Tikaya stood near the spot where the bat had been disintegrated. From there, the door to the weapons chamber was visible, and the runes glowed beside it. No ropes bound her hands—Lancecrest had decided she needed them for writing—but she had a guard. Gali. The woman huffed and sighed as she paced about, fiddling with a pistol. Her telepathy worried Tikaya more than the weapon. She wanted to copy the cube schematic on the chance Rias could do something with it. And she could escape the raiders long enough to meet up with him.
“You’re not looking at them,” Gali snapped. “I imagine that’ll make the translation difficult.”
“I’m ruminating,” Tikaya said.
“On how to escape, I know.” Gali slapped the pistol across her palm. “Ruminate on getting through that door.”
Tikaya held the goggles before her spectacles and peered through the magnifying lenses. The symbols grew crisper, the nuances easier to make out. They were numbers. Four rows of four, each different. She only recognized a few, but she could look up the others with the sphere if she could find a private place to take it out.
She pushed the tool from her mind. Better these people did not know about it.
With the enhanced vision, she examined the rest of the weapons chamber. A cuboid contraption hung from a ceiling and was attached to a large pipe disappearing into the cavern depths far above. Some kind of fan or ventilation system to suck away fumes if there was a break or accident? Probably not fast enough to save the life of the person inside, but if the door shut and that fan activated perhaps destroying the weapons would not prove deadly for everyone down here.
“What does one do with the symbols?” Tikaya asked. “Push them?”
“I wasn’t there,” Gali said, “but I heard Atner stood down here and moved them around with telekinetics.”
Gali stretched a hand toward the butte. One of the numbers indented and glowed red. She twitched her fingers, and it slid one place to the right. The number on the right edge disappeared and reappeared on the left.
“How’d you do that?” Tikaya asked.
“A bit of sideways pressure. The runes glide around naturally, as if they’ve been greased. Atner fiddled around for days and finally got lucky. But he only got in once and the symbols changed after that.”
“But he got a rocket out. How was he able to get it down without the web destroying it in midair?”
Gali shrugged. “The web didn’t attack it.”
“So, the defense system won’t attack what it’s supposed to defend?” Tikaya wondered if there was anything else it would not attack.
The symbol winked off, though it did not return to its original slot. Three red beams lanced out of the clear door. Tikaya jumped, nearly dropping the goggles. The beams scoured the air in front of the door. After a moment, they cut off.
“I guess if you don’t punch in the correct code while you’re standing up there, you get incinerated.” She chewed on the side of her mouth. “Your telekinesis does offer a workaround the original builders probably didn’t consider. If they were here as long ago as I suspect, humans wouldn’t have had the skill yet. Relatively speaking, our command of the mental sciences is a recent development in civilization. It’s not something that started appearing until after we developed agriculture and became more agrarian rather than hunter-gatherer. More free time, creation of a leisure class, and—”
“We didn’t bring you here for a lecture,” Gali snapped. “Figure out how to get in before your cursed Turgonian lover gets here.”
Tikaya turned her attention back to the numbers. The ones she recognized were prime: three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen. Could the whole series just be the first sixteen primes? She had not learned numbers beyond twenty yet, so she would have to look them up. Presumably, the sixteen digits had to be arranged in a specific order to open the door. If Atner Lancecrest had pushed them randomly, he truly had gotten ‘lucky.’ Rias could no doubt give her the exact odds of guessing correctly, but what she remembered of studying permutations in school suggested a ridiculously high number of combinations.
She did not have time for guessing. If the code changed regularly, it was probably a puzzle of some sort. If one knew the goal, one had a better chance of solving it. Could it be as simple as placing them in order? No, too obvious to someone who spoke the language, and the scientists who had built this place had surely had their own people in mind as potential trespassers, not the cave-dwelling humans who had occupied the world at the time.
There had to be more to it. Tikaya dug a sheet of paper out and copied the numbers for later perusal.
A distant clanking started up. She cocked an ear, trying to identify it. The noise had a muffled quality and did not sound like it came from within the cavern. A few men ran out of the camp and into a tunnel.
“I want to take rubbings of the panels too,” Tikaya said.
“Whatever,” Gali said.
Relieved, Tikaya pretended no more than vague scientific curiosity as she copied the panels—and the schematic on the inside of the cube cabinet.
“Can you work those?” Gali asked suspiciously.
“No.” Tikaya closed the cabinet and tucked the rubbings into her pocket along with the numbers.
“Tikaya?”
She turned to find Parkonis standing a few feet away. The remaining marines and relic raiders carried bows or firearms. Parkonis had nothing more offensive than a utility knife. The last year had apparently not turned him into a fighter.
Gali backed away a few paces, giving them a semblance of privacy.
“Parkonis,” Tikaya said, not sure what else to say.
He pushed a tangle of curly hair out of his eyes. “I’m sorry I ran off.”
