THE WIZARD HUNTERS

by Martha Wells

  Ilias hesitated, watching her closely, obviously worried. She realized he might be thinking about her little moment above the chasm and felt her cheeks redden. “I’ll be fine,” she said emphatically, making go-away gestures again. He sighed, squeezed her shoulder and stood, vanishing in the shadows of the passage.

  Tremaine let out her breath and rubbed her face. Besides making sense logistically, it was just better for her to do this. Maybe she was getting some odd idea that risking her life was making her value it more. Worry about it later, she told herself.

  When she thought Ilias had had enough time to get into position, she got to her feet and cautiously eased up on the spot of rippling ground, gripping a rock. I can’t believe they’re going along with this, she thought, both baffled and terrified by the phenomenon. Even Ander. He should know better than to listen to me. She swallowed in a dry throat, braced herself to run, and tossed the rock.

  Whatever it was, it exploded out of the ground with a roar. Tremaine bolted back up the passage.

  She tore down the narrow alley between the stone walls that Ilias had shown her. She hadn’t thought then how the thing would follow her through it; there was only a few feet of clearance between the looming walls and the creature had to be much wider than that. She looked back.

  She had imagined something like a bear. This thing was large and dark and didn’t seem to have a head at all. It had turned sideways to follow her through the narrow passage and it towered over her, its lower part tearing through the dirt and gravel and sending a plume high in the air above it. Tremaine ran faster.

  The rock fell away and she bolted between two pillars and across open ground, still casting frantic looks back. She slammed into something that staggered back a step and grabbed her arm. Looking up she saw the pale startled face of a Gardier. He stared past her, his eyes going wide with horror. He slung her away from him, bringing up his rifle.

  Tremaine fell, skinning her elbow on the gravelly ground, seeing the other Gardier in the open area turning, jumping to their feet, yelling in alarm. Gerard stared at her incredulously, shouting her name. She looked back and saw the thing looming up, the electric lamplight revealing something like the little round squidlike creatures that washed up on the beaches at Chaire, with hundreds of small white tentacles bristling along its underside. Except that it was a good ten feet tall and nearly that broad and a mouth filled with concentric rows of sharp teeth leered out of its underside.

  The Gardier managed to get off one shot before the thing fell atop him.

  The other rifleman pounded across the camp, sliding to a halt to fire into the rippling dark surface of the creature’s hide. Another man dragged out his sidearm and fired, but it moved swiftly toward him, rearing up again.

  Tremaine recalled the rest of the plan and pushed to her feet, stumbling for the nearest lamp. Someone shouted at her as she shoved it off its rock base. It smashed and that half of the camp plunged into darkness. She turned to see Ilias leap down out of the rocks and land on one of the Gardier. Tremaine ran for the other lamp.

  Another man grabbed her arm but Ander tackled him from behind. Tremaine tore free and saw Florian smash the other lamp. She turned to see the leader shouting angrily and lifting his pistol but Gerard rammed into him with his shoulder, sending the man staggering before he could shoot. The other Gardier clubbed Gerard down just before Ilias reached him, tackling him around the waist. They fell over the rock where the last lamp stood and it crashed to the ground and went out. In the sudden darkness Tremaine halted, confused. She heard Gerard shout a warning.

  Tremaine started toward his voice but as her eyes adjusted she saw Gerard drop like a dead man, collapsing onto the stone floor. The Gardier leader was just a few steps away from him but she hadn’t heard a shot. Dammit, he’s a sorcerer, she thought frantically. She looked around, hoping someone had dropped a pistol. The Gardier leader was a sorcerer and they were all dead.

  The leader turned to her and in the darkness she saw him lift his hand in a ritual gesture. Then Ilias leapt on him from behind, one strong arm wrapping around the man’s neck as his knife came up to his throat.

  Tremaine winced away from the dark wash of blood and saw two shadowy figures on the ground, Ander still struggling with his Gardier. Florian hovered over them with a rock, waiting for a chance. Ander rolled suddenly, bringing the man up on top of him, and Florian swung with frantic strength. The Gardier went limp and Tremaine swore in relief. She looked for the digging creature, realizing she couldn’t hear it anymore but in the shadows she couldn’t tell if it was still here or not.

