Then we have a project.
Better hurry it along. There’s a lot of activity now in the rest of the compound. It’s a foregone conclusion that the rest of the guards know where we are. I doubt they’re going to let us sit here and pry our way into their vault unopposed.
Your cheerful optimism is always a pleasure to be around.
“Got something?” Ahn asked.
“Just thinking,” Sardelle said. “While I’m working on the door, you two might want to consider how to defend us if guards show up.”
“You think that’s likely with the lift blocked?” Duck asked.
“If there are other ways in, they’ll know about them.”
“We’ll be ready.” Ahn hefted her rifle.
Sardelle faced the vault door and shut out the rest of the world to focus on the locking mechanism. She tried not to find the complex system daunting, but failed. As Jaxi had said, if they melted or broke the lock, they would prevent the door from opening. That might be desirable when an angry and armed guard was on the other side, but not now.
We’re going to have to sign up for some engineering courses, Jaxi.
I already read Denhoft’s Theories on Aerodynamic and Aerostatic Flight, and those two extremely dry engineering books in that prison library. They were not illuminating.
Sardelle found the latch and tried to lift it out of the door, but it couldn’t move until the mechanism behind it disengaged. She left that area and probed around the other walls, trying to determine if they were metal too. Unfortunately, they were made from the same thick steel as the door. As was the floor and ceiling. It was interesting that she could sense the dragon blood through the walls, since iron blocked magic, and there was plenty of iron in steel. Maybe there was simply so much power that it bled through.
I should have asked Tolemek for one of his jars of burning goo, Sardelle thought. Or I should have had him teach me how to make it.
Maybe I could melt a hole in the door. It’s even thicker than that glass, so it would take a while, but I’ve melted cast iron before.
A hole? Why not melt the whole door?
You don’t want much, do you?
It’s either that or we have to master the lock.
I’ll melt the door.
Chapter 14
Ridge tumbled through the darkness, his back, then shoulders, then head striking against the sides of some kind of diagonal shaft. Knowing he might break every bone in his body when he landed—if he ever landed—he tried to slow himself down by grabbing at the walls. But they were cold and smooth and too far apart for him to brace himself against. And then they disappeared. Ridge fell straight down, plummeting through emptiness, and in the dark, he couldn’t prepare himself for a landing.
He fell into a surprisingly soft pile of dust that flew up everywhere, coating his eyes and tongue. The landing was still jarring, but not nearly as much as if he had struck stone or dirt.
Something heavy smacked his chest, and he let out a pained, “Oof.”
That hurt more than the landing. Ridge pushed the object away, only to realize it was someone’s arm. Had the whole team fallen into that hole? That trap, he amended with a mental kick to his own butt. He’d allowed his people to be herded right toward it. And here he’d thought having a sorceress along would make everything easier, that it would let him succeed where Kaika and Nowon had failed. What a fool.
Judging by the thud and the flinging of more dust in every direction, someone else landed.
“Sardelle?” Ridge hoped she was with them, because if she wasn’t… she was stuck up there with those statues.
“No,” Tolemek said, removing his arm from Ridge’s hand. “She, Cas, and your other lieutenant were farther away.”
“Duck?” Ridge asked.
“Yes.”
“Apex, are you down here too?”
A groan came from a few feet away.
“I’ll take that for a yes,” Ridge said. That had definitely been a masculine groan. “I have a first-aid kit somewhere.” His rucksack hadn’t come off his shoulders during the fall. “Are you injured?”
“Yes,” Apex said, a wince in his voice, “but if you’re the only option for medical services, I think I’d rather leave my health to fate.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my medical skills.” Ridge groped his way over to Apex.
“Aren’t you the one who offered to staple General Paltimer’s nostrils shut to heal his sinus infection, last fall?”
“That had nothing to do with clogged sinuses. I was going to staple his nostrils shut so he wouldn’t be offended by the stench of Tiger Squadron’s failure—his words—on the Dasikar Bay mission. I thought that was quite polite of me.” And if it had earned him a demerit, it had been worth it, for the look on that pompous ass’s face.
