Below was a stairwell with steps spiraling down, and a flickering lamp set into a niche. There was a door at the bottom, about twelve feet down, with light shining through it. Emilie swallowed in a dry throat, hesitating. There could be more guards down there, she could be trapping herself, this might be the stupidest thing she had done yet- Then she heard voices from somewhere outside, coming closer; she slipped down through the opening, carefully pulling the door down into place above her.
Emilie sank back against the cool wall, letting her breath out in a silent sigh. There wasn't anything to do now but go forward.
She went down the stairs to the doorway, and cautiously peeked around the edge. Yes! she thought. I was right!
It was a big lamplit room, much larger than the tower rooms above her. Stretched across a portion of it was a wall of metal bars, forming a jail cell, and on the other side, sleeping on worn blankets, were five Menaen men. They were all disheveled, dressed not in uniforms but in sturdy jackets and trousers meant for rough outdoor work. The cell was bare of necessities except for the blankets and a couple of covered jars that must serve as the water closet; it smelled like they had been imprisoned here for a while.
There was no guard, just another door on the far side of the room, and a pool of water across from the cell. Emilie tiptoed to the pool first, looking down into it to make sure there weren't any merpeople lurking there. The water was clear enough to tell the pool was empty, but there was a dark shape low on one side: an opening to some sort of water-filled underground passage. I bet this is connected to the pools in the compound, she thought, moving back to the cell. Which meant merpeople might appear in it any moment.
She went to the bars and, keeping her voice low, said, “Hey! Wake up! You're being rescued!”
One of the men flinched awake, then sat up and stared at her. He had dark weathered skin and dark hair peppered with gray. He demanded, “Are you a dream?”
“No, I'm Emilie.” She realized she must look somewhat disheveled herself, covered with scratches, her hair wild and probably ornamented with twigs and leaves, barefoot with stains and tears on her bloomers and shirt. Not very much like a rescuer, probably, but they would just have to settle for her. Impatiently, she added, “Miss Marlende sent me.” While not strictly true, it was close enough.
And it did the trick. The man scrambled to his feet, stooped to shake the others awake. “Come on, boys, we're getting out of here.”
Emilie hoped they were getting out of here; she had just realized that the cell didn't seem to have a door. She tried to shake the bars, but they didn't budge. “How does this thing open?”
The older man pointed across the room behind her. “There. That lever. It cranks the whole thing down into the floor.”
It was on the far side of the room, a metal lever sticking out of a slot in the wall. Emilie hurried over and grabbed it, and tried to push it down. “Oof.” It was stiff, and she leaned on it with her full weight. The lever moved slowly, all the way down, but when she glanced at the bars, she saw they had only lowered a few inches. Oh, come on, she thought in exasperation.
“Let it come back up and then push it down again, like a pump,” the older man told her. To the others, he said, “Here, grab onto the bars and put your weight on them when she pushes the lever down.”
“Right.” Emilie let the lever come up to its original position, then forced it down again. With the men adding their weight to the bars, it was much easier, and got them nearly a foot of clearance. “You're not Dr. Marlende, are you?” she asked the older man. There wasn't any resemblance between him and Miss Marlende, and despite his gray hair, she didn't think he was quite old enough. The other four men were all too young. Three were Southern Menaen, one Northern, all very scruffy. Though now that she had a chance to look at them, they all seemed more the scholarly type, once you saw past the dirt, lack of shaving, and rough clothing.
The older man said, “No, I'm Charter, his engineer. We haven't seen Dr. Marlende for two days.” He nodded to the other men. “That's Daniel, Seth, Cobbier, and Mikel.”
“It's nice to meet you,” Emilie said, gritting her teeth as she forced the bar down again. “Do you know where the Cirathi are?”
“We haven't seen them since we got here,” Daniel said, hauling down on the bars again. He was clearly the youngest Southern Menaen, maybe only a few years older than Emilie. He had handsome features, rather unkempt curly hair, and cracked spectacles. “We think they're locked up down here somewhere, though. We keep asking about them, but the Nomads won't tell us anything.”