  “Stop where you are!”

  Tremaine stumbled to a halt automatically, staring at the two Gardier who had suddenly appeared out of the rocks, not six paces in front of her. Their lamp blinded her and she winced away. She didn’t dare look back at the others; Ander and Florian were too far away to do anything and in another moment the Gardier would shine their lamp on Ilias, crouched over the bloody corpse of the leader. The first Gardier’s pistol was just now moving to point at her and Tremaine realized she shouldn’t have stopped, she should have kept moving, that she could have thrown herself at him and given Ilias the chance to jump him or Ander time to find one of the discarded weapons. If the man shot her now, she would fall where she stood, useless.

  “Put up your hands!” he snapped roughly, his eyes moving nervously from her to the shadows behind her. “Now!” She heard the odd tone of the translator in his voice and saw he had one hand against his chest.

  Paralyzed with indecision, Tremaine saw a shape move in the shadows behind him and realized it was another person, someone trying to edge up on the two men from behind. It had to be Ander or Ilias, though she could have sworn both were behind her and unable to circle around behind the newly arrived Gardier. Whichever one it was, he couldn’t do anything while she was in the line of fire. “We’re just lost here, we’re shipwrecked,” Tremaine said and thought, Now, before they have a chance to think. She lifted her hands, starting forward. “You have to help us,” she said, her voice coming out high and shaky and hysterical. “We’re going to die here!” Try for pathetic, not crazy, she reminded herself. Crazy meant dangerous. If he shot her, this would still work but she had to be close.

  The lamp showed her the Gardier was young, his round face under the tightly fitting cap lacking definition, any clues to character. He looked startled and wary and confused. The man with him held another set of aether-glasses, his pistol still holstered. He was looking past her, squinting to see into the darkness, fumbling to shove the lenses back in their case and reach for his weapon.

  The one facing Tremaine tried to say something that began with “Stop—” but she talked over his words without any idea of what she said. She could have been reciting the alphabet for all she knew. She wrung her hands, lifted them to her hair, making herself shake. It wasn’t hard. One more step and he started to lift the gun, shouting, and she faked a stumble and fell on him. He tried to catch her and was almost as surprised as she was when she grabbed the revolver barrel and twisted it down. The report as it went off was shattering, stunning her, and she didn’t see the punch that came at her jaw.

  Tremaine was lying on the muddy ground blinking up dazedly before she realized she hadn’t been shot. She rolled over, her ears ringing. The lamp was on the ground now, its light showing her both Gardier sprawled not far away. And there was a dark figure standing over them.

  Tremaine struggled to sit up, then saw he was dressed in faded dirty clothes and had patches of mud on his face and arms. He also had a sword, a big one with a broad flat blade and a curved horn handle. A moment later Ilias flung himself on him, staggering him back a few steps. Tremaine stared, confused, then saw it was a wildly exuberant greeting, not an attack. That was probably for the best; Ilias was almost a head shorter than the other man. Watching them hug and pound each other on the shoulders, she realized this had to be the missing friend their difficulties had kept Ilias from searching for. At
least I don’t have to feel guilty about that anymore, she thought in relief. Ilias was apparently filling his friend in on what had happened, in detail and with excited gestures.

  Tremaine took a deep breath, realizing she was trembling. We did it. It was hard to believe. And her jaw hurt. A lot. “Ow. Ow, ow, ow.” She touched it gingerly. Why do they always have to hit me in the face? Then Ilias was pulling her to her feet, turning her head gently to see the injury.

  “Tremaine?” Florian called sharply.

  “Yes,” she answered vaguely, dizzy and swaying a bit. His friend loomed over both of them, touching her arm lightly. She looked up at him blankly and he smiled down at her. She realized she had been imagining Ilias’s people to all be about his size; this man was bigger and physically more intimidating. It was hard to see much detail in this light, but his hair was darker and less wild and he had a few extra braids.

  Apparently satisfied the wound wasn’t lethal, Ilias released her to poke his friend in the chest in a proprietary manner and say, “Giliead.”

