by Janice Hardy
“I can’t, but I can sense that. Feels like spiders crawling all over me, inside and out.”
Just like in Zertanik’s. He’d been an enchanter. Had he created a pynvium device as well? Knowing him, it was something he could sell, not something that would help people. Or maybe something he thought he could sell to the Duke. Like maybe whatever was in that box in the library?
Onderaan frowned. “If you’re that sensitive to it, this may not work.”
“Why does it feel so wrong?”
“I honestly don’t know. I’ve never met anyone who reacted to it the way you do. Maybe you have a touch of enchanter in you?”
I was tired of being unique. “What is it?”
“A healing device.” He shrugged, as if this weren’t as big a deal as it sounded. “It’s been hard enough getting the pynvium, but finding Healers to use it has been even harder. That’s been true for years. I was trying to enchant pynvium to draw pain when triggered, instead of flashing it.”
Healing without Healers. It was genius. “Does it work?”
“I think it will.”
“You didn’t test it?”
“I haven’t finished it. The glyphs are correct, but I can’t insert the trigger until the piece is complete.”
The glyphs. How could something that felt so horrible help people?
“What are the glyphs for? I remember my father writing with them, but I never saw him carve them into anything.”
Onderaan didn’t answer right away, just stared at me. “They strengthen the enchantment. Most enchantments can be set just by drawing them with water or oil as the pynvium cools.”
“The easy ones.”
“Yes. Embedded enchantments are difficult to master, but they last longer. Sometimes even permanently.”
“Are they dangerous?” They’d have to be if they made me feel this way.
He nodded. “They can be.”
“Tell me how it works.” I hated the idea of that thing against my skin, but if it got me inside the Taker camp, I could bear it. I’d survived far worse to save Tali before.
He took it back out of its box. I steadied my stomach. “You just wear it,” he said, slipping the bracelet over his hand. The rings fit on his fingers. I’d seen similar jewelry in the crowds when I first got to Baseer. “It needs good skin contact, so you press your hand against the patient, squeeze and flick, same as a rod. The pynvium draws away the pain.”
“How would it know what to heal?” I asked. Takers needed training to be able to heal properly. No way a simple chunk of pynvium—no matter how carved it was—could do that.
He sighed. “I’m not sure how it works exactly. I have notes and patterns my grandfather gave me. He said they’d been in our family for generations and that they worked. He’d made things himself.”
“Healing devices?”
“No. Weapons mostly. The healing device is something I figured out by combining two separate glyph patterns. I know it will work.”
I wasn’t so sure. Who knew what it might do once it was on someone’s hand? Could it do any worse than what you do now? “So if I wear that thing, it can heal and it’ll look like I did it?”
“Yes.”
“And what happens if I have to push the pain into pynvium armor?”
He hesitated. “It won’t do that. It’ll allow for multiple healings, then it’ll reach capacity. But,” he quickly added as I started to speak, “the Undying don’t get their armor for months. There’s training and conditioning and tests, so you might be able to fool them long enough to find your sister and the others.”
Mights were definitely as bad as maybes. “What do you need to finish it?”
“More pynvium. That’s what tonight’s raid was for.”
“I’m guessing you can’t just try again tomorrow night.”
“Not now.”
“And there’s no other place to get more pynvium?”
“Not in the outer quarters.”
Which meant there was more, but getting to it was probably dangerous. If I could help him get more pynvium, he could finish his device and I could get inside the Taker camps and save Tali. “If we agree to help you, can everyone stay? You won’t throw them out?”
He hesitated, staring at me just like Papa always did when he was trying to guess if I was serious. “They can stay for now, but there’s nothing you can do. The only other place to get pynvium is the Duke’s foundry. It’s in the Aristocrats’ Quarter, which has been locked down for months. Breaking in there will be impossible.”
I’d heard that before. “Lucky for us, impossible is what I do best.”
FOURTEEN
“You want to raid the foundry?” Jeatar said an hour later in Onderaan’s office. He was the only other member of the Underground present. Until Onderaan found the spy—or was certain there was no spy—we were the only people he knew for sure he could trust. Which really said something about the bind he was in. “This was Nya’s idea, wasn’t it?”
“It was a joint decision.”
Danello nodded slowly, no doubt weighing the options like he always did. Raiding the foundry was a huge risk, but I needed that pynvium.
“I’m game,” said Aylin. She didn’t sound as cheery as usual, and I suspected that wasn’t because it was late and she was tired. I’d crossed a line and I wasn’t sure how to get back. “So what’s the plan?”
“We sneak into the foundry, steal some pynvium, and sneak out before they know we’re there,” I said.
“Basically the same plan as always?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
Jeatar groaned and covered his face with both hands. I guess he was tired too. Onderaan glanced at me. “We haven’t finalized the details yet. We haven’t even agreed about when.”
“We need to go at sunrise, right after the shift change,” I said.
“This sunrise?” Jeatar asked. “As in five hours from now?”
Onderaan shook his head. “I think we need to wait a day and go at night.”
“No one ever expects trouble before breakfast,” I said, “and they certainly wouldn’t expect us to hit them again so soon after the League break-in.” There was another reason for moving quickly, but I didn’t want to mention it.