That was going to be a problem. “Have you seen Rani? She was with me, she gave me Dr. Marlende's compass, but she was captured when we got here yesterday.”
There were startled exclamations from the men. “We didn't know she was alive,” Charter said. “We haven't seen her since she escaped from the ship. She's here?”
Damn it! Emilie thought, and threw her weight down on the lever again. “Yes, I think so, but I don't know where.” Hopefully the merpeople were keeping her with the other Cirathi.
With the next effort they managed to get the bars down far enough that the men could fit through the gap between the ceiling and the top rail. As they were climbing over the bars, Emilie checked the compass again. It pointed toward the far wall, where the door was. She hurried over to it. “The compass says Dr. Marlende is this way.” Hopefully he was with Rani and the rest of the Cirathi crew. She cautiously tugged on the metal loop that functioned as a door handle. The door didn't budge, and the lock appeared to be a hole under the handle that clearly needed some sort of key. Emilie poked at the little opening. “Do you know where the key is for this?”
Charter reached her side. “Where are the others? Who else is with you?”
Emilie set her jaw, prepared for an argument. “There aren't any others. There's just me.”
Charter and Daniel exchanged a baffled look. The other men looked dubious. Cobbier said, “What do you mean, 'no others?'“
“Isn't this a rescue mission?” Daniel added.
Impatiently, Emilie explained, “We came on Lord Engal's ship, me and Miss Marlende and Kenar. But we ran into the Queen of the Sealands and she's forcing Lord Engal and everyone to help her attack these Nomads. Miss Marlende was captured by Lord Ivers, and is aboard his airship somewhere. Rani and I were coming to free you, but she was captured this morning.”
Everyone stared. “Lord Ivers is here and has Miss Marlende? We didn't even know he had a working aetheric engine,” Seth said, astonished.
“Yes, he does.” Emilie finished, “So you'd better stop worrying about my qualifications as a rescuer and get on with finding the others before we all get captured again.”
Daniel looked mulish, but Charter held up a placating hand, stepping forward to examine the door. He said, “I take your point, Emilie. We can't go out the way you got in?”
Mollified, but still wary, Emilie said, “Not easily. I set a fire as a distraction, so I could get past the guards at the outside doorway, but it might be out by now.”
“But is our airship still out there, moored to the top of this tower?” Daniel asked. “Can we get to it?”
“Yes.” It belatedly occurred to Emilie that securing the airship might be a good idea. She had been so fixed on the goal of finding Rani and Dr. Marlende, she hadn't even thought about it. “If you're very, very quiet. The guards were maybe a few steps from the outside doorway.”
“We can get past them.” Charter nodded grimly. “I'll go after Marlende and the others, the rest of you get aboard that airship. Lay low for now, but don't let the ship be recaptured.”
“Cobbier can get the others past the guards. I'll go with you,” Daniel said, looking mulish again.
“And me,” Emilie added. “I have to find Rani.”
“You should go back to the ship,” Daniel told her, his tone bearing an unfortunate resemblance to the way Emilie's brothers spoke to her.
Seth and Cobbier and M
ikel were all protesting to Charter that they should stay together, and Emilie knew there wasn't time to argue. She said to Daniel, “You mistake me for someone you have the right to order around.”
He looked taken aback, and Charter cut off all the argument with a sharp gesture, saying, “There's no time for this. Now go!”
Reluctantly, the other men went toward the doorway to the stairs, and Charter knelt to peer into the lock, ignoring the fact that Emilie and Daniel had both remained behind. Charter asked, “Have you got a pocket knife?”
“Yes, here.” Emilie fished in her pocket and handed over the little knife Rani had given her.
As Charter used the blade to probe the inside of the locking mechanism, Daniel said, “It had been so long, we thought Jerom and Kenar didn't make it back to the surface.”
Emilie groaned inwardly. Being the one to have to deliver the bad news was not pleasant, and this was the second time she had had to do it. “Jerom didn't make it. Kenar said the trip was much worse than they thought it was going to be. I'm sorry.”
