THE WIZARD HUNTERS

by Martha Wells

  Tremaine reached the ground and sank down next to the wall, grateful for the shadow. She couldn’t see where the Gardier had taken Gerard. Florian crouched beside her, wondering, “Why are they running that way? I’m glad they’re doing it, but it doesn’t make sense.” Most of the Gardier seemed to be heading toward the tunnel entrances on the opposite side of the cavern.

  Tremaine nodded. “There’s something else going on.” She couldn’t worry about that right now. She squinted, assessing their chances of reaching the generators. It looked like they could make their way along the cavern wall. They would have to pass two tunnel entrances strung with electric bulbs, but heading directly across the open floor was impossible. “Still got the illusion?” she asked Florian.

  She nodded glumly. “For what it’s worth.”

  Tremaine took a deep breath. “Let’s go.”

  They hurried along the wall, dodging around tumbled rocks and the bundles of electrical cables that led toward the humming generators. Tremaine heard voices up the second tunnel entrance, but no one came running out to shoot at them.

  They reached the first of the generators, the vibration of it making Tremaine’s teeth ache. In the dim light it was just a tall collection of odd metal shapes, stinking of smoke and oil. The shadows helped their illusory shield, but it was hard for her to see what they should do. She realized she had stupidly been expecting a big lever they could pull or something similar. “Any ideas?” she asked Florian helplessly.

  Florian studied the machine grimly. “Yes.” She pulled the sphere’s bag around, undoing the buckle. “If it knows the Gardier translation spell, it knows their mechanical disruption spell.”

  “Oh.” Good point, Tremaine thought. She hesitated as Florian held the sphere out to her. “How do I. . . ?”

  “Just ask it, like before.” Florian flinched as a Gardier stepped out of the nearest tunnel entrance, fumbling for one of his belt devices. “Hurry!”

  “Dammit!” Tremaine grabbed the sphere. It was hot to the touch and trembling as the wheels inside spun frantically. Her eyes on the Gardier, she didn’t have time to think about the spell. Behind her the generators suddenly gave a metallic shriek, ending in a horrible grinding noise that made her teeth ache.

  Florian’s head jerked up, her eyes wide with fear. “Too soon— Run—!”

  Shit. Tremaine shoved the sphere under her arm as they bolted away across the cavern floor.

  Gardier shouted, a shot fired, then the grinding rose to a grating crash and the lights went out.

  “Why are you with the natives?” Gervas said, eyeing Gerard with poorly disguised curiosity. He held the translator disk in one hand and the sorcerous crystal in the other. Beads of sweat formed on the Gardner’s forehead and he didn’t look like a man with much time to waste in questions.

  Gerard would have given a great deal to know what exactly that crystal was. It was obviously kin to the ones recovered from the crashed Gardier airship and seeing Gervas use it, he thought it must function along the same lines as the Viller spheres. “It’s a long story, you wouldn’t be interested,” he replied.

  They had taken him from the prison area through a giant cavern converted to a staging ground for the airships. Gerard would have been fascinated had he not had other things to worry about at the moment. They had passed out of the cavern and down another runnel to a sort of administrative area with smaller rooms sectioned off from the rock by the corrugated metal walls. This one was small and bare, with a wooden table and only one door. Gervas had two armed guards with him and his hands were still chained. The stone floor was cold against his bare feet and he found himself wishing he hadn’t abandoned his boots.

  “Perhaps not so long,” Gervas said, eyes narrow. “We have many informers in your world. They told us that a Rienish sorcerer was left behind here. There is no point in not answering my questions.”

  Gerard made his expression stay noncommittal. “If you have so many well-informed spies, then there’s no point in asking your questions.”

  Lips twitching, Gervas glanced down at the crystal he held. It sparked briefly and a sudden sharp pain in the gut doubled Gerard over. He gasped as it faded and stumbled back against the wall, leaning on the rough metal for support. This can’t end well, he told himself grimly. He just hoped the Gardier intended to keep the Syprians alive for their worker pool. When the guards had entered the cell and lined up as if for a firing squad, he had feared the worst.