Danello did anyway. “You can’t wait a day, can you? The shifted pain, I mean.”
“No. By tomorrow it’ll slow me down. Make it hard to think. You remember.”
“Yeah.” He’d held shifted pain to save his father, had suffered almost as much as Tali had. Not being a Taker, it had affected him even faster and almost killed him and his brothers. So far I’d been able to keep the pain coiled between my guts and my heart, but it still hurt. And it would only get worse.
Aylin turned to Onderaan. “Let’s hear about this foundry.”
“It’s behind the inner walls of the Aristocrats’ Quarter, near the harbor and the citadel.” He unrolled a map of the city. Grids and straight lines, all orderly. I preferred Geveg’s curved streets and winding canals. “We’re here.” He pointed at a section at the bottom of the map. “The foundry is here.” His finger moved up, past the thick, dark lines of the inner wall, to a spot near the river. “The gates to this quarter are tightly controlled. Normally it’s impossible to get inside without the proper seals, but tonight’s fiasco gave us exactly the seals we need.”
“From the soldiers killed,” Jeatar said.
“Correct. All soldiers have access to the citadel, so we now have four east gate seals. Unfortunately they change them weekly, and I have no way of knowing how long these will work.”
“So we might get stopped at the gate?” Danello asked.
“It’s possible.”
“Getting inside the walls is the easy part,” I said. Onderaan had explained the problems with the foundry in great detail, probably hoping I’d agree it was pointless to try. But since it was our only source of pynvium, we had to find a way in. “The foundry has its own wall, with guards on the entrance and a patrol on
the grounds.”
“Will the seals work at the foundry?” Danello asked.
“No.”
Aylin frowned. “Then how do we get in?”
“I’m hoping we can figure that out when we get there.”
Jeatar groaned and Onderaan nodded slowly. “That’s what we’ve been arguing over for the last hour.”
“At least we can go look,” I said. “I bet we can think up a good excuse and walk inside.”
“I doubt that.”
He was probably right, but a little optimism never hurt. “We won’t know what our options are until we see it.”
“Okay,” said Danello, slapping his palms together. “When do we leave?”
“Morning shift change. Just after sunrise.” I grinned at Onderaan. “Right?”
He sighed. “If all you’re doing is looking, sunrise it is.”
“Before we do that,” Aylin said, “we have a few things to do first.” She looked at Danello. “Hey, Onderaan. You wouldn’t happen to have any black hair dye around, would you?”
This time my uniform fit much better. Onderaan had Neeme alter a couple for Aylin and me, swearing her to secrecy about it. Her curious looks said she wondered what we were up to, but she didn’t ask any questions. Onderaan was keeping our scouting mission a secret for now, but there was only so much you could hide when fifty people were constantly in and out of the same villa.
“What are they doing?” Siekte asked as we were leaving.
“Reconnaissance,” Onderaan said.
“Really? They don’t even know the city.”
“Jeatar does.”
Siekte clearly wasn’t happy at all about being left out. Neither were her friends. These folks weren’t soldiers, but I suspected at least one or two in the mix had been. They’d set themselves up in some kind of command structure, but I wasn’t sure who followed who, though since people deferred to her, Siekte had to be one of the group’s leaders. She wasn’t quite equal to Jeatar or Onderaan, but she had enough support to be a problem if she wanted to.
“What about my team? They’re trained scouts.”
“Who have been working day and night for weeks. I assumed you’d be pleased about the rest.” Onderaan spoke casually, but his voice had an edge to it. “I’ve been pushing them too hard, isn’t that what you said the other day?”
Her cheek twisted. “Of course, thank you. I’m sure they’ll appreciate the time off.”
“I’m sure they will.”
I belted on my sword, trying not to smile. I really should try to be nice to her, but even Saint Gedu didn’t have the patience required for Siekte.
“All set?” Danello asked. He looked good in his uniform, his newly black hair letting him blend in better than his blond hair.
“Let’s go.”
We left the villa just as the sun’s light broke over Baseer. The curfew ended at dawn, but the streets were already crowded. No one gave us a second look as we walked toward the east gate, and a few times Jeatar had to act the part just to get folks to move out of the way so we could pass.
“How do you feel?” Danello asked me.
“I’m fine.”
“Nya, I can’t help you if you lie to me.”
I slowed a step and let Jeatar and Aylin get a pace or two ahead. “My chest hurts and it’s a little hard to breathe, but I’ll be okay for a while.”
“What will you do if we can’t get any pyn vium?”
“I don’t know.” Thankfully, it hadn’t occurred to him that pynvium wasn’t the only problem. Even if I found some, I had no Healer to use it. I needed Tali just as much as she needed me.
And if I couldn’t find her or another Healer?
Then I’d have to make a decision I really didn’t want to make.
“There’s the inner wall,” Jeatar said. It looked just as solid as the one surrounding the city, only smaller, about twenty feet high. The entrance gate cut through the middle, half as high, with bars thick as my arm.