Daniel took a sharp breath. “Oh.” He shook his head. “I knew I should have gone.”
Still occupied with the lock, Charter said, “Jerom was a stronger sorcerer. He had to be the one to go.”
“Are you a sorcerer?” Emilie asked Daniel.
He frowned at her, as if the question was too personal. “I'm studying to be one.”
Though she should be feeling sorry for him, something about his attitude made Emilie say, not quite innocently, “But you couldn't do anything like get the cell door open?”
Charter snorted, and Daniel frowned even more. “It's not quite that simple-”
“Quiet,” Charter muttered, still working the lock. “I'm about to open it.”
They went quiet. Emilie held her breath, hoping this wasn't the end of their escape. If there were guards in the next room, there was little they could do without weapons. The other men must have gotten up to the trapdoor by this point, and she didn't hear any sounds of fighting or alarm, so that was encouraging.
The door made a dull clunk as the lock snapped open, and Charter winced. So much for stealth, Emilie thought. Charter eased the door open a crack and peered through, then pushed it open and got to his feet.
Daniel stepped forward into Emilie's way, but she managed to stretch to see around him. The door opened into a shadowy corridor, with a curving roof and walls of rough light-colored rock, the air dank and cool. There were no merpeople, but it couldn't be entirely deserted: a flickering lamp hung from a peg on the wall.
Charter stepped through into the corridor, Daniel managing to get in ahead of Emilie. She tugged the door closed behind them; it might slow pursuit, but only for a few moments. The merpeople had to know their captives couldn't escape through the pool's underwater passage. “What is this place?” Emilie asked as they went down the corridor. “The Nomads don't live here, surely?”
“No, they use it as a stronghold,” Daniel said. “It was some sort of sacred place for the old Sealands Empire. It's so old, I don't think they're sure what it was for anymore.”
The corridor opened into a foyer with another pool of water. Three more shadowy corridors led away from it. The whole area under the compound must be honeycombed with tunnels, with a system of water passages below it, and one above, connecting the surface pools. Emilie quickly checked the compass again.
The arrow pointed to the corridor to the left. Emilie nodded to it, whispering, “That one.”
Charter took a step toward it. Just then a merman surfaced in the pool, heaving himself half out onto the stone floor. For an instant they all froze, and he looked just as startled as they were. Then he started to push back from the edge. Charter lunged forward, punching him in the head. The merman fell backward but two more surfaced, and Charter yelled, “Run!”
Emilie ran, taking the corridor the compass had indicated before considering whether it was a good idea or not. It was a long corridor, with several guttering lamps hanging on the wall. She heard Daniel shouting behind her and slowed, looking back. Then he and Charter came pounding after her and she hurried on.
They caught up to her as she reached another open foyer, but this one had only one other way out, a narrow spiral stair up to a silvery metal trapdoor in the ceiling. The merpeople had to be right behind them and it was the only way out. Emilie started toward it, but Charter grabbed her arm and whispered, “Wait, don't move!”
Daniel stood at the open passageway, holding up a hand as if pressing against an invisible door. He was whispering quietly to himself. Emilie stared, and then realized: he's doing a spell. She hoped he was more useful as a sorcerer than previous circumstances would seem to indicate.
Daniel took a sharp breath and stepped back from the doorway. A moment later four mermen arrived, sliding to an abrupt halt. Daniel was frozen in place, and Charter squeezed Emilie's arm, reminding her to be still.
The mermen stared through the doorway, obviously puzzled. As they looked around, their eyes seemed to slide past Daniel, Charter, and Emilie without focusing on them. They see an empty room, she thought, holding her breath. And it hadn't seemed to occur to them to step past the doorway and investigate further.
Tension stretched Emilie's nerves almost to the point where she felt compelled to make a sound, but finally the mermen turned away. They started back down the passage, talking agitatedly among themselves. As their voices faded, Daniel's shoulders slumped in relief, and Charter relaxed a little. Emilie let herself breathe again, feeling her pulse pounding in her ears. “It's a charm,” Charter explained, keeping his voice low. “It makes people think they can't see you. But they can still hear you, and feel you.”