  “Hello,” Tremaine managed. He was taller even than Gerard. Gerard.

  Tremaine pulled away and headed into the shadows where she could vaguely see Florian. Light blossomed as Ander managed to get their torch lit and she saw Gerard still lay on the ground, Florian busy untying his hands. Ander eyed Giliead narrowly and asked, “Not that I’m ungrateful for the help, but who the hell is that? Another friend of yours?”

  “Right, I’ve got them stashed all over the place.” Tremaine crouched next to Florian, too worried about Gerard to explain further. Between them they managed to roll him over. “Is he all right?” she demanded, too flustered to check for herself. She didn’t want to look for a pulse and not find one, she just wanted someone to tell her and get it over with. Ander jammed the torch between two rocks and she saw Gerard didn’t seem wounded, except for the dried blood around the cut on the temple he had gotten in the boat wreck.

  “I think so, he’s breathing. They used some kind of spell on him,” Florian said, glancing worriedly at her. She was trembling too but didn’t seem to notice. “The survivors of the attack on Duncanny reported that something similar happened to the sorcerers there.” Ilias and his friend followed Tremaine over and Florian’s eyes widened as she looked up, taking in Giliead’s appearance at close range. He had sheathed the sword in a scabbard hung across his back, but he still looked intimidating.

  “That’s right, they were struck with spells that caused unconsciousness,” Ander said, then added, sounding exasperated, “A little forewarning might have been nice.”

  “What?” Tremaine looked up, realizing he meant Giliead. “We knew Ilias was looking for someone. We couldn’t really discuss it in depth or anything.”

  Ilias dropped to his knees beside Tremaine, speaking and pointing urgently toward the dead Gardier. She nodded, pushing her hair back in distraction and trying to get her brain started again. At least the digging creature had disappeared, leaving a broad trail of dark blood or ichor and three badly mangled Gardier. I vote somebody else make all the decisions now, she thought, but pushed to her feet and said, “Yes, the noise, there’ll be more of them. We need to get out of here.”

  Ander took one last uneasy look at Giliead, nodded sharply and turned back toward the rocks. “I’ll get our supplies.”

  Tremaine went to where the leader lay sprawled. The small wireless box crackled at her, barking a command in the Gardier language. It was different from any wireless she had ever seen before, with odd-sized dials and unintelligible symbols printed on the gray case. She absently pushed it off the rock, smashing it with a satisfying crunch.

  She found the sphere where it had rolled into a hollow in the dirt. It clicked at her when she picked it up and she brushed the dirt off, saying, “I’m glad to see you, too.”

  She looked up to see Ilias watching her dubiously, one brow lifted. She considered trying to explain the sphere by gesture, but since she would have been hard-pressed to explain it in words, disregarded the notion. “This is ours,” she explained, tapping the sphere, then herself in the chest. “The Gardier stole it.”

  He nodded understanding. She looked down at the leader and saw it was the man who had first captured them, the one with the burns on his neck. Well, you should have stayed back at the base with Gervas. A translator medallion lay on his chest and she picked it delicately out of the blood, then jerked it to break the chain. The man still had three of those devices on his belt, the intriguing little metal boxes with triggers. One was in his hand. She leaned closer, wondering if she should take them too. The sphere’s gears started to spin as it drew near the devices and it clicked anxiously. Tremaine shifted the sphere to the other arm, pried the box from the dead man’s hand and unsnapped the others from his belt, stuffing them into her pockets.

  Gerard’s belongings, his notebook, aether-glasses and spectacles, a pocketknife and her compass lay on the rock where the wireless had stood and she hastily scooped them up as well. Florian stepped up with the sling, helping her tuck the sphere back into it. “You got his translator?” she asked.

  Tremaine shouldered the sphere and found the translator medallion in her pocket. She wiped the blood off on her coat before handing it to Florian.

  “Can we make it work?” the other girl wondered. Holding it, she turned to Ilias, who was watching her quizzically. “Do you understand me now?”

  He lifted a brow and threw the equally puzzled Giliead a “they act like this occasionally and I have no idea why” look.

