Amaranthe couldn’t manage a return smile for him. All she’d done was kick a man in the groin whereas Sicarius was out there dodging enforcers and risking his life blowing up boilers to buy them their requested manslaughter-free diversion.
“Is that… ?” the enforcer wondered, lifting the hand that had been gripping his groin toward his chest, as if to give a salute. Confusion crinkled his features, and he turned Pabov.
“I think so.” Pabov had been studying Sespian for several seconds, and he gave a firm nod, then thumped his fist to his chest and bowed. “Sire, we are honored by your presence.”
Only Amaranthe was close enough to hear the relieved sigh that Sespian exuded.
“How may we help you?” Pabov asked.
“I understand you have a unique vehicle that we may be able to borrow,” Sespian said.
Chapter 21
Guided by Sicarius’s hands, the UWMTV crunched over the bumpy rocks and swaying seaweed of the lake bottom, scaring up schools of fish that flitted away posthaste. Amaranthe sat next to Sicarius in the only other seat, peering into the gloom beyond the glass shield bulging from the front of the globe-shaped vehicle. During the slow, underwater trek from Markworth back to Marblecrest island, she hadn’t spotted anything stranger than an eel with two tails, but they’d picked up the rest of the team and were heading for the boundaries of Forge’s “mining rights” territory now. Who knew what they might see? She hoped they had the time they needed to explore. Pabov had sworn not to mention the team’s visit to the enforcers when they returned, but the promise of the man Amaranthe had bruised had been less heartfelt.
A soft clunk came from behind her chair.
“This is intolerable,” Books said. “Someone’s ludicrous pink hat feather keeps jabbing me in the nose.”
“This isn’t a pleasant experience for me either,” Maldynado said. “When was the last time you washed that armpit you have thrust in my face?”
“My armpit wouldn’t be so close if you weren’t taking up so much room. Did you have to eat three servings of Basilard’s meal?”
“Yes, those were the most excellent eel filets I’ve ever had. And I don’t know what those dumpling things were, but they were also fabulous.”
Though the men had insisted on it, Amaranthe felt guilty sitting in a seat while Yara, Sespian, and the rest of the team crowded the specimen-storage area behind her. Shoulder-to-shoulder and backs bent, they were constantly clunking body parts against the exposed pipes and the overhead hatch. Weapons and rucksacks full of lanterns, rope, and other gear they’d salvaged from the steamboat further cluttered the space. Only Basilard had arm-room, but he’d had to volunteer for the task of cranking the human-powered engine to receive it. Interestingly, Sergeant Yara, who stood on Maldynado’s other side, hadn’t voiced any complaints about “touching.”
“The dumplings were good,” Sespian said, speaking for the first time since everyone had crammed into the vessel.
Basilard paused his cranking for long enough to offer a half bow to his peers.
Though he could barely move his arms in the limited space, Sespian hesitantly signed, You good chef.
Basilard’s eyes widened. That must have been the first time Sespian signed something to him. It tickled Amaranthe to see that he’d been paying attention and trying to learn some of the hand code. After Basilard’s surprise wore off, he offered another half-bow, this time to Sespian alone.
“We’re entering the trapezoidal area,” Sicarius said.
Amaranthe faced front again though she hoped Sicarius had seen the exchange—in particular that Sespian was willing to get to know even the most brutish-looking member of the group. Granted, Basilard had a gentle soul beneath the scars, but the fledging camaraderie ought to give Sicarius hope.
Sicarius nudged the vehicle to the left, toward a wide, dark area in the lake floor.
“How well do you know these waters, Maldynado?” Amaranthe asked.
“I swam and fished out here as a kid, but, as far as I know, nobody in the family has been down since I was twelve or thirteen. More than fifteen years.”
“You never explored beneath the surface?” Amaranthe leaned forward as their vehicle’s treads rolled closer to the dark area. Fish and eels swam through the light seeping down from above.
“No diving suits in the boathouse,” Maldynado said.
“You mean you didn’t go spelunking in any caves down here?” Akstyr snickered.
When more snickers answered his, Amaranthe peered over her shoulder at the tightly packed men. Books and Basilard wore identical smirks. Maldynado rolled his eyes upward while a blush colored Yara’s cheeks.
“I think we missed a joke,” Amaranthe told Sicarius.
Without bothering to glance at the men, Sicarius lifted a hand from the throttle. “We can’t go farther in this craft.”
They had crawled to the lip of a drop-off. A sharp drop-off. Utter blackness lay below. The bottom might be dozens of feet down or hundreds. It reminded Amaranthe of the area in the lake back home that had hidden that underwater laboratory.
“No chance of exploring down there?” Amaranthe asked.
“This is pure imperial technology,” Books said, “with no magical enhancements. It appears to have been designed for operation in the lake’s littoral zone. The increased water pressure beyond more than fifty or one hundred feet down could result in leaks.”
“It lacks buoyancy,” Sicarius said. “We can’t drive off a cliff.”
“Ah, yes, that too,” Books said.
“Given how often we end up cruising around on lake bottoms,” Maldynado said, “perhaps diving suits should be part of our regular gear.”
“Or we could get a submarine,” Akstyr said. “That’d be golden. We could go anywhere there’s water and nobody could find us.”
“I don’t think a submarine is in the budget,” Amaranthe said.
“Why not? Don’t we have all that money the emperor brought?” Akstyr lifted his head, clunking it on the ceiling. “Who has that money anyway? We didn’t leave it on the steamboat, did we?”
Amaranthe twitched a shoulder. She’d never seen it.
“It’s safely hidden,” Sespian said.
Rocks crunched beneath them as Sicarius turned the craft around.
“That’s good,” Maldynado said. “We don’t want imperial money to be wasted. Extra funds should be set aside to hire a sculptor to immortalize our team in statue form.”
“The team or you?” Yara asked.
“I’m thinking of everyone here,” Maldynado said. “Don’t imply I’m a more selfish lout than I am.”
Sespian cleared his throat. “Is that some sort of illumination up ahead? Or simply sunlight from the surface?”
“No,” Sicarius said.
Sespian looked at Amaranthe, the way he might if he needed a translation of Basilard’s hand signs.
“He’s a little selective in which questions he chooses to answer,” Amaranthe said.
“I wouldn’t mind a return to the surface,” Books said. “Did you see that library full of books in the house? I’m certain some of them could help with my current project, a project that was severely derailed by that fire in the engine room. I was fortunate to get most of my paperwork out before the flames spread.”
“Books was working on his project while we were being fired upon,” Maldynado said, “and yet I’m the one who gets blamed for the crash.”
Amaranthe had forgotten how much the men talked—and bickered. Part of her was glad to be back with them, but part of her missed the quiet of being alone with Sicarius.
“Maldynado,” Amaranthe said, “why don’t you give Basilard a break back there?”
Amaranthe thought he might object to being singled out for work, but Maldynado merely rolled up his sleeves and eased past Yara to take Basilard’s place. Amaranthe wondered how much of his willingness to accept the task had to do with the way one’s forearm muscles tended to flex and ripple while ma
nning the crank. Yara’s gaze did follow him. Yes, Amaranthe would have to give up on her hope of setting Yara up with Sespian.
“There is light over there,” Akstyr said. “I see it too.”
Though Sicarius had been ambiguous with his answers, he had turned the vessel in the direction Sespian had noticed. A rocky cliff dropped down from the surface before leveling out where it met the lake floor. Amaranthe recognized the cliff; she’d stood on the top when checking out the hot springs above. The water bent and contorted the light, but it seemed to be leaking from a fissure.
The vehicle rumbled closer until Sicarius stopped it at the base of the cliff.
“The light may simply be the sun filtering through from an opening above,” Books said.
“What sun?” Akstyr asked. “It was raining harder than a pissing donkey by the time Am’ranthe picked us up.”
“Lovely imagery,” Books murmured.
“It’s wider than it looked from back there.” Amaranthe waved toward the fissure. “Think we can drive inside?”
Sicarius slanted her one of his unreadable looks.
“What?” All right, wider wasn’t the same thing as wide, but Amaranthe didn’t think the opening was that narrow. Just because it twisted and turned and one couldn’t see anything except darkness and rock ahead…
“I was wondering who would get blamed should the vehicle crash,” Sicarius said.
A few silent heartbeats skipped past before Akstyr whispered, “Was that a joke? Did he make a joke?”
“Nah,” Maldynado whispered back, “he doesn’t know how to do that.” He raised his voice and said, “It’s been my experience that it’s never the woman’s fault.”
“That is my concern.” Sicarius nudged the vehicle forward and gripped the control wheel.
Amaranthe smiled as they crept into the fissure, inching across a bottom that had changed from rocks to sand. “It’s good to have the team back together.”
“Says the woman who has her own seat and isn’t wearing Basilard’s elbow on her belt,” Books said.
Busy watching their progress through the fissure, Amaranthe didn’t see if Basilard signed a response, but something prompted a few snickers from the men.
Minutes passed as Sicarius guided the vehicle through a zigzag of turns that made a lightning bolt seem straight. They were climbing slightly, and Amaranthe wondered if this might be a secret passage up the inside of the mountain, one that would take them all the way to some hidden entrance below the house.
“Are you sure you didn’t know about this?” Amaranthe asked Maldynado.
“Uh uh.”
“If this passage comes up beneath your bed, we’re going to have trouble believing you.”
“The only thing beneath his bed is a stack of smutty Lady Dourcrest books,” Yara said.
“That’s not true.” The crank stopped rasping as Maldynado stood straight, clunking his head on the ceiling. “Actually… that might be true. I was eleven or twelve the last time we came down here. That’s about the age I got curious about biological matters.”
“Very curious if all the dog-eared pages are an indicator,” Yara said.
“Lady Dourcrest,” Books said. “Such erudite literature.”
“They’re sure to be classics,” Maldynado said, then poked Yara. “What were you doing snooping around in my room anyway? You must find me fascinating if you thought to research my childhood.”
Yara sniffed. “I was merely searching for secret passages, as I was instructed.”
“Continue cranking.” Sicarius’s voice cut through the chatter like a knife slicing butter.
Maldynado grumbled something and went back to work. The vehicle continued to climb, the light growing brighter as it advanced. The walls lining the fissure changed from the water-eroded edges of a natural formation to the jagged contours of something carved out by men. The passage straightened as well.
Without warning, Sicarius halted. Though they hadn’t been going fast, the abruptness threw Amaranthe forward in her seat, and she had to brace herself with a hand on the controls. An inch of air had appeared at the top of the viewing window. Uh oh. That meant the access hatch and a foot of the vehicle’s domed hull would be visible above the water if anyone was out there to see it.
“There are four people on a ledge,” Akstyr said, his voice stiff with the concentration he used for applying the mental sciences. “And a bunch of other things with us in the water.”
“Things?” Amaranthe asked, envisioning giant lake monsters.
“Inanimate objects, I think. Boats maybe. Or—”
“Submarines.” Sicarius pointed at something ahead and to the right of them.
The dark shape was hard to make out, but Amaranthe agreed that it might be the hull of a submerged vessel.
“Are the people armed?” Sicarius asked.
“I can’t tell,” Akstyr said. “Maybe.”
“There’s four of them and… uh… seven of us,” Maldynado said.
“Your counting skills are impressive,” Books said. “Are you volunteering to go first? Because we can only pop out of this sardine tin one at a time.”
“My job is to turn the crank,” Maldynado said. “I can’t be spared for target practice.”
A thump sounded on the roof. Sicarius leaped from the controls, somehow finding a spot to land where he faced the hatch. His black dagger appeared in his right hand, a loaded pistol in his left. The latter he pointed at the hatch.
Three bangs sounded. Not bangs, Amaranthe realized. Knocks.
“Do we answer that?” Books whispered.
“Uhm.” This was so unlike what Amaranthe had expected—not that she’d known what to expect—that she didn’t know what to say or do. She met Sespian’s eyes, wondering if she should defer to the emperor—or, more specifically, wondering if said emperor had a plan.
Sespian opened his mouth, but whoever was standing on the hatch spoke first.
“Go forward fifteen meters,” came a man’s muffled voice. “Then turn right after the black submarine and dock at the end of the row.”
Sicarius looked to Amaranthe instead of Sespian for instructions.
“Better do as the man says.” She waved him back to his seat.
“We’re not supposed to be expected,” Sespian murmured.
“Not cordially expected anyway,” Books said.
Sicarius pressed the pistol into Amaranthe’s hand and returned to the controls. As he maneuvered their craft, following the directions, other vessels came into view. Akstyr was right. They were all submarines. Or at least, all underwater conveyances of some kind. There was no uniformity amongst the eclectic designs, and Amaranthe had the sense of looking at custom furnishings in a woodworking show. Or perhaps, she mused, custom-designed yachts for the wealthy. What if everyone except Maldynado’s sister-in-law and those on the Behemoth had come down the river in these underwater crafts to ensure no one would witness their passing?
“Any reason why your sister-in-law wouldn’t have one of these?” Amaranthe asked Maldynado.
“She’s claustrophobic?”
“Are you asking her or telling her, you dolt?” Books said.
“Either way, I wasn’t talking to you.” Maldynado nodded to Amaranthe. “She is claustrophobic. There’s a family rumor about her being unwilling to, ah, service my brother on conjugal visits when he was a young LT staying in the barracks. She found the tiny rooms too constricting.”
“Thanks for the details,” Amaranthe said. “I think.”
“According to my network of trusted spies in the Imperial Barracks,” Sespian said, “Mari Marblecrest was the only one likely to be tracked. Perhaps everyone else did have submarines crafted for this meeting.”
“You have a trusted spy network, Sire?” Amaranthe asked, surprised he had managed to find allies amongst all the Forge infiltrators. “It’s good that you’ve been able to suss out loyal people and make use of them.”
“Actually… I’m the network
. I spy by crawling through the old hypocaust ducts in the Barracks. In my socks. So as not to make noise.” Sespian studied the floor. “I haven’t particularly trusted my ability to choose loyal people since the debacle with Lieutenant Dunn.”
Amaranthe didn’t know if she’d met that lieutenant, but he might have been the one who’d tricked Sespian into entering Larocka’s clutches the winter before.
“We have arrived at the designated docking space,” Sicarius said.
Something bumped into their craft, rocking it to the side. If not for a control lever she could grasp, Amaranthe might have ended up in Sicarius’s lap.
“What was that?” Maldynado asked.
A dark shadow swam across the front of the craft, blotting out the view for a moment. It was too close to identify features, but the length made Amaranthe think of those eels Basilard had caught and frizzled up. Except this had been far too large to fit into a frying pan.
“The welcoming committee?” Amaranthe suggested.
Three more knocks struck the hatch. Maybe it was her imagination, but they sounded rushed and nervous this time.
“I’ll stick my head out first.” Amaranthe looked for a place to tuck the pistol, but her dress lacked a belt. She settled for tucking it into an apron pocket and wondered if any other mercenary in history had charged into battle wearing a farmwife’s smock. “If they’re expecting more people, maybe they’ll think I’m a Forge member arriving late.”
“Or they’ll recognize you and shoot you,” Sicarius said.
Amaranthe patted his arm. “Your cheery optimism always bolsters my spirit.”
Sespian snorted.
Amaranthe slipped out of the seat and grabbed the wheel that controlled the hatch’s locking mechanism. It squeaked as she turned it. A couple of footfalls sounded. Their greeter stepping off the hatch? There wasn’t much room for walking around on top of the sphere-shaped vessel.
Amaranthe opened the hatch an inch. “Hello?”
Their vehicle lacked a ladder, so Amaranthe would have to fling the hatch open before she could pull herself out. She didn’t want to expose the interior though. Maybe she could—