“Earlier today?” she asked. “Or a year ago?”
He grimaced.
“What happened out there, Par? You obviously got off your ship, but why couldn’t you come home?”
“The Turgonians sunk us, just as you heard, but Atner Lancecrest happened by and rescued those left alive. There were only four of us. He showed us the runes from this place, and I was intrigued, of course. He swore us to secrecy before telling us anything about them, then asked if we wanted to join his team, to travel to the source and work on translating a previously undiscovered language. He was leaving right away to recruit others from Nuria and the islands. There was no time to come home. It was a dream opportunity, Tikaya. I couldn’t refuse.”
“You don’t find it suspicious that he just ‘happened by’ right after the Turgonians attacked you? He was Turgonian himself. Maybe he wanted to appear a benevolent rescuer, but actually set up the whole thing. Maybe he had a deal with the captain of the ship that sank yours. All so he could get his hands on a handful of grateful archaeologists. Are you sure you had a choice about coming?”
“That’s far-fetched, Tikaya. Atner wasn’t a bad fellow.”
“Wasn’t a—he killed everyone in that fort out there. In a ghastly way. And those were his countrymen!”
Parkonis winced. “He was desperate at that point. We didn’t... I didn’t have anything to do with that. I swear. I didn’t know about the weapons when I agreed to come. We were just looking for relics, and in truth I only cared about the language.”
Yes, Tikaya could understand that temptation. She stepped toward him and softened her voice. “Even if you joined voluntarily—especially if you joined voluntarily—why didn’t you write, Par? How could you let us believe, for a whole year... We had your funeral. I stood next to your weeping sister and parents. This devastated them. And me too. I spent months trying to get over...” Her voice broke. She was still struggling to resolve this new reality with her memories.
Parkonis avoided her eyes. The distant clanking continued, like metal beating against rock.
“I should have written,” he said. “I just didn’t know how to without explaining everything. I was heading off to Turgonian territory, and I knew it’d be dangerous. I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Worry! I thought you were dead. How could worrying for your safety be worse than believing you dead?”
“I know, I realize that now. I was a fool. You were always the smart one. You weren’t going to marry me for my brains, were you?” He grinned, a disarmingly boyish grin that she knew well. And she knew when he was using it to cover something.
She folded her arms over her chest. “Did you not want me to worry or did you not want me to find out about the language?” She watched his eyes as she spoke, waiting for—yes, there was a wince. “Colonel Lancecrest said his brother wanted me on the team from the beginning. Are you the one who talked him out of recruiting me?”
Parkonis looked away. “I told him you wouldn’t work for relic raiders, yes.”
“You wouldn’t either, at least I didn’t think so. But we do funny things for a chance at history, don’t we? I’ll wager you wanted to be the first to translate this new language, something you wouldn’t be able to lay claim to, not solely, if I came along and helped.”
He opened and closed his mouth several times, and she knew she was right.
“I didn’t think we’d be gone that long,” he finally whispered. “I thought, when we got back, we could pick up where we left off...”
“I understand.” Tikaya sighed. And she did. Hadn’t she been enticed by that language too?
“You do?” Hope widened his eyes.
“I understand, but I wouldn’t have made that choice. I would have wanted you to come along, to be a partner in the translating, even if it meant you got the credit.”
“But I wouldn’t have gotten credit. You were always first.” He shrugged helplessly. “It was always you.”
She rubbed her face and wondered if that clanking was in her skull. He was missing the point. Or she was. Maybe she couldn’t truly understand what he felt, always being second best. Either way, she was beginning to think it would have been too much between them, even if Rias had never come along. She thought of him, of all he had lost, and of the temptation Sicarius had laid at his feet. So much more than accolades. But he had rejected it because of her. At least, he had before Parkonis showed up and kidnapped her. What if Rias believed he had lost her? Would he no longer have a reason to say no to that temptation?
“Tikaya?” Parkonis asked.
She tried to focus on him, though a new urgency fueled her intent. She had to escape and find Rias before he made a choice he would regret.
“Whatever happens here...” She squeezed Parkonis’s arm. “I want you to know that I love you, and I’m beyond relieved that you’re alive, but I can’t go home with you. I can’t marry you.”
“What?” He reeled back. “Because of that Turgonian?”
“No.” She did not want to get into that now, but Parkonis grabbed her arm before she could step away.
“Don’t be a fool, Tikaya. You don’t love that monster. How could you? It’s a clear case of captive complex. No matter how badly you’re treated, you start sympathizing with your captors, even wanting to please them, because you’re grateful they’re not killing you.”
“I know what the term means, and that isn’t the case.” If anyone had captive complex, it was he. Even after hearing how he had come to be here, she could hardly believe Parkonis would be a party to this weapons-selling scheme.
“It’s not your fault. I forgive you. You were just trying to stay alive. Who knows what that monster would have done if you’d fought him?”
