Rias gazed into the face of her scrutiny. “I intend to send copies of the schematics to the empire as well.”
“Oh,” Tikaya said, not quite certain she understood. “But they won’t be willing to use a Made power source, will they?”
“Perhaps not, but they’ll be inspired to work out something else. Just as the Nurians will not have easy access to the Turgonian steel used in the construction. They’ll be inspired to work out something else. In the end, decades hence, they’ll both have submarines of a sort, and they’ll develop methods of detecting each others’ submarines and nullifying each others’ advantages. Little will change in the end, but perhaps by making the basic schematics freely available, I can avoid seeing more of my hostel rooms burned down.”
“Hm, I guess it sounds better than selling the information to the highest bidder.”
“Glad I have your heartfelt approval.” Rias offered a faint smile.
“Do my people get a copy of the schematics too?”
“It depends on how much they annoy me over the next couple of days. And whether we live long enough for me to write them down.”
“They’re still in your head only?”
“The final ones, yes.” Rias returned to the lanai where Mee Nar leaned against the doorjamb. “I agree to your terms.”
“You do?” Mee Nar asked. “You must be desperate for my help.”
“I trust you would not be in this position if your chiefs did not deem you capable.”
Mee Nar’s lips flattened at this further insinuation that he was a spy. “I’ll need to see the schematics.”
“I haven’t had a chance to write them down. I will do so when we’ve completed this mission.”
Mee Nar frowned. “This mission where you believe your life is in jeopardy?”
“Yes. I propose you do your best to keep us alive, so that I’m able to write everything down for you.”
The frown deepened. “I should demand you do it now.”
“We don’t have time.” Rias eyed the sky, which, though still cloud-filled, had grown lighter since they’d arrived. “The Kyattese will soon know that the Freedom and I aren’t wrecked on the bottom of their harbor. They may already know. Please gather supplies for a couple of days and join us.” Rias nodded and headed toward the bicycles without waiting for agreement.
Mee Nar grumbled under his breath, but he went inside, and drawers and cupboard doors banged and thumped as he complied.
CHAPTER 17
Tikaya sat on a mostly dry rock ledge near the mouth of the cave where Rias had docked the submarine. She had the captain’s letters and a notepad in her lap, protecting them from intermittent spurts of rain as she worked on the decryption. The worst of the weather had passed, though clouds still hugged the island, gathering around the top of the volcano. Behind her, thuds and bangs drifted out of the cave, evidence of Rias’s work. Mee Nar was in there, too, going over every inch of the submarine. He’d already searched the interior and, when last Tikaya had checked, was swimming around on the outside. She tried to ignore the noise and concentrate on her work, though her gaze kept lifting to the sea and the cliffs rising around them. They were north of the mystery basin and the cave they’d visited before, but close enough to make her nervous. If those plotting against Rias knew he was alive, they’d guess to check here. Apparently, Rias hadn’t had many choices in how far he could go, though, not with the damage done to his craft, and the cliffs had been a logical place to hide, due to the sheer number of caves. They’d left their bicycles in bushes miles back, specifically so no one heading up the road would guess someone had descended the cliffs nearby.
Tikaya grew entrenched in the decryption work and was startled when someone touched her shoulder.
“How’s it going?” Rias asked. Something about his tone, or maybe it was the amused twinkle in his eyes, told her he’d asked more than once.
“Slower than I’d hoped.” Tikaya rattled the pages. “If anybody’s done a chart on the frequency of vowels and consonants in Middle Turgonian, I’ve never seen it, so I’m having to compile that first. It’s not the same as in the modern language; the alphabet isn’t even entirely the same. It further complicates matters that the ink has faded over time, and it’s hard to pick out some of the letters.”
“Can I help?” Rias rearranged the sword on his belt, so he could sit beside her. He was barefoot and had removed his shirt, providing an arresting sight that distracted her for a moment. “Is that a no?” Rias handed her a piece of the ham they’d taken from her family’s smokehouse.
“Er, no.” Tikaya blushed and accepted the offering. It was time for a lunch break apparently, for he had a couple of slices of his own. “Thank you. As for help, I don’t know. Unless you want to read some of this aloud to me?” She lifted the journal. “I’m using our randy sailor’s diary to create an alphabetic frequency chart, but maybe hearing the language spoken will give me something that I’m not seeing.”
Rias took the book, but didn’t open it right away. He was peering around the ledge. “Where’s your bow?”
“I left it by my pack in the cave. Why?”
“I’ll get it for you when I head back in. You should keep it close.”
“Are we being prudent or has trouble already found us?”
“It might be nothing, but a shark swam past Mee Nar when he was in the water.”
“Oh?” Tikaya asked. “It’s true there’s no reef around this part of the island, but they don’t usually come this close. The surfers hardly ever see them, and that cave is fairly shallow.”
Rias nodded. “I wondered if your animal-loving practitioner—or practitioners—might be using sea creatures to scout the area.”
“If so, they might have our cave pinpointed already.”
“Perhaps not. We killed it swiftly.” Rias touched the sword.
