“Don’t play with anything,” Books stood in the doorway, the ex-pilot’s pistol loaded and in his hands.
Akstyr sniffed. “Practitioners do not play. They study, they ponder, they-oh! Is that a mind foci artifact?” He veered toward a fist-sized golden ball with a lustrous shell.
“Shiny,” Books said dryly. “Can you look for the implants, please? I’m assuming that whatever killed these soldiers could still be a threat.”
Akstyr pocketed the ball to study at a later date. “We’re not even sure those devices are here, are we?”
“If they’re not, this trip was a waste of-”
A clank sounded in the tunnel behind Books. He jumped inside, spinning in the air to land with his pistol up, poised to fire. The wooden door slammed shut in front of him, smacking the pistol and nearly tearing it from his hands. Gears ground behind one of the stone walls, followed by a soft click. An armoire near the door emitted an ominous hissing sound.
“-life,” Books finished bleakly.
“Uhm,” Akstyr said. It wasn’t his most brilliant utterance.
Books tried the door, but it seemed to have locked itself. It was the only exit from the workshop.
Books strode to the armoire and pointed to pink gas flowing out of a vent near the top. “Can you stop that? I’m guessing it doesn’t promote haleness and longevity.”
Akstyr joined him, crinkling his nose as a scent like mildew and fungus wafted toward him. Books had already pulled his shirt over his nose. Akstyr doubted that would be effective. Instead, he concentrated on the idea of a filter, something that formed over his nose and mouth, a tight mesh weave that allowed air through but blocked out larger particles. Though it never grew visible to the naked eye, he thought he was successful in creating it. He sniffed experimentally and no longer detected the mushroom odor.
Good for him, but that probably didn’t help Books. If he passed out, Akstyr would have to fly the dirigible himself. He paused, intrigued by the off-hand thought. If he could figure out how to fly it, maybe it’d be his chance to leave the empire forever.
Though the idea tickled his mind for a few seconds, he told himself that Books would die, not pass out, if the skeletons were any indication, and, anyway, leaving the team in a lurch would be pretty despicable. It was surprising to realize that mattered to him, because there had been a time when it wouldn’t have. None of the people he’d grown up with would have thought twice about ditching him for a chance to steal a dirigible.
“Well?” Books asked.
“I made a filter for myself, but let me see if I can make the gas stop,” Akstyr said.
Concentrating on two things at once was an intense challenge, one Akstyr hadn’t mastered yet, but by keeping the picture of the filter in his mind, and imagining his thoughts probing outward through it, he managed to sense of the armoire’s otherworldly properties. Or he would have if it had any. Surprisingly, he didn’t feel anything. What he did sense was a complex mechanical miasma behind the doors, a maze of levers, gears, and pipes that he couldn’t guess how to work.
“I think it’s just a machine,” Akstyr said.
“Meaning there aren’t any booby traps?” Books reached toward one of the cabinet knobs.
“Meaning the booby traps aren’t magical.”
Books’s hand froze. “Ah.”
“Maybe your great knowledge of science and history would be useful here.”
“Perhaps so. Why don’t you find those implants?”
Books started coughing, and Akstyr hustled away. He poked through boxes and cabinets, alarmed by how many were locked. It’d stink donkey butts if what the emperor needed to save his life was in the room, but they couldn’t get at it.
Akstyr pulled a small wooden box out from beneath a bench. Intricately carved with a pattern of vines and leaves, it looked like something that would hold jewelry or other tiny, precious items.
Books coughed again, phlegmy coughs this time, like those of someone suffering from consumption. He was standing in the corner by the door, head bent, hands in front of him. Akstyr couldn’t tell if he was doing something or not.
“You need some picklocks to open that door?” he asked.
“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.