“He’s not a monster. I know our people have no reason to like him, and you even less, but he did save your life from that assassin. We can trust him. He disobeyed orders two years ago, and he refused to have our president assassinated. He’s been exiled since.”
“Exile?” Parkonis snorted. “Is that what they told you?”
“He’s only here because of his familiarity with these tunnels—he was part of the original mission that found them. He’s been as much a prisoner as I. He was the only ally I had.”
“Tikaya, don’t you see? It’s all an act. That man outranks a captain. If he’s been pretending to be a prisoner, it’s only been to fool you, to win your sympathy. He’s insidious, they all are. They’ve been tricking you.”
“I’m not a fool, Parkonis.”
“It’s not your fault. They say he’s a genius. He’s probably a master of manipulation.”
Tikaya groaned and dropped her forehead in her hand. Why couldn’t he just be jealous? Instead, he thought she was an idiot who had been brainwashed. This was a glimpse of what going home would be like. Torture. Her heart cringed at the idea of never seeing her family again, but maybe her notion of sailing off to some obscure port with Rias was a better idea than she realized.
“You have to come back with me, Tikaya. We’ll take you to see a doctor, someone who can heal your mind. You just need distance, some time to return to your old life. If—”
The lighting flickered and went out.
Tikaya whirled, but blackness swallowed everything. As with the marines, the raiders had been relying on the alien lighting and nobody had lanterns lit. Timorous voices called out questions while others cursed in irritation. The symbols at the weapons door and on the panels still glowed, but they did not provide enough illumination to diminish the darkness.
“Tikaya?” Parkonis’s hand bumped her chest, then found her arm.
She gripped him back. With the light gone, she abruptly grew aware of how many thousands of feet of earth lay above their heads. Since she had been unconscious for the trip to the raiders’ cavern, she did not know the way back. Half a dozen tunnels exited this place, so one could wander forever in the darkness.
A distant roar sounded. Or one could wander until one was eaten.
“Not them again,” Parkonis whispered.
She recognized it too. The humanoid creatures they had fought the first day.
Parkonis’s grip tightened. It did nothing to reassure her, not like Rias’s would have. She started. Could Rias have manufactured this? As a distraction?
Light appeared at the edge of the camp. Lancecrest strode toward them carrying a lantern, and she felt silly for her panicked concerns about not finding a way out. Of course, the raiders would have kerosene and lanterns, just as the marines did. Enough to last many days, she was sure. The roar came again. Closer this time.
“Come.” Lancecrest waved an arm. “Return to camp until we figure out what’s going on.”
“Gladly,” Parkonis muttered.
Tikaya glanced over her shoulder. She could no longer see the tunnel Lancecrest had said led to labs, but she wondered if this might be her opportunity to disappear. Had Rias created this for her sake? Or did he think she wanted to be here, with Parkonis?
Gali stepped out of the shadows, her pistol aimed at Tikaya.
Right. It would take more of a distraction to escape, and sprinting into dark monster-filled tunnels without a lantern and a means of defense would be unwise.
Inside the camp, more lanterns had been lit. People hustled about, grabbing weapons. An unclaimed bow and quiver rested on a crate, and she weaved through the clutter toward it. If those creatures were coming, maybe Lancecrest would not object to arming her.
A heavy hand landed on her shoulder.
“You’re sitting here out of trouble,” Lancecrest said.
Before she could protest, he grabbed her arms and drew them behind her back.
“Wait,” she said. “I can help fight. I know how to use a bow.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
A moment later, Tikaya knelt with her wrists tied behind her. She endured it with no more than a sigh until his hands fumbled at her ears.
“No!” She ducked her head.
Too late. Lancecrest removed her spectacles. Everything more than a few feet away grew fuzzy.
“I doubt you’ll wander far without these.”
Tikaya craned her neck, trying to see where he was putting them. He stuffed them in a pocket without any concern for protecting the lenses.
“Bastard,” she growled.
A shot fired, echoing from the closest tunnel. Everyone in camp dropped behind cover, but no squad of marines burst into the cavern. Three more shots followed, along with a distant angry yell. Still, no one entered. The raiders shifted uneasily.
Tikaya could not imagine the Turgonians tipping their hand before attacking, but maybe they had run into the creatures. Or Lancecrest’s traps.
She could not stay here and wait for something to happen. A nearby lantern gave her enough light to see, and the white and green fletching on the arrows in the quiver caught her eye. She edged closer. Maybe if she could filch an arrow, she could use the head to cut her bonds. That would be easier if her hands were in front of her, but she had to try.
Something fluttered above the tunnel entrance. It was too far away for her to identify, but someone fired. Black powder smoke wafted into the air.
“That was a bat, you lummox,” Lancecrest said. “And you just confirmed to the Turgonians that we’re in here.”
“Sorry.”
“Scientists with guns,” Lancecrest muttered. “What was my brother thinking?”
