So if Wax succeeded in stopping the bomb, there would be an invasion instead. Marasi took a deep breath. Even more reason they couldn’t run — not until they knew what was happening with that army. For now though, she unlocked and yanked open the cell door, spilling light across the ragged prisoners. They pulled back from the light like mistwraiths in the night.
“I’m Marasi Colms,” she said, fishing her credentials from her pocket. “Elendel Constabulary.”
“Oh, thank the Survivor!” a man said, stumbling forward and taking her hand. His suit had once been nice, and he had a few tufts of hair on an otherwise bald head. Did she … recognize him?
“You’re in Bilming politics,” she said. “You served as the local advisor to the Senate.”
“Y-yes,” he stuttered. “Pielle Fromed. I was head of the opposition party for the Bilming Council. I still am … I think…”
Most of the others looked like ordinary citizens, but there was a Terriswoman in the rear with kinky hair. That was … yes, she was a major newspaper owner, wasn’t she? Editor of the Seasons? Marasi had been interviewed by her staff the other year … It was a newspaper that had been sympathetic to Elendel interests.
Preservation … Entrone hadn’t merely been experimenting on his citizens, he’d been experimenting on his political opposition. It was shockingly brazen. How had he made these people vanish without anyone getting wind of it?
The editor of the Seasons accepted Marasi’s help as Moonlight ushered the captives into the main room. “Listen,” the woman said. “I think they have an army of some sort! I’ve … I’ve been taking notes…”
She almost fainted as Marasi helped her stand. But she pressed a notebook into Marasi’s hands. “There isn’t much. But you must believe me.”
“I do,” Marasi said. “We’re here to stop them.”
“Locate a place they call the Community,” she said. “I think it’s where their barracks are.”
“We’ll stop them,” Marasi promised, leading her to the others. “We have to get these people out of here,” Marasi then said to TwinSoul. “Immediately.”
Together, the three of them ushered the poor captives along. They were slow, they were tired, and they were underfed. It took a dangerously long time to get them all into the tunnel. And as Marasi was preparing to lead them back toward the elevators, she heard noises from that direction.
With a sinking feeling, she saw a good two dozen guards — soldiers, really; probably the ones who had been standing watch in the building above — come piling around the turn in the tunnel.
This had just gone from quiet infiltration to full-on war.
51
The Set soldiers, spotting Marasi’s group, immediately organized in the tunnel, using the natural curve as cover. Fortunately, this bought Marasi and her team a few precious moments — the enemy didn’t know what they were facing, and so took up a defensive posture.
Marasi ushered the former captives back toward the room, though the flimsy drywall would offer very little protection against gunfire.
TwinSoul, however, knelt and put both hands on the ground. “Moonlight,” he said, “I’ll need extra fuel. Water will not be enough for this.”
She swiftly dug out one of the glowing jars and tossed it to him. A line of crystal grew from him and around the jar, opening the top. His crystals began to grow faster — in moments he’d created a chest-high wall of roseite in front of them.
Gunfire rang out from the other end of the tunnel, making the former captives cry out as they crowded back into the room. Rifle in hand, Marasi threw herself against TwinSoul’s improvised fortification next to Moonlight. She risked a glance over the roseite mound — he’d made this one opaque, perhaps to give the enemy less information.
She ducked back down as a bullet blasted a few chips off the front of the fortification. TwinSoul clearly had to concentrate to keep this large a barrier up. He had settled down with his legs crossed and his hands in fists, knuckles pressed together in front of him, his head bowed. The crystal-stone had grown up over his arms in an odd way. Marasi turned to Moonlight.
“Can you make a door in the ground?” Marasi said. “There might be tunnels beneath us.”
Moonlight shook her head. “Even if there were, the thickness of the stone would be far too great for my stamp.”
“I believe, my lady Marasi,” TwinSoul said, “that you should allow me to take the people we’ve freed and hasten them to the exit. It seems these soldiers were guarding the shipping bay above. So if I can push through them, I can get the civilians to safety.”
“That would be good,” Moonlight said. “Marasi and I can escape farther into the tunnel complex — and the enemy might be so focused on you and your escape that they don’t notice us.”
“I can’t allow that,” Marasi said as bullets flew overhead. “TwinSoul, there are at least two dozen soldiers over there. You can’t manage them on your own. No offense, but you can barely walk down a corridor without support.”
“No offense taken,” he said, his voice muffled as the roseite continued to grow up — and for some reason around him. “But in return … No offense, my lady, but you might perhaps be underestimating Silajana.”
The roseite completely encased him, forming a transparent boulder around him. His head bowed, with formal sash in place, he was still fully visible in his cross-legged posture through the rose-colored stone. Marasi frowned as it continued to expand rapidly. The size and speed of this creation seemed to need the help of the glowing substance from the jar, which was being drained as the roseite grew.
Bulges formed at the sides of the boulder, like … smaller boulders? Only longer. Then two more formed on the bottom rear of the boulder. Marasi cocked her head, her back to the fortification mound, rifle across her knees. Actually, with the smaller boulder forming on the top, it had almost taken on the shape of … of a …
Thick stone fingers formed on the ends of the two protrusions at the sides, then massive roseite arms spread out, stone grinding against the stone ground as the lower parts formed knees and feet. TwinSoul at the center, the thing heaved itself up — a twelve-foot-tall stone behemoth. The crystal didn’t bend, but had formed joints, like armor.
A man made of rock, like some mythological creature, with a head on the top, broad shoulders, and trunklike legs. TwinSoul sat at its heart, legs crossed, fists pressed together in front of him. But his head rose and his eyes snapped open, glowing softly, as his creation ripped free of the lines of roseite connecting it to the ground.
The fortification started to disintegrate right away, but the soldiers’ attention was totally focused on the stone monstrosity that advanced, its head scraping the top of the tunnel. Their gunfire intensified, bullets hitting with a pop and spray of stone. TwinSoul barely seemed to mind. He stepped in front of Marasi and moved his construct’s hands in front of him, growing something out of them.
“Behold!” he said, his voice somehow booming through the tunnel. “By the grace of Silajana, Suna, Vishwadhar, and the Twelve Primal Aethers, I am Sanvith Prasanva Maahik va Sila, Grand Aetherbound of the twelve kingdoms, Raj of the Coriander Court. And these people are under my protection.”
To punctuate his words, a colossal mace finished forming from roseite in his stone fingers — with a huge bulb at one end, like that of a tulip. He let it thump to the rock beneath him, shaking the ground.