  “I will ask you only once more.” Gervas’s face said that wasn’t an idle threat.

  Gerard straightened with difficulty, his chest aching from the phantom pain, and faced Gervas. “You won’t get an answer then, either.”

  Gervas shook his head, more annoyed than angry. “You are foolish. There is nothing you can do to escape us. If you tell me what I want to know, it will save you discomfort before you are sent to our Central Command, to be converted.”

  “Converted?” Gerard repeated, trying to keep the man talking.

  Gervas lifted the crystal and said significantly, “For useful employment.”

  Gerard was baffled. “What?” Did they use sorcerers as slaves too? It seemed unlikely at best. He supposed there could be some sort of brainwashing or mind control but—

  A muted crash echoed through the rock and the overhead light sparked and went out. Seizing his chance, Gerard shoved away from the wall, charging Gervas. He came up against a solid body and swung his bound hands up toward where he hoped the man’s jaw was, using his chains as a club. The man fell away and Gerard ran.

  He found the opposite wall by slamming full tilt into it. The fabricated panel shook but didn’t give way and he groped along it for the exit. The other men shouted and a battery lamp flared just as Gerard found the door.

  He crashed through and stumbled out into the dark corridor. The wildly waving light from the room behind him was the only illumination. Gerard ran back the way he had come. I can lose the guards, release the other prisoners— A shot rang out behind him, striking the wall near his head and showering him with rock chips, emphasizing the difficulties of that ambitious plan. He ducked, running faster. If I can just stay alive.

  He whispered a quick illusion charm, clumsily managing to make the gesture to initiate it with his chained hands. It filled the corridor behind him with a brief blaze of blue light and fog and the next shot went wild.

  Gerard reached the cross corridor, whipping around a corner into sudden firelight. He skidded to a halt, finding himself staring at Giliead and Halian. Behind them was Gyan, holding a makeshift torch.

  Gerard gasped, “Thank God—”

  Giliead reached out a long arm, grabbed Gerard’s shirt and yanked him forward. Gerard fell back against the wall and Giliead stepped to the edge of the corridor, Halian ducking across to take the other side.

  A heartbeat later the two Gardier pelted around the corner. Giliead swung a heavy spanner, striking the first in the head, and Halian got the second one with a metal bar.

  Breathing hard, Gerard looked back down the corridor. In the flare of torchlight he saw other familiar Syprian faces and several men and women wearing Gardier slave uniforms. Everyone looked wild-eyed with excitement and fear and clutched assorted tools as makeshift weapons.

  “Here, let him get your chains off,” Gyan said, taking Gerard’s arm and motioning toward the other prisoners. A young Parscian man carrying a large metal cutting tool pushed forward. With relief Gerard stretched his manacle chain out. “He’s good at it,” Gyan added, smiling at the young man.

  “You speak Rienish?” Gerard asked the Parscian as he cut the chain.

  “Yes!” He looked up, startled and relieved. He spoke the language with an educated accent. “These men released us from the cells. Is the base under attack?”

  “I hope so,” Gerard replied honestly. He turned back to Giliead and the others and asked in Syrnaic, “Did you destroy the generators?”

  Keeping watch at the corner, Giliead glanced back, frown
ing. “The what?”

  “The—things that make the wizard light,” Gerard clarified hurriedly, wondering if they could have done it by accident.

  “No.” Halian turned to him with a puzzled expression. “We thought you must have done that.”

  “It certainly wasn’t me.” Brows lifted, Gerard said, “I think we’re all being rescued.”

  Tremaine lifted her head, dazed, her ears ringing from the explosion. She lay sprawled on the stone floor, her hands stinging from sliding in the gravel. Smaller lights had sprung up all over the pitch darkness of the cavern, handlamps held by the Gardier. They illuminated brief flashes of frightened faces, running figures, fragments of the airship’s skeleton. Huge shadows leapt on the rock walls. Shouting voices and the enraged cries of the howlers echoed off the stone, confusing her. Behind her what was left of the generators still popped and crackled.

  “Ow,” Florian said quietly beside her.

  “You all right?” Tremaine asked hurriedly, pushing herself up. Her knees were scraped, even through the tough material of her pants.