“Ah, I was mistaken.” Apex’s breathing was labored, his voice weak.
Ridge shrugged off his pack. “Let me find a match, see how you look. See where we are, too, maybe.”
“Underground,” Tolemek said.
“Yes, that’s obvious. But what is this? The garbage dump? The prison where idiot trespassers are deposited?” Ridge wiped his eyes. Whatever that dust was, it was clinging to every part of him. It was humid and hot down here as well, almost as if they had fallen into a furnace room. Maybe they had. This might be ash they had landed in.
“Obvious because we fell, perhaps, but confusing since we shouldn’t have,” Tolemek said. “How could there possibly be a basement when the ground all around this mountain is full of water under pressure and heat? You’d think any attempt to dig out earth down here would result in it being flooded. The mountain itself is odd.”
“I’ll trust you on that one. I was too busy making paper fliers to pay much attention during my geology class in school.” Ridge had two emergency candles in his pack. The first one he found was broken, but he pulled out a second one intact. “The other science classes too. And when I had that extremely tedious math teacher in third year, I spent at least a month perfecting a launching catapult for my flier. Or was it a trebuchet? I get those two mixed up.”
“It’s reassuring to know the man leading our mission is so well-educated,” Tolemek said.
“I know my weaknesses. That’s why you’re along. Did nobody tell you that you’d be the brains out here?”
Apex grunted. “Please.”
“I assumed I would be the cannon fodder, should things go wrong.” After a moment where he was probably contemplating the subterranean darkness, Tolemek added, “Wronger.”
Ridge lit the candle. “Only if you don’t have a bottle of goo in your bag that can get us back to the others.”
The weak flame didn’t reveal much beyond the grime-smeared faces of the two men sitting on top of a pile of dirt with him. No, it was ash. He had been right. If there was a furnace somewhere, he couldn’t see it in the shadows beyond the candle’s influence. He had the sense of another large room, not as big as that entrance chamber perhaps, but the ceiling—he could just make out the black hole they must have been dumped through—was about twenty feet above them. They were lucky they hadn’t all been killed in the fall.
Apex was lying on his back. His cap had fallen off somewhere, and the fine ash had turned his hair gray. His face was pale too. Ridge did a quick survey of him and didn’t find any blood, but the way he gripped his ribs and kept his inhalations shallow told him much.
“I’ll bandage your ribs,” Ridge said. “No staples.”
Apex managed a quick smile, but his eyes were haunted. Ridge knew that look, the sense of fear when one’s mortality caught up with a man, the awareness that this might be the last mission. If he had internal bleeding, he might have a reason for that fear, but he couldn’t know. Best to make him believe he would be fine.
“It’s probably just a couple of cracked ribs,” Ridge said. “You’ll be able to walk, shoot Cofah, and find a way out with us.” Ridge wished his candle had hinted at a set of stairs leading up
. Tolemek was rooting in his satchel. Maybe he had some more candles and could do a search. “And we’ll catch back up with Sardelle. She can heal you.”
“She can do that?” A hint of hope brightened Apex’s eyes.
“Yup, that’s what she was trained to do back when she… oh, that’s a long story. And probably more hers to tell than mine.”
“Is it the story of how she came to be in our world—in our time? Because she doesn’t really fit here.”
Huh, Ridge wouldn’t have guessed Apex had been paying that much attention or could have guessed that. “What clued you in?”
“There are some words she says like they said them a few centuries ago. And the instruction note in the box that held the communication crystals—I looked over it after we dealt with the pirates—there were diaereses over half of the vowels. Those fell by the wayside about two hundred years ago, at least on Iskandia. The Cofah still use them, but nothing else added up to Sardelle being Cofah.”
Ridge wasn’t sure whether he should encourage Apex to talk when he was hurt, but it seemed to be distracting him from his pain. He had to be the only one in the squadron who could find linguistics talk distracting, instead of painful in its own right.
