Deadly Games (37 page)

A string of words came down the hall.
Basilard did not understand the language, but it sounded like a
question. Without taking her eyes from Sicarius, the gray-haired
woman answered in the same tongue.

Basilard thumped the wall to get Sicarius’s
attention,
We should go.

Where to he did not know. If the navigation
area was out, what else could they try?

The woman lifted the weapon at Sicarius’s
chest again. Her finger tightened on the trigger, but he
anticipated the attack. He leaped over the woman, barrier and all,
and avoided the blast.

Sicarius joined Basilard and they ran down
the corridor.

Before they reached the ladder, two
bronze-skinned men with long, thin braids of black hair came into
view. They wore white coats and toted small canvas bags that bulged
with balls. Each carried one of the balls in his free hand, pale
green globes with the icy dark depths of a glacier.

The men were on the other side of the ladder,
and Basilard thought he could reach it before they did. He
increased his speed, running ahead of Sicarius. Had they been
guards, Basilard would have challenged them, but he wanted nothing
to do with practitioners.

When he reached the ladder, he dropped down,
landing in a crouch, knife ready. A pair of guards running toward
the ladder almost crashed into him.

One started to lift a pistol. Basilard
knocked the arm up, and the weapon went off, the noise deafening in
the metal corridor. The pistol ball ricocheted off the walls, and
the guard flinched. Basilard feinted toward the man’s face with his
knife, drawing a block, then lowered his blade and thrust toward
the unprotected gut.

The guard had fast reflexes and almost
recovered quickly enough to block the attack, but Basilard was
faster still. The blade plunged through flesh and organs before he
pulled it free again.

He shoved the injured man at his comrade,
eliciting a new blast of pain from his shoulder. He need not have
bothered. As Sicarius dropped down, he hammered his black blade
into the top of the man’s skull. Bone crunched, and utter shock
stamped the guard’s face—his last expression ever.

“Run!” Sicarius sprinted up the corridor.

As Basilard turned to follow him, two of the
pale green balls dropped down from above. Busy running, he did not
see them hit the floor, but he heard cracks like breaking
glass.

He hunched his shoulders, expecting an
explosion. But it was a stench that assaulted him. He snorted,
trying to expel any intrusive gas from his nostrils. After that, he
held his breath as he raced after Sicarius. He might be fast on the
Clank Race, but he had the shorter legs, and he fell a few paces
behind.

The long, twisting corridor seemed to go on
forever. Ahead, someone leaned out of a hatchway, a compact
crossbow poised to fire. The attacker probably thought he was safe,
that he could duck back behind a barrier as soon as he made the
shot, but Sicarius dodged the quarrel and surged forward with
startling speed. He grasped the crossbow wielder’s wrist and yanked
him out before he could duck back. Sicarius spun the man about, a
hand going to his head, and broke his neck before he could so much
as shout for help.

Basilard’s lungs burned from holding his
breath. Sicarius stopped to grab the crossbow and pat the man down
for ammunition. It must be safe to breathe.

Basilard opened his mouth to suck in a gasp
of air, but couldn’t. His lungs were frozen. He tried again. And
again. Nothing. It was as if he had taken a blow to the solar
plexus and his system was stunned. He thumped on his chest, not
sure what else to try. Panic encroached upon him. Would he die for
lack of the air all about him?

Before he reached the dead body, Sicarius
rose and headed down the corridor again. Basilard thumped on the
wall.

Sicarius stopped and turned. For a moment, he
simply stood there. Trying to ascertain what was wrong? Or thinking
that, despite his earlier words, he was being given a chance to
leave Basilard to die and to end the possibility of a threat?

Blackness crept into the edges of Basilard’s
vision, and the weight of a thousand pounds of sand filled his
legs. He stumbled and pitched toward the floor.

Hands caught him. Air that Basilard wanted so
much to inhale breezed past as he was hoisted from the floor and
draped over Sicarius’s shoulder. The darkness swallowed more of his
vision, and his pulse throbbed in his ears. Vaguely, he was aware
of the floor skimming past as Sicarius continued running down the
corridor. He turned at an intersection and halted.

Another barrier to pass? Did Sicarius still
have the eye? Basilard could not see, nor could he feel his limbs
or move his head.