Tikaya stared at the cave mouth and imagined him leaping from the hatch of the submarine to wrestle with a shark. Distracted by his shirtless state, she hadn’t noticed that his trousers and hair were damp. “How did I miss hearing that?”
“You have a knack for channeling intense focus when it’s required to solve a problem.”
“That’s a nice way of saying I was oblivious to my surroundings.” As usual.
Rias only smiled and lifted the book. “Do you want to hear any particular passage?”
His eyes crinkled, and Tikaya blushed, remembering the penned details of the physical relationship the sailor had shared with her ancestor. Aeli’s ancestor, she reminded herself. Having Rias read one of those passages—and there had been a number of them—might be... intriguing under other circumstances, but this wasn’t the time.
Tikaya cleared her throat. “No. Actually, I can do it myself. Read the book aloud, that is. It’s more important that you finish your work.”
“I don’t know about that. I want to know what’s in those letters. That basin out there, if it is indeed there, is large. It’d be nice to have a clue as to where to look to find... whatever it is we’re searching for. I have a vague notion that there’s a seven-hundred-year-old wreck down there and that those three-hundred-year-old treasure hunters managed to pull some secret off of it, something important enough that your government has been leaning on mapmakers ever since, so that there’s no evidence that the basin even exists.”
“I know.” After finding all those bones in that cave, Tikaya had the same notions. “I’ll finish with these.” She waved the letters. “If the information is there, I’ll find it. Before you’re ready to sail out.”
“I know you will.” He gave her an appreciative smile, one that promised he had faith in her skills and that also warmed her heart—and a little more. She caught herself holding his gaze, admiring the gold flecks in his brown eyes, growing aware of his half-clothed state, and thinking about how long it had been since—
This time Rias cleared his throat. Instead of giving her back the journal, he flipped it open to read. “A boring passage. Per
haps that would be wise, don’t you think?”
“At least until we’ve finished here,” Tikaya whispered, a touch breathless.
“Oh, yes, I remember this one. His attempt at a poem describing the clouds as seen during his watch in the crow’s nest. This fellow didn’t have the Turgonian warrior’s heart, which is I suppose why he let some irate husband kill him. Oh, wait, the poem is in Old Turgonian, isn’t it?” Rias tapped the page. “I better read a sample of the then-modern tongue, eh?”
“Wait.” Tikaya placed a hand on the journal to keep him from turning the page. “I’d forgotten about that poem. Was he just trying to capture some nostalgic feeling of the olden days, or was there a reason why he switched to that tongue? The history books say your language changed fairly rapidly, linguistically speaking, from Old to Middle over about a hundred and fifty years, as your people spread out, adopting new words and even switching the verb-subject orderings to that of one of the civilizations they encountered. By the time these letters were written, Middle Turgonian was well-established. But maybe...”
Rias seemed to track her musings, for he said, “I don’t know about the transition from Old to Middle, but Middle was maintained for academic and formal military writings long after modern-day Turgonian had been adopted by the common man. As a boy at the university, I had to fumble through a couple of mathematics treatises written in Middle Turgonian by a stodgy old professor who refused to update his work, claiming the ideas were clearer when explained in their... I’m boring you, I can see.”
Tikaya had turned her eyes toward the letters, but she jerked them back in his direction. “No, not at all. I’m just wondering if it’s as simple as that. If it is...” She flipped to a page in her notes. “I need to rework my frequency analysis data, this time for Old Turgonian.”
Rias chuckled. “I’ll leave you to work then.”
Before the new ideas could swallow her attention completely, she kissed him and said, “Thank you.”
“Starcrest,” Mee Nar called from below the ledge. “You have a problem.”
“I guess that means the lunch break is over.” Rias stood up. “What is it?”
Mee Nar held up a tiny dark nodule. “A tracking device. It was disguised as a rivet.”
Rias digested the news without a word, his face a mask.
“I’m sorry,” Tikaya told him. “I didn’t sense anything like that when I checked. If it’d been on the inside, maybe...”
“I missed it, too, and I actually swam around out there. It’s not your fault.” Rias touched the back of her head before hopping down from the ledge.
“It’s good work.” Mee Nar dropped the tiny device into his hand. “Very subtle.”
“How do I disable it?” Rias asked.
“I can show you the sophisticated way we do it in Nuria.”
Rias handed the device back to him. “Go ahead.”
Though Tikaya was eager to get back to the letters, she watched the exchange, her curiosity piqued. Mee Nar dropped to one knee, placed the fake rivet on the rock, pulled a sturdy knife from a belt sheath, and smashed the device with the hilt. A tiny spark flew out, but nothing more serious happened. He held up the flattened device for inspection.
“Interesting,” Rias said. “That’s how we do it in Turgonia too.”
“Perhaps your two nations have more in common than you thought,” Tikaya said.
The two men shared edged smiles.
“Let’s get back to work,” Rias said. “We may have less time than ever.”
He and Mee Nar disappeared into the cave, and Tikaya hunched over the letters, determined to do her part.
