She shivered, wishing for warmth in the office. The already frigid temperature had dropped noticeably after the sun had set.
Footsteps sounded at the end of the hallway.
Tikaya lunged for the rifle, but caught her heel on the downed chalkboard and skidded to her backside with a noisy thud. Great. If they hadn’t known where she was before, they knew now.
She scrambled to her feet and grabbed the rifle. She hopped over the bodies and slid into the shadows thickening the corner across from the door.
Finger on the trigger, butt pressed into her shoulder, cheek against the stock, Tikaya waited. In the stillness, she could feel her heart pounding in her ears. The footsteps thudded closer, the steady pace of someone jogging.
The door bumped against the furniture barricade, eliciting a surprised grunt that sounded familiar.
“ Rias?” Tikaya hazarded before she could think better. What if he was as crazy as everyone else out there seemed to be?
“ Tikaya!”
Rias burst into the room, bringing lantern light with him. He did not seem to notice the artifact or bodies; he searched until he spotted her in the corner, started forward, but stopped, gaze dropping to her weapon. He was missing his cap, his hair stuck up in places, and blood trickled from a gash on his temple. A cutlass was strapped across his back, two bulges in his parka suggested pistols, and he carried a rifle as well as the lantern.
“ Are you…you?” Tikaya asked.
“ I’m not murdering people and trying to kick the ore out of everyone’s cart if that’s what you’re asking. Just a little-” Rias cocked his head, almost like a dog listening. “Actually, it’s strange but I feel normal in here.”
Tikaya lowered her rifle. “Yes, I think the device creates some kind of normalcy field around it, probably so the operator isn’t affected by whatever it’s emitting that’s causing everyone to be on edge.”
“ On edge, that’s an understatement.”
Rias closed the door and hopped over the upturned furniture. Tikaya joined him in the middle, intending to show him the device, but he dropped his rifle on a desk and wrapped her in a hug. Surprised, she found herself crushed against his chest. There was a desperate fierceness to the grip, but she managed to get one arm around to his back to return the embrace.
“ I’m relieved you’re not hurt or…” Emotion thickened his voice.
“ I’m guessing you’ve had a worse afternoon than me,” she said, relaxing against him. The fear that had tensed her shoulders since Agarik left disappeared, and she felt warm for the first time in hours.
Rias released her and stepped back. “Sorry, I just… I wasn’t sure if you…” He cleared his throat. “It’s dangerous out there. Half the people are mildly affected by whatever’s in the air, and the other half are crazier than the bloodthirsty maniacs I left on Krychek.” His gaze skimmed the bodies in the room, and he frowned thoughtfully as he took in the furniture barricade and the half-boarded windows.
“ I’m glad you were able to get to me,” Tikaya said. “I need your help. Maybe Agarik can stand guard while-wait, where is Agarik?”
“ I don’t know.”
“ I asked him to go find you.”
Rias spread his arms, palms up. “I haven’t seen him. When I realized what was going on, I worried that one of these lunatics would shoot you, so I escaped at the first opportunity. I’ve been hunting around, dodging packs of the more aggressive people, and just now found you.”
Despite the situation, she smiled. Escaped at the first opportunity. By what creative means had he eluded his shackles this time? She almost felt sorry for Captain Bocrest.
“ I hope he’ll be able to stay safe.” Tikaya tapped the box and nodded at the collection of symbols hovering in the air. “I need your help. I think this device is responsible for what’s happening out there.”
Rias walked around it, shaking his head and massaging the back of his neck before he even saw the side with the runes and indentations.
“ If you press those, the representations appear in the air.” She demonstrated as she explained.
“ Oh, Tikaya,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, but you’ve got the wrong person. We Turgonians may be good engineers, but students go to different nations if they want to seriously study alchemy.”
Her breath caught. “Alchemy?”
He stabbed one of the indentions and a symbol flared to life. “That’s iron, isn’t it?” Another stab. “And copper.” He shrugged apologetically. “I only remember the ones that we use in alloys. Since the Turgonians deny magic exists, we won’t publish anything in our textbooks that was only discovered through the use of magic. Aren’t your people the ones who first talked about atoms and electrons and such? We don’t have a microscope that can see anything that fine. We’ve only got fifty things on our table of elements.”
Scarcely breathing, Tikaya dropped an incredulous stare to the symbols. Was he right? Were they looking at the alchemical table of elements? If so, then this could be her Tekdar Tablet. She had to be sure before she based translations on it. “There are almost two hundred symbols. Are you certain? Our table has seventy-five, I think, and it’s the most complete of any in the world.”
“ But your people are still finding new ones, right?” Rias ticked his fingernail on the top of the device. “You’ll believe me when you see the tunnels, but for now just trust me when I say these people were more advanced than us.”
“ More advanced?”
He had hinted of that in his tale of the tunnels, but she had not truly thought it possible. Though, advanced technology might explain how this device had dug its legs into the earth, piercing tile, wood, and permafrost to do so. She clasped her hand over her mouth and stared at the runes. There was no existing evidence that a people more advanced than modern man had ever lived. This was rewrite-the-history-books kind of stuff. Incredible. If it was true.
“ I just want to be certain. I don’t see what you’re seeing to make these identifications. Nor does the layout of the symbols look like the table I’m familiar with, but I’ve only had a cursory introduction to alchemy. It wasn’t anything I thought I’d come across studying ancient languages.” She realized she was making excuses and decided to still her lips before it grew more obvious. Rias had thought so highly of her intelligence; she hated to give him reason to think less of her.
“ I’ve spent my life looking for patterns and trying to find the predictable in situations others see as unpredictable. If this odd skill can be of use to you now, I’m delighted.” Rias slid next to her in front of the interface and poked one of the simplest runes and brought it to life before their eyes. “The atomic structure is incorporated into the symbol itself.”
“ Oh!” As soon as he said it, she saw it. “Hydrogen.” She slapped herself on the forehead. “I thought these might be numbers. It never occurred to me that an ancient people might have this kind of scientific knowledge, with specialized symbols for…”
Rias tapped hydrogen again and another rune. The symbols appeared in the air. “How do you-” he started, but bonds formed on their own.
“ Water.” Tikaya grinned. The symbols were not nearly as simple as the diagrams her people used to represent the various elements-indeed, these reminded her of the bizarre perception puzzles a professor had distributed during a lesson on optics-but if one knew what to look for, the structures were there.
The water molecule flashed twice, then disappeared to be replaced by the far more complex image she had been seeing all afternoon.
“ I guess that isn’t the answer.” Rias gave her a sad smile. “I’m afraid that’s about the extent of my knowledge in this area. I haven’t an idea what that could be.” He swiped his finger through the dozens of linked symbols hovering in the air. The image did not waver. “Something we haven’t invented yet, probably. I can look through the shelves in the offices. It’s a long shot, but there might be a book that has our mediocre table of elements in it. Maybe that’ll help you with translating. Sorry I don’t have the answer.”