As the smoke rose higher, slowly dissipating, a faint white beam appeared in the haze. Tikaya blinked, wondering if she imagined the light. But, no, even with her spectacles off, she could see a beam. It reminded her of those emitted by the cleaning machines. Maybe that was all the “web” was, a pattern of beams crisscrossing the cavern, invisible under regular illumination. But if smoke revealed them, one might avoid them.
Ideas percolated in her mind. But first, escape.
Staying low, she crawled toward the crate. Though men and women crouched all around her, their focus was outward. Why worry about the tied, half-blind philologist?
A couple more feet brought her to the quiver. Gali glanced at her and frowned, a what-are-you-doing expression stamping her face.
Tikaya attempted what she hoped appeared a guileless smile. “Can you help me find my spectacles?”
The woman scowled.
“Incoming!” someone barked.
All eyes turned toward the closest tunnel. Tikaya rose, turned, and slipped an arrow out of the quiver.
No one noticed. She dropped to her knees, putting her back to the crate. She found the sharp metal head and maneuvered it until the edge slipped between her wrists. Careful not to cut skin, she eased it up and down against the rope. The awkward position made it impossible to apply much pressure. She held back a scowl, knowing this would take a while.
It was not marines but two black bipedal creatures that burst into the cavern. Even without her spectacles, she recognized the towering muscular beings. The illusion spell did not fool them; they barreled straight for the camp.
Muskets fired and bows twanged.
Tikaya rubbed the arrowhead against her ropes.
The practitioners threw up an invisible barrier, and the creatures bounced back while men and women fired through it. The scent of black powder permeated the camp. Smoke stung Tikaya’s eyes, but, in the rising haze, she spotted more beams in the air. They crisscrossed irregularly, nothing symmetrical or predictable like a spider web. None had more than a foot or two of open—safe—space between them. Even if they were visible, climbing past them might not be possible.
The rope snapped, and her wrists came apart.
She eyed the back of the cavern, trying to guess the distance to the cleaning cubes and the tunnel next to them, but, even if she had her spectacles, darkness would have thwarted her estimates. On the other side of the camp, Lancecrest stood, reloading a rifle. The creature battle had him distracted, but she did not see how she could retrieve her spectacles without him noticing.
In front of the camp, blood streamed from the beasts’ dark flesh. Their muscles flexed and strained as they hammered the invisible barrier. Roars of pain and anger echoed through the cavern. Sweat gleamed on the practitioners’ faces. One flexed his fingers. A pulse of power hammered the beasts. They flew backward, and landed hard, but they came up roaring with anger. Another volley was fired at them.
Everyone appeared busy.
Tikaya grabbed a lantern and slid bow and quiver off the crate. She turned the flame down so it would not make her a target as she ran, then slipped toward the back edge of camp.
Someone shot one of the creatures in the eye, and it toppled to the floor. A ragged cheer went up.
Tikaya eased around sacks of corn meal and rice. A couple of steps and she would be out of the camp. She resisted the urge to hop the few obstacles and sprint for the wall. That would likely draw someone’s eyes. Stealth would serve her better.
“The linguist is escaping!” someone yelled.
So much for stealth.
She bolted. Her boot caught on the uneven ground, and she slammed to her knees even as a shot fired over her head. They would rather shoot her than let her escape back to the others?
Gulping, she leaped to her feet and sprinted to the wall, lantern and bow banging against her legs with every step. That was the first time her clumsiness had saved her life—she could not count on it happening again.
Tikaya plunged into the darkness, using the blurry crimson runes as a guide. She reached the wall and stood to the side, not wanting to be silhouetted against them for the shooters.
Footsteps hammered the floor behind her.
She jabbed the symbol that opened the cabinet, but nothing happened. Growling, she slowed her movements and added a rotation. The cabinet popped open.
The footsteps neared. Lancecrest. She didn’t have enough time.
Then a black shape blurred in from the side, crashing into him. The remaining beast.
Lancecrest yelled and flung his arms up.
As soon as it finished him, it would be on her. Tikaya pulled out a cube, praying it would not activate while she held it. Arms laden, she started toward the tunnel.
“Over here, you ugly pisser!” someone cried and a psi wave pulsed through the air.
It struck the creature full on, hurling it twenty feet. The edge of the wave caught Tikaya and smashed her against the wall.
Lancecrest patted the floor for his rifle. His men poured out of the camp and moved to surround the creature. And her.
She sprinted for the tunnel.
An arrow clipped Tikaya’s sleeve and shattered against the wall. Fear surged through her, and she ran faster.
Someone conjured a yellow orb of light, and it spun her direction, illuminating her, making her an easier target.
“Stop!” A man pointed a pistol as he ran at her, his face a rictus of determination.
She had to keep going, hope his aim was poor.
