“Not a shaft,” the shifty-eyed prisoner said. “She was in the rocks. It was odder than a three-legged parrot. We had to dig her out. Rescued her. She wasn’t grateful like you’d expect though. Crazy woman ran past us while we were bent over.”
“Because of… a rash?” Ridge asked.
The man nodded, crossed his legs, and dropped his hands protectively over his crotch. “Most painful itchy thing I’ve ever had.”
Ridge gave Sardelle a curious look, but her face had gone expressionless. She didn’t even offer a these-people-are-obviously-crazy eyebrow raise.
“It’s odd enough that a woman would have made it down into the mines,” Heriton said, “when the trams are operated by soldiers, and they’re the only way in and out.”
Possibly. Someone could slip down into the mines without using one of the cages. The diagonal shafts were steep, but not that steep. Sardelle was obviously gifted at sneaking in and out of places. Ridge reminded himself to question the gate guards later. For now, he remained silent and nodded for the captain to continue.
“It’s even odder that she would be all the way down at the end of a new tunnel, in the rock itself, if this man can be believed.”
“This self-confessed murderer?” Ridge couldn’t keep from asking. How reliable a witness should they consider him?
“I got no reason to lie about this,” the shifty man said. “I know what I seen.”
“It’s hardly the only unusual thing that’s happened revolving around this woman,” Heriton said. “I’ve been wondering if it’s a coincidence that the Cofah showed up on the same day she did.”
“They showed up on the same day I did as well,” Ridge said.
“You’re a national hero. She’s… ” Heriton groped in the air, as if he couldn’t get a grasp on Sardelle. At least Ridge wasn’t the only one. “I’ll be blunt, sir,” the captain went on. “It makes me uneasy having her walk around here at your side, like she’s your trusted aide. I… I’d like to discuss this further with you in private.”
“Yup, I figured you would.” Ridge sighed. Inviting Sardelle up for coffee was going to be every bit as unlikely as he had feared. “I have a funeral service to arrange and five thousand other things to do, but I’ll talk to you this afternoon.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Now, go find work. All of you.” He shooed the captain and the rest of the soldiers away, until only Sardelle remained, her hands clasped behind her back as she gazed up at the mountains. Ridge would have paid a lot to know her thoughts. “You’d better go back to work and stay out of trouble for a few days, at least until something else distracts Heriton.” He smiled at her, though he felt guilty for sending her back to the laundry and those crowded barracks rather than finding her a nice room. His room, perhaps? The problem was, he shared all of the captain’s concerns. Whatever she had been looking for down in the mines when she had been discovered, Ridge doubted very much that his superiors would want him to give it to her.
“Work?” Sardelle asked. “I thought I had the day off. Eight days off, wasn’t it?”
The book reports. Right. He almost told her that the days off wouldn’t start right away, but curiosity changed the lay of his tongue. “What would you do if those days off started today?”
“Research in the prison library. I thought I’d try to find your flier for you.”
“My what?”
“The flier you were talking about yesterday, the one that crashed ten years ago.” Sardelle spread a hand. “Maybe you could drag it back here and fix it up so you would have a way to defend against further incursions from the airship.”
He frowned. He had caught her hesitation and suspected she’d had something else in mind for research until this inspiration struck. Yet, this was exactly the right thing to say to win him over. If he could find that flier and fix it somehow, he wouldn’t have to stalk uselessly back and forth on the ramparts when enemy airships flew circles around the fort.
“Three days,” he grumbled. Ridge hadn’t even known her for three days, and she already had intimate knowledge of the controls on his dashboard.
“Pardon?” Sardelle asked.
“Nothing. Go. Research.” Ridge waved. “The library is on the second floor over there. I’m skeptical you’ll find it particularly extensive or useful though. I doubt records of crashes are kept in there.”
“I won’t know until I look.” Sardelle bowed her head toward him. “Thank you.”
Such a formal parting of ways. It seemed a crime after their intimacies in the cave. Yet this was how it had to be. He shambled off in the other direction, heading for his office, his heart feeling like a crashed flier.
* * *
Colonel Zirkander hadn’t been exaggerating about the library. Ridge, Sardelle reminded herself with a smile. He had invited her to use his first name. It wouldn’t be appropriate in public, with half of his men giving her hard, suspicious looks, but she would think about him that way. Nobody here had access to her thoughts, fortunately.
She ran a finger along the backs of the dusty tomes lining the library’s single bookcase. She recognized many of the titles from his list. A few gaps on the shelves suggested that at least some of the prisoners had taken him up on his offer and were going to try to read the classics. Sardelle had been lucky so many of them were old enough that they had been classics even when she had gone to school. Albeit that book on flight hadn’t been anything she had read. Jaxi had coached her through summarizing it.
You’re welcome.
Sardelle smiled. Do you have any idea where the crashed flying machine might be?
No good morning first? You simply want to send me straight into researching for you?
I apologize. Good morning, Jaxi. I’d like to thank you for your discretion last night.
Discretion? You mean the fact that I kept my mental lips shut so you could make the rocks shake with your colonel?
