Decrypted

by Lindsay Buroker

  Tikaya nodded. “I saw the bodies of... I saw bodies.”

  “You were there?”

  “I ran back down to the harbor when I heard the explosion. My father tried to stop me—I realized later that... that he knew it was coming.” Tikaya licked her lips. Maybe she shouldn’t have admitted that, especially given that Rias looked to be in the mood to stop his attempts at diplomacy and start filling people full of pistol balls. “I pulled away from him and sprinted down there. I didn’t see the Freedom. At all. I was ready to dive in and search for it—for you—by myself, but the police showed up and someone used a calming patch on me. It knocked me out, and they brought me back here. How did you—your boat wasn’t anywhere to be seen when I got there.”

  “No. The explosion caused the dock to lurch sideways and it collapsed onto the Freedom, tilting it onto its side. Me too.” Rias touched the fresh scar. Tilting wasn’t likely a violent enough word to describe the event. “Water flooded into the cabin. My first instinct was to throw the switch and put the Freedom into submarine mode. I didn’t know if it’d work from there. It did, but tons of water was trapped inside, and it sank straight down. I had to revamp the system for pumping water out of the ballast tanks and use it on the interior. The oxygen tanks were damaged. I wasn’t sure if they’d blow up on me or if I’d have enough air to breathe, but I had a feeling it’d be better to remain at the bottom of the harbor instead of coming up. For all I knew, someone was waiting up there to finish the job if the explosions didn’t kill me.”

  “From what my father said—and Rias, I’m so sorry I didn’t realize he was part of this and that—” Her voice cracked and she wiped at her eyes. Curse the volcano, all she’d done was apologize to him since he stepped foot on her island. Why had she ever thought bringing him here would work out?

  “Sssh,” Rias murmured, his gaze flicking toward the door. “It’s all right.” He lifted a warm hand to her face and brushed a tear away with his thumb. “It’s not your fault. I’m the one who defied them and continued to build what seems to be the main source of their agitation. I’m having problems with following orders and minding authority in my old age.”

  Tikaya snorted and made a note to lower her voice. “You’re not old.”

  “I feel it after the last twenty-four hours. I spent most of the night at the bottom of the harbor, wondering if I’d run out of air and worried someone would send divers down to make sure the Freedom was destroyed. There were fireboats, and there was a private yacht sailing around on the outskirts of the activity too. Someone keeping an eye on things. Finally at dawn, I was able to get the submarine to limp out of the harbor, bumping and scraping along the bottom of the ocean. I stayed shallow and followed the coast up to those cliffs—”

  “You didn’t go down into that basin, did you?” Alarm flashed through Tikaya, partially at the idea of swarms of octopuses assaulting the Freedom and partially at the thought that he’d leave her behind and try to solve the mystery on his own.

  “Not when I was standing in a foot of water and wondering if I’d even be able to surface again, no. I slipped into one of those caves and climbed out. The Freedom requires repairs, and I need more tools than I had on board. I need to add a few modifications too. I also need my—” he glanced at the mess of papers on the floor, “—letter-purloining co-navigator.”

  Good. She wasn’t going to miss this expedition. “They’re from that soldier’s satchel. Two were written by his captain. In code. I’m working on the decryption and hoping there’ll be some useful clues within.”

  One side of Rias’s mouth quirked upward. “Are those the letters you mentioned being locked in the attic?”

  “Yes. Someone’s lock-picking lesson came in handy. I—”

  A floorboard creaked in the hallway. Tikaya froze. She hadn’t locked her door. Anyone could walk right in.

  The knob rattled and turned. Rias released her. Tikaya lunged around the bed, hoping to block the view into her room before her visitor came in. She was two steps away when the door opened.

  Mother stood there in her nightgown, eyes bleary as she held hands with one of Tikaya’s little nieces. “Tikaya, what are you still doing up?” Mother frowned at the lit candles all over the room and the letters littering the floor.

  “I couldn’t sleep.” Tikaya didn’t look over her shoulder, not wanting to bring attention to Rias, though he must have hidden somehow. Even sleepy, Mother couldn’t miss seeing a six-and-a-half-foot Turgonian standing at the foot of the bed.

  “Grammy, I’m thirsty,” the little girl complained.

  Mother allowed the child to tug her away from Tikaya’s doorway, but not before frowning and saying, “Blow out those candles and go to bed. And remember what I said. It’s best to let it go. For your sake... and all of ours.”

  “I understand, Mother. Thank you.” Tikaya closed the door and locked it this time.

  The window opened, and Rias slipped back inside. Raindrops glistened in his black hair. “Ready to sneak out?” he whispered.

  “Sounds fun,” Tikaya whispered back. Oddly, it was the truth. To think, she’d missed out on such adventures by staying home, being good, and obeying her parents during her teenaged years.

  “Are our actions putting your family in danger?” Rias nodded toward the hallway.

  Tikaya’s sense of having fun evaporated as she considered her mother’s parting words. “She said she doesn’t know what’s going on exactly, just that Father has been tense. And, as I said, he knew about...”