A shot fired, and Tikaya dove, knowing it would not be fast enough. But no blast of pain came. The man’s musket hit the floor with a clatter, and he collapsed a heartbeat later. Tikaya scrambled into a crouch and squinted into the gloom behind him. A tall blurry figure in Turgonian black stood in a tunnel entrance on the far side of the cavern. Rias?
She stepped in that direction, but he waved her toward her closer tunnel.
“Starcrest!” Lancecrest fired his rifle.
Rias flew back with a grunt. Tikaya gaped. It looked like he had been hit, but, curse her eyes, she could not tell. He ducked back into the tunnel. Lancecrest raced after him.
Tikaya took a step that direction, but an explosion roared, and the ground heaved. She was thrown onto her side, and the lantern flew from her grip. The cavern filled with confused yells and cries of pain.
A stalactite plunged to the floor where it shattered and hurled shards everywhere. A second explosion ripped through the earth. A sinkhole opened up in the floor, and rock poured in like water over a fall.
Tikaya scrambled for the nearby tunnel, hoping the alien walls would hold up better than the cavern. She had no idea where the lantern had gone. Even as the floor pitched, she clutched the cube and the bow, determined not to lose anything else.
Blackness smothered the tunnel. Three steps in, another concussion boomed, hurling her against a wall. Her breath whooshed out with a pained grunt. The bow and cube flew from her hands. She crumpled to the floor and barely had the presence of mind to curl into a ball with her hands protecting her head as further booms rocked the tunnel.
Nearby, rock shattered and cracked like gunfire. Tikaya cringed, expecting the ceiling to collapse at any second. Finally, the explosions ended, but rubble continued to pelt the floor. She kept waiting for rocks to hit her, but her tunnel seemed secure. Secure, but dark. Lifting her head to peer about was worthless since blackness pressed in from all sides. Worse, dust clogged the air and invaded her throat. She coughed and wheezed as fine particles smothered her tongue.
Distant, muffled yells made it to her ears, but she could not pick out words. She shifted to get to her feet. Her fingers bumped a hard edge. She jerked back. The cube. If ever there was a mess, surely an earthquake—or whatever that had been—qualified. She held her breath, expecting the cleaning device to flare to life, for the orifice to glow red, the beam to lance out.
But the cube remained inert.
Whatever the reason, she thanked her luck and hunted for the bow. She found it wedged under a pile of rubble. Rubble that blocked the mouth of the tunnel from floor to ceiling. Cave-in.
She hoped there was another way back to the cavern. And that she could find it in the dark.
Tikaya stood and started to brush herself off, but a new concern made her freeze. How far did the cave-in extend? What if it covered part, or all, of the cavern? And the tunnels beyond? Her heart lurched. What if Rias or Parkonis had been caught? She still didn’t know if Rias had been shot. Damn, damn.
She clawed at the rubble, trying to dig a hole. She had to get back in and check.
A minute later, her fingers were bleeding and she had made no progress. Breath rasping in her ears, she backed away. She would not get in that way. She needed to find another way around. She needed to—
No. Tikaya wiped sweat from her face and forced herself to calm down, to think. Rias would want her to continue with the mission, not tear off, hunting for him. For all she knew, he might have set this all up. She remembered the clinking. Had the marines been crawling around in passages beneath the floor, placing blasting sticks?
She turned around and felt her way along the wall, trying not to feel guilty for walking away from Parkonis and Rias. She had to ensure those weapons were destroyed, and she could not assume the cave-in had done that. In fact, she would be shocked if it had.
The darkness made the trek feel longer, but she doubted she had walked far before she came to a four-way intersection labeled with glowing runes. Three possible directions, three labs. Biology, alchemy, and... She touched the last one, a new combination of symbols. Mechanical? That sounded promising, but she ought to let Rias know which way she had gone. She dropped her hand and snorted because her bloody fingers had already smeared a sign on the runes.
She padded down the hall. A door whispered open, and she stepped onto a landing. She expected darkness inside, but low blue lighting pulsed from the walls. Some kind of backup illumination, perhaps.
This lab was larger than others she had visited and had an upper level as well as a lower. She chose the upper, less out of any notion of what she might need, but because it would not be immediately visible to someone walking in.
Upstairs, blurry cabinets lined the walls and high stations dominated the center. She had to wander close for the edges to sharpen. They reminded her more of woodworking benches than alchemy stations. Intricate black tools she could not identify were mounted to the table tops and hung from the ceilings on articulating arms. Rias would probably be fascinated by them.
Her gut twisted with concern at the thought of him, but she forced herself to focus on the one thing she could accomplish here. She dug her notes, the sphere, and a pencil out of her pocket.
Tikaya put more obstacles between herself and the landing before stopping at a countertop that was not too high for her purposes. She thumbed the sphere on and identified the rest of the numbers from the door pad. More primes, but not the first sixteen as she had guessed. The sequence skipped a few: three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-nine, thirty-one, thirty-seven, forty-one, forty-three, sixty-one, sixty-seven, and seventy-three.