Metal squealed and they moved again, but only
a few steps. Basilard felt himself being lowered to the floor. Its
cool smoothness pressed against his cheek. He wondered if it would
be the last thing he ever felt.

Abruptly, a massive spasm coursed through his
body. His lungs surprised him by coming to life, and he gulped air
in so quickly he almost threw up. He was so relieved he did not
care. A temporary paralysis of the lungs, thank God.

Shots rang out nearby. Basilard rolled to his
stomach and tried to get his hands and knees beneath him so he
could help, but his body was too busy breathing to obey. He did
manage to lift his head.

Sicarius stood beside the hatch, reloading a
pistol. The crossbow leaned against his leg.

White-coated figures milled several meters
down the corridor. One started forward. Sicarius sensed it somehow
and leaned out, firing the crossbow. The figures did not even duck.
The quarrel bounced off a shield identical to the one the
gray-haired woman had used.

Sicarius slammed the hatch shut and spun a
round wheel, causing a thick bolt to clang into place. Though it
sounded sturdy, there was no way to lock it.

Basilard staggered to his feet. He and
Sicarius were in a chamber dominated by an engine, boiler, and
furnace. Giant pistons pumped, and a flywheel turned, and the place
might have looked purely Turgonian, but unfamiliar tubes and
sinuous pipes swept and twisted about the chamber like vines
amongst trees. Domes of various sizes punctuated the dull metal at
points, emitting orange and red pulses of light. Whatever burned
inside the furnace emitted crimson flames instead of yellowish
orange.

Welcome to the engine room, Basilard told
himself.

Sicarius strode toward the engine controls,
lifted a hand, but stopped a few inches shy of touching a lever. He
gazed at it for a long moment, the way Akstyr focused when he was
calling upon his science. Then he shook his head once and backed
away. He grabbed a wrench out of a toolbox and tossed it at the
control panel. It bounced off an invisible field and zipped across
the cabin. Basilard ducked as it shot over his shoulder. It clanged
into the bulkhead and bounced halfway across the room again before
clunking to the deck. Singe marks blackened the tip.

If Sicarius had meant to take over the
engines, the possibility of succeeding was not looking good.

He tore a pipe from a wall, and steam burst
forth. He shoved the pipe through the wheel on the door.

A pipe against three wizards?
Basilard
signed.

“Six,” Sicarius said.

What?

“There are six practitioners out there now.
At least.”

What’s the plan?

“The
plan
is to come up with one.”

Basilard searched his face, wondering if that
was a joke, but no hint of humor softened Sicarius’s stony
expression.

* * * * *

Amaranthe tugged at the thick water-repellent
material pooled around her boots, boots two inches too large. If
there were such things as diving suits for women, she had not
encountered them yet. Maybe it would not matter. In the water, the
material ought to float, right? Or it would cause her to become
hopelessly tangled in seaweed where she would be an easy-to-catch
snack for a kraken.

“Less pessimism, girl,” she muttered, then
raised her voice for Maldynado and Akstyr. “How are your suits
fitting?”

They were gearing up around the trapdoor in
Ms. Setjareth’s warehouse. Amaranthe had agreed to give the woman a
discount on future work in exchange for the use of her building for
a couple of hours—a deal to which Setjareth had magnanimously
agreed, possibly because no shipments had been due in that morning.
Fortunately, she was not around to see the pile of harpoons and
hand-held launchers sitting next to her trapdoor. The tub labeled
Skelith Poison was probably not a typical warehouse store either.
Books promised the tar-like substance, which they had smeared on
the harpoon tips, would survive the water, at least for a couple of
hours.

“This thing weighs a thousand pounds.” Akstyr
tugged at the collar.

“Only one-eighty, including the helmet,”
Amaranthe said, “or so Books tells me.” Saying his name prompted a
glance toward the door. They were waiting on him to return with
another weapon to use against the kraken. He had rushed off before
sharing the details, and Amaranthe had a hard time not worrying.
Six months later, she still had nightmares of that printing press
careening down the icy street with Maldynado riding it like a
contestant in a log rolling competition. That had been one of
Books’s ideas, too.