  Florian gasped and sat up. “Yes, just hurt my elbow when we fell.” They had run into the center of the cavern and flung themselves down as the generators exploded. As the lights crackled and failed, metal debris had rained down all around them. Nothing had struck them and Tremaine wasn’t sure whether they had luck or the sphere to thank for that.

  As if stirred by that thought, the sphere started to emit a blue glow. Tremaine grabbed it and shook it vigorously. “No! No glowing! Stop that!” She looked around wildly.

  There were Gardier everywhere and their guns still worked; she didn’t want to present a perfect target.

  The glow obediently died and Florian said in amazement, “That thing is getting so ... so ... alive.”

  “You said it.” Clutching the sphere, Tremaine climbed awkwardly to her feet, Florian struggling up after her. They both froze as a figure ran toward them.

  In the dark the man pounded past without stopping. Florian let out a relieved breath, whispering, “Let’s get back to the others.”

  Tremaine wasn’t good on direction at the best of times, but Florian got them pointed back the right way. They blundered in the dark, holding on to each other, until they drew near the wall and heard soft voices arguing in Rienish. Not wanting to get shot by accident, Tremaine whispered, “Hey, it’s us!”

  A figure appeared out of the dark. The sphere clicked happily at it and Ilias’s voice demanded, “Where did you go? Did you do this?”

  “The sphere did it,” Florian answered. “It—”

  Before she could explain, another figure loomed out of the dimness. “Tremaine!” The furious voice belonged to Ander.

  Ilias turned to block Ander’s path and Tremaine grabbed the back of his coverall to stay behind him. “There wasn’t time to discuss it!” she said defensively.

  Ander swore. “We don’t have time for this.”

  “Well, what do we have time for?” Tremaine wanted to know.

  Ilias said over his shoulder, “The slaves are loose, but the wizards are turning the howlers on them.”

  “We can stop them!” Determined, Florian pushed forward. “I can do another illusion and we can get over there—”

  “We need you to get us to the portal so we can destroy it,” Ander objected. “That has to come first—”

  “We could split up,” Florian interrupted. “The sphere worked just for Tremaine. She could use it to wreck the portal—it would be better than trying to use explosives— and I could help with the howlers.”

  “No, dammit.” Ander turned to her impatiently. “Tremaine couldn’t possibly—”

  “Ander, you can’t send everybody down there, the Gardier will realize what we’re trying to do. Keep them busy elsewhere and just a few of us could do it.” Tremaine took a sharp breath. The wave of anxiety and doubt was probably understandable under the circumstances, but she didn’t have time for it. “Ilias can find it. Send a couple of your men with us—” Basimi didn’t trust Ilias, she didn’t want him. “Deric or somebody who can use the dynamite in case the sphere doesn’t work.”

  “I’ll go, Captain,” Rulan’s voice said out of the dark. “She’s right, just the three of us could get down there without being noticed, especially if they think there’s a full-scale attack up here.”

  Ander said nothing. In the dark Tremaine couldn’t see his face, but he was breathing hard, struggling with the decision. With his doubt and mistrust of her.

  Next to her Ilias nudged her impatiently, demanding, “What are we doing?”

  They had been speaking in Rienish, leaving him out of the conversation again. Tremaine answered in Syrnaic, “I’m asking him if you and I can take the sphere and destroy the portal while they’re helping the others.”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Good.”

  “So, Ander? We don’t have a lot of time,” Tremaine prompted. The sphere clanked loudly in her arms and everyone flinched back. Its gears spun up, hissing, and blue lights sparked deep inside. “Somebody agrees with me,” she added under her breath, shifting her grip on the hot metal.

  Ander said quietly, “Can you do that, Tremaine? Destroy the portal yourself?”

  I won’t be by myself. She put all the confidence she didn’t have into one word. “Yes.”

  “All right,” Ander said sharply, already turning away. “Go.”

  Gerard awkwardly braced his feet on the table and shoved at the light wooden ceiling panel, barely able to see what he was doing in the firelit darkness. The panel gave only a few inches before jamming up against the rock just above. He swore and reached for the next panel.

  His voice desperate, Gyan called, “Any luck?” He was steadying the table and Gerard could hardly hear him over the shouting and milling confusion of the freed prisoners.

  They had become trapped in this suite of rooms by howlers driven by the Gardier. Giliead’s idea was to go up through the ceiling into the cave passages and down into an open corridor, but so far they hadn’t been able to find a space large enough for anyone to squeeze through. “No good.” Gerard jumped down from the table and he and Gyan shoved it over another few feet to try again.

  Across the room, in the light of a captured battery lamp, Giliead and a few others had their shoulders braced against the makeshift barricade of chain-link mesh they had propped across the doors. The chain link had come from the slave pen and Gerard again blessed the forethought of the young man who had found the metal cutters during the escape. The howlers tore at the other side of the doors, shrieking in rage and hunger and fear of their masters, pounding their bodies against the barrier.

  Gerard tried the other side of the room and couldn’t even get the ceiling panels to move. From the shouts and calls in the other rooms, no one else was having any luck either. Swearing, he jumped down again to shove the table over.

  The door thumped open a few inches and howler claws wedged through the gap, scrabbling frantically. The men threw their weight against the barricade, but the creature pushed most of its upper torso through, wedging the door partly open. Giliead grabbed its head, shoving it back, grimly turning his face away as it clawed for him. Gerard started forward, but Gyan leapt past him, grabbing a stick of wood from a shattered chair and beating at the thing’s flailing arms.

  A young woman in a prisoner’s coverall stumbled back into him and Gerard caught her shoulders to steady her. “Who are these people?” she gasped in Bisran.

  “Syprians, from the mainland,” Gerard explained, gently moving her aside. “Our allies.”

  Forcing the creature back through the gap, the men managed to shove the door shut, slumping against it and breathing hard. Giliead’s arms were streaked with bloody scratches. Then the shrieking on the other side of the barricade abruptly ceased.

  “Quiet,” Giliead yelled, and Gerard repeated the command in Bisran and Rienish. As the confused babble died away they could hear nothing outside, no renewed burst of effort from the
howlers, no shouts in Gardier.

  “It’s a trick,” Gyan whispered harshly.

  Then, made distant by the thickness of the doors, a voice called in Rienish, “Hello, is anyone in there?”

  “God, that sounded like—” Incredulous, Gerard moved toward the barricaded door. “Ander, is that you?”

  “Gerard? Yes, it’s us!”

  In the dark behind him people moved uncertainly, frightened voices whispered. Gerard thought of three different charms of revealing he could do to make sure it was really Ander out there, but he didn’t have the right preparations for any of them. He looked at Giliead, who was still braced against the door. “It sounds like him, but if it’s a ruse—”

  Giliead shook his head, his expression going distant. “It’s not a curse.”

  Gerard nodded slowly. He had forgotten about Giliead’s abilities. “That’s good enough for me.”

  Giliead motioned sharply to the others and they pulled at the mesh.

  The door opened slowly, the men still braced to slam it shut. Gerard saw howler bodies sprawled in the corridor, bristling with crossbow bolts. Someone called a warning as figures moved past the dead creatures. Then Horian’s red-brown hair caught the torchlight and she pushed forward. “Gerard!” She waved excitedly at him. “You’re all right!”

  Giliead hauled on the barricade and the others moved hastily to help.

  “I’m very glad to see you,” Gerard said in relief as Ander, Florian and a number of armed men crowded through the door, stepping over the dead howlers. He looked past them, frowning, as another familiar face failed to appear. “Where’s Tremaine?”

  Ander caught his arm to draw him aside. “We think we located the Gardier’s spell circle for their portal. Tremaine and Ilias are using the sphere to destroy it,” he explained in Rienish.

  “What did he say?” Giliead demanded, suddenly standing at Gerard’s shoulder.

  The man was nearly rigid with tension. “Ilias is with Tremaine,” Gerard translated quickly, knowing how concerned Giliead must be for his friend. “They’re trying to destroy the Gardier’s—” He turned to Ander, suddenly realizing what the young man had just said. “You found the Gardier’s portal?”