Warrior Prime, page 29
part #1 of Ink Mage Legacy Series
The chair wasn’t so much up against the wall as it was built directly into the metalwork. It was blocky with sharp angles and cast in the same metal as everything else, wide seat and arms but padded in dark leather. Other than the chair’s bulk, two things stood out.
An enormous glass container, spherical like the ceiling light but completely transparent, hung over the chair. It was two-thirds filled with a thick metallic liquid the same color as her collar. Glass tubes curved down to connect to metal rods on either side of the chair, affixed to the wall about neck level. Copper wiring had been looped in tight coils around the rods. To the right of the chair, a row of levers sprouted from the wall, various symbols under each.
The realization struck her suddenly. This chair makes the collars. She’d seen the metal in “noodle” form. Now before her there was a huge tank of it but fully liquid. If there was a way to make the metal solid, then there must be a way to reverse the process.
Zayda sighed, lowered herself to sit cross-legged in front of the chair. Being tapped into the spirit didn’t afford her any additional knowledge but did give her control of her mind, allowing her perfect concentration. She would examine every inch of this contraption.
Until she figured it out, Zayda didn’t plan to budge.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Sweat poured off their skin. All three were slick and greasy with it.
Peyne and Jaff went shirtless. They’d also kicked off their boots. Maurizan stripped down to a thin shift. She’d taken a dagger to her own breeches, cutting them off several inches above the knee, revealing a lot of smooth white leg.
Peyne had gone to great lengths not to notice.
Coal dust mixed with the sweat, streaking them black. Their hands were covered completely. They’d been working all night to figure out the workings of the great steam machine. Outside the dome, the sun was rising.
“You’d think there would have been a shovel,” Peyne said.
Jaff rolled his eyes. “Yes. We know. You’ve said that at least ten times.”
They scooped the coal by hand, tossing it into the oven that now washed the chamber in a sinister orange glow. The heat was so intense they almost couldn’t approach the boiler.
“That’s got to be enough,” Maurizan said.
“Agreed.” Jaff pushed the door shut with his sword. It was too hot to touch. He gestured to a large valve wheel. “Turn it, foreigner.”
Peyne took the wheel in both hands, grunted. It turned slowly at first, and then they all heard the sound of the boiler filling.
“It will make steam now,” Jaff said.
“Then what?” Peyne asked.
“The steam will build pressure.”
The word explosion rattled in Peyne’s head. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
Jaff grinned. “Not in the least.”
Maurizan’s eyes widened. “What’s that noise?”
They all heard it, a low rolling rumble.
“Like a teakettle coming to a boil,” Peyne said. “If the teakettle were the size of a barn.”
They felt the rumbling in their feet now. The boiler began to rattle.
Peyne took a step back. Don’t explode. Don’t explode. Don’t explode.
“Do something!” Maurizan shouted.
Jaff grabbed another valve wheel, this one connected to a thinner pipe leading away from the boiler. He twisted, and the pipe vibrated, the rumble easing as a clanking mechanical racket rose all around them. The vibration of thunk tunk clank rattled in their feet.
A high-pitched screech of metal on metal. Slowly the enormous gearwheel on the far wall began to turn.
A whoop from Maurizan as she fist-pumped the air.
I don’t believe it, Peyne thought. This is actually working.
Maurizan rushed to the first set of levers, grabbing the longer one in both hands.
She pulled.
The lever came forty-five degrees back, locking into place with a loud clunk. The entire chamber now shook with the workings of hidden machinery.
The large gear moved upward to mesh with the smaller gear over it, both turning now.
For a fleeting second, Peyne considered turning and running. The rattling, rumbling chamber, the whir of machinery, the oppressive heat, the rotation of the meshing gears—it was all overwhelming. And yet, it was exciting too. He stood transfixed, watched the gears turn.
And then a sound, muffled and distant, echoed throughout the dome. Clank . . . clank . . . clank . . . clank . . .