“My helmet is fabulous,” Maldynado said, “but
the suit binds across the chest. Whatever runty treasure hunter
commissioned this piece lacked my substantial musculature.”

“And your ego, too, I’d imagine,” Amaranthe
said.

Wearing everything but the helmet, she
shuffled over to a high window facing the lake. She had to clamber
atop a crate to push open the shutters and peer outside.

Early morning sun glittered on the calm lake
water. A few fishing boats meandered away from the docks, heading
out for the day’s work. Given what was going on below, Amaranthe
thought the scene should be less idyllic.

She stuck her head out, twisting her neck for
the view she wanted. Dozens of docks away, the
Saberfist
floated in its berth. Plumes of smoke rose from its twin stacks and
a thrum of excitement ran through her. Had Mancrest done it?
Convinced them to send divers down to investigate? Marines bustled
about on the deck, and the activity had doubled since the last time
she took a look.

“Books is back,” Maldynado called. “And he
didn’t bring anything useful.”

Amaranthe hopped down in time to catch the
scowl Books sent Maldynado’s direction. Books was carrying a wooden
keg labeled SALT into the building. Amaranthe’s earlier excitement
faded. Harpoon launchers might harm a kraken, but salt? There had
to be more to it than that.

“That’s your secret weapon?” she asked,
joining the men. “Salt?”

“Actually, it’s empty,” Books said.

“So you brought a wooden keg?” Maldynado
asked. “Genius strategy, professor.”

Amaranthe frowned, aware that this might be
their only chance to retrieve Sicarius and Basilard. If the
Saberfist
was en route, and it found and attacked the
underwater structure, the kidnappers would flee. She couldn’t
imagine them sticking around once they knew they had been
discovered. And who knew where they would go after that?

“Tell us,” she prompted Books, who was
scowling at Maldynado.

“As it turns out,” Books said, “krakens are
quite difficult to kill. There are more stories of them sinking
ships than there are of people slaying them.”

“How comforting,” Maldynado said.

“My idea is to fill this keg with poison,”
Books said. “I tinkered with the design, so it’ll implode when
squeezed. There are also razor-sharp caltrops inside to cut the
kraken’s flesh to ensure the poison enters its bloodstream.”

“How do we convince the creature to grab it?”
Amaranthe asked. “And will a little poison injected at the end of a
tentacle really incapacitate it? It’s quite...large.”

“Ah, but we won’t target the tentacle.
Squids, and presumably krakens, travel by sucking water into their
mantel cavity, then streaming it out behind them in a jet, much
like a fireman’s hose. Perhaps if we could propel this keg toward
its mantle, the creature would inhale it, so to speak, and it’d be
like getting pepper up your nose.”

“Couldn’t we just use pepper?” Maldynado
asked.

“Do you want it to sneeze or to die?” Books
asked.

“Maybe if it sneezed hard enough, it’d go
flying into the air, land on the
Saberfist
, and the marines
could hack it to pieces with their swords.”

Books threw Amaranthe an exasperated look.
“Is it necessary to have these louts present during planning?”

“This mantle cavity,” she said, trying to
imagine Books’s scenario, “is up under all the tentacles? I can’t
imagine anyone being able to get close without getting killed.”

“We could send in someone expendable,” Books
said, eyeing Maldynado.

“Oh, no,” Maldynado said. “When I get my
statue, I don’t want it to be an image of me going up a squid’s
butt.”

“All right, gentlemen.” Amaranthe lifted her
hands, struggling not to snap at them for being silly. It must be
the lack of sleep stealing some of her patience. “We’ll go down
with the keg and harpoons. With luck, the marines will figure out a
way to kill the kraken through attrition, and we won’t need to
implement any of this.”

“When have we ever had that kind of luck?”
Books asked.

“I don’t remember any,” Amaranthe said, “but
we ought to be due, eh?”

The men traded skeptical looks. She forced a
smile. Someone had to be optimistic after all.

* * * * *

Basilard waited with a rag pressed to the
back of his shoulder, watching as Sicarius shoved equipment against
the hatch. Soon everything that could be moved, or torn free,
blocked the only entrance. Like the pipe in the lock wheel, it did
not seem enough against wizards, but maybe they wouldn’t want to
risk destroying their own engine room.