Republic

by Lindsay Buroker

  “He Makes artifacts; I make poisons,” Serpitivich said.

  “Do you also make antidotes to poisons?” Amaranthe asked.

  “No.” The bastard sounded smug. He knew he had won, that he had succeeded in having Starcrest poisoned. He must. Maybe he had some plan that he thought would continue on even if he were jailed or killed.

  Amaranthe would make sure it didn’t happen, whatever it was.

  “Serpy here is about to show us the way out,” Amaranthe told Sicarius.

  “I have no wish to leave,” Serpitivich said. “You will have to torture me before I’ll show you how to open the door from within.”

  Sicarius stared at him, his eyes appearing black in the dim lighting. Black and hard like chips of obsidian. “Good.”

  • • • • •

  Tikaya was tinkering with combinations of symbols while Mancrest sat at a hallway table, diligently scribbling his notes. With the prisoners taken out, the house had fallen quiet.

  “A typical Turgonian safe uses how many numbers?” Tikaya asked. “Three? Four?”

  “Three,” he said.

  “All right. I have a few ideas here. I’m going to start trying them.” She headed for the vault door.

  “Are you warning me in case you trigger a trap, and an explosion shoots out of the wall with enough force to burn us both to cinders?” Mancrest asked.

  “Er, no. I just talk aloud sometimes when I’m working.” Tikaya had her hand up, ready to try the lock, but she paused. “Is that... a common thing here? Booby-trapped safes?”

  “It was a joke, sorry.” He yawned and rubbed the back of his neck. “Though... I suppose it isn’t uncommon. Foreigners have told me before that we’re a paranoid people.”

  “Yes, I’ve told my husband that as well.”

  “That he’s paranoid or that Turgonians in general are paranoid?”

  “Yes to both.” Tikaya smiled and returned to the safe. She would risk trying the combinations she had strung together. It would irk her to no end if she had possible solutions to a problem and didn’t try them.

  She was on the fourth or fifth one when heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs. One of the soldiers, she assumed, but glanced back to make sure. Some of those priests might have eluded their pursuers.

  Dak strode toward them, an unwieldy long metal tool with a giant wheel balanced over his shoulder. He had donned a padded vest and thick gloves.

  “That’s... big,” Tikaya observed as he set it down on the floor.

  “An Aspencrest hand power drill,” Dak said. “It’ll cut through granite. I’m not sure about steel, but we can try. There’s no way we’re getting a water- or steam-powered drill up the stairs.”

  “That door has to be six inches thick,” Mancrest said.

  “I just need to drill through the lock face to get to the lever or drive cam.”

  “So, what? Through three inches of steel?”

  Dak waved Mancrest to the side. “Sit over there and write your words, newspaper boy.”

  Mancrest lifted his hands and returned to the desk.

  Tikaya eyed the drill. Dak sounded like he knew what he was doing, but... drilling into the lock might render the door inoperable—permanently—if it were done wrong. “Let me try a few more combinations.”

  She expected an argument, but Dak extended a hand toward the door. “As you wish, my lady.”

  “You Turgonians can be quite polite when you’re not being brutal.” Tikaya tried the sixth combination on her sheet of paper.

  “We can also be polite while we’re being brutal,” Mancrest said. “Those of us with proper warrior-caste upbringing anyway.”

  “I saw that look, Mancrest,” Dak said. “My upbringing was fine.”

  Tikaya continued trying combinations, running down her list. She was aware of the men watching her and the time bleeding past. She wondered where Rias was and if his condition had grown worse. Did the others in the submarine know he was sick? Should she have warned someone? Mahliki? Sespian? A surge of guilt flooded over her. She hadn’t checked the communication sphere since leaving the lorry. There had been so much going on that she hadn’t thought of it. What if he had sent a message and she hadn’t responded? She vowed to run out to the lorry and dig it out of her pack as soon as she ran out of combinations to try. Dak could drill.

  “Last one,” she murmured.

  Dak and Mancrest leaned in her direction, watching with intent eyes. The dial spun, left-right-left, and landed on the last symbol. She tried to pull open the latch and... nothing happened. The same as with the other twenty attempts.