Soldiers in better-fitting uniforms than ours checked seals at the gate. They didn’t look young or bored like so many of the soldiers I’d seen at home. These men and women looked dangerous, like they hoped someone wouldn’t have the right seal just so they could start the day off with a fight.
“Next,” the soldier called. Two others stood behind her, armed with long spears.
“Everyone relax,” I said, pulling my seal out of my pocket. “Real soldiers do this every day.”
The seals were wood, about the size of my palm, stamped with the Duke’s osprey and some official wording. Along the bottom were more marks of varying depth, some filled with color, others plain.
Please, Saint Saea, let it be for this week.
We reached the front of the line. The soldier inspected Jeatar’s seal, turning it over in her hand and running her fingers across the colored marks at the bottom. “You four together?” she asked Jeatar.
“Yes.”
Her gaze flicked Danello’s way, then stopped on me. “Isn’t she a little young for a soldier?”
Heart racing, I harrumphed. “Aren’t you a little nosy for a guard?”
Jeatar reached over and smacked me in the head with his palm. “That’s another day of pot scrubbing for you,” he said, voice hard. “Better learn to keep that mouth of yours shut or you’ll spend your whole tour in the kitchens.”
The soldier eyed him, lips pursed.
“New recruits,” Danello said with a laugh. “They get younger every day, huh?”
The soldier chuckled and reached forward, running her fingers along his chin. “Says the boy with baby fuzz still on his chin.”
Danello turned bright red and the soldiers with the spears joined in the laughter.
The soldier checked the rest of our seals and nodded. “Go on in. Try to keep the little one out of the taprooms.”
I scowled as expected and they laughed again. The soldier opened the gate and we walked through.
“What were you thinking, mouthing off like that?” Jeatar said when we got out of earshot.
“That someone who looked as young as me would be touchy about it.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it. “That’s actually smart.”
“You don’t have to sound so surprised.”
Aylin chuckled.
“Which way to the foundry?” I asked.
“This way.”
The Aristocrats’ Quarter was far nicer than the terraces in Geveg. Elegant villas sat on hills surrounded by lush grass and blossoming trees. Sweetness scented the air and petals drifted by on the wind. No buildings were crammed against each other here. Even the shops and cafés had space between them, usually a small garden or patio.
“Are those soldiers?” Danello whispered as men in red and gold uniforms approached.
“No, servants,” said Jeatar.
“In uniforms?”
“Most of the households have their own colors and seals.”
“What for?” Danello looked as baffled about it as I did. But it could be another way to sneak about the city. Servants probably didn’t get looked at any closer than soldiers.
“Prominence,” said Jeatar. “Shopkeeps know by the colors which house the servant is shopping for, and that determines who gets the best goods.”
Danello just shook his head.
The landscaped streets gave way to high hedges, then less fancy shops and simpler town houses. Another few blocks and those gave way to tall warehouses and taprooms, then the military district. The citadel sat like a rock in the distance, formidable even from afar.
“And there it is,” Jeatar said. “Anyone thirsty?”
I gaped at him until I noticed the taproom across the street from the foundry. Tables sat under a vine-wrapped trellis, providing a clear view of the street. We could sit and watch and no one would be the wiser. Of course, the tables were mostly occupied by soldiers.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked Jeatar.
“You said you wanted to
scout the foundry.” He walked up the steps onto the patio and claimed a seat at one of the tables. A few people glanced over, but most ignored him.
“I wonder if they serve breakfast,” Aylin said as we all joined him.
The foundry was exactly as Onderaan described. A ten-foot wall ran around the grounds, with two soldiers at the front gate. Heavy wood, not bars, so you couldn’t see inside. Tall chimneys and low-peaked roofs stuck above the wall on the left side and a square three-story building sat on the right. Dark smoke poured from the chimneys, but the river wind blew it away from the city instead of into it. Random roars from the furnaces drowned out the rhythmic clanging of the smiths’ hammers. A few large trees grew in the yard surrounding it, but they were too far from the wall for us to use them to get inside.
“Ready to give up yet?” Jeatar said.
“Hardly.” Though getting inside was going to be tougher than I’d thought. “How long can we sit here without anyone noticing?”
“As long as we keep ordering. Plenty of soldiers spend their off-duty hours here.”
“I hope the food is good then. We might be here awhile.”
By lunch it was clear simply walking in wasn’t an option. The door guards checked every person, and getting those seals—if they even used seals—wouldn’t be easy. No supply wagons of any type had arrived, so sneaking in that way wasn’t going to work either.
I fidgeted in my chair, the shifted pain eating away at me. It hadn’t been too bad this morning, but every hour brought a new ache, a new sting.
“Let’s scout the area some more,” I said, standing. I tried not to wince, but Danello’s face clouded and he stood with me.
“I’ll go with you. I could use a break.”
Jeatar nodded. “Be careful and don’t do anything impulsive, okay?”
“Wouldn’t think of it.”
Jeatar reached for his drink “Right.”
Danello and I headed down. Besides the taproom, there were ferriers, tanners, glassmakers. In Geveg, day laborers worked wherever there was a job, so odds were someone here worked at the foundry and might know how to get inside. I used to help Papa with his forge, so maybe I could pass myself off as one of the workers.
