Encrypted

CHAPTER 19

Tikaya woke slowly, mind groggy. She lay on her back, her head in someone’s lap. Rias? No, concerned blue eyes peered down at her. Parkonis.

She struggled to sit up. A woman and a man in marine blacks stood above her. Colonel Lancecrest had not bothered removing the name tag from his wrinkled jacket, though she would have guessed his identity without it. Greasy salt-and-pepper hair stuck up in spicules, bags haunted his dark eyes, and furrows creased his weathered face. He looked like a man with nothing left to lose.

The woman had straight blonde hair and pale skin, so she might be Kyattese. Crow’s feet lined her cold green eyes, and her thin lips flattened further under Tikaya’s scrutiny.

“ Where are Tatkar and my men?” Lancecrest asked.

“ Dead or captured,” Parkonis said. “Sorry, we-”

“ Idiots.” The colonel clenched a fist and stalked away, back rigid.

“ Hate that man,” Parkonis muttered.

Tikaya rubbed her face and tried to clear the wooziness from her brain. Another cavern stretched around them, this one with cracks and buckles marring a floor decorated with bat guano. Its pungent smell tainted the air. Stalactites hung from a ceiling far overhead. No sign of a camp or recent habitation marked the cavern, but her spine tingled with the telltale sense of nearby practitioner work.

A fifty-foot-high butte rose in the center, a natural formation with a steep, jagged face. A single chamber with transparent walls took up the space on top. Lit from within, the bright interior revealed dozens, maybe hundreds, of bristling rockets. Similar to the one in the fort, they stood upright, their outsides loaded with dense strings of colored cubes. Larger black cylinders stood in the middle, and Tikaya had no idea what they might do, but she doubted anything up there existed for a purpose other than devastation.

There was no obvious way to get to the chamber. Two broken pillars and the remains of a ramp had crumbled and collapsed. A cool draft whispered against her cheek. If bats were living in the cave, there must be access to the outside nearby. Several tunnels led from the cavern.

“ Thank you for your help, Gali,” Parkonis said, addressing the woman. “I thought that sleeping gas would be enough, but you were right: one of their guards was too alert.”

“ Tatkar was my colleague for years.” Gali turned icy green eyes on Tikaya. “You better be worth it.”

How nice. Tikaya had found people as amiable as Bocrest to be her new captors.

“ She is.” Parkonis rested a hand on her shoulder.

A thousand questions for him burbled in her mind, chief among them how he was alive and what he was doing with relic raiders, but she would wait until she could get him alone to ask. As long as he was here to vouch for her, she might have the freedom she needed to investigate those weapons and plot their demise. Maybe she could even destroy them before the marines showed up.

Colonel Lancecrest returned, his face composed, though frustration still tensed his body. “You Starcrest’s ally or his prisoner?”

“ She’d never ally with that monster,” Parkonis said.

Tikaya climbed to her feet, pushing back dizziness. She touched her temple. Whatever Parkonis had used to render her unconscious was gone.

“ Captain Bocrest is in charge.” She decided to give them information that didn’t matter. Maybe she could gain their trust if she seemed to hold nothing back. “He kidnapped me from my parents’ plantation and threatened to kill my family if I didn’t translate these runes for him. I have no loyalty to him.”

“ And can you?” Lancecrest asked. “Translate this gibberish?”

Parkonis turned curious eyes toward her.

“ Some,” she said. “I’m learning more every day.”

Lancecrest jerked his chin at Gali. “Test her, witch. See if she’s telling the truth.”

Gali scowled but stepped forward. She cracked her knuckles and flexed her fingers. Lancecrest closed in on Tikaya.

“ Test?” she asked.

She had never failed an academic test in her life, but somehow she doubted these people wanted to assess her ability to categorize vowels. Lancecrest stepped behind her, reinforcing her supposition by taking her arms in a viselike grip. An inkling of what they meant to do stirred in Tikaya’s gut, and she tried to pull away from him. He held her firmly.

“ Telepath?” Tikaya asked Gali.

“ Yes.”

“ Just in case the oath you took matters to you, I do not grant you permission to poke around in my thoughts.” Numerous people on the Kyatt Islands had a knack for telepathy, but it had never concerned Tikaya since back home there were strict laws against intruding without permission.

“ We’re not on Kyatt,” Gali said. “No one here to enforce oaths.”

“ That’s when they matter the most, then, isn’t it?”

The woman stepped forward without answering and raised her fingers. Tikaya tensed. Cursed sea, she did not want someone rooting around in her mind, reading her memories, maybe replacing them with more acceptable ones.

“ I’m sorry, Tikaya,” Parkonis whispered behind her.

