EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (238 page)

More pounding—louder pounding—hammered the wood, and something snapped. A crack of light appeared, but the desk kept the door from opening wide. Rias waited in the wall’s shadows.

She glanced toward the window, wondering if they could escape that way. Lantern light danced past—men were out there, too, perhaps counting rooms to figure out which office she and Rias occupied.

The door opened wider, and the slash of light broadened, illuminating the corner of the desk and a coatrack.

A rifle barrel slid through the gap.

Tikaya tensed, expecting Rias to shoot first. Despite the chill, sweat dampened her hands.

The rifle slid in farther, and Rias burst into motion. He grabbed the barrel, yanked it into the room, and slashed upward with his cutlass. The attacker yelped in surprise and pain, releasing the weapon. Rias planted a foot, thrust the other man back, and slammed the door shut.

“One man disarmed, seven to go.” He shoved the desk against the frame again.

Muffled voices came through the door—the sound of people plotting. The next attack would not be so easy to thwart.

“There are men milling around outside too,” Tikaya said.

“You think I don’t know that?” Rias snapped.

She stared at him, startled. He had never so much as looked crossly at her. Then she remembered: “I guess the protection from whatever the artifact is putting out was limited to that room.”

After a silent beat, Rias said, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. It’s like before; something’s making it hard to keep my equanimity.”

“Your breakdown is a lot less disturbing than that of most of your countrymen.”

He grunted.

“I feel it too,” Tikaya said. “It’s nothing you can see, nothing you smell or feel. Maybe I’ve been going about this the wrong way. Like a, well, like a philologist. But maybe I don’t need to translate the writing on the bottom in order to cut the device off. If we can guess what its purpose is, maybe we can switch it to another purpose, something less troublesome. It has all those options you can put in—doesn’t that imply you ought to be able to get more than one thing out?”

“What could it be putting out that would affect us mentally? It’s nothing we’ve seen or heard or smelled.”

“An odorless gas?” Tikaya guessed.

“Ah, being disseminated through that pipe, perhaps?”

“It’d have to be something invisible but heavy enough to float down and blanket the town. Something designed to irritate people, to outright anger them, even make—”

A shot fired.

Tikaya jerked her head up in time to see Rias slam the door shut again. The scent of black powder tainted the air.

“Only two in the hallway now,” Rias said. “They’ve either lost interest or they’re going to try another way in.”

“We have to get back to the device,” Tikaya said. “If we punch in another gas, maybe it’ll change the output. Something innocuous that won’t hurt anyone.”

Thumps continued at the door, probably more for the purpose of distracting Tikaya and Rias than getting in. The lanterns previously visible through the window had disappeared, which made her think the marines had stopped planning and were now engaged in that plan. She shifted her stance, readying herself to fire toward the window if necessary. The last thing she wanted was to dodge another blasting stick.

“Innocuous gases,” Rias said. “Oxygen? Hydrogen?”

“We tried those, albeit on accident. And you pressed in water, which should be deliverable as a vapor. Except the device didn’t like any of those.” Tikaya groaned. “Maybe my guess is completely wrong.”

“Or maybe the machine is only designed to create synthetic or organic compounds,” Rias said. “Though I don’t know any molecular structures that might qualify. Do you?”

“No, but maybe there’s something in your book.” She tapped it with the pistol butt.

“There aren’t many innocuous somethings in that book.”

“I know it’s a long shot, but—wait, no. When your people captured me, they knocked me out with something sweet-smelling in a rag. When I breathed in, I passed out. Do you know what that was? Would it be in there?”

Rias shifted away from the door. “Chloroform. Yes.”

The thuds stopped.

“Let’s try it.” Tikaya had a feeling it would be better to find a light and check the book in a different room. “Can we get down the hall?”

Rias cracked the door. A rifle fired, and the ball smashed into the frame, hurling wood splinters. He closed the door.

“Not at this time.”

Tikaya snorted. She pressed her nose to the icy glass window panes. At the edge of her view, shadows and lanterns moved.

“Not this way either,” she said. “Unless we can—oh!”

“What?”