Sardelle blushed, though it wasn’t as if she had any secrets from her soul-linked sword of nearly twenty years.
Three hundred and twenty years. And don’t I always stay out of your head when you’re being intimate with someone?
Yes, though it’s been so long that I thought you might have forgotten my preferences.
As I recall, scrawny sorcerers with ink smudges on their fingertips are your usual preferences. I must say the colonel was a welcome change.
Sardelle’s heart quickened at the memory of how much of a change Ridge had been, how enticing it had been to run her hands over his lean, muscular body… That’s why I want to find his flying machine for him.
She made herself focus on the task at hand, pulling a journal from the shelf, one hand-written by a general from two decades past. It was too old to have anything to do with the crash, but maybe it would contain information on common flight routes or something of that nature.
So he’ll feel so grateful that he will send his minions digging in my direction?
Something like that.
Just don’t forget your mission here. I doubt you’re going to have much time left to act freely.
As long as Ridge is commanding, I don’t think I’m likely to end up in shackles.
If swords could shrug, Jaxi did. If I were you, I wouldn’t presume too much. He’s loyal to his military, and you’re a problem as far as that military is concerned. Don’t get cocky because he slept with you. It’s not like there are many options here.
Thank you for your bluntness. When you’re not busy sounding like a teenager, you sound like my grandmother.
Just so long as you know I know what’s best.
You’re just grumpy because you don’t think I’m working to free you, but that was my original intent in coming to the library. Sardelle sat at the room’s only table and opened the journal she had selected. If I can figure out what they’re looking for in these mines, and there’s a way I can help them find it, I’m sure I could get a tunnel dug in your direction.
You haven’t fi
gured that out yet? Jaxi sounded genuinely surprised.
No…
Laughter echoed in Sardelle’s head. A lot of laughter. She imagined Jaxi wiping tears before asking her next question. Why didn’t you ask?
Sardelle scratched her head. I thought I had.
Hm. I don’t remember that. Anyway, the magical mystical energy sources these soldiers would die defending are… lamps.
Lamps?
Yeah, those illumination prisms that hung on the ceilings in rooms and tunnels throughout our complex.
Sardelle leaned back in the chair, picturing the glowing white light sources. And they call those crystals?
The rock does take on sort of a crystalline texture when it’s melted and fused, then imbued with power.
Well, I was right to be befuddled that they were mining in the backside of the mountain then. That must be where they first chanced across them. I guess we had tunnels—and lamps illuminating them—back there, though there would be a lot more in the main living areas.
Yes, and I’m quite sure there are a couple in the room you left me in too.
Sardelle nodded slowly. Yes, I can lead them right to you. Or close anyway. I’ll have to sneak back down there and pull you out myself. If they find you first, and I take you, they’ll call it theft and chase me halfway across the world.
Nah, I can make sure they have no interest in me. Rashes are the least of the things I can do to any grubby miner who puts his hands on me.
Sardelle choked at the imagery that flashed through her mind, courtesy of Jaxi. I think your three-hundred-year imprisonment has made you punchy.
If by punchy you mean filled with bitterness, loneliness, and barely contained vitriol, you are correct. I’m aching to return to work. And I’m quite curious to see how the world has changed. A ride in an airship would be fabulous.
I’ll see what I can arrange once we’re the masters of our own fate again. Now, if I can just find that wreck, I’ll have a reason to report to Ridge’s office.
Get a map. I’ll show you where it is. I don’t know how serviceable that flier will be after ten years in the sun, wind, and snow, but if it’ll make your man happy…
You already found it?
Yes, did you think our conversation was consuming all of my vast mental resources? I am a soulblade, you know. Powerful and gifted.
And cocky.
Naturally.
Sardelle was poking through a rack of maps, searching for a topographical one of the mountains, when the door creaked open. She looked up, hoping for Ridge, though she couldn’t imagine what would have brought him by so soon. It had only been a half hour. He couldn’t be missing her yet, though maybe he had been thinking of her and how delightful it would be to share that coffee with her.
Now who’s cocky?
Hush.
It wasn’t Ridge but a young soldier who entered, a soldier carrying a steaming mug of coffee and a couple of books under his arm. He was watching the black liquid carefully as he walked; it was filled to the brim and threatened to slosh over. Her first thought was that he had the morning off and had come to use the library as well. She started to push her book to one side so he would have room to join her if he wished, but he stopped at the head of the table and set the mug and the books down in front of her. He also dug a slightly smashed muffin out of his pocket and laid it next to the coffee.
“Ma’am, Colonel Zirkander sends these items with his well wishes for the success of your research.”
“Oh, thank you. Thank him for me, please.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He remembered, Sardelle thought as the soldier strode out, closing the door behind him. I think I’m in love.
I may gag. Do you have my map yet?
Just a moment. Let me see what he sent. Sardelle opened the first book. It was a journal like the other one, but more recent, written by a general’s assistant from… yes, dates ranging from twelve to nine years ago. The crash should have happened during that time. The second book was an atlas.
There you go. Don’t you love him now too?
He does have a sexy chest.
Sardelle snorted and flipped through the pages, finding the correct mountain.