In other words, he was abandoning her. He must not have much power in the group. She could not help but think about how Rias had started out with no power amongst the marines and he had never failed to fight for her. She pushed thoughts of him from her mind. They could only get her in trouble here.

Gali’s cool fingers prodded Tikaya’s temple. Something itched inside her mind, like stitches being pulled out. Panic gripped her. These bastards had no right to her thoughts. She yanked her head back.

“ Hold her still,” Gali growled and reached again.

Tikaya kicked her in the gut. The woman doubled over, clutching her stomach and gasping for air.

Lancecrest forced Tikaya to the ground, leaned a knee into her back, and shoved her face to the floor. She tried to twist free, but he wrenched her arms until she gasped with pain. Her cheek smashed against cold rock.

They were too strong. Her fate was unavoidable.

Gali’s hand came down on the back of her head, nails gouging skin. Tikaya felt the other woman’s annoyance, not just in those tense fingers but in her mind.

Images from the last month were dragged into her surface thoughts. Tikaya tried to fight it. She thought of cutting cane on the plantation, her family, school, childhood escapades, anything but-

Rias.

The foreign presence in her mind focused on him, tearing into any thought related to him. And there were a lot. Tears formed in Tikaya’s eyes at the pain the invasion brought, the disdain she felt through the woman’s link. The experience was bad, maybe worse than Ottotark’s attack back in Fort Deadend. For the first time in her life, she regretted not studying the mental sciences. A practitioner would have known how to block a telepath.

After minutes that felt like hours, the presence in her mind dissipated. The hand left Tikaya’s head.

Awareness of her surroundings returned. The weight on her back. Her labored breaths. Gali’s boots before her face. Parkonis’s silence. A hot tear ran down her cheek and splashed on the floor.

“ Well?” Lancecrest asked.

“ You can’t trust her. They’ve duped her into working for them.”

Tikaya focused on their words, groped for equilibrium. And she frowned. Duped? What in her thoughts had suggested that?

“ They must have known she would never willingly help Turgonians, not after they decimated our islands in their war. Admiral Starcrest made her believe he was a prisoner, too, and gained her trust.” Gali snorted. “He tricked her into thinking he loves her, and-this is lush-that the two of them are going to destroy the weapons together. Dear Akahe, Tikaya, I’m embarrassed for you. I could see it if you were eighteen, but you’re not young enough to be that naive.”

Stunned, Tikaya said nothing. The woman had been in her head, read all her thoughts, and that was the conclusion she had come up with? How could she possibly think Rias’s friendship-his love-had been a ruse after all they had gone through?

The weight on Tikaya’s back lifted, and she pushed herself to her knees. Gali stood before her, arms across her chest, pity and annoyance wrestling for room her on face.

“ Love?” Parkonis asked in a soft, stung tone.

Tikaya winced. She would have told him about Rias, but not like this. Maybe the woman would have the humanity not to share everything. But she was shaking her head.

“ You would lecture me on my oath when you’re sleeping with that man?” Gali looked over Tikaya’s shoulder. “Sorry, Parkonis, but your faithful fiancee has been sheet wrestling with Fleet Admiral Starcrest.”

Tikaya remembered an earlier thought where she had lamented having no females to talk to out here. She decided to rescind it.

When Parkonis said nothing, she risked a glance at him. He was staring at her, mouth hanging open, eyes bulging. Not angry, not yet. Still in shock.

“ Parkonis,” she said quietly, trying to ignore Gali’s cold stare. “As far as I’ve known, you’ve been dead for more than a year. The Eagle’s Spirit went down at the end of the war. You never wrote, never sent word. I had no idea I’d ever see you again.”

He closed his mouth, turned his back, and walked away.

“ Leave us, Gali,” Lancecrest said.

The woman shrugged and headed for an empty stretch of cavern. Between one step and the next, she disappeared. An illusion shrouding a camp, Tikaya guessed.

“ Come.” Lancecrest offered a hand.

Tikaya eyed him, surprised he had not simply grabbed her and yanked her to her feet. She got up on her own, but she did follow him as he walked away. He led her past bat guano piles and to a portion of wall engraved with a column of symbols.

“ I’ve only been here a few days,” Lancecrest said, “but I gathered from my little brother that Parkonis wasn’t as good of a translator as he’d hoped. Atner actually wanted you on his team from the beginning. Can you tell me what this says?”

Tikaya hesitated, but it was such a basic sign that she saw little reason to withhold the information. “Lights.”

“ What?”

“ It’s a panel to control the lighting level.”

“ The lighting? You’re sure? Parkonis thought these panels might have something to do with the web.”