“How long have you known? And sit up, will you? So I can wrap you.” Ridge held up the roll of bandage. “Here, hold this candle, too, eh?” He helped Apex sit up, grimacing at the gasps of pain his pilot made.
“You’re a demanding doctor,” Apex rasped.
“A demanding doctor who’s cranky because his nostrils are caked with ash.” And because he didn’t have enough hands free to do everything he wanted.
“Perhaps you should have stapled them shut.”
“Perhaps.”
Tolemek stood up, a small, sphere-shaped lantern in his hand. “I’m going to look around.”
“Good. Find us the way out, will you?” Ridge said.
Apex only glowered silently at him. Ah, yes, being trapped in a garbage dump in an enemy fortress with the two people who loathed each other. This would be fun.
Tolemek walked by as he headed off the ash mound, pressing something into Ridge’s hand as he passed. Apex, looking the other way, didn’t notice the exchange. The small ceramic jar was labeled healing salve. Ah, yes. Ridge had heard about this and that it was very effective. Good.
Maybe thinking that the two men loathed each other had been inaccurate—only Apex seemed to loathe Tolemek. What would Tolemek do, Ridge wondered, if Apex challenged him to that duel one day?
“I’ve seen your school records, sir,” Apex muttered when Tolemek was out of earshot. “You paid attention at least some of the time.”
“You’ve seen my school records?” Ridge squinted at the jar—the single candle in Apex’s hand didn’t shed a lot of light—but didn’t see anything resembling directions. He slipped the lid off. “If they’re on display somewhere besides my mom’s icebox, I’m going to be appalled.”
“They’re not on display. I snooped. When I received invitations to join both Wolf Squadron and Eagle Squadron, I was trying to decide where I wanted to go. Since Eagle is stationed up north, it would have been closer to my home grounds, not that there’s much up there for me anymore.” He didn’t bother glowering at Tolemek this time, but Apex did watch him walking the perimeter of the chamber, searching for exits with his small lantern.
“Isn’t Colonel Kensingbar a math and engineering maestro? I know he taught classes at the academy when he was on the disabled list a couple of years ago.” Ridge’s grades hadn’t been that impressive. There had to be another explanation. He dipped a corner of bandage into the salve jar and smeared it on Apex’s ribs.
“Kensingbar failed two history classes and barely passed Iskandian Literature. That’s unacceptable.”
“And here I thought you’d joined my squadron because I bought you a beer.”
Apex frowned down at Ridge’s ministrations. “What is that?”
“An antiseptic?”
“It’s not the army one.”
“No.” Ridge set it down, so he could start wrapping bandages before Apex started doing something juvenile, like rubbing the salve off.
Apex scowled at the corner of the chamber Tolemek was inspecting, then scowled at Ridge. “You’re putting his cursed witch brews on me. I don’t want—”
“Too bad,” Ridge said. “Now, stay still.”
Apex tried to pull away, but the sudden movement made him hiss with pain. “I refuse. That’s not army-tested and approved. I don’t want his dragons-damned slime on me.”
Ridge gripped Apex’s shoulder before he could stand up and hurt himself further. “Sit down, Lieutenant.” He hated pretending to be a disciplinarian—him of all people, who made a habit of lipping off to senior officers—but he wasn’t going to let the friction between these two threaten the mission—or a man’s health. “I didn’t ask for your opinion on the goo, and I don’t care about it, quite frankly. You are welcome to file a complaint when we get back. My willingness to use an unapproved healing product will be a minor crime compared to what else goes on the docket for my court-martial, but maybe your grievance will be addressed.” He hurried to finish wrapping Apex’s ribs, while he was sitting still.
“My grievance isn’t with you, sir,” Apex said, his eyes pained, probably not from his wounds this time.
“I know, and you can challenge him to a duel later, but I don’t want any trouble until we’re out of here.” Ridge didn’t want it later, either, but he’d figure out a way to deal with that when the time came.
Apex sighed dramatically but didn’t protest.