  Tikaya sighed. “Sorry, gentlemen.”

  “That Serpitivich is a crafty bird,” Mancrest said. “He seems like a nice scholarly fellow, but underneath... he’s plotting the president’s death. And starting a Kriskrusian cult.”

  “Oh,” Tikaya said, an idea sparking in her mind. “A cult. So he would be the cult leader? He has probably read the holy texts then, right? And is familiar with the animal symbols that represent leadership?”

  Mancrest and Dak shrugged.

  “I wonder...” Tikaya didn’t bother putting her idea down on paper. She simply tried the symbols for the lion, the wolf, and the dagger-toothed lizard. They were all on the dial. “Not that order. Only six options though...”

  On the third try, the lock emitted a soft click.

  “Hah.” She kneeled back, stretching legs that had started to ache from their long crouch.

  “I don’t have any idea what you were just talking about,” Dak said, “but that click sounded promising.” He grabbed the wheel and pulled.

  The vault door swung open.

  Dak pulled out a pistol and pointed it at whatever lay inside. He didn’t fire though. His brow furrowed and he uttered an, “Uh?”

  Not sure whether that signified something good or an impending explosion, Tikaya wasn’t sure if she should look or not. Her curiosity took over though, and she stuck her head around the edge of the door.

  Serpitivich himself faced her, standing at the top of a stone landing surrounded by old brick-and-mortar walls. Tikaya noticed the architecture first—and that it didn’t fit in with the style or age of the house. It took her a moment to spot the blood trickling down Serpitivich’s neck and the sword pressed against it.

  “Can we come out?” a familiar voice asked from behind the politician.

  “Amaranthe?” Tikaya asked.

  “Yes, and I’m carrying a bunch of awkward stuff, not to mention pushing this awkward prisoner along. Sicarius is with me too. His burden is also awkward.”

  “Yes,” came Sicarius’s emotionless voice.

  “Is there a chance any your, ah, stuff has to do with antidotes for Rias’s poison?” Tikaya asked.

  The silent moment that followed lasted far too long for her tastes.

  “Has it been verified that he’s been poisoned?” Sicarius asked.

  “Yes.” Tikaya swallowed. “I can verify it.”

  Serpitivich smiled.

  “Sicarius identified the poison,” Amaranthe said, “and says... er, he believes there might not be an antidote, but we thought Serpitivich or his practitioner friend here might have a way to cure the president. It seems they dabble in the Science.”

  No antidote. Tikaya gripped the wall—it was the only thing that kept her from dropping to the floor, for her legs had grown rubbery and couldn’t support her. She heard Amaranthe’s other words, but couldn’t muster much hope. It would take a healer, and those who specialized in the arts these priests were flinging around—fire and weather manipulation—rarely put the years into master healing.

  “Well, Serpitivich?” Dak asked. “Do you know a cure?”

  “The ability to know a thing is not the same as the ability to execute a thing.” Serpitivich glanced at the inert man draped over Sicarius’s shoulder.

  “Fine, do you know how to execute a cure? Your buddy there can help.”

  “If I knew how once, I may have forgot
ten since.”

  What did that mean? Did he know or not? Tikaya wanted to wring his neck.

  “We were... Sicarius was just about to... interrogate him for information on how to open the door,” Amaranthe said. “He would probably be willing to offer his services in relation to this matter too.”

  It was a measure of Tikaya’s distress that she didn’t find the notion of interrogation—torture—so unappealing at the moment.

  Dak grunted and ripped a piece of paper from Mancrest’s pad, then took the pencil from his hand.

  “You’re welcome,” Mancrest muttered as Dak used the wall to write a few lines.

  Dak handed the paper to Serpitivich. “I ask again, do you know how to execute a cure?”

  Serpitivich stared down at the paper for a long moment. His shoulders slumped. “I... yes.”

  Hope rushed into Tikaya’s breast.

  “Put him and his friend in the lorry,” Dak said.

  Amaranthe pushed Serpitivich into the hallway, and two soldiers appeared out of the woodwork to add a few more weapons to the escort duty. She paused to hand Tikaya a book on her way past.

  “I don’t know if there’s anything useful in it, but in case he isn’t as helpful as we hope...” Amaranthe shrugged and continued down the hall with her prisoner.

  Sicarius stepped through the doorway, his own prisoner still dangling over his shoulder. “Even bound and gagged, a practitioner may prove troublesome if not watched closely,” he told Dak.

  “Yes, thank you for agreeing to do that on the way back.” Dak pointed down the hallway after Amaranthe.

  Sicarius stared at him for a moment, and Tikaya expected a protest or a statement that he wasn’t one of Dak’s soldiers. But Sicarius walked off without comment.

  “You’re lucky he didn’t castrate you,” Mancrest told Dak. “Even Amaranthe smiles and shines her big brown eyes at him when she gives him work.”

  Dak grunted. “I’m sure Rias’s right-hand man knows better than to turn his nephew into a eunuch. You better head out, too, before I give you half of this drill to carry.”

  “My injury precludes such labor.” Mancrest plucked his pencil out of Dak’s grip and hobbled toward the stairs.

  Dak grunted again, this time in response to picking up the heavy tool. “After you, my lady.”

  Tikaya took the lead but asked over her shoulder, “What did you write on that note?”

  “The address of his daughter in Port Gamouth.”

  “You had it memorized?” That city was on the coast, almost two thousand miles away. Serpitivich must have believed his kin safe from his maneuvering in the capital.

  “He’s been on my short list for a long time.”

  Tikaya remembered Dak warning them they should keep an eye on Serpitivich several days ago, when word of the snitch had first come out. She regretted that she had treated him as a suspect rather than a confidant. They probably could have pinned Serpitivich down earlier if they had worked together. But how could she have known?

  “Could have trusted Rias,” she muttered.

  “What?” Dak asked.

  “Nothing, I was just thinking we better find Rias. I hope he’s... still in a position that a cure will be of use.”

  “So do I,” Dak said. “So do I.”

  • • • • •

  Mahliki sat in the main navigation seat, Major Rydoth standing behind her. It seemed strange being in charge with a trained officer thirty years her senior two feet away, but she had been working the controls of her father’s submarines since she was a little kid. Besides, given what was at stake, she would have gnawed off his hand if he tried to take control. He kept jogging back and forth between navigation and the engine room, so he didn’t seem so inclined, but he was up here now, chewing on his fingernails while he watched the men in diving suits drop into the water and swim away.

  “The hatch is closed, the batteries and cable have been dropped, and we’re ready to descend,” he said.

  Mahliki nodded and pushed the lever that released the air in the ballast tanks. “Electrifying the hull again, and following them down.”

  “If trouble shows up, are there any weapons left we can use besides that drill? You gave Starcrest the dagger, didn’t you?”

  Meaning the drill would be completely ineffective now. She knew it all too well.

  “We’ve got a couple of weapons we can try.” Mahliki touched a panel to the side of her seat, though the idea of firing Father’s charged torpedoes while he was out there didn’t sit well with her. That much electricity could kill human beings as well as vegetation. “He was holding them in reserve, not wanting to warn the plant beforehand.”

  “Warn the plant. That will never sound normal.”

  “No, I suppose not.” Mahliki turned the rudder and added a bit of thrust to follow the divers. With their belts weighted, they sank rapidly.

  Maldynado was the first to land, his body weight and the addition of the generator bringing him down more quickly than the others. Mahliki tensed as his boots hit the green carpet of vines smothering the lake floor. Nothing happened. For the moment. Good. The more moments they had to work with, the better.

  Sespian and Father alighted, too, and all three of them strode across the bumpy green floor to the area where the gray battery boxes had landed. The plant hadn’t disturbed them yet, either. Mahliki had envisioned them swallowing the batteries as soon as they struck down, and had almost suggested the men carry them by hand, but they were too big and bulky for that.

