Dark Currents

by Lindsay Buroker

  Maldynado shared a bewildered expression with Basilard. “How’re you going to do that?” he asked. “And what will Sicarius be doing?”

  “Nothing he’ll be happy about,” Amaranthe said.

  CHAPTER 23

  Books scraped and poked at the dirt around the rocks in the wall nearest the white box using the broken piece of iron he had found earlier. He kept running into slabs of rock too large to dig around. His fingers bled, he could not see what he was doing, and more hours than he could guess at had passed. His cracked lips craved water. His stomach growled so ferociously it was drowning out his side of the conversation he had been having with it. He had stopped worrying whether or not it was healthy to talk to himself.

  At least the pile of dirt and stones gathering on the floor beneath the wall was growing. If he could reach the back of that box, perhaps…

  Soft clacks sounded in the tunnel.

  Books pulled his makeshift chisel out of the hole and sat, leaning against the wall. He brushed the rubble beneath his legs as a tiny red light marched into sight. One of the spiders.

  In the darkness, Books could make out none of its features, but he had no trouble picturing the thing. The red light turned toward him, a thumbnail-sized dot against a black backdrop.

  “How about asking your master to send dinner down?” Books asked.

  The red light shifted from side to side, giving the impression that the spider thought him suspicious. He propped an elbow on a knee, hoping to appear the perfect image of a bored and unambitious prisoner. A bead of sweat streaked down the side of his cheek, perhaps belying the facade.

  What kind of mental capacity did the shaman’s inventions possess?

  The light continued to beam at him. The reverberations from the distant machinery pulsed against Books’s back. Water dripped and spattered into a pool somewhere in the depths.

  Finally, the light winked out as the spider turned to skitter up the tunnel, out of sight. Up, the direction Vonsha and the shaman had gone.

  Books returned to his hole and doubled his efforts. If the mechanical creature was off to tattle on him, he might not have much time. Sweat soon bathed his brow and dampened his shirt. His bones ached from scraping and pounding at the earth, but his efforts were rewarded. His makeshift file thunked against a new material.

  He wriggled his fingers about until he touched flat metal: the backside of the box. He tapped it a few times, fearing some magical punishment for his brazenness, but nothing happened. Books dug around it carefully. Minutes trickled past, but eventually it came loose in his hand.

  Not sure whether to pull it back through the hole or try to hurl it down the tunnel, he stuck his free hand out to test the barrier. It remained in place.

  Books tried to drag the box through the hole so he could examine it in the cell. It bumped the edge and fell to the ground.

  “Dead deranged ancestors,” he growled.

  All that time spent, and he dropped the thing. He twisted his arm, trying to reach through the hole and to the floor outside. His fingers swiped only air.

  He yanked his arm back into the cell, scraping his shoulder in the process. Fists clenched, he lunged to his feet and kicked the barrier.

  His foot met no resistance, and he almost pitched over backward.

  Books’s anger evaporated. He probed the front of his cell, but the barrier was indeed gone. He stepped outside.

  He could see nothing in the black tunnel. Arm stretched forward, he took a couple of tentative steps up the passage…and smashed into the barrier. Lovely. It must simply stretch across any opening parallel with the box. He found he could kick the device and push the barrier farther up the passage. He knelt, figuring he could angle it so he could pass, but he paused.

  Presumably, the exit lay somewhere up the tunnel, but the shaman waited there too. And Vonsha had mentioned constructs.

  Books left the barrier as it was and headed the opposite direction, deeper into the mine. Somewhere below him, machinery worked. Maybe he could sabotage something important, draw the shaman down to check on it, and slip past him to escape.

  “Sounds easy,” he muttered, sure it would be anything but.

  Groping his way through the darkness, he kept the ore cart track to one side and followed the wall with his hand on the other. Regularly placed wood timbers supported the ceiling and donated slivers as he brushed past them. The sound of dripping water grew louder, and he formed a hunch about the purpose of the distant machinery.