  “Perhaps someone is blackmailing him, forcing him to work against us.”

  Tikaya paused. She hadn’t considered that. Maybe her father was acting to protect the family and had little choice but to cooperate. If so, that made his actions at least somewhat less reprehensible in her eyes.

  “I’m not sure, but they’re not giving me any answers. The answers are out there.” She waved toward the ocean.

  “Agreed. Do you need help packing anything?”

  “No, just give me a moment.” While she put the letters and journal in the satchel, Rias added the sword scabbard to the weapons on his belt.

  “Do you still have your bow?” he asked.

  In the act of blowing out a candle, Tikaya hesitated and rotated her face toward him. “Do you think I’ll need... Are we planning to shoot people?” It had been one thing when, in their previous adventure, they’d been fighting for their lives against Nurians who wanted to assassinate her; killing her own people was a different matter.

  “People? No. Unless I miss my guess, we’ll never see any of your people. They don’t seem to care to confront a man face-to-face.”

  A hint of condemnation twisted his lips. A warrior through-and-through, he must find such tactics distasteful. She remembered how much he’d detested the idea of his emperor employing a back-stabbing assassin.

  “If they can send a giant octopus against us, a creature far from its native clime,” Rias said, “there’s no telling what else we might face.”

  Good point. “My bow’s in a shed out back. I can get it on the way out. We’ll visit the smokehouse too. It sounds like we’ll need a couple of days’ worth of supplies.” Tikaya grabbed matches and candles and added them to the satchel.

  “If we’re given a couple of days,” Rias said.

  “You think they may already know you and the submarine survived?”

  “You know the capabilities of your practitioners better than I do. I’ve dealt with shamans and wizards in battle on the seas before, but...” Rias spread his arms, palms up. “It’s different when some of the enemy are related to your lady and challenging them outright isn’t a possibility.”

  The floor in the hallway creaked again. Tikaya blew out the last candle, and the room succumbed to darkness. She felt her way to the window and Rias, patting him on the chest. She hoped he knew it was meant to be reassuring and also to thank him for putting up with all of this.

  They waited a few moments, until whoever had been i
n the hallway had gone back to bed, then slipped outside and into the darkness.

  • • •

  Tikaya balanced the bow across the handlebars as she bicycled side-by-side up the coastal road with Rias. Wind gusting in from the sea threatened to hurl them off the gravel and into the weeds. Rain came and went in fits, leaving them drenched and shivering. The cold couldn’t compete with the frigid temperatures of the imperial Northern Frontier, but wind and wet clothes certainly didn’t make for an enjoyable nighttime ride. She was tempted to suggest staying in one of the plantation’s out-buildings until the storm blew past, but knew Rias wouldn’t entertain the idea. Peddling hard, he was forcing a grueling pace. He was certain they didn’t have any time to spare. After gathering their initial supplies, they’d stopped only once, to risk sneaking into her grandfather’s workshop to retrieve the fine tools Rias needed for repairs.

  A hint of predawn light had come to the sky by the time they reached the northern edge of her family’s property. Instead of continuing along the road that would take them to the cliffs, Rias veered up a bumpy, dirt drive.

  “Wait,” Tikaya blurted, dropping her feet to the ground. “Where are you going? That’s where the Nurian neighbor lives.”

  Rias stopped but didn’t return to the main road. “I know.”

  “He’s not going to want to see you.”

  “Few people here do.” Rias gazed up the dark hillside. It was a small lot, more rocks than vegetation, so it was easy to see the cottage even in the gloom. “I’ll feel better going into this if we have the assistance of someone who can sense magic and perhaps use some if we’re in a pinch.”

  “Mee Nar said he was a sailor, didn’t he? Not a practitioner. Besides, didn’t you say Nurians were the ones responsible for burning down the Pragmatic Mate? Because they were trying to find the Freedom’s schematics?”

  “Yes,” Rias said, “I believe Mee Nar knows about that infiltration as well. Perhaps he directed it.”

  Tikaya almost pitched sideways in surprise. “Then why would you go to him now?”

  “Because, if he’s a spy, I have information he wants.”

  “You think he’s a spy? He’s married and expecting a child.”

  “Spies rarely announce their intent to spy,” Rias said dryly. “He probably met the girl and volunteered for the mission, hoping for a long-term placement.”

  “To watch my people? Why?”

  “The Nurians, like the Turgonians, have spies around the world to make sure they’re not surprised by other nations.”

  “What can he learn out here?” She waved to the rural home.

  “He works in the city, does he not?”

  Tikaya didn’t know. How did Rias know more about her neighbor than she did?

  “Choosing a home out here may have been part of his ruse to appear semi-retired and harmless,” he said. “But this location overlooks the shipping lanes and offers proximity to an old, prominent family.”

  “On what are you basing your suppositions?”

  “That he told us he’s a warrior, when he’s actually a practitioner.” Rias tilted his head toward the hill. “If he says no, we’ll continue on, but it’s worth asking.”