  Father wasted no time. He pointed for the other two to space the boxes while he knelt and affixed cable to the first. Seeing the canvas knee of his suit touching those vines made her shift uneasily. All too well she remembered the enzyme that could seep from the plant’s pores and eat through clothing.

  A shadow stirred at the edge of the viewport.

  “It’s going to attack them,” the major said.

  “I see it.” Mahliki grabbed the control stick for the torpedoes, lining it up with her target, as she had seen her father do before. She jabbed the button before she could second-guess herself.

  “Whoa,” the major blurted as the sleek black cylinder darted away.

  Mahliki had seen them shoot out before. She was more concerned about her aim—and her father’s modifications. If all the torpedo did was disappear into the stalks, then that sleekness wouldn’t help them.

  It clipped the vine she had been targeting, and she groaned. She needed a cutting tool or something she could sweep out with, or maybe—

  The side of the vine blackened, and the rest of the flesh followed. It fell limply out of sight. The torpedo itself disappeared between two stalks at the front of the forest, but seconds later, a flash of white with blue streaks of energy erupted. The brilliant light dwarfed the illumination from the running lamp. More importantly, it burned the green off a swath of plants. Blackened stalks disintegrated into the water, clearing a stretch several meters wide.

  Down below, Maldynado looked toward the sub and gave a gesture of approval. Father kept wiring the batteries, but Mahliki thought he gave her a helmet nod as well.

  “How many of those do we have?” Rydoth asked.

  “Not that many. We should save them. Next time, I’ll try to steer the sub over and intercept any vines with the electrified hull.”

  “Like that one?”

  “Erg, yes.” Mahliki took them forward and down, blocking this new vine’s attempt to veer toward the men. It thumped against the side of the sub. “Wish this thing had more windows. Major, want to keep an eye out at the science station? Let me know if anything comes in from that side.”

  He gave her an indecipherable look—one that probably meant he wasn’t used to taking orders from a kid—a girl kid at that—but he did head back there.

  Mahliki navigated around the clearing, using the craft’s electrified hull to keep back any vines that encroached, but some of the ones matting the lake floor were starting to shift about. A tendril dri
fted up behind Sespian, angling toward his boot. He was busy placing the last of the batteries and didn’t seem to notice it.

  “Look out,” Mahliki said, though he couldn’t hear her. On impulse, she flicked the sub’s running lamp on and off.

  All three men’s helmets tilted up. She wasn’t sure if they could see through the viewing port and into the cabin, but she pointed behind Sespian, nonetheless. Maldynado, placing batteries on the other side of the circle, saw the vine and pointed too.

  Sespian spun a circle and spotted the tendril when its tip was inches from his leg. He swiped down with the dagger. Fortunately it was a thin vine, and it only took a couple of slashes to hack the end off. It drew back, its severed tip wavering at his eye level, and hovered there. More of the vines were standing up all around the clearing.

  “Hurry up, Father...”

  As if he heard her, Father bounced along the bottom more quickly than he could have walked, arms stroking to add speed. The wire reeled out behind him. He only needed to connect the last two batteries. And then... then they got to find out if this field would work to drive away the vines. If it didn’t swallow them first.

  Mahliki tapped a finger on the torpedo controls. She didn’t want to fire anywhere close to her team, but it would be a way to quell the plant for a while. Maybe if she could convince the men to float up to the top, she could target the ground beneath them.

  But Father hooked up the last battery, creating a ring around their work area. He waved to the others, then bent and hit whatever switch he had made for the boxes. Without waiting to see if anything happened, he moved on to the next. Sespian and Maldynado, on the opposite end of the circle, turned theirs on, though they had to stop to deal with more intruding vines. None had attacked Father yet, but Mahliki kept an eye on him—since he had given Sespian his dagger, he didn’t have a weapon capable of stopping the plant.

  One reared out of the matting behind Father, more than one. Three vines veered toward him at the same time.

  “He needs help,” the major called.

  “I see it.” But she couldn’t launch a torpedo, not with Father right there. She nudged the Explorer forward, hoping to intercept the vines before they snaked around him.