  When he rounded a bend, the darkness receded. Another bend took him into a natural cavern with small globes of light mounted on the wall like torches. A serene pool occupied half of the space with the water lapping over the tracks in spots. Several pieces of machinery hunkered on the other side of the cavern. Steam-powered excavating equipment, most of it rusted beyond use.

  Books stopped to admire a tunnel-boring machine in better condition than the rest. A pile of firewood lay nearby. Maybe the shaman had used the borer to excavate extra rooms for his lair. Books rubbed his lips. The idea of tunneling his way out of the place created a nice image, but he doubted the device could grind through more than a couple of feet of rock an hour.

  He checked a few wooden crates and found they held tools, bags of nuts, bolts, screws, nails, and other appurtenances he could not guess at. Raw materials for making evil shamanic contraptions, perhaps.

  Beyond the pool and the machinery, the tunnel continued. Books followed it, glad that lighting illuminated this section. Water from the pool spilled into the downward-sloping passage, and he squished through a steady flow. The rumble of machinery grew louder, but the water also deepened. When it reached his knees, he thought about stopping, but the noise promised he was close to the source.

  He entered a second, smaller chamber, this one carved by man and filled with machinery. The pumps.

  A current sucked at his legs as he splashed through the water to peer up a hole in the ceiling. Pipes and machinery disappeared into darkness a few feet up. If daylight and escape lay that way, it would be a long climb up damp walls—with a short and deadly drop if he fell.

  “You can do this,” Books told himself. He was not the same ungainly awkward man he had been a few months ago. He was in good shape now. Prime health.

  His stomach whined. Either it was mocking him, or it wanted him to hurry up.

  He grabbed the side of the pump casing and climbed toward the hole in the ceiling, but churning thoughts slowed his progress. If the shaman came down and found him, a gout of fire hurled up the chute could end his escape quickly. Also, if he left now, when Tarok seemed capable of repairing the artifact in the lake, that might put the team in no better a position than when they had started the mission.

  Books was here, in the villain’s lair. Shouldn’t he sabotage something?

  “Bet that bastard would have a hard time fixing anything with all his tools underwater,” he murmured.

  Nodding to himself, he dropped down and jogged back up the tunnel toward the cavern.

  • • • • •

  Wind gusted through the foothills, railing against the stump Amaranthe crouched behind. Rain slanted sideways, battering her flushed cheeks. Despite her fever, shivers coursed through her as she watched the mine entrance through a spyglass. Darkness hugged the hillside, but she could make out a pair of constructs guarding the tunnel.

  Their heads, similar to the clunky diving helmet Books had worn, did not shift or twist, though crimson eyes burned behind glass plates. With barrel-chests and column-like legs, they had a humanoid shape. She doubted they were pretty when they walked, but they did not need to be, not with the four scaled-down harpoon launchers adorning each arm.

  “Those things are fantastic,” Maldynado whispered.

  He and Basilard knelt near Amaranthe.

  “Wouldn’t it be great if we could get one to guard our hideout?” Maldynado added.

  Amaranthe said nothing. She was too tired for chitchat. She was surprised Sicariu
s and Akstyr had not found them by now.

  No sooner had she had the thought than a touch on her shoulder startled her.

  “Leave us,” Sicarius told the others and crouched beside her.

  “More secrecy,” Maldynado moaned, but he slouched off a few paces.

  Basilard frowned suspiciously at Sicarius before joining Maldynado. Something else to worry about, but not that night, Amaranthe hoped. Akstyr came up the trail out of the darkness and joined the two men.

  Amaranthe sank down, her back against the stump. “Report?”

  “You’re worse,” Sicarius said.

  “Yes, I’ve been told.” Her voice cracked. “Have you confirmed the shaman is inside? Are the soldiers coming?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “No sign of them? You’re sure?”

  “Yes,” Sicarius said. “We must act alone. And soon. You may be dead by morning.”

  “Have I mentioned how endearing your bluntness is?”

  “I believe we can destroy these constructs with mundane means,” Sicarius said, “but doing so will alert the shaman of our presence.”

