The Tide of Ages (The Mira Brand Adventures Book 2)

by Robert J. Crane

I swam for her. But she appeared first, surfacing, taking a breath.

  I caught her shoulder again.

  This time, she turned toward me.

  Her nostrils flared. “Just let me do this, Mira. Why can’t you do that?”

  “Because this one is about to go under. We need to find another and retry. Okay? Come on.”

  “And if the orb is on the next level of stilt houses? If Borrick gets it first? No.”

  And she sucked in a breath and disappeared under the water again.

  I cursed. The ceiling was getting awfully close now. And the entryways cut in the side were close to vanishing entirely. Only a sliver was left, from one of which I could see two marachti bodies bobbing, and Carson doggy-paddling awkwardly some distance off.

  As if detecting me, he called, “Mira? You’re about to go under.”

  “She’s being stubborn,” I called back.

  Heidi resurfaced.

  The water was still rising. No success still, then.

  I was about to lay into her harder, when—

  The water crossed the very top of the openings cut in the side of the stilt house. A low rumbling suddenly surrounded us—and the small lights that apparently were winking on the control panel under us went out.

  What the—?

  “Mira,” Carson shouted, voice muted and distant. “The doors are closing!”

  My eyes went wide.

  Sure enough, the entryways were closing, a new panel sliding into place from the top down.

  “We’re being locked in,” I breathed.

  Heidi’s expression flashed with worry. Fear, even. And I knew that now she would listen to me, finally.

  She didn’t.

  “I can fix this,” she said.

  “The controls went off!” I said. “The house is being shut down!”

  “I can override the security,” she said. We were right up by the ceiling now, some twelve or fifteen inches of free air remaining. And the openings were still closing; halfway shut by now, it looked like, glancing at it. “I can still reset the water from here.”

  I wanted to throttle her. Instead I cried, “We need to move! We’re going to drown here!”

  That would sink in, it would; I saw it on her face.

  But then she brought up, in one hand, a round-bottomed flask stoppered with a wax-sealed cork.

  And I realized what she meant to do.

  20

  “No!” I began as Heidi lifted the flask with Lady Angelica’s spell—

  Too late. She bit the cork off, coming away with a mouthful of wax, which she spat. Then she upended it, swallowing the mixture—and giving herself the capacity, for an hour, to breathe in water.

  She meant to be locked in here, if that’s what it took.

  She disappeared, and for one fraught second I moved to follow her … but I was almost out of time. I was left with a choice: use my own spell from Lady Angelica, a spell that had cost so much to procure, time and money both … or swim out of the ever-shrinking entryways before I was sealed in too.

  I chose the latter. Cursing Heidi one last time, I gulped in a breath, and swam for the floor.

  There were scant feet left at the very bottom of the opening I’d come in from, and shrinking fast. I kicked out of it, feeling it close behind me mere moments later—and then I burst free beside Carson.

  “Where’s Heidi?” he asked, panicked.

  “Still in there. She used her spell!”

  “Isn’t that for the last temple though? For the Tide of Ages?”

  “Yes! She thinks she can override the security—but it looked like it shut the controls down as well as closing off the stilt house, so she’s gone and trapped herself in there.”

  Carson bit his lip. “Did you at least get the cutlass?”

  “I was too busy arguing with Heidi ‘Queen of Stubborn Idiots’ Luo for that.”

  “Maybe you should have this,” he said uneasily, and passed Decidian’s Spear over. I accepted it, lips pursed and eyebrows drawn.

  “What do we do now?” Carson asked.

  I had no idea. We could try to make our way to another of the reset switches as the water rose to the next level of stilt houses … but I had no idea how the controls worked. Besides which, Bub was above and on his lonesome, which meant no way of claiming the room controls due to whatever weird sense of honor, or whatever, orcs held. And as for things down here, Carson had it right: moving with an object as unwieldy as Decidian’s Spear wasn’t easy. The contortionist marachti had given me enough trouble with my feet planted on solid ground. I didn’t trust myself fighting them off here, in the water, whilst also doing my best to protect a weaponless Carson.