“You couldn't use it from inside the cell?” Emilie asked. “To make them think you escaped?” Though that wouldn't do much good, unless the merpeople were incautious enough to lower the bars.
Daniel wiped sweat off his forehead. “It doesn't work if they know you're there. That's why we had to get to another room - we had to be just far enough ahead of them that they would be able to tell themselves that they'd mistaken the passage we took.”
Emilie made a mental note that Daniel was a little more useful than he had seemed at first. And that explained why they had been so certain that Cobbier could get the other three crewmembers past the guards outside the tower; he must be an apprentice sorcerer too. She checked the compass again, and was momentarily puzzled when the arrow made a circle. “Oh.” She looked up at the ceiling. “I think we're close.”
Charter stepped past her and started up the stairs. Emilie and Daniel waited below as he cautiously pushed the trapdoor open just enough to get a view of the next room. After a moment, he opened it all the way and motioned for them to follow him.
Emilie hurried up the stairs. The room was bigger than the foyer below, and better lit, with a larger stairwell spiraling up to the next floor, and a closed door. “I think we're on the surface,” Emilie whispered. The air in this room was fresher, laced with the green scent of the forest. She checked the compass again. “It's still pointing up.”
Daniel went to the door and listened at it. He shook his head. “Can't hear anything.”
Charter grimaced, looking up the stairwell. He muttered, “This place is too quiet.” But he added to Daniel, “You stay here, we'll go up.”
Daniel nodded, and Charter and Emilie started up the stairs. She knew what Charter meant; the merpeople had seen them now and there should be more commotion outside as they searched for them. They reached the next floor, where a wide foyer held a single closed door.
Emilie hurried over to listen at it. She heard voices, and thought: Uh oh. But they didn't sound like merpeople; the voices were too deep. Wait, there is something familiar about... “I think it's the Cirathi!” she whispered to Charter.
He tugged cautiously on the handle. The door didn't budge, and he crouched to peer into the opening for the lock, taking out Emilie's knife. “We don't know if they're alone in there
,” he said, keeping his voice low. “There might be guards inside.”
“We could knock and ask,” Emilie murmured. Then it occurred to her he might think she was silly enough to be serious.
But Charter just gave her an ironic smile and started to tinker with the lock. Then a bang and a muffled yell from the room below made Emilie flinch. Charter shoved to his feet, cursing, but half a dozen merpeople were charging up the stairwell. Emilie ducked back against the wall with a yelp, suddenly confronted with a forest of sharp spear points.
CHAPTER TEN
One of the merpeople shouted an order, and the others drew back a little. A few of them were female, but they all wore belts of some kind of reptile hide, they all carried knives, and they all looked angry. One held a weapon that looked like a wooden spear gun. With a grim expression, Charter dropped the knife and held up his hands. Emilie held up her hands, too.
Two other merpeople dragged Daniel up the stairs, despite his resistance. He caught Charter's eye and said, guiltily, “Sorry. They just burst in through the door-” One of them poked him to tell him to be silent.
Charter said, “It's all right.”
Emilie knew it was anything but all right.
The merpeople searched them first, taking the knife and the rest of Emilie's matches. Emilie thought they would be shoved into the room with the Cirathi, but instead the Nomads prodded them up the stairs. There was a door on the next landing, with a merman standing guard outside it. At a gesture from the leader, he pushed it open.
They were guided into a big room, lit by several lamps, bare of furniture except for a few clay water jars. But it was the occupants who captured Emilie's attention. Rani and an older Menaen man were facing five merpeople. Emilie started forward, only to be dragged back by her guards. She called out, “Rani! Are you all right?”
“I'm well, Emilie.” Rani looked her over, her scaled brow furrowed. “These idiots have not hurt you?”
“No, I'm fine.” She hoped, for the moment. Rani didn't look hurt, and her head wasn't bleeding anymore.