and clanking as he went.
The dust continued to harass Akstyr’s nose, and he sneezed repeatedly. It disturbed his concentration and his light winked out several times. Some brilliant Science practitioner he was.
“I hope nothing’s left down here to hear our clamor,” Books said.
“I’m sure anything down here would have starved by now.”
“I wasn’t thinking of living beings.”
“Oh.” Akstyr remembered the battle he and the others had fought against all those mechanical constructs. Yes, there might be booby traps and Made creations yet about. “I’m not sure if any of those things we fought last spring had ears.”
“Comforting.”
The dust faded and the debris on the ground dwindled until they could walk on the wooden ties of the old mine cart tracks. An intersection waited up ahead, and Akstyr increased his pace. He hadn’t had a chance to see the shaman’s laboratory, and the idea of exploring it now filled him with anticipation. While Books was looking for those implants, maybe he could find some small artifacts to take with him and study. Or more books. He’d never had a chance to learn anything about Mangdorian magic.
“The cart’s been moved,” Books said, and Akstyr paused before reaching the intersection.
“What?”
“Remember that cart that rolled up to us as we were leaving? It was here.”
Yes, that cart carrying the message had been creepy. “Maybe the soldiers moved it.”
Books grunted dubiously. “Amaranthe said the workshop is to the left there.”
Akstyr walked into the intersection and into a puddle. With his mind, he nudged his light ball higher and farther out. The tunnel straight ahead sloped downward and disappeared into water.
“Nobody around to fix the pump,” Books said.
“It doesn’t look like the laboratory will be affected.” Akstyr headed left, swinging his glowing sphere back around the corner to light the way, and he almost stepped onto a skeleton. A human skeleton. Startled, he let his concentration slip and the light winked out again.
Books, holding his lantern aloft, joined him. Tiny teeth marks marred the bones, and only scraps of gray fabric remained. In the shadows ahead, Akstyr could make out the white skull of another skeleton.
“It seems the soldiers attempted to explore before blowing up the entrance,” Books said.
“Seems.” Senses stretched outward, Akstyr stepped over the skeletons and headed deeper into the dark passage.
Books knelt to take a closer look at the skeleton, maybe trying to figure out what had killed them. Or what had eaten them. Akstyr just wanted to get to the workshop, though he was careful to probe every inch of the way, searching for the residual tingle of an area touched by a Maker.
He reached an open wooden door, and stepped over two more skeletons to enter a long, rectangular chamber with a ceiling and walls chiseled from the rock. Workbench after workbench ran down the length of one long wall, while cabinets and machines occupied the opposite one. Disassembled equipment and tools scattered the surfaces, and more than a few metallic heads, hooks, and articulating arms appeared to be from the sorts of constructs that had attacked Akstyr and the others the spring before. The team had been eager to leave the mines after being mauled so thoroughly, so he had never seen the workshop before, and he couldn’t tell if anything had been touched. He wanted to explore everything, but the skeletons on the floor were disconcerting. But they’d been Science-ignorant soldiers. He ought to be able to detect traps before he triggered them.
It was hard to focus on the idea of hunting for traps. Residual energy plucked at his senses from all sides, begging him to investigate. He’d love to take back souvenirs to study. In particular, a half-orb set into the body of a knee-height brass spider drew his eye-it pulsed a soft purple, creating an interesting play of light and shadow on the walls and equipment in a far corner.