“All right, Rias,” she muttered. “Where are you? I’ve translated them and done my half.” As soon as the words came out, she snorted at herself. Yes, they made a good team, but she had done this sort of thing before she met him.
There had to be some significance in the missing prime numbers. Maybe these were the first sixteen that could be turned into a combination that allowed one particular thing. She drew a bunch of four by four boxes, mimicking the layout on the door pad, and scribbled the numbers in. Four rows, four columns, sixteen numbers. She added and multiplied. She looked for patterns.
The door hissed open.
Rias? Tikaya lifted her head and almost called out, but could not see the landing and caught herself before she could give away her position. She waited for the sound of footfalls, thinking she might be able to identify his tread, but there was no sound at all.
The door hissed shut.
Quietly, oh so quietly, Tikaya picked up her work. It was possible someone had looked in, not seen anything interesting, and left, but she doubted it. That cursed assassin was the only one who walked without making a sound, and she had no idea what his intentions might be for her, especially now that she had, from the Turgonian viewpoint, escaped with the enemy. And if Rias had run off, too, Sicarius would know he had no intention of accepting the emperor’s offer.
Tikaya twisted the symbols to open a couple of cabinets beneath a nearby workstation. One was empty enough she thought she could fit inside.
She stuffed the cube in one cabinet and knelt before the larger one. Careful not to make a sound, she slid boxes and tools out of the way. She could barely breathe, but she fit.
She pulled the door most of the way shut. Since the cabinets had to be opened with a turn of the symbols, she assumed she could not get out if she locked herself in. Terrifying thought that. No one would ever find her, and the cabinet would be her tomb. The assassin might spot the door slightly ajar, but she had to risk it.
Silence reigned in the lab. Tikaya could hear her heart beating in her ears, her shallow breathing. The awkward position cramped her diaphragm. Minutes dragged past.
She closed her eyes and rearranged digits in her head. The four-by-four box reminded her of a Skiltar Square, those puzzles where the goal was to arrange the numbers so that every column, row, and diagonal added up to the same sum. It seemed unlikely an alien race would have the same math games, but she rearranged and totaled the digits in her head anyway, seeing if she could find a combination that worked from all sides. It surprised her when she found an arrangement where each option added up to one hundred twenty. Could that be the way into the weapons cache?
Her fingers tingled with excitement. Or maybe numbness from sitting scrunched up in a cabinet. Her tailbone ached. She longed to crawl out and check her math with pencil and paper. Maybe Sicarius had left, or had never been there to start with.
Tikaya lifted her hand to the door, about to push it open. Then someone glided past the crack.
Black clothing, blond hair.
She held her breath and closed her eyes, as if the assassin might feel her stare through the crack. He had sensed the clairvoyant watching him, after all.
A minute later, the door hissed again, and she spilled out of the cabinet. Sitting on the floor beneath the pulsing blue light, she checked her math with pencil and paper. Every row, every column, and even the diagonals added up to one hundred and twenty. Maybe it meant nothing. Or maybe it was the solution to the puzzle.
She hopped to her feet, longing to go check it, but thanks to the cave-in she was not sure how to get back to the cavern.
The door hissed again. Tikaya cursed to herself. Now what?
Footsteps sounded on the landing. She reached for the cabinet door, ready to hide again.
“Tikaya?” Rias.
Relief swarmed her. “Up here!”
She skirted the workstations and almost crashed into him at the top of the stairs. He wore his rucksack and carried a rifle, but he managed to envelop her in a fierce hug. She clamped onto him just as fiercely, burying her face in his neck. He smelled of black powder and blood, but it didn’t matter.
“You came for me,” she whispered.
“Of course.”
“The explosions... I was afraid you were...”
“Me too,” he said, voice hoarse. “I feared you’d been caught in that cave-in. Bocrest was too quick to light the charges. He was supposed to wait until—it doesn’t matter now. If I’ve succeeded, they think the weapons are buried and I’m dead.”
She lifted her arms, intending to hook them over his shoulders, but her fingers encountered dampness. A torn section of uniform wrapped his biceps like a bandage. She drew back, staring at blood on her hand.
“You’re wounded!”
“Lancecrest got lucky.” Rias twitched a shoulder. “It’s just a scrape. It’ll be fine. Besides, it was worth it. He was carrying something you might find useful.” He unbuttoned a pocket, withdrew her spectacles, and draped them over her ears.
Tikaya slumped against his chest. She should have been elated to have her vision back, but a lump of guilt lodged in her throat. “You got shot trying to help me. I’m sorry.”
Rias took her face in his hands. “I’d risk a lot more than a trifling arm to help you.”
Comforted by his words, she tilted her head back.
He seemed on the verge of kissing her, but he cleared his throat and glanced around. “Are you...alone?”
“Yes, though Sicarius was here a few minutes ago.” She realized he had probably been wondering about Parkonis, but his eyes widened at the mention of the assassin.
