Little Storm and Little Wind pranced a little, ruffling their wings. Jay almost expected them to preen.
“So are you performing in California?” Jay asked.
“We don’t know,” Little Wind sulked. “No one comes to tell us anything. Unless they bring the man here, there is no one but us and the machine.”
“There is the intruder now,” Little Storm reminded him, leering at
Jay-
“The man?” Jay asked hastily.
“The man who they say made the first of the artifacts,” Little Wind replied.
Jay felt a surge of excitement. The}? had to mean Wolfer Martin D’Ambry, aka the Piper, ne Warren Bansa.
“Does he come here often?”
“Once a day, maybe,” Little Wind said. “He claims to know nothing about what they want, but no one believes him. Skyga is furious, but he does not dare punish him. Even as the Piper of the Phantom Legion the man is valuable.”
“Has he been here yet today?” [ay asked.
“I don’t think so,” Little Storm said, “which brings up the question of what to do with you.”
“Why?”
“We can’t have you loose when they arrive—that would ruin our last chance of getting off guard detail. So the question is whether to eat you or to capture you. Eating would be more amusing.”
“But capturing is what you were told to do,” [ay said quickly. “Wouldn’t that help you get back into their good graces?”
“Maybe so. What do you think, Little Wind? You were the one who suggested that we eat him.”
“The young man does have a point,” Little Wind said reluctantly, “if we capture him, we don’t have to turn him over unless the}’ promise to let us go to the Celebration.”
Jay cleared his throat.
“And how do you plan to capture me?”
“We are rather dangerous and we can fly,” Little Storm said. He reached behind him and pulled out a long spear. “And we have these for poking you out of corners.”
“The chase could damage the machine,” Jay suggested.
“No, I don’t think so,” Little Wind said. “It has protections, otherwise we would have broken it long ago and claimed it was damaged in the heat of a great battle with enemy forces. We discussed the possibility at length when we first came here.”
“What if I escaped?”
“Then you wouldn’t be a problem.”
“But what if I left some mark of my presence before I escaped? Perhaps by scraping my initials on a wall, or kicking in a door.”
“You do look capable of that and you did get in here without using any of the windows or doors. I suppose you could cause us trouble. Is there a point to this line of reasoning?”
Jay nodded. “What if I surrender?”
“Why would you do that?” Little Storm said, surprised.
“I want to see the man. The Phantom Piper of the Phantom Legion of Skyga is a legendary figure. If I am fated to fail, then I’d at least like a look at him.”
“You are fated to fail,” Little Wind said. “If you came here to steal an artifact, that is impossible. If you came here to record the device, it will do you no good, for it cannot be duplicated outside of very specialized conditions and needs a unique part.”
Bansa’s device, Jay thought. It is here.
Jay sidled over to one of the doors along the back wall. Unlike the walls, it was made of light materials. He made a show of inspecting it.
“I can kick this in before you reach me.”
“But that will not keep us from killing you.”
“Then you lose your proof of your fidelity as guards, and are you certain that you can kill me? Wouldn’t it be embarrassing if I escaped?”
The winged lions glanced at each other, slowly nodded human heads.
“Then let me surrender. Promise me that you’ll let me live.”
“Skyga or his agents may not,” Little Wind said.
“I’m willing to take the risk.”
“We agree,” Little Storm said.
Jay squared his shoulders and walked over to them. Although he kept a calm demeanor, he was certain that they could hear the pounding of his heart. His surrender was by no means as much a resignation as the guards might believe. The CF pistol remained concealed at his waist, and although he did not like the idea, he could cross over into Verite.
Neither of these things would get him Bansa’s device, however. He believed Little Storm and Little Wind when they said that the machine was warded. However, those wards would be lowered for Arnbry/Bansa. He would have to trust that Alice’s father would be his ally, that the others would find some way to deal with whatever guards escorted the Piper, that the winged lions wouldn’t get bored and eat him after all.
He didn’t particularly like the odds, but Deep Fields was no haven, and soon, if the Elishites had their way, there would be no safe place from the games of gods left in all the Verite.
Alice Hazzard, oka Lincoln Crain, was impatiently watching both the oval temple and the factory when she spotted a group emerging from the temple.
“There’s my father!” she said. “Is that an escort or a guard surrounding him?”
“Either/or,” Drum answered, after examining them for a moment. “No one has a weapon at his back, but they’re watching him carefully— and that grouping around him would keep him from deciding to take a walk.”
“They’re coming this way,” Virginia said. “That is, they’re coming to the factory.”
“Makes sense,” Drum said. “Mizar sensed Bansa’s device in the factory and Ambry is what’s left of Bansa.”
“What could they want?” Alice said. “If our guesses are right, they’re already duplicating the device.”
“Bansa died using the device,” Dubhe said bluntly. “That’s how my old boss got it. My guess is they want him to improve it.”
“And he won’t,” Alice said, a surge of pride in her voice. “Now how are we going to free him?”
“And where?” Drum added. “We still haven’t seen Jay. If he’s having trouble inside, it would be best if we coordinate our efforts to help him.”
No one mentioned the possibility that Jay might be dead, but from the sudden uncomfortable quiet that fell over the group each knew the others were well aware that the odds that Jay still lived were quite poor.
“Maybe he just didn’t manage to get inside,” Dubhe muttered. “So we need to get both Bansa’s device and Bansa, collect Jay, and get out of here. Have any of you folks mastered virt body shifts?”
Drum and Alice frowned.
“I can just do me and Link,” Alice said.
“And I relied on templates,” Drum confessed. “Most of the time they’re less noticeable.”
“I learned, for Markon,” Virginia said, her voice breaking soft and uneven, “although he always liked me best this way.”
“An aion of good taste,” Drum said firmly. “Very good. I believe I can guess what Dubhe is thinking.”
“If you could shift your form to look like one of the guards and join the group,” Alice said, “then you could get close enough to follow them inside. There are seven of them total, but if you walk to the rear, they shouldn’t notice you since they’re all busy ‘escorting’ my dad.”
Virginia raised her binoculars and started studying the details of the escort’s attire. They wore neat, pseudomilitary uniforms consisting of navy-blue jumpsuits nipped in at ankle and wrist, white bandoliers and gloves, black ankle boots, and matching blue-and-white billed caps accented with gold cloudbursts. All appeared to be armed with Chaos Factor rifles and long swords.
“Then what?”