“The door!” Maurizan left the chamber at a run.
The two men followed.
They heard it as they approached, the roaring rush of water. When they rounded the corner, they saw it. Fresh water foamed and spewed from the opening as the two halves of the door separated, the torrent rushing down the canal.
They’d done it. They’d unleashed the river.
They shouted in triumph, Maurizan pulling the two men into a three-way hug as they cheered.
The flow of water eased, the door continuing to open, until the flow died to a trickle and then nothing.
“What happened?” Confusion on Maurizan’s face.
The door still clanked open. Maurizan jumped down into the canal, the water waist-deep as she waded toward the doorway. Already the water level was going down. “What . . . where is it?”
“Maurizan, be careful!” Peyne went to the canal’s edge where it met the doorway, leaning in to watch the gypsy’s progress.
She climbed out of the water and into the area beyond the doorway. It arched dozens of feet over her head. She made a quick circle, looking at everything. “I don’t understand.”
“I told you,” Jaff said behind Peyne, but he obviously took no pleasure in proving the others wrong. He’d been as excited as anyone else when they’d thought they’d set the river free. “Perhaps it was just a place to store water. Nothing more.”
“But the canals,” Peyne said.
Maurizan went to one knee, running her hand across the wet floor. “There’s a crack here down the middle. This opens!”
Peyne and Jaff looked at each other.
Jaff’s eyes shot wide. “The other lever!” He turned and ran back toward the boiler room.
“Wait!” Peyne called after him, but Jaff was already around the bend of the dome.
To Maurizan he shouted, “Move back! Jaff’s going to pull the other lever.”
The ink mage looked at Peyne, then down to the floor, then back at Peyne, understanding blooming in her eyes. She leapt back into the water. It was still draining, the level now down below her backside. Maurizan backed away from the open door, watching and expectant.
Peyne guessed her thoughts. If the aquifer was below them, then the hatch in the floor must be what was really holding it back. The levers were in sets, a longer and a shorter. If the longer one opened the outside door, then it was a good guess the shorter lever might open the panel in the floor.
“Maurizan!”
Her head snapped around. “What?”
He pointed. “Where you’re standing.”
She looked down, back up at the open door and the closed hatch beyond. If the hatch opened and released the aquifer . . .
“Shit!”
Maurizan splashed to the wall of the canal and reached up. “Help me out of here. Hurry!”
Peyne went to his belly, extending a hand. She jumped and caught it, bracing bare feet against the canal’s smooth tile, walking herself up slowly as he pulled.
They heard the clunk . . . clunk . . . clunk of the hatch sliding open and froze, heads turning to look, expecting water to spew violently from the opening.
That didn’t happen.
She let go of Peyne’s hand, slid back down the wall into the water, only knee-deep now. “Hold on.”
“Maurizan, don’t.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m just taking a quick look.”
He watched her climb back up to the doorway and peer over the edge of the open hatch. “It’s empty.”
“Can you see the bottom?” Peyne asked.
She shook her head. “It goes a long way down.” She took a deep breath and yelled, “Hello!”
Her voice echoed back to her.
“Don’t fall in.”
She frowned at him. “Really? Don’t fall in. I would never have thought of that.”
“Back away from the edge,” Peyne suggested. “You’re making me nervous.”
“I don’t understand,” she said in a small voice. “I guess Jaff was right.”
“Do you think it’s gone dry?”
“I don’t know. Maybe . . . an earthquake?” She groped for answers, disappointment raw on her face. “It could be blocked or . . .” She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know.”
Peyne tried to think of something comforting and failed. Zayda had come to learn more about ink magic, to discover its ancient secrets, to see if it was possible to free herself from the collar. And Peyne had come for Zayda. Jaff had come because if one ink mage could be freed, then maybe all of them could, and that would put a kink in the sultan’s ambitions of conquest. Only Maurizan had known about the great aquifer. Only she had suspected this forgotten place had once been green and thriving.