  “Don’t worry. You’re not going that way. I am.”

  “Explain.”

  Amaranthe told him about the vertical shaft they had identified on the map.

  “You want us to retrieve Books while you’re being taken prisoner?” Sicarius said.

  “No, I want them to retrieve Books. I have to talk the shaman into healing me, and you’re the only bargaining chip I can think of to tease him with.” She smiled, hoping he would not be offended. It would not be the first time she used him or his reputation as a tool.

  “Explain,” he said again, his tone cooler this time.

  “I’d like you to wait up on the hillside—there’s a canyon called Crest Crevasse. I’ll go in and tell the shaman I’ll take him to you, but that I need him to heal me so I can make the climb. My life in exchange for his revenge. Of course, you’ll have time to pick a place, set up traps, and do whatever other assassinly preparation is required. I assume you’d prefer to face him on territory of your choosing rather than of his.”

  Amaranthe waited for a response. It was not a brilliant plan or even a creative-enough-to-possibly-unsettle-the-opponent plan, but she had come up with nothing better. And, like he said, she feared they had to go in tonight, while she retained the ability to walk and think.

  “I would prefer not to face him at all,” Sicarius said.

  “Me too, but I have to face him. I need someone to heal me, and he’s the only candidate.”

  “You would not need his services if you hadn’t insisted on confronting the makarovi.”

  The accusation surprised her. Not because it was untrue, but because Sicarius, whatever his opinions of her intelligence might be, did not usually voice them. Hearing his disapproval stung.

  “Probably true,” she said, “but I did and now I do.”

  “Your recklessness has nearly gotten you killed more times than I can count, and your plans continue to put my life in danger.”

  “I’m sorry,” Amaranthe said, “but I thought you… Don’t you believe one must take great risks in order to achieve great rewards?”

  “The only reward I want requires me to live to appreciate it.”

  Amaranthe closed her eyes. She already felt like a hot ingot on a blacksmith’s anvil. Why did he have to choose this moment to snipe at her?

  “Look,” she said, “if you have another plan—”

  “I plan to rethink this arrangement. You would put a master shaman on my trail, and for what? This will not help me earn my ‘reward.’”

  “Sicarius…”

  “I will wait in your canyon.” He stood. “Until dawn. After that, I’m leaving.”

  “What do you mean you’re leaving? Leaving the group? Permanently?”

  “If he doesn’t like your plan, and he decides to kill you, there’s no point in me staying.” He gazed down at her, eyes as cold and distant as when they first met. “Books is nothing to me, and I’m not coming in after you.”

  Amaranthe swallowed around a lump in her throat. “I didn’t ask you to.”

  Sicarius strode into the darkness. She scowled after him. Just the day before he had risked his life to keep the makarovi off her. Emperor’s balls, that was heroic. How could one decide something like that had been a mistake?

  Because, her mind said with a sneer, he realized how close he came to dying because of your stupid plan.

  And then there was the blasting stick that had been launched at him the last time she went in to talk to a shaman. Maybe Sicarius was right to be tired of her shenanigans. That knowledge did not keep tears from stinging her eyes.

  CHAPTER 24

  Flint rasped against steel, spraying sparks onto the thin undershirt Books had been wearing beneath the diving suit. Now it was serving duty as a fire starter since the shaman had not been considerate enough to leave matches and tinder along with the wood. The shirt worked, and he soon had flames crackling in the tunnel borer’s firebox. A cool draft stirred gooseflesh on his bare arms, but a garment was worth giving up if it meant flooding the lair and perhaps destroying the rest of the shaman’s cursed projects.

  With his back to the cavern, and the open furnace door blocking his view, he was in a poor position to monitor the exits. An uneasy feeling whispered across the back of his neck. He turned his head, expecting to find the shaman watching.

  He did have a visitor, but not a human one. One of the tiny spiders observed from the tunnel leading to the higher levels. As soon as he spotted it, the creature scurried off.

  Books clenched a fist. He might have fooled it before, but it would not fail to report his escape this time.

  He sprinted across the cavern. With legs much longer than the spider’s, he had little trouble catching up. Before wiser thoughts could stop him, he jumped and stomped on the device.

  Shards of metal tinkled against the rock walls. Books lifted his boot. In his enthusiasm—or perhaps desperation was the better word—he had smashed the thing to bits. Good.

  He ran back to the cavern. It would take time for the water in the boiler to heat enough to produce steam to power the vehicle.

  Books tried to work calmly and efficiently as he stoked the fire, but he could not keep from glancing at the tunnel entrance every few seconds. His expectations were answered.

  A heavy clank, clank, clank echoed from the passage.

  Books ticked the gauge on the boiler. It was close but not ready. No choice. He threw more wood on the fire and climbed over the borer’s treads and into the cab. The number of levers daunted him, especially considering how little time he had to figure out how to drive the vehicle.

  Something metallic glinted in the mouth of the tunnel.

  Books threw a lever. In front of the cab, a great rotating cylinder started to spin.

  “Forward,” he muttered. “How do we move this thing forward?”

  A massive cast iron creature clomped out of the passage, scraping rock and dirt off the sides with its broad body. Though reminiscent of the small spider Books had squished, this mechanical beast had more features. Such as fangs.

  Black, iron teeth as long as his forearm gnashed together in a protruding jaw shaped like a dog’s snout. Not two but six eyes glowed above that snout. Each of the eight legs below its bulky carapace had the heft of a pillar. Twin arms stuck out of the front, and crab-like pincers snapped. Steel razors gleamed, reflecting the light from the wall orbs. Without hesitation, the great spider clanked toward Books.

  He tried another lever.

  The tunnel borer lurched forward. Surprised, Books tipped backward, ramming his naked shoulder blades against unforgiving metal.

  On the gauge, the needle wobbled beneath the ready mark, but Books had no choice. He set himself and pushed the lever to maximum. The borer picked up speed.

  He chose one of two paired levers, figuring they must be for steering. His first try angled the machine into t
he wall. He lurched, nearly thrown back again. Pulverized stone flew, pelting the cab, and the noisy grinding drowned out the spider’s approach.

  Books pulled the other lever, and the borer veered away from the wall. He steadied the machine and drove it toward the spider. He curled his lips in a grimace of anticipation, anticipation that this might be messy. For him. The drills could handle rock, but what about cast iron? Cast iron possibly enhanced with magic?

  Maybe he should wheel the borer around and try to outrun the spider to the pump room. If he could destroy the machinery before—

  No time. The spider snapped its jaws and increased its speed, lunging like a wolf.

  At the last second, Books hurled himself from the cab.

  Metal screeched and squealed. He rolled away, arms sheltering his head. Shrapnel hammered the rock all around him and splashed into the pool. A fist-sized chunk slammed into his naked shoulder. Warm blood flowed down his arm.

  Grinding noises and the smell of scorched metal filled the cavern. Books lifted his head and opened an eye.

  The borer had crunched into the carapace of the spider, leaving a massive concave dent. The snout and pincers were missing, fallen to mingle with wreckage from the vehicle: shards of metal and broken drill bits. The construct was not dead yet though. It wobbled to the side as the borer, despite a snapped tread, continued to advance.

  Books jumped to his feet and sprinted back to his vehicle. He ducked his head to avoid the newly warped frame of the cab and grabbed the levers, turning the machine to angle for the spider again. Even damaged it might be able to hobble back up to deliver a message to the shaman.

  He braced himself and rammed the construct again. The collision jolted him, but he hung on. He pushed the spider before him, steering it toward the pool.

  Even headless and eyeless, the creature seemed to sense its trouble for it tried to shamble sideways. Books kept it pinned and pushed it ruthlessly over the tracks and into the water. Once it was immersed to its carapace, he backed up and rammed it again. After three heavy jolts, it finally stopped moving. It slumped, smoke pouring from cracks in its seams.