That’s the spot. Jaxi used her finger, guiding it across the contour lands. Sardelle always felt it a little strange when the soulblade took control, but, as an early instructor had pointed out, it was only fair given that humans got to swing swords around whenever they wished. Once Jaxi had even ambulated her unconscious body after a battle, moving Sardelle to a safe spot where she wouldn’t be captured by the enemy.
An image flashed through her mind of a narrow, snow-covered plateau overlooking a ravine with a river and a lot of jagged rocks far below.
You’re saying it will be difficult to retrieve, eh?
There’s a reason the only thing the soldiers recovered after the crash was the power source.
Maybe Ridge can disassemble it somehow. Or bring out a team and repair it up on that plateau. If I had a schematic, I’m sure I could help.
Better leave it to him, Jaxi thought. I doubt he’s going to believe you’re an engineer and an archaeologist.
Possibly right. Sardelle pushed back her chair.
Where are you going?
To tell him, of course.
You’ve only been in here for thirty-seven minutes, and you’ve only had his books for seven. Don’t you think he might find that efficiency a little unlikely?
You may be right. Sardelle settled back in the chair and picked up the coffee mug. She took a sip. It wasn’t as sludgy as Ridge had threatened. Maybe he had put someone else on coffee-making duty this morning. An hour? That would be long enough, wouldn’t it?
You just want to see him again, don’t you? I am definitely going to gag.
Careful. You wouldn’t want to inhale a rock.
* * *
Ridge stifled a yawn as he followed Captain Bosmont, the engineer responsible for keeping the mine machinery in working order, to the bottom of yet another tram line. The officer hopped out of the cage and pointed at the pulley system at the bottom. “This is the last one, sir. Let me get the part number for you.”
The captain rolled up his sleeves, dug a wrench and pliers out of the coveralls he wore over his uniform, and clanked and tugged at bolts the size of apples. The burly officer had shoulders and forearms that would have impressed a smith, along with tattoos that covered most of the skin Ridge could see, including one of the schematic of a dragon flier. That had been what had convinced Ridge to work past his office hours, following the man around and writing down his parts requests. A private could have handled the job, but on the off chance Sardelle found the location of the downed flier, it wouldn’t hurt to make friends with the fort engineer.
“Need a hand?” Ridge asked.
“Nah, I got it. You make yourself comfortable, sir. This’ll just take a minute.”
Ridge eyed the open chamber, with its six mineshafts shooting off at irregular intervals, and wondered where one might find comfort. Perhaps he could sit on one of the rusty ore carts lined up on the rail. He yawned again, not bothering to hide it this time. Though he and Sardelle must have been stuck in that cave for twelve hours, he didn’t remember getting all that much sleep. How odd.
The captain glanced over, and Ridge wiped the smug expression off his face. “I appreciate you coming down here, sir. And ordering the parts. The general always said there wasn’t any money in the budget, and he expected me to make do. Well, you can only make do for so long before things start busting, and when stuff breaks down here, people get hurt or killed.”
“There wasn’t money in the budget because he had no idea how many people were actually working here, so he had to overestimate on his supply orders. That’s been fixed now, so we’ll only be ordering what’s needed and nothing extra.”
Bosmont nodded and pulled out a torso-sized part that must have weighed a hundred pounds. His voice wasn’t at all strained when he s
aid, “Number’s on the back, sir, if you want to write it down. ’Preciate it, thanks.”
Ridge hurried to do so, so the captain could return the clunky piece before he threw his back out. After he refastened his bolts, they headed for a cage up to the top.
“You ever work on fliers?” Ridge waved toward the man’s tattoo.
“My first duty station, sir. Love them babies. Got to fly a couple times, too, but nothing like what you do of course.” Bosmont threw the lever to start them up the tramline.
“Did.” Ridge sighed.
“Yeah, was wondering about that. Seems a waste, them sending you here when you could be blowing up enemy airships. How, ah, did that come to be, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I threatened to rip off the wrong diplomat’s cock.”
It was hard to tell in the dark cage, but Ridge thought the man looked at him in shocked silence. It was silent for a moment, anyway, with nothing except the clank and grind of the cage rolling up the rails. Then Bosmont laughed.
“Something similar happened to me, sir.”
“With a diplomat?”
“Nah, with a commanding officer.”
“Well, I trust now that we’ve bonded like this, I won’t have to worry about such threats from you.”
“No, sir. Glad to have you here.”
They stepped out of the cage up top, and Bosmont shook his hand before walking off, whistling a tune. Ridge wished all men were so easily pleased.
He turned, intending to make sure nothing important had been left on his desk before finding his rack, and almost tripped over someone in the dark.
“Sorry, Colonel,” came Sardelle’s voice from beneath the hood of a parka. Did she have it pulled up because of the cold, or because she was skulking about and didn’t want anyone to see her? Or maybe she wanted to secret him off to some dark corner for a repeat of the previous night’s activities? That would be scandalous, completely inappropriate and… appealing. “I’ve been trying to meet with you all day,” she said, “but your captain wouldn’t let me in the admin building to see you.”