  Which meant we had to hope they didn’t come for us while we did … nothing.

  “I think we have to let them take it,” I conceded.

  “The second key?”

  I nodded.

  “But what about the Tide of Ages?”

  I shrugged. “I guess we work that out there.”

  Carson cleared his throat. “Maybe Heidi will manage to reset the water.”

  Maybe. But the stilt house had entirely vanished under the water now, roof and all, and considering she’d made no apparent headway before the security system had shut the control panel off and locked her in, I very much doubted she was going to come to some kind of breakthrough now. Now, we’d have to keep ourselves to ourselves, and wait for Borrick to vacate, then reset the water and free Heidi when Borrick had won.

  Borrick winning. He hadn’t done it yet, but already it left a very sour taste in my mouth.

  What left a sourer taste, however, was Heidi. It was good for both of us that she was locked in there—a damned good thing indeed.

  21

  Ladders were built into the edges of the arena, awkward things in each of the corners and sides. Carson and I paddled to the farthest corner, hauled ourselves up, and waited there. I didn’t want to go the entire way to the upper level; what would the point be? We’d only be coming back down here again, hopefully in the not-too-distant future, to break Heidi out.

  Twice, the water level rose, sending us climbing higher. Then a cry went up from one of the stilt houses on the arena’s far side. Neither of us understood the marachtis’ words, but the tone was clear.

  They’d found it.

  We’d lost.

  Carson, who was above me, looked down. His face was tense. “I guess it’s Borrick’s.”

  “Apparently so.”

  Borrick exited the control room, a streak of black cloak wholly uninterested in our place below for now. He barked an echoed order: “Out! And be gentle with the orb—utmost care, hear?”

  The marachti leapt from their stilt houses and paddled for ladders.

  “Should we move?” Carson asked nervously.

  But except for a look from a handful of the closer yellow, scaly things, none came our way. Hired muscle, it seemed, was willing to go the distance while the battle was ongoing. As soon as someone had snatched a victory, they pulled back, moving on to the next thing. Smart, I guessed. Especially now Borrick had this one in the bag. Why go toe to toe with the sopping Essex girl and her sweater-clad Yank when it wasn’t necessary?

  “Hold tight for now,” I said. “When they’ve cleared out upstairs, you go up to the water controls.”

  We waited. Borrick was still too busy to pay much heed to us. I wondered if he’d even noticed us. But no, of course he had. He had to have been watching down below to figure out when to let in more water. Plus there was the matter of Bub up there, hovering awkwardly since his abandonment.

  I watched with bated breath, tracking the handful of marachti who had spilled from the stilt house where the victory cry had gone up—or at least I thought. Turned out I had the wrong group, because they bypassed Borrick at the top, making for the exit. It was another group who stopped beside him, one of their number extending a hand. Separated by so much distance, not only horizontal but vertical too, I couldn’t pick out the o
rb; the whole thing seemed more like a puppet show conducted by stick figures. Borrick seemed happy enough, though, taking what I assumed was the orb of sand to marvel at it, before slipping it into a cloak pocket and disappearing from the terminus.

  “There was a way out in that direction, right?” I asked.

  Carson squinted. “I … can’t remember.”

  If not, they’d need to pass Bub.

  “Go up,” I told Carson. “They’ve more or less cleared out now. If they are heading back around to this side, buddy up with Bub. Oh, and—” I tugged his trouser leg before he could scuttle higher, like I might pull someone’s shirtsleeve. “Take this.” I passed up Decidian’s Spear, contracted into its umbrella form.

  He reached down, taking it in one hand whilst grasping the rungs with the other, and began to climb.

  I heard his voice as he clambered up and away: “Don’t slip. Do not slip.”

  Prune fingers crossed that he didn’t.

  The marachti had soon scarpered, and as I didn’t see them come around the sides of the room’s high ledge, I figured there had been an exit on the opposite side that I’d missed. So it was just us—me, Carson, Bub—and bloody Heidi, trapped in her little stilt house, possibly entirely unaware that the day was already lost.