“Maybe nothing, but Agarik and I had to shove our way into the room with the artifact. The window was boarded, the door barricaded, so whoever killed all those men must have come in through—”

“Attic,” Rias said. “There must be space to move around up there. Watch the door.” He hopped onto the desk and thumped the ceiling. Wood scraped against wood. “Here.”

Outside, the lanterns headed toward their window.

“I need help up.” Annoyed to be a burden, Tikaya stuffed the pistol in her pants and joined him, book clutched against her chest. “I don’t think I can lift my arm over—”

Still standing on the desk, Rias caught her by the waist and lifted her over his head as if she weighed nothing. Blackness waited above, though an icy draft touched her cheek. That meant a way out. She hoped.

“Hurry,” Rias said, giving her a final boost.

Tikaya scrambled into the dark attic. Even with his help, she came down on her shoulder and had to stifle a curse. When she tried to stand, she bumped her head on a beam.

Below, glass shattered.

“Rias?” She started to lean over to check on him.

He jumped through and a thud sounded—his head hitting the ceiling—but he did not pause to acknowledge it.

“Go, go!” he barked, pushing her ahead of him.

Half running, half bear-crawling, Tikaya maneuvered past beams and supports.

Light flashed and an explosion rippled through the floorboards beneath her. The force sent her crashing into Rias, and they went down in a tumble.

“Ooph,” he grunted, voice sounding odd.

Then her mind caught up to the situation. Rias had been behind her, not in front of her.

Tikaya tried to jump back, but the man grabbed her. She dropped the book. His grip kept her from reaching for the pistol. He unshuttered a lantern, illuminating beams, trusses, and his snarling face. One of the marines.

“Got her!” he yelled.

Rias charged past Tikaya and tackled the man. The lantern flew free. In a lucky lunge, she caught it before it hit the floor and went out. Though her shoulder protested, she held it with her left hand and yanked the pistol free with her right.

Rias needed no help though. He knelt over the marine, arms locked around his neck. The man’s face turned purple, and he passed out.

A shadow moved behind Rias.

Tikaya reacted. She fired the pistol without thinking, and the ball hammered into someone’s chest. Rias spun to look.

Only after the man collapsed did her brain scream that these people were her captors and aiming to kill one might get her into a mess of trouble.

“It’s Lieutenant Commander Okars.” Rias checked the officer’s pulse. “It
was
Lieutenant Commander Okars.”

“Oh, no,” Tikaya breathed.

Rias picked up a knife. “Yes, but he was going for my back, so I must thank you for my life.”

Tikaya closed her eyes for a moment. “Let’s just get that horrible device cut off.”

By the lantern’s light, they found the source of the draft. The first explosion had left a ragged hole in the ceiling of the room with the artifact.

“Walk softly,” Rias said as they neared it. “The structural integrity has doubtlessly been compromised.”

“Thank you for that brilliant engineering assessment. Maybe when I fall through the floor, I can take out my other shoulder.” Her grumbling made her wince and long for the sphere of protection around the artifact. It would be easier to problem solve if she did not feel so cranky. She hoped. It could be worse; she could have become an unthinking aggressive lout who thought it was a good idea to throw blasting sticks at innocent—

Her boot went through the floor, and she pitched sideways. When her body struck, the footing deteriorating further. Rias grabbed her and tried to pull her free, but the floor had enough of them: it dropped away completely.

She smashed to the level below and landed on something cloth covered. Not cloth, she realized as she looked under her. Clothing. Clothing on dead bodies.

She lurched away, igniting pain in her shoulder. Rigid fingers tangled in her braid, and she pulled, trying to free herself without using her injured arm or touching the corpse again. A disheartened cry escaped her lips when the dead man’s hand lifted with her, fingers fully snagged in her hair. Tormenting ancestors, this was too morbid, and too damned much. Why couldn’t the idiotic Turgonians run a decent Polytechnic so they’d have their own philologists to kidnap for secret missions?

“Sorry,” Rias murmured, crouching beside her. “As soon as we get this taken care of, we’ll find the sawbones to check your shoulder.”