Tikaya slid one of the symbols up, and the lighting level in the cavern increased. Down and it decreased.

“ Damn,” Lancecrest said.

“ What’s the web?”

Lancecrest turned toward the invisible camp. “Lork, show her the web!”

A gaunt, wispy-haired man appeared. He lifted his gaze toward the ceiling, and Tikaya felt the tickle of the mental sciences being used. A bat flapped down from the shadowed stalactites and soared toward the weapons room. Before it flew anywhere near the glass, a small explosion lit the air like a miniature star exploding. The bat did not have time to squeal in pain. Its charred body fell, causing three more explosions on the way down. Nothing but ashes remained to trickle to the floor.

Tikaya stared at the fine pile.

“ The kill zone starts about twenty feet up,” Lancecrest said, “and extends to the walls. You see that door in the chamber up there? And the symbols by it? My brother has- had — goggles that make it easy to see them. He got in once by randomly pressing them with that wizard shit he learned on your island.”

“ Telekinetics?” Tikaya suggested.

“ Yes. He lowered a rocket out, but the code changed before he could get back in, and he wasn’t able to find another combination that worked.”

“ How could you let him use that weapon on the men in your fort? The men who trusted you to command them?”

Lancecrest’s jaw clenched. “I didn’t know. Atner just sent a note to get out of the fort with my best men and meet him at the canyon. I still can’t believe he-I know why he did it, but I can’t believe he made that choice.”

“ Why’d he do it?”

“ Keeler.” Lancecrest waved toward the camp, and she guessed he meant the practitioner who had come out to bestir the bat. “Keeler can see what’s happening elsewhere. He found out Starcrest was coming and my brother panicked, figured he had to do anything to delay you all.”

“ Rias isn’t even in charge.”

“ Doesn’t matter. He’s there. And the other man-a captain, isn’t he? — doubtlessly had orders to requisition half the fort to help flush the archaeologists out of the tunnels and get the weapons. Atner probably figured I wouldn’t disobey those orders, even for him.”

“ Would you have?”

“ I don’t know. It doesn’t matter now. Come.” Lancecrest led her to another panel. “What’s this one say?”

“ Temperature and…” Not water, but similar to water. “Humidity,” she realized. “Controls for modifying the cavern atmosphere.”

He sighed. “I was hoping for more from these panels.”

“ I doubt the instructions for disabling the security system are going to be on the wall in the same room as the security system.”

Lancecrest grunted and strode to the last panel of symbols, this one on the backside of the butte and situated fifteen meters from a tunnel entrance. Tikaya did not have to ponder long, for she had translated these exact symbols just a couple days earlier. Her stomach clenched. Rias was not here with his acidic concoction this time.

“ Don’t let your people touch anything on this one,” she said.

“ Security?” Lancecrest perked up. “Weapons?”

“ Cleaning service. What’s down that tunnel?”

“ Labs. What do you mean, cleaning service?”

Tikaya nodded. “We’ve seen them so far near the labs.”

Despite her own words, she prodded an “open” symbol. An invisible door swung outward, and her breath caught. Four stacked cubes waited inside, their deadly orifices pointed her direction.

Lancecrest cursed and jumped back. Tikaya stood frozen a long moment before her thoughts could push past her first instinct of fear. The cubes were dormant for the time being. A complicated drawing on the inside of the door caught her eye. A schematic? A label on top, a grouping of numbers and symbols, nagged her mind. There was something familiar about the arrangement. Oh, it looked like the codes on the instruction sets in the sphere.

“ Can I get some paper and copy this?” she asked.

“ If it’ll help. I can get you the goggles, too, if you want to take a good look.” He pointed at the top of the butte.

If she wanted to take a look? Strange, Lancecrest was treating her better instead of worse since Gali blabbed.

“ Do I have a choice?” Tikaya asked. “I’m used to Turgonians threatening me or my family to ensure my help.”

Lancecrest studied her for a moment. “Starcrest’s a tricky devil on the water, but he’s no asshole who would play mind games with a prisoner. If he says you’re his woman, you are.”

“ And that means something to you?” she asked, not sure whether to be hopeful or not.

“ I respect him. If he’s between me and getting out of here alive, I’m still going to shoot him, but I’m not going to torment you.”

“ Is that a Turgonian tenet? It’s fine to shoot a man you respect, but you don’t mess with his lady?”

A faint smile stretched his lips. “Something like that. My little brother…destroyed things for our whole family. All I’m hoping to do at this point is get out of here alive with some weapons to sell. Ideally, I’ll get those weapons and get out of here before Starcrest shows up.”