And yet they’d gotten caught up in her dream, the idea that they might together work some miracle.
Peyne stood and turned when he heard the shouting.
“What’s that?” Maurizan asked.
“Jaff, I think.”
And a second later, Jaff came storming around the corner, running full speed. “Run!” he shouted. “Run for your lives!”
Peyne frowned. “What in blazes is he talking—”
A sharp crack like thunder and the ground tilted.
Peyne fell back, arms windmilling, ears ringing. He had only a moment to glimpse a cloud of steam rolling past Jaff, who’d been thrown to the ground. Peyne was floating. No . . . falling, until—
A sting as his bare back hit water. Followed by a bruising smack as he hit the bottom of the canal.
They all heard it and looked up to see.
Although at this distance there was nothing they could see. Still, like a crack of thunder but sharper, the noise rolled across the dunes.
“Any sign of Krokett?” Meddigar asked.
Hak sat up in his saddle on the adjacent dromadan, squinting into the distance. “No.”
Meddigar grunted. Typical. The man came and went as he pleased, skulking about, always looking at the ground and muttering something or another. In the wee hours before sunrise, he’d taken one of the dromadan and headed south. The wizard had assumed he’d see the man again before now.
“Do you see . . . anything?”
Hak scanned the dunes. Meddigar knew that tapped into the spirit, Hak could see farther than anyone else, except for perhaps Priya, the other ink mage.
“Yes,” Hak said. “Statues. Big ones.”
Meddigar didn’t remember seeing any big statues last time. Then again, he’d approached the city from a different direction then. “How far?”
“Far.”
“So helpful.”
Hak smirked. “By sundown. Maybe.”
They pressed on and made good time, arriving with the last remains of daylight by which to gawk at the harbor statues. They dismounted, a welcome rest from the dromadan saddles, and stood in a small group.
“Winged warriors,” Hak said.
“You’ll find the winged motif throughout the city,” Meddigar said. “Although what cultural or religious significance it might have I don’t know. I was otherwise occupied.”
A frenetic scratching sound drew the wizard’s attention, and he turned to see Venny madly sketching. He moved to look over her shoulder. His proximity didn’t seem to bother her. He’d thought she might be mapping, but she was rendering an admirable likeness of one of the statues. “You’re quite the artist.”
“I wanted to get as much as possible before we lose the light,” she said. “Amazing, isn’t it? These things have been here . . . what? Centuries? Millennia?”
“A long time,” Meddigar said. “Are all cartographers such gifted artists?”
“No. But my father likes that I can do little flourishes to adorn the maps. Fanciful sea serpents and so on. Gives his work a little something extra.”
“You’re quite good.”
“Thank you.” She said it casually. “I suppose I should be mapping the details of this valley . . . used to be a harbor, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting. Just think. A city lost to history, and my map will be the one that brings people back again.”
Meddigar stiffened, frowning. He quickly made his face go blank to hide his reaction. He hadn’t quite connected the fact of her mapmaking with the idea that others would return to follow in their footsteps. There were untold treasures yet to be discovered, the wizard was sure.
Venny stopped sketching abruptly, eyes coming around slowly to regard him in her peripheral vision.
Meddigar cleared his throat. “Yes. A triumph of mapmaking to be sure.”
She smiled weakly in return.
A high-pitched call rescued them from the awkward moment.
“It’s Krokett,” Hak said. “Here he comes.”
The tracker stood before them a few minutes later, his dromadan in tow. He began talking, punctuating his report with gestures back toward the city.
“There’s no way to get the dromadan up from here,” Hak translated.
“What else?”
“They’ve found a water source,” Hak said.
Oh? That would have been helpful during my last visit. Meddigar scratched his beard, considering. “Are they still there?”
“Except one,” Hak reported. “Hak says one of them broke off, the trail heading toward a big palace on the other side of the city. From the size of the tracks, Krokett thinks it’s a woman.”
Meddigar frowned. Maurizan. She’s always been greedy for ink magic. Well, I’m not going to let her take what I worked so hard to discover.
Except she has a head start.
“I’m going immediately,” Meddigar announced. “I’ll want a few of the waterskins and some other provisions.”
“Now?” Hak asked. “It will be dark soon.”
Meddigar muttered the words to a minor spell, and a glowing ball the size of a walnut bloomed to life a foot from his ear. It made a slow orbit around his head, casting pale light over the area. “I don’t intend to stumble around blind.”
“Well, you shouldn’t go alone,” Hak insisted.
“I’ll take Priya,” Meddigar said. “Satisfied?”
Hak shrugged. “You’re in command.”
That left Sergeant Klamud and one of his men to accompany Hak to the water source. Krokett would show them the way. “Leave the dromadan. Pack up as much equipment as you can carry and follow when you can. And take all the empty skins. Fill them at the water source.”
“And what about those we find there?” Hak asked.
“Kill them.”
Hak grinned. “My pleasure.”
“I’ll come with you,” Venny told the wizard. She was already gathering her pack and slinging a waterskin over her shoulder. “A palace sounds worth sketching to me.”
Meddigar opened his mouth to object, then stopped himself. He did enjoy her company, but that could no longer be a consideration. He was still uneasy about her map and the flood of ambitious adventurers it might bring to the city. Meddigar wasn’t ready for that to happen, could not foresee ever being ready. At one point, the wizard had contemplated fleeing Fyria and going into hiding, but now that he’d found the city and could successfully navigate his way back at any time, he was loath to share the place with anyone else. To Prince Kha’narahn, Meddigar was the secret holder of the ink magic. The wizard meant to keep it that way, and Venny’s map threatened that. Better to keep her close.
After all, if an accident could happen to Nila, then it could happen to anyone, yes?
“Your company would be most appreciated,” Meddigar told her, voice light as if murdering her were the furthest thing from his mind.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Well, you did warn us the explosion would be bigger,” Peyne said.
The three stood in the smoking remains of the boiler chamber. The blast had shredded metal like thin parchment and blackened most of the floor and walls. The doorway was now twice its normal size, the edges jagged with ripped metal. The great gear hung askew, as if a good sneeze would send it tumbling across the floor.
“I suppose I should have considered some way to vent the steam,” Jaff mused.
“The next time we’re fooling around with ancient machinery in a lost city, we’ll remember that.” Peyne rolled his shoulder and rubbed his neck. He was sore and bruised all over. His backward spill into the canal could have been much worse if there hadn’t been three feet of water to break his fall.
Maurizan stood with shoulders slumped, abject failure on her face as she sullenly shook her head at the wreckage. “This was not what I had in mind. We’ll never get the other two doors open now.”
“Not that it would matter, if the aquifer has gone dry,” Jaff said.
Maurizan shot him a look that said I’m not in the mood for I told you so.
“For the record, I wish it had worked,” Jaff said. “I wish I was wrong.”
Daylight had fled hours ago. The oil lamp’s tiny flame felt like some futile rebellion against the darkness.
Maurizan let out a long, exhausted sigh and said, “There’s nothing left to do here. We should get some sleep and set out after Zayda in the morning.”
“Not here,” Peyne said. “There’s no air.”
They slept along the canal near the dome’s opening. There wasn’t what anyone might recognize as a cool breeze, but at least there was a minimal flow of air, unlike inside the claustrophobic boiler chamber.
Peyne lay down, his pack making an uncomfortable pillow, but nevertheless he was asleep instantly, the deep, dreamless slumber of one utterly spent.
But sometime later . . . an hour? Three? It all melted together in this place. Something stirred him. Splashing and voices. His eyes came open. He lifted his head very slightly, not wanting to draw attention to himself.