• • •
Tikaya smiled as she worked on the last paragraph of the second letter, though she caught herself squinting and leaning closer to the page. The light was fading anyway, thanks to the sun dropping behind the volcano. She’d have to find a candle soon, but maybe she could finish in time... She was almost done. Old Turgonian, who would have thought? Once she’d figured that out, she’d made quick work of the basic route cipher. The letters confirmed that there were wrecked Turgonian ships in a basin a half a mile away from the cliffs, the same area now missing on the maps, and the last paragraph looked like it might hold more detailed instructions for finding the spot.
With her new key balanced on one leg, the letter on the other, and her journal in her lap, Tikaya almost failed to notice the warning tingle that flicked at the back of her neck. She jerked her head up and lunged for the bow Rias had set beside her.
Expecting an attack to come from the water, she stood up and checked in that direction first. The waves lapped at her ledge, and it alarmed her to see how high the tide had come in while she hadn’t been paying attention. Another half an hour, and a wave might have swooped over her ledge and stolen all her work.
Tikaya shook her head. Not important now. What had twanged her senses? She didn’t see anything in the water. She froze. Rias. What if something was about to attack them?
Bow in hand, she whirled, intending to leap into the cave to warn him, but an ear-splitting screech sounded behind her. She fumbled and almost dropped her weapon. She spun around, anticipating an attack at the back of her head—that cry had been right behind her. A huge white-chested hawk leaped from the ledge, stirring Tikaya’s hair with its great wing flaps. At first, she thought it meant to attack her, but it flew away from her. With something clenched in its talons.
The letters. Ugh.
“Rias!” Tikaya shouted, but what could he do?
She snatched an arrow from the quiver, nocked it, and lined up the shot. Steady, she told herself. The hawk was heading for the cliff tops. She’d only get one shot...
Tikaya adjusted her aim for the wind and its movement, then released the arrow. It spun away, and she held her breath.
The arrow caught the hawk in the chest, halting its wing flapping. Tikaya’s feeling of triumph only lasted a moment, for the bird plummeted, falling into the water a hundred meters away.
“Blighted banyan trees,” she snarled. For lack of any better options, she took note of the cliff features near the hawk, dropped her bow, kicked off her sandals, held her spectacles to her face, and dove into the water. She wasn’t going to lose those letters before she finished decoding them.
Tikaya plowed through the waves, her head up as she paddled, trying to keep the dead hawk in sight—and her spectacles on her face. Water ran down the lenses, adding to the difficulty of seeing anything. She didn’t think the body would sink, but the current might carry it out into the sea. Or, if it’d released the letters as it fell... Wet paper would sink.
Tikaya swam faster. A wave washed into her face, almost knocking off her spectacles. Cursing again, she readjusted them. If she lost them, she might not find her way back to the cave and Rias. Or if there were other creatures out there, ready to thwart her efforts, they might attack before she reached land again. Had Rias heard her shout? She’d hate to need rescuing, but sure hoped he was available for the job if required.
When she thought she’d reached the right spot, she treaded water, trying to kick up high enough to see over the waves all about her. A quick flash of green caught her eye. The fletching on her arrow. Tikaya paddled in that direction and was relieved to see the bird still attached to that arrow. She grabbed the end of it and lifted the dead creature, surprised by how lightweight the huge hawk proved. She almost sobbed in relief when she spotted the letters still clenched in its talons. Prying them out proved challenging, especially since they were soggy and she didn’t want to tear them, and she tried not to feel uncomfortable over the fact that she was mauling some dead bird in the process. Finally, she pulled the pages free. She released the hawk and searched the cliffs, alarmingly distant now, trying to pick out their cave in the deepening shadows.
Through the water droplets spattering her spectacles, she spotted a dark figure waving. Tikaya waved back and paddled toward Rias, the soggy letters clutched in one hand. She was going to feel li
ke a fool if they were too damaged to read by the time she returned.
She had to fight the current on the way back, and her arms and legs burned from the effort, but she reached the ledge. Mee Nar had joined Rias, and they helped her out of the water. Candlelight came from inside the cave. Time to move inside to finish her decryption efforts.
“What were you...” Mee Nar started, then spotted the limp letters.
“Did it attack you?” Rias asked.
“No, it just wanted my work. Completely unacceptable.” Tikaya snatched up the key and her notes—at least they were still there—and stalked past the men. “Watch my back while I finish, please.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Rias picked up her bow and quiver and trotted inside after her. Tikaya went straight to one of three lanterns on the ledge beside the Freedom, dropped to her knees, and spread out the letters. Fortunately, the old ink was indelible at this point and hadn’t faded after the immersion, but she struggled to lay out the pages without ripping them. Too bad the Turgonians hadn’t been using vellum any more by then.
The men stopped behind her and spoke in soft tones. She barely heard them. She was even less aware of her own shivering as water dripped from her chin and onto the stone ledge. Only when she sat up did she realized Rias had draped a blanket around her shoulders. She clutched it about her wet dress with one hand and lifted her paper with the translation in the other.
Mee Nar was standing guard by the cave mouth, crouching on a boulder that remained out of the water. With the tide in, the ledges on either side of the pool where the Freedom floated were scant. She noticed that Rias hadn’t bothered to bring along the top portion that had allowed it to look like a ship. Perhaps it lay at the bottom of the harbor. The long, sleek cylinder that remained resembled no craft Tikaya had ever seen.