  Tikaya peddled after him, but added, “Why do you think he’s a practitioner?”

  “He probed my mind after we squabbled in your house.”

  “Like a telepath?”

  “Exactly like a telepath. Not a strong one, I suspect, or he could have been in and out without me sensing him, but I think he sought information or, at the least, wanted to read my intent in being there.”

  Tikaya hadn’t sensed that, but then the room had been full of people and she’d been a tad distracted. If Rias was right and could somehow convince Mee Nar to help, it might keep them from triggering traps. She was chagrinned that she’d missed whatever had been planted under the dock. A real practitioner would be far more helpful than she in that capacity.

  “But if he is a spy, shouldn’t he be the last person you ask for help? How can you trust him?”

  “Because I know what he wants.”

  They parked their bicycles and climbed the single step to the covered lanai. If nothing else, it was good to get out of the rain for a few minutes. Rias lifted his hand to knock.

  Before his knuckles touched wood, Tikaya whispered, “Do you have any parting instructions for me in case he kills you with his mind?”

  “If he were that strong a wizard, he wouldn’t have attacked me with his bow in your house. But in the event of my death, now or later in the day, I request that you defeat these meddling bureaucrats, uncover the secret they’re hiding, stop them from threatening your family, and... send that letter to my parents.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Also—” Rias nudged her shoulder with his, “—I’d like to think that you’d pine eternally, refusing to accept the embrace of another, knowing that he could never measure up to me.”

  “Well, that’s a given.” Tikaya squeezed his hand.

  Rias knocked on the door.

  The small cottage could only have one or two rooms, so it didn’t take long for footsteps to sound on the other side. A curtain moved in a window near the door. Tikaya tensed. If Mee Nar saw who was on his stoop, he might greet them with a weapon. Maybe she shouldn’t have left the bow on the bicycle. Rias had the sword and pistol on his belt, she reminded herself.

  When the door opened, she tensed, but Mee Nar stood there, empty-handed, his black hair down about his shoulders instead of up in a topknot. Though he bore no weapons, tension tightened his face, and his fingers were curled, almost into fists. His wife was nowhere in sight.

  “Enemy Chief Fox,” he said in Nurian, using his people’s name for Rias, though the rest of his words were in Kyattese. “What brings you to my home?” He didn’t add, “at this hour,” but his gaze did flick toward the dark sky.

  “I’m in need of assistance,” Rias said. “I thought of you as someone who might be trusted to help.”

  Mee Nar’s jaw sagged. Several seconds passed, and his mouth opened and closed several times before he decided on, “Why?”

  “You’re not Kyattese,” Rias said.

  Tikaya watched him, wondering if he’d thought through this conversation before knocking on the door. This didn’t seem like a particularly compelling argument.

  Mee Nar snorted though. “No, no I’m not.”

  Tikaya had some sense of an understanding passing between them, and, for the first time that she recalled, she wondered what exactly the rest of the world thought of her people. Did the Nurians and Turgonians have some common beliefs?

  “What do you want?” Mee Nar asked.

  “Someone to come with us for a couple of days and keep an eye out for practitioner attacks while I repair my watercraft and we prepare for a short journey.”

  Mee Nar twitched in surprise at the mention of practitioners. He opened his mouth, perhaps to deny any personal experience with the Science, but simply shrugged and let it go. “You are perceptive for a nik-nik-too,” he said, using the Nurian term for someone who either had never studied the Science or lacked aptitude for it.

  “Not perceptive enough to handle Kyattese who wish me and my craft ill.”

  “Yes... I heard of the explosion. I’d hoped you’d died.”

  Tikaya almost choked on his bluntness.

  Oddly, Rias smiled. “Not enthused at the prospect of having me for a neighbor?”

  “No.”

  “Even if it would give you all sorts of information to send home to your chiefs?”

  Mee Nar’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t answer the insinuation that he was a spy. Instead, he said, “To assist you, I would have to miss work. I have a wife here with a child on the way. What would you offer in exchange for my help?”

  “What would you want?”

  Mee Nar considered Rias thoughtfully. “Tell me about this watercraft that is worrying the Kyattese so. It goes underwater, yes?”

  Rias
nodded, clasped his hands behind his back, and proceeded to describe the Freedom. The amount of detail he offered surprised Tikaya, both because she hadn’t realized his Kyattese had come along so well in the last few weeks and also because she couldn’t believe he was volunteering so much information to a man he’d said was probably an intelligencer.

  Mee Nar rubbed his jaw as he listened. “I see why the Kyattese are concerned. Boats like this could be used for spying and sneak attacks. You built weapons into it, yes?”

  Interesting—he did seem to be fishing for as much information as possible. Unless the man had a secret passion for engineering, maybe Rias was right. A Nurian spy for a neighbor. Tikaya’s home certainly had changed a lot in the last few years. Or maybe she just hadn’t been paying attention to the world around her.

  “Some weapons, yes,” Rias said. “For defense. I designed it for science and exploration purