The seal was gone. There was only a charred spot on the beam where it had been fastened, and bits of it pattering and bouncing across the floor. Chaiel let out a wild screech of triumph.
Ash's simultaneous victory cry turned into an indignant yelp, and he twisted away. "Right in my ear, Shy. Ouch." He held Chaiel at arm's length. "Okay, boost me up."
Eagerly, Chaiel obeyed. Rather than standing with their feet together as before, Chaiel grasped Ash's ankles. With his arms at full stretch, Ash could just barely get his hands around one of the struts. The sphere's repelling effect was still in place; cords of muscle stood out under Ash's skin as he strained to pull them free of it. Bit by bit, he climbed out onto the floor, curled around a strut to keep from being hauled back in. Bit by bit, Chaiel was pulled out after him. At last Chaiel popped free and tumbled onto dusty stone.
Ash gave a breathless laugh. "Well, it worked."
Chaiel drew breath to reply, but was stilled by how difficult it was. He lay sprawled where he had fallen. His limbs felt like lead. He wasn't sure he could move at all. And the aches -- all the aches, hunger and thirst and torn nails and torn skin -- he whimpered in alarm. Had he been freed only to die?
"What's wrong?" Ash bent over him, concerned.
"I can. Hardly. Breathe."
"Oh. I guess you've been floating for a long time, haven't you? It's just muscle memory, Shy.
Your muscles can't have really atrophied, if your body was shut down."
"Stop. Calling me. Shy."
"I just realized something. We weren't really breathing in there, were we? I mean, we were breathing, but we weren't using up the air. And now we are." Ash glanced around the small ovoid room. "And there can't be all that much in here. We need to go."
"Wait. Just. A little while."
"Can't. If the air thing isn't enough to get you moving, I bet you anything Thelyan's going to know we're out. Aw, hell, I weigh a ton." Groaning, Ash labored upright. He went to the corner where he'd left his clothes when Thelyan had made him disrobe. Chaiel numbly watched him put his glasses and trousers on.
Any second now I'm going to realize I'm out of the sphere. Any second. It's going to hit me, I'll understand it, and then -- feel something, I suppose. Happy? I might be happy.
"You can tie my shirt around your waist, like a kilt. You want the coat? I think you need to be warm more than I do. I bet your feet are pretty tender. I can go barefoot." A pile of filthy clothing hit the floor in front of Chaiel's face.
With great effort, Chaiel rolled onto his side, then curled up to sitting. He picked up one of the socks, but immediately dropped it with a cry of disgust. It practically bounced. "How did you get your stockings so dirty?"
"A mudslide was involved. Also a broken ankle and a jammed rifle and Kieran leaving, so mud in my boots wasn't exactly foremost in my mind." Ash was over by the door now, running his hands around the edge.
Gingerly brushing the worst of the dirt off, Chaiel clothed himself. He still felt too heavy, but at least he could move now, albeit slowly. The boots were much too big, and the shirt-as-kilt idea didn't work as well in practice as in theory. Nevertheless it was wonderful to be covered. On hands and knees, he put a little distance between himself and the sphere. He was afraid it would somehow grab him, pull him back in.
"Can we smash it?"
"What?"
"The sphere. Let's smash it, so he can't use it again."
Ash spoke without turning. "Sure, hand me the sledgehammer. Or you could use that keg of gunpowder, if you brought your earplugs."
"There's no need to be sarcastic," Chaiel sulked.
"Sure there is." Palms flat against the door's metal, Ash bowed his head and sighed. "Well, we're not getting out this way. He's got the door rigged somehow, might just be a weird lock but for all I can tell it'll blow up in our faces. Help me feel the walls for thin spots."
"What, you're going to tunnel through stone?"
"Yep."
"With that keg of gunpowder you mentioned?"
"Oh, so you can dish it but you can't take it?" Ash shot him a grin. "There's all sorts of power floating around loose here, can't you feel it? I mean, not enough for anything flashy, but if we're smart we don't have to be flashy."
Chaiel crawled to the wall and hauled himself upright against it. Now that he was looking, he could sense the power Ash mentioned. With skills rusty from disuse, he started gathering it in.
First he strengthened himself. Then he sent his senses exploring into the rock under his hands, trying to feel its dimensions.
Then he took a step and tripped over his hair.
Ash's hoot of laughter angered him at first. He'd landed hard on his hands and knees, skinning them, and it hurt. But as he opened his mouth to say something sharp, it suddenly struck him: he was on solid ground, he had the option of skinning his knees, he was free.
Little giggles welled up in him, then turned to real laughter. Sobs of relief and gratitude mixed into it. Tears rolling down his face, he laughed until his stomach ached.
When he finally wound down, he looked up to find Ash watching him with a small, sweet smile.
"You're welcome," Ash said. He offered a hand to pull Chaiel to his feet, and they went back to work.
Inching along the curved wall, they gathered power as they searched. Nearly opposite where they'd started, Chaiel found what they were looking for. "I'd say it's about ten feet thick here.
There's a tunnel on the other side. I don't understand how you mean to get to it, though."
"Think small." Ash came to run his hands over the place Chaiel indicated. "Really, really small.