  Carson rejoined Bub up top, and I watched as they made their way around to the water control room. Carson said something to him, manner downcast, and Bub took the news solemnly, with a nod. It would have been hard to miss the ululations of victory from the marachti, even higher up as he was.

  “I’m going to lower it now,” Carson yelled before he stepped into the control room. Unlike Borrick, he didn’t quite have the lungs for it: the shout was dim, even without the vying of marachti or spilling of water from above to contend with.

  “Three levels, please,” I shouted back.

  He lifted a hand, I assume to hold up a thumb, and disappeared inside. Bub, who I assumed was acting as the eyes, waited on the threshold. Or maybe his armor was just oversized enough that he couldn’t slide into the control room’s cavity.

  I took a breath, and let myself fall away from the ladder. Only ten feet above the water this time, it was a smaller drop.

  I kicked, doggy-paddling, and waiting … and then, after maybe half a minute, I realized the water level was descending; one of the nearer roofs, previously submerged, was just coming back into view.

  Though crystal clear, the water was deep enough that it and the deep dark green of the temple turned it into vague murk that was difficult to penetrate. I couldn’t see, then, whether the water was being filtered back out via multiple outlets, or if perhaps a single hole had opened in the floor. I hoped not the latter. A whirlpool was the last thing I wanted to contend with after the way this day was going. Because that would, well, suck.

  Stilt houses slowly rose from the abyss. Their doors reopened, and the last vestiges of water spilled from their surfaces as I descended and they climbed out of reach.

  One level down, two … then Heidi’s inadvertent prison was rising to meet me again.

  Part of me considered perching atop the roof, and then dropping onto her when she exited. Scare the crap out of her—punishment for being so bull-headed.

  Another, nastier, but entirely more justified part wished I’d kept track of the time, and had Carson release Heidi only when her hour was very nearly complete. Say, fifty-nine minutes and fifty seconds. Clutch.

  I bobbed in the water beside one of the sealed doors. As the water level descended past the line separating seal and the house’s structure itself, the door began to rise.

  Up it went, water level lowering as it did so. And there she was: looking like a drowned rat, pupils like pinpricks as she staggered out, finding me first, my face, twisted like some Doctor Seuss villain—and then she looked past, sweeping the arena.

  “Did we—” she began.

  “Borrick has it,” I said, voice flat.

  She sagged. But only for an instant; her gaze flickered to me and away, and she took a breath—one of her first in almost twenty minutes. Saving face in the wake of defeat.

  In the wake of a defeat she had engineered herself.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she said and dropped into the water beside me.

  “Right.”

  I didn’t say more. For now, I didn’t have the words. Besides, in this echoing chamber, why get into a shouting match? Carson and Bub didn’t need to hear the string of expletives I was inches away from raining down on her.

  We paddled to one of the ladders, and climbed. Water dripped from Heidi onto me, my face, my arms and hands. When Carson and I had been positioned here, avoiding the marachti, this miniature waterfall I’d found myself under hadn’t bothered me. Now, I found myself grinding my teeth together at this unintentional irritation. Oh, what a difference a few minutes with a sodding idiot can make.

  Carson and Bub waited at the top.

  Heidi clambered onto the ledge.

  Carson opened his mouth; “Are you—”

  But she went right past, heading for the way we’d come in.

  I pushed myself up after her.

  Carson took a backward look over his shoulder. Then, to me, voice low, “Did she say anything?”

  “Might as well not have,” I murmured.

  He patted my shoulder; comforting, sort of, although it was kind of awkward too; a comforting touch from someone who was not used to either giving or receiving them. I smiled back, or at least gave my best ghostly approximation of one.

  “We should get back outside,” I said. “The afternoon is leaving us. Best to make maximum use of the sun for drying out before it’s too late.”

  “Good call. I’d rather not sleep in wet clothes. Or trudge through London …?” He shot me a sideways look, one eyebrow raised.