“He was? Rust, he’s not supposed to be on this side of the cave-in. He must have found a way through.” He scrubbed his face. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and be able to avoid him.”
“I haven’t seen Parkonis since before the explosions,” Tikaya said. “Do you know if he... Did any of the raiders make it?”
“I didn’t see him amongst the dead.” Rias took a deep breath. “Tikaya, I’ll help you find him, but I need you to know... When he appeared and absconded with you I... My first thought was to hurl myself into that chasm. But there’s a stigma against suicide in my culture, and regardless it’s always seemed like giving up, which isn’t something I’ve ever strived to master. I fully intend to fight for you.”
“Rias—”
“I know he represents your dream, the life you always wanted, and I know its selfish of me to want you when it could alienate you from your family, but... How is it he’s been alive a year and never found a way to let you know? I would have toppled an empire to get back to you.”
“Rias—”
“I can’t walk away and let him have you, Tikaya. Not if there’s a chance...”
“Rias.”
He opened his mouth again, but she flattened her palm over his lips. His shoulders slumped, and wariness hooded his eyes.
“I appreciate hearing those things very much.” She grinned at the idea of him toppling an empire—for most people, that was just an expression, but she wouldn’t put it beyond his means. “But there’s no need for you to go on.” She lowered her hand, brushing his lips with her thumb. “You have me.”
He gaped at her in stunned silence.
“You have me for a lot of reasons,” she said quietly, “but especially because you’re willing to give up everything to be here at my side, plotting against your people to destroy those weapons. The definition of a good man is someone who makes the moral choice when temptation invites him to do otherwise. The definition of a hero is someone who makes that moral choice even when temptation, threat of reprisal, and the mores of his culture invite him to do otherwise.” She considered her words and issued a self-deprecating smirk. “That was preachy, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, no, I liked it. Especially the part where you’re calling me a hero.” He grinned, eyes sparkling, and her heart danced.
“I’m sure I’m not the first, Fleet Admiral Starcrest.”
“In Turgonia, you’re a hero if you sink more ships than anyone else.” He tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and laid his forehead against hers. “I like your definition better.”
“Good. I hope you like this too: I don’t want you worrying about being selfish because you want to have a life with me. I want one with you too. Some people are worth changing your dreams for.” She kissed him, wishing there was time for more. “I want to be with you. Always. Even if it means we’re both exiles on your forsaken prison island.”
Rias’s grip tightened. “Cursed ancestors, don’t say that.”
“It’s the truth, though I’m going to be terribly disappointed if the preeminent military strategist of the era can’t outsmart a teenage assassin in order to avoid that fate.”
Whatever Rias’s retort was going to be, it was lost when the door hissed open.
Before Tikaya could do more than think of hiding, Sicarius strode in. His gaze swiveled upward to lock on them. The pulsing blue light painted his face in eerie shadows. Blood stained his short blond hair, spattered the side of his face, and painted his hands. As those dark hard eyes raked her, she had an unsettling hunch none of it was his. Two pistols were jammed into his belt, and he carried a dagger. A drop of blood fell from the blade and splashed on the landing.
“Sicarius, good,” Rias said.
Good? The assassin looked like he was about to kill both of them. Tikaya stifled the incredulous expression that wanted to waltz across her face.
“Do you have the door symbols from the journal?” Rias asked.
“You assured Captain Bocrest you were placing the blasting sticks to provide a distraction, but the tunnels came down in such a way that he believed the weapons cavern had been buried and you with it.” Sicarius spoke in such an emotionless monotone it was almost possible to miss the accusation in those words. “I informed the captain that it was unlikely you would miscalculate so badly. The marines are searching the tunnels for you and her.” His cool eyes flicked Tikaya’s way.
She groaned inwardly. The plan would have worked if the emperor’s perceptive henchman wasn’t here. She glanced at Rias, almost expecting him to dive behind the railing and rip his pistol free for a shot, but he did not.
“Demolitions are dangerous and sometimes unpredictable,” Rias said. “We can, of course, rejoin the others now, though why not get through the locked door and finish the mission while the relic raiders are too scattered to guard their cache? Do you have the symbols?”
“Yes,” Sicarius said, no sign on his face of whether he believed Rias’s lies. “I already tried them.”
“How?” Tikaya asked.
No doubt, he was agile enough to scale the side of that butte, but not with those invisible beams waiting to slice off limbs.
“Bow and arrow,” Sicarius said.
Rias lifted an eyebrow toward Tikaya. He probably had not had as good a look at the entryway as she had. She nodded thoughtfully. If Gali had used telekinesis to nudge the symbols around, she supposed something thrown—or shot—against them could do the same job.
“You lined them up?” Tikaya had assumed the numbers she copied were a different set than the ones that had appeared the day Lancecrest got in.
“As close as I could. Not all the symbols matched those in the journal.”
“Maybe you misread them,” Rias said.