“ What happens to Parkonis and the other archaeologists? I assume selling weapons isn’t what most of them signed on for.”

Lancecrest’s jaw tightened. “This isn’t what I signed on for either, but we’re all stuck in this together now. My brother didn’t make his choices alone. Everyone here is going to be wanted for crimes against the emperor. We’re all working for a split of the profits. And if you want Starcrest-and Parkonis-to walk away from this unharmed, you’d best get to work opening that weapons chamber up there. You can make sure there’s no bloodshed.”

No bloodshed. Right. Until whoever he sold the weapons to used them.

Better to let him think she would go along with him though. “Get me the goggles.”

“ Lancecrest!” someone called from the other side of the butte. “The Turgonians are over the chasm!”

“ Already?” Lancecrest cursed and jogged toward the speaker.

As he trotted away, Tikaya eyed the tunnel near the cube cabinet, wondering if she could slip away before someone caught up with her. But, no, it would not take Lancecrest long to notice she did not follow, and for all she knew the tunnel dead-ended. Besides, she wanted to copy that schematic, examine the door symbols, and talk to Parkonis.

She jogged after Lancecrest. He disappeared ahead of her, but she expected that by now. She kept going and between one step and the next, the camp appeared. Crates, backpacks, bedrolls, muskets and bows, and food sacks sprawled about her. The scent of stale sweat mingled with the pervasive guano stench.

Twenty people, several wearing marine uniforms, stood around the wispy-haired fellow, who hunkered over a bowl of water. A clairvoyant, she realized when she spotted images of Bocrest’s men moving on the still surface.

“ How’d they get across?” someone asked.

“ Built a catapult.”

A marine whistled.

“ I wouldn’t have joined this team if I’d known we’d be against Admiral Starcrest,” a woman muttered.

“ Isn’t he dead?”

“ We’ll be dead if we tangle with him.”

“ He’s just a man,” Lancecrest growled. “We’ve laid your wizard traps, and we know the terrain best. The advantage is ours.”

Tikaya edged closer to the bowl, hoping to catch sight of Rias. She wished she could communicate with him somehow, let him know everything that mattered. For the moment, the clairvoyant showed them Bocrest and Ottotark as they removed their parachutes and gathered their gear.

“ Find Starcrest,” Lancecrest said. “Let’s see what they’re planning.”

The image shifted, focusing on Rias and Sicarius. Tikaya wrestled with the urge to kick the water bowl over. Even if she did want to see Rias, it was better if Lancecrest did not know what he planned. She took a step toward the bowl. Lancecrest gripped her forearm to keep her back.

“ How was the ride?” Rias asked.

“ Exhilarating,” Sicarius said in a monotone.

“ I thought we might get a yell of excitement or at least a smile out of you, but I see the emperor has trained you well.”

“ Yes.”

It was like conversing with a rock. Tikaya wondered why Rias bothered, especially when he ought to be worried about her. Not that she wanted him to fall apart, but a little agitation would have been flattering.

“ Scouts will go ahead,” Bocrest said, somewhere beyond the edges of the vision. “See what we’re up against.”

Rias took a step.

“ Not you, Admiral. We need you back here planning brilliance, not wandering around looking for your misappropriated camp follower.”

Rias’s jaw clenched and the tendons sprang out on his neck. There was her agitation. And then some. He looked like he might tear Bocrest’s head off.

Sicarius stopped whatever might have come next in the conversation, raising his hand and saying, “Hold.”

He tilted his head, as if listening to something, but his cool eyes stared straight through the water. The clairvoyant flinched, and the image evaporated.

“ What is it?” Lancecrest asked.

“ That young one has unexpected perception for a Turgonian.”

“ He knows we’re watching? So, what? Get them back. I want you on their every step, so we know when they’re coming.”

The clairvoyant closed his eyes and draped his arms across his knees, palms up. Nothing happened. “I can’t. He’s blocking us somehow.”

Lancecrest’s fists clenched and unclenched. “Who is that boy?” he asked Tikaya. “He’s not in uniform, and he’s too young to be giving orders.”

She shrugged. “The marines didn’t tell me much.”

Lancecrest considered her, and she thought he might call Gali over, but the marines and relic raiders were watching him, and he turned to them instead.

“ Time to get ready for company, people. Morrofat, take your squad out. Your job is to delay that team.” Lancecrest dug in a rucksack and pulled out a clunky pair of goggles that reminded Tikaya of the eye protection she had worn on the tundra. He tossed them to her. “You know what your job is. We’ve found dangerous relics that we can throw at Starcrest. If you care about him, you’d best get me those weapons before he gets within range.”