We're lucky this isn't marble or granite or something, we'd be screwed." Without further explanation, he spread his hands across the rock and closed his eyes.
With a faint crackling noise, a few chips of stone broke off and pattered on the floor. Then a hand-sized chunk, followed by a pouring of sand. Just as Chaiel was about to comment that they'd run out of air before they got through at this rate, the whole room boomed like a drum.
Chaiel's ears popped. Sand and pebbles poured out of a fresh crack in the wall, wide enough to wedge a hand into. The sound of crumbling stone was a constant sizzling now, the hole deepening until Ash was in it to the elbows, then to the shoulders.
Belatedly, Chaiel realized that all this rubble would have to go somewhere. Falling to his knees, too excited to feel the sting of the skinned places, he began scooping aside sand with both hands.
Pretty much the first thing I said to him was that he wasn't very bright. When he remembers that, I'll be sure to let him laugh for a good long time.
Chapter Thirty
From atop the mesa, Thelyan combed the world for a sign of his enemy. He had sensed Ka'an for a time, but then the trace had vanished. It was possible that the evil one had discovered some way to cloak himself, but Thelyan doubted it. Such spells had not yet been discovered the last time Ka'an had been active. So that implied that the enemy was moving along the blind zone created by the train tracks.
Since the interference of the rails would prevent Ka'an from repelling from the ground to ride the wind, he must be running. It would probably be full night before he arrived. That would suit him; he reveled in darkness, after all.
A puff of black smoke in the west caught Thelyan's attention. That would be the troop train, with Strindner's reinforcements. They would arrive in plenty of time. Going to the edge, he looked down to see that Liss had his men formed up near the platform, ready to merge in Strindner's unit and brief them. The neat ranks of white uniforms pleased Thelyan. The White Watch were the most disciplined men in the world, thanks to the harsh training he had designed for them. Even when Ka'an began killing them, they would hold their formations and return fire. Thelyan doubted that Ka'an would be harmed in any serious way by the hail of lead and spells the Watch would throw at him, but he would have to use much of his power to prevent his body's destruction.
Then it would only remain for
Thelyan to break and devour him.
The Director's thoughts were interrupted by a sparking alarm in the back of his mind. He sought its source, and frowned. The null sphere had been damaged. Perhaps breached. He hadn't thought that was possible.
Perhaps putting Medur in with Chaiel had been a mistake. The Green Lady was weak, but might have sacrificed herself to give Chaiel the power to break free.
Well, he had time to deal with the problem before the joining of battle. Thelyan turned toward the entrance to his hidden stairway, away from the ant-small ranks of his troops below; but something in that direction nagged at him. He paused, trying to puzzle out what it was. He could sense the lives of his mages, he could sense that the prison ward was intact, he could hear the troop train approaching --
Whirling, he gasped -- the first involuntary sound he'd made in centuries -- as he realized what was wrong. The sound of the train. It should have been slowing. It was accelerating.
Despite the distance, his eyes picked out the dark shape crouched atop the engine just before the train derailed. Throttle jammed open, the train hit the switch just before the platform at its maximum speed of sixty miles per hour, jumped the track, and crashed tumbling and screeching into the massed men there. Some tried to run; some threw useless spells at the grounded mass of iron; all to no avail. Thelyan watched helplessly as his men died for nothing.
His mouth opened without his command a second time, and a cry of rage leapt out. How? How could the evil one, that vestige of a barbaric prehistory, have managed to use Thelyan's own machinery against him? How?
"Where are you?" Thelyan growled. "Where are you, you snake, you sneaking spider?" There -he found the dark shape again, leaping and dodging among the few survivors beyond the still-skidding train. As the burning engine tore through the outer fence and dug itself to a halt half-buried in sand, Ka'an in Trevarde's skin neatly turned the spells thrown at him by the last few Watchmen. Then the dark one produced a pistol and fired off three shots, leaving no one to oppose him.
Again, he should not have been able to do that. What did that ancient serpent know of modern weapons? He shouldn't even have known what a gun could do, let alone use one so neatly.
Scowling, Thelyan stretched out a hand. Sent a thread of force down into the carnage below to snare a discarded rifle.
Ka'an glanced up, following the motion of power. Thelyan could see the glint of his eyes, and of his teeth -- the mad creature was grinning eagerly. It was not an expression he had expected to see on Ka'an's face. Fury, arrogance, megalomaniacal posing at grandeur, yes; but not this wild-dog smile. Something had changed. Ka'an was no longer what Thelyan remembered. It began to seem possible that the outcome of the fight was not predetermined.
Men held in reserve were pouring out of the compound. Ka'an looked between them and Thelyan. He threw out his own thread of power, catching at the rifle before Thelyan could receive it. Thelyan retaliated by following that thread back, snagging at Ka'an's body. Ka'an copied the action.
With a simultaneous, counterbalanced pull -- ironically cooperative -- they jerked Ka'an's body from the ground and flung it high into the air, toward Thelyan.