  Horian grimaced, studying the disk. “Guess not. Maybe it only works for Rienish. Or maybe there’s a way to activate it—” She tapped it thoughtfully on a rock.

  “I don’t think that’s going to work,” Tremaine told her, distracted. She lifted one of the Gardier’s lamps, but it jangled with broken glass, useless, and she dropped it again. “The Gardier are going to be able to find the sphere with those glasses—”

  Florian looked up. “If we get a chance, we could put it in water. That would block any etheric vibrations.”

  Ander scrambled down out of the rocks with their satchel slung over his shoulder. He paused to pick up one of the fallen rifles, then turned and almost ran into Giliead. The big man stood with his hands planted on his hips, his expression forbidding.

  Ander eyed him aggressively, then tried to go around him. Giliead shifted slightly to block him. Ander stepped back. “Any idea what he wants?” he said, still watching him carefully.

  Ilias stood near Tremaine, surveying the scene with a thoughtful expression but no hostility. Tremaine looked at Ilias inquiringly. He glanced around, found one of the fallen pistols, poked it with his boot, then looked back at her and said clearly, “No.”

  “No?”

  He looked apologetic but repeated firmly, “No.”

  “Tremaine?” Ander prompted tensely.

  “Leave the rifle. They don’t want you to take it,” she explained.

  Ander swore in annoyance, watching the big man who blocked his path. “Can we explain that it could be useful?”

  Tremaine looked at Bias again. He looked back at her. She told Ander, “It doesn’t appear to be a negotiable point.” She let out her breath, wincing as her jaw throbbed. “We have a vocabulary of maybe six words, Ander, I don’t think we can discuss this.”

  A sharp report echoed off the rock around them. Everyone flinched. “That was a shot,” Florian whispered, “and it was close.” Giliead and Ilias exchanged an uneasy glance, but Giliead didn’t move.

  “We don’t have time for this, Ander, just leave the damn gun,” Tremaine said urgently.

  Ander swore again and dropped the rifle. Giliead stepped back, letting him pass.

  “Good.” Tremaine looked down at Gerard again. He was still deeply unconscious. Ander and Florian hadn’t said how long those other incidents of sorcerous catatonia had lasted and she didn’t feel like asking at the moment. She squatted down to grab his arms. “Somebody come help me with—�
�� Giliead took her shoulders and shifted her gently aside, then lifted Gerard’s arm and hauled him up over his shoulder. “Never mind.”

  While Giliead carried the unconscious man, Ilias shouldered his friend’s sword. “I wish you’d found mine. That was a good blade,” he said regretfully. They had reached the end of the ruined city and found the passage in the wall that curved sharply up through the rock toward the surface shaft. Water trickled continuously down the walls and the torch threw red reflections onto the slick stone.

  There were rough-cut steps that made the going somewhat faster, but it would also make it easier for their pursuers.

  “I was too busy looking for your dead body,” Giliead retorted sharply, earning a nervous glance from Florian.

  Giliead had already told Ilias that he gone into the river after him and been swept down it as the flying whale burned, fetching up on the bank in a lower cave. He had had to take the long way back through the upper passages to get down to the harbor cave and search the lower city before he found Ilias’s trail signs.

  It was too much like what Giliead had gone through on their last trip here, when Ilias had fallen into Ixion’s hands. Ilias knew just how hard that search must have been, but there was no point in dwelling on it.

  The man Ander walked between them, carrying the torch. He and Tremaine had continued to exchange argumentative-sounding remarks and Ilias had the feeling it was about the wizards’ weapons. It was odd; most people were leery of anything that had to do with curses. Wizards could put an evil touch on objects and cause whoever had them to fall ill and die, let alone the danger of handling curse weapons. He put it aside; maybe they had come from so far away that there were no wizards there, which would explain their strange clothes and traveling gear.

  Scrambling up a gravelly incline, Ilias heard a wordless shout echo from the cavern. He paused at the top, reaching down to take the torch from Ander as Florian climbed past him. “You hear that?” he asked Giliead. The girls were good company but it was a relief to be able to talk without sign language.