  London. Was that where we were going to end up again after all this? Failure, making our way back to my hideout, and the Tide of Ages the first entry in an otherwise bare list of screw-ups?

  It had felt like this when we left the second temple on the way to the Chalice Gloria. Yes, we’d come away with Feruiduin’s Cutlass—but we’d lost Carson. That, to me, had been a blow almost too hard to take.

  Heidi, on the other hand …

  I scowled at her receding back.

  By the time we were back outside, the sun was indeed veering closer to the horizon. I wished I had a wristwatch to check, but I figured we were approaching maybe five p.m. As hot as this place was, we’d probably be good to dry out for a few hours yet … if we were staying, that was. I still needed to make my mind up on that one.

  Heidi had led the charge, so she was out first. She glanced right and left—and then let out a little noise and stomped out of sight around the temple’s edge.

  “Where’s she going?” Carson asked.

  I resisted answering, “To drown herself, hopefully,” and instead picked up my pace.

  Borrick’s ship was still on the shore. That surprised me; he’d had a better lead that us. Had he sprung a leak and grounded himself? I hoped so … but then, as it came more fully into view as the three of us followed Heidi about the temple’s edge, I realized the answer was more mundane: dozens of marachti boarding a ship was a slow process, as was unfurling the sails and preparing to set sail once more.

  Borrick was commanding the action from on deck, of course, right in the thick of things. He still had hold of the orb of sand, and was alternating looks between it and his followers.

  “Alain!” Heidi belted.

  Borrick turned. A quizzical look crossed his face. Then it dissolved on seeing Heidi. A gleeful one replaced it.

  “Not so fortunate this time, eh?” He held up the orb of sand, waggling it. “I expected to come out on top, of course, seeing how woefully unprepared you were. Not even a boat. Terrible error of judgment, really. Perhaps it’s pure dumb luck that you even succeeded over me in the past. You can only get so far without putting any thought in, you know.” He marveled again at the
orb of sand; its surface shimmered. “It’s a tennis ball, by the way. The glamour? Remarkable, utterly remarkable.”

  “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” Carson called. “Your gang of hired help has nothing at all to do with winning.”

  Borrick opened his mouth to bite off some retort—then balked. His gaze slipped past Carson, to—

  “Burbondrer?”

  The orc nodded. “Mr. Alain, sir.”

  “What are you doing here? And what’re you doing with her?” Borrick pointed at me, an accusing long finger.

  “I have joined forces with the human Brand and her companions.”

  Borrick was flabbergasted, and for a moment silenced. His jaw moved up and down, no words forthcoming, until finally … “Why?”

  “Bub found someone better to spend his time with,” Carson said. “Get used to it.”

  “ … ‘Bub’?” Borrick’s confusion deepened.

  “I have made allies,” said Bub diplomatically. “That is all. For now, we go together.”

  “For now?” asked Carson, face falling.

  “I bear no ill will toward Mr. Alain,” Bub continued. “As, I hope, he will bear none toward me.” There was a hopeful note in his voice, subtle enough that Carson and Heidi would’ve missed it. But I caught it, and I wondered: after my scrabble with Bub when I made off with Decidian’s Spear, what had become of him at Borrick’s hands? Bub hadn’t been part of Borrick’s party after that.

  Borrick shook his head, dispelling the confusion the way a cartoon dog shook off water. “Look.” He leaned over the edge of the ship, one hand on the wooden rail. “I’ve crowed it over you enough. So let’s be straight, here: I have one key, and you have the other. I assume that you won’t give it up by my asking—and although I could set my army upon you for it, that’s not my style—”

  “Hah!” barked Carson.

  “—which should be clear considering the fact that I didn’t touch one hair on your bespectacled friend’s head whilst he was in my custody,” Borrick finished, somewhat forcefully.

  “You told us you’d kill him,” I shot back.

  Borrick’s jaw twitched. “Fine. In that case, I am at least fair. I won’t set my marachti on you here.”