“The problem is less the shoulder—though that is irritating me every three or four seconds too—and more the bodies. And the being attacked. And the part where I’m shooting people to death, and—” She brought her fist to her mouth and squinted her eyes shut, struggling to keep from breaking into sobs. Slow breaths, she told herself. This was not the time for wheezing and gasping and flirting with an emotional breakdown. React later. “I’m all right. I’m just... I’m better in a classroom, I swear.”

Rias wrapped his arm around her back, and she leaned on him.

“I suppose you’ll think I’m odd—odder—if I admit this is the most exciting my days have been in ages,” he said.

She rubbed her eyes. “I’ll forgive you for being a crazy odd Turgonian who probably has had a horrible life for the last couple of years, if you’ll kindly disentangle that dead man’s fingers from my hair.”

“Oh.” Rias released her to undertake the task, then stood. “We’re back in the artifact room, but they’ll figure it out soon. That new window doesn’t hide much.”

The blasting stick had blackened the floor, turned furniture to shrapnel, and torn holes not only in the ceiling and a side wall but in the building’s exterior as well. In the center of the room, the device remained, unharmed, symbols still glowing.

Tikaya picked up the book, set her jaw, and strode over to it. There was not much time. Shouts on the other side of the building promised the men were still looking for her.

She flipped through the chapter on chemicals. “There.”

“Find something?” Rias stood nearby, weapons loaded and ready.

Reluctant to speak too soon, Tikaya pressed the appropriate runes. The regular image blanked out to be replaced by the new symbols. They hovered until she finished. Then, by some alien consciousness, the artifact understood what she wanted, and it arranged them in a way eerily similar to the layout in the book. Even though it was what she hoped for, it sent a shiver down her spine.

A soft click sounded in the core of the device.

Tikaya arched her eyebrows at Rias who gave her an encouraging hand gesture. She gripped the edge of the device and waited. Nobody stirred nearby. She tried to decide if the distant shouts were diminishing. Minutes passed, and a deathly quiet fell over the town.

Rias walked to the door. He cocked his head, listening.

“What is it?” she asked.

Rias lifted a finger, cracked the door, and peered into the hallway. He leaned back in with a smile, and Tikaya heard the noise now too.

“Snoring?” she asked.

“The two men out there are sleeping, and the air has that sweet smell of chloroform.”

Tikaya exhaled slowly. “Good. That should mean we’re safe from being shot or knife-stabbed for the moment. Of course, now we have a lesser problem.”

“How to wake everyone up, leave town, or even leave this room without succumbing to unconsciousness ourselves?”

“That’s the one.”

She dropped to her back on the floor to gaze up at the writing beneath the machine. Before, she had been trying to translate it. Now, she just thought about cutting the artifact off. Only one of the groupings did not have alchemical elements in it. The first one. Nothing so obvious as a switch stood out anywhere on the machine, so she poked and prodded that grouping. They sat flush and she did not expect them to move, so she nearly cracked her head on the bottom of the box when they did. By pushing and twisting, she could rotate them.

“What’d you do?” Rias asked. “The symbols are flashing.”

She could rotate them further, but she paused and peered up at him. “You sure you want those people awake again?”

He smiled gently. “I’ll possibly regret it later, but yes. We’ll need help to tackle the tunnels.”

“Or you and I could devise some kind of masks, gather as many supplies as we need, take a couple of those dog sleds down the coast until we reach a port, and then sail somewhere far away, leaving the empire to deal with its own problems.”

Rias sighed and gazed into the night. “I cannot.”

“Even though these people left you to die? Even though they probably got themselves into this situation?”

“Even though,” he said. “But...” He took a breath and, with palpable reluctance, said, “If you want to go, I’ll keep them busy long enough for you to do so. It’s about three hundred miles south to Tangukmoo. If you grabbed a dog team and supplies, I’m sure you could make it in a couple of weeks. It’s technically an imperial town, but it’s eighty percent natives, and I suspect they’d hide you just to irk us. After the thaw, trade vessels come in to barter for whale oil and bone. With your skills, I’m sure you could bargain for passage and find a way home.”

“Sounds like a lonely journey without any company,” Tikaya said.

“Probably.”

“Last week, you told me your people really needed my help. What’s changed?”