“These walls are iron,” Tolemek said from the far end of the chamber. “I think the ceiling is too. There are some tubes in the floor over here. And in the walls too. I think they might be for taking samples.”
“To make sure the magma chamber isn’t heating up so much that the mountain will blow?” Ridge asked.
Tolemek looked over. “Sounds like you didn’t sleep through your entire geology class.”
“No, volcanoes are interesting. Any boy will perk up at the prospect of things exploding, erupting, or otherwise making booms. And if there’s a way we could blow up this mountain once we have those samples and get our people out of here, I’d be very open to hearing about it.”
“Judging by the size of the Taiga of Boiling Death, there wouldn’t be a safe place to hide within hundreds of miles if a volcano-like eruption occurred.”
Tolemek stopped in front of a couple of machines. Weapons, if the huge gun-barrel-like protuberances were an indication. And they were pointing right at the ash pile—and those on top of it. Ridge hoped those were simple artillery weapons and nothing powered by dragon blood, or that possessed glowing red eyes. He looked ceiling-ward, thinking of Sardelle again. He hoped she and the others were all right. She should have been able to help the team run out past those statues if there was no way up the lift. Having them safe would be good, but it also might mean Ridge, Tolemek, and Apex were the only ones who might be able to complete the mission.
“Interesting,” Tolemek said. “These machines are attached to pipes that run into the walls, and there’s some kind of…” He wandered around a metal box on the ground. “Engine? Generator? I’d have to take off the cover to know for certain. Maybe. Engineering isn’t my specialty. But it looks like the scientists here might be experimenting with using the heat supplied by the hot springs to power these weapons.”
“And here I was thinking we’d been tossed into the garbage dump,” Ridge said.
“This may be a testing facility.” Tolemek pointed at the ash pile. “That could be the remains of whatever they’ve been testing the weapons on.”
“Like… the last people who fell down the trap?” Ridge looked at the gray powder smearing the back of his hand. “Comforting.”
“I suspect there’s too much ash for human beings to have been the sole contributors to the pile,” Apex said, tugging down his shirt—Ridge had finished
the bandaging job.
“There’s ash on the floor back here, too,” Tolemek said. “It’s everywhere.”
“What I’d really like to hear about is a door.” Ridge took back his candle and slid down the powdery slope to the floor. He kicked aside some of the layer of ash Tolemek had mentioned. The floor beneath it looked like iron too. “Am I correct in guessing that iron has a higher melting point than the temperature of lava?”
“Yes,” Tolemek and Apex said together.
“I can’t imagine how they engineered this though,” Tolemek added. “I hadn’t thought… This whole facility seems far more advanced than what I’d expect from my people. I always thought—it’s not general knowledge, of course, but those with an iota of global awareness know we’ve fallen behind on technological advancements in favor of focusing on military resources.”
“Those guns look like military resources to me.” Ridge pointed at the pair of monstrosities near the wall, then a door in the shadows nearby drew his attention.
“Yes… this facility must have been built here with the intent of figuring out how to weaponize the geysers or the magma below them. When they found the dragon blood, they must have thought of this place, since it has such an inhospitable location.”
“Let’s worry about the historical details later.” Ridge tried the knob on the door he had found. Locked. Of course. The sturdy metal didn’t look like anything one could kick down, either. “The others will be worried about us. Tolemek, can you open this door?”
Tolemek joined him and dug into his satchel for his vial again. The contents had gone down considerably.
“How many more doors will you be able to do?” Ridge asked, watching Tolemek brush the substance on.
“Not many. I’m on my last vial now. I used quite a bit at the asylum.” Tolemek lowered his voice to mutter, “For naught.”
“I heard you got some clues at least.”
Tolemek’s grunt wasn’t enthused.
“You’re not giving up, are you?”
“No.”
A deep clank emanated from the wall behind the weapons. Soft clicks came from the metal boxes Tolemek had been looking at earlier. They were attached to the big guns by thick pipes that also attached to the wall. A faint hum started up from the weapons themselves, a deep note that reverberated through the entire chamber.