Those dark eyes turned a shade cooler. “I did not.”
“I’ve been told the symbols change periodically,” Tikaya said. “It was probably designed so people who knew the secret to the puzzle could always get in, providing they had the math skills, whereas others would have, well, the trouble Lancecrest’s team has had.”
“You know the secret?” Sicarius glided up the stairs, eyes locked on her.
Rias dropped to the step in front of her, blocking the assassin’s advance. Sicarius halted.
“I’m close,” Tikaya said. Or not even remotely close. It was one of the two. “It would help to see the symbols you have that worked before, even if they don’t now.”
For a long moment, Sicarius stared past Rias’s shoulder at her. Finally, he wiped the dagger, sheathed it with the myriad others he carried, and handed her the torn scrap of paper, neatly folded.
“Thank you.” Half the numbers were the same. She would have to check the sphere to translate the others. “I have some ideas about how to get through the web.” Maybe pretending to include Sicarius in their plans would make him more likely to believe they shared the same goal. She put a hand on Rias’s shoulder. “Can you make something that causes smoke? A lot of smoke?”
“With the right ingredients, yes.” Rias snapped his fingers. “Sicarius, can you get us some bat guano from the cavern?”
Tikaya almost choked. Bat guano?
Sicarius’s eyes narrowed. “There is no potassium nitrate in these labs?”
Of course. Potassium nitrate—salt peter—was harvested in bat guano-rich caves, and it was one of the core ingredients in black powder. The kid was bright. They would have to be very careful—and probably lucky—to trick him into helping.
“I haven’t seen any,” Tikaya said. Which was true. With her spectacles missing she had not bothered examining the lab closely.
“I’ll prepare the vats and put together the rest of the ingredients to make some smoke bombs,” Rias said. “And Tikaya will work on the entry code for us. We can finish your mission before Bocrest even misses you.”
“Bat guano,” Sicarius said. “Very well.”
As soon as the door shut behind him, Tikaya and Rias grabbed each other’s arms and started to talk at the same time.
“You first,” Rias said.
“First, I think it’ll be a lot easier to find potassium nitrate in one of these labs than making it from scratch, but I assume you’re just trying to keep him busy.”
Rias nodded. “Yes.”
“Second, can you look at this and tell me what you think? These are the translated numbers from the door pad.” She fished out the page with her solution for the puzzle, wincing as she handed it to him. It had seemed a logical guess during her in-cabinet mulling, but now that she had to share the hypothesis with someone else, she feared it a foolish one.
“A Skiltar Square?” Rias asked. “It looks like you solved it. In Turgonia, you can get books full of them to entertain your precocious children.”
He smirked, and she wondered how many his parents had foisted on him. Her amusement at the idea faded quickly.
“This can’t be right then,” she said. “Too simple for these people. And surely they wouldn’t have had similar puzzles to what we have.”
“Why not? In your studies, haven’t you found that the fundamental properties of numbers are the same in every language, amongst every people? Mathematics surely transcends humanity, existing whether we do or not, so it doesn’t seem odd to me that another species would play the same sorts of games with numbers. And why wouldn’t this entrance code be simple? Do you think someone carrying a toxic weapon up a ramp would have wanted to stand outside the door for three hours making calculations? What if he dropped one of those poison-filled vials and it broke at his feet? Big oops, eh?”
Tikaya laughed. She had not considered that.
“Besides,” Rias said, giving her an appreciative smile. “Those squares aren’t that easy to solve. Why don’t you translate the combination from the journal and see if it’s a solution to one.” He thumped a fist on the railing. “We still need a way to destroy the weapons. I was thinking we might find a formula for a powerful alien version of naphtha or kerosene, because even gas is flammable, right? At a high enough temperature... Tikaya, where are you going?”
Halfway through his spiel, she had charged to the cabinet where she left the cube. She raced back with the contraption clutched in her arms, and Rias lurched back a step at the sight of it.
“It’s not active,” she said. “I’m not sure why, but it gives us the chance to experiment.”
Rias recovered, though he eyed the device warily. “Experiment?”
“The cubes already clean things by incinerating them, right? All we need to do is add those weapons to the list of items its programmed to burn, throw it in that chamber, and close the door. You took one apart, right? Do you think you could alter its parameters? Like a punchcard in a steam loom?”
“I... Tikaya, that thing is so far beyond a steam loom I wouldn’t have any idea where to start.”
“Even if I can translate the schematic?” She thrust the blueprint she had copied toward him. “Give me a moment, and I might be able to find repair instructions in the sphere’s library too.”
Though his eyes darted, devouring the schematic, his wary frown did not fade. “All before Sicarius returns or the marines stumble upon us or angry relic raiders burst in?”
So, that’s what daunted looked like on him. Huh.
“We can do it.” Tikaya slapped him on the backside.
He blinked. “What was that for?”
“I’m encouraging growth.”