Ka'an landed lightly on the mesa's top, long hair and coat settling around him like dusty black wings. His power was spun tightly closed, defensive; another thing out of character. He studied Thelyan with eyes that held more curiosity and wariness than malice. The pistol in his hand -- a new model, of the kind that Thelyan didn't yet trust enough to issue to his troops -- covered Thelyan before the Director could bring his own rifle to bear.
"You seem like a smart guy," the dark one said. "Has it crossed your mind that we don't have to do this?"
Thelyan's eyes narrowed. What did he mean, spouting such nonsense? "If you're trying to negotiate a truce, Ka'an, you're a fool. I will not let you return the world to chaos."
"Whoa." The enemy's eyebrows climbed. "Wait a second. This is starting to make sense. You're one of these immortals too. That's why Ka'an wanted to kill you. How many of you fuckers are there?"
"This is a ruse," Thelyan frowned, but as he said it a scenario presented itself that might explain this. Could a mortal vessel possibly have bested Ka'an and taken his tainted power? No, that was impossible. "This is a trick."
The dark one shook his head. "We're not understanding each other. Look, here's the deal. I owe you a kicking for messing with my head a while back, and I guess I wouldn't mind seeing you dead on account of your job title. But I just took out about fifty of your guys, and I figure we can call that even. Let Ashleigh Trine go, and I'll leave."
"Unbelievable," Thelyan snarled. "No. I don't believe it. You end here, Ka'an."
The enemy's lips quirked. "Oh, I see. So I guess we fight, huh?"
Thelyan answered with a slash of power in lieu of words. The enemy twisted aside and replied with a blast of his own, and the battle was joined.
--==*==--
The last thin shell of sandstone crumbled away under Ash's hands. He sagged to his knees, smiling despite his fatigue. A fresh-smelling draft stirred his hair. He was rather proud of himself. Breaking through the wall by main force would have been impossible, with the tiny trickle of energy he'd been able to pull, but he'd used the principles of steam power to do the job.
Finding tiny pockets of moisture in flaws among the rock, he'd jolted them to heat, cracking the stone. Far more efficient. Even so, he was tired.
Chaiel climbed past him, hair dragging in the dust. The little light Thelyan had left in the room bobbed along obediently behind him. The kid looked ridiculous, bare-legged in Ash's overlarge boots, drowned in Ash's mud-crusted coat, with the matted rope of his hair snaggling behind him. But for all his weirdness, he'd turned out to be a solid ally. He looked up and down the hallway they'd broken into, then glanced back at Ash, gray eyes round as a kitten's.
"I smell outside. Which way? I can't tell which way."
"Pick one, I guess." Ash took a steadying breath, made himself get up. He chose a direction at random, and set out toward the left. That one seemed to be slanting down a little, so it was more likely to let them out, since he sensed they were high up in the mountain.
He could feel that Kieran was near, and the sense of him made Ash's head spin with an anxiety of need. Every moment, he had to fight the urge to act with frantic haste. He wouldn't help Kieran by panicking. Calm persistence was what he needed.
Are you fighting now, Kai? Are you in danger? I'm so tired of being afraid for you. Be smart, defend yourself, hold on, and I'll find a way to join you.
He thought he sensed a flicker of emotion in response. Just a confirmation, thrown out of a state of concentration. It conveyed something along the lines of: Busy. Doing fine. Patience.
It was reassuring. But then, it took a lot to scare Kieran. He might not even begin to fear until he was already too deep in trouble to dig himself out. Ash's help -- and possibly Chaiel's -- might be necessary. And the sooner the better. Ash forced his weary body to pick up the pace, and heard a groan behind him as Chaiel followed suit.
The hallway made a gradual curve left and down, then ended in a metal door. This one, unlike the one that had sealed the sphere room, had a handle and lock, and was painted white. Ash put his hand to it, then his ear.
"What --" Chaiel began.
"Ssh." It was almost silent beyond the door, but there was one puzzling little noise. A dull thumping in irregular rhythm.
No voices, though, or sounds of feet. Ash put his hand to the lock plate, but discovered that his senses slipped and skewed within the metal. He moved to the wall, contemplating the feasibility of tunneling around.
Chaiel went past him, grasped the door handle, and turned it. The door swung open.
Ash slapped himself on the forehead. "I'm an idiot."
"You're a genius," Chaiel countered. "I expect you frequently miss the obvious."
"Let me go first." Ash peered cautiously into the dimness beyond the door, then stepped forward, allowing
Chaiel to follow with the light.
This was a large, ominously laboratory-like room, with a series of doors along the far wall. It smelled rank, like a hospital and a kennel combined. The doors opposite were like jail doors, each with a small barred window at head height. The thumping sound came from behind one of these. Ash crept toward it, into a growing miasma of pain and despair as thick as the smell.
"What is this place?" Chaiel breathed.
"Light." Ash beckoned. He followed the thumping to look through one of the barred windows, from which came a strong stench both physical and emotional.
The faint gleam of the light revealed a cell occupied by a single, deformed figure. The figure was crouched in a far corner, banging its overlarge head against the wall. Its upper limbs were useless paddles, its legs short and fat as an infant's. It was a little larger than an ordinary man, squat enough to weigh three or four times as much, and its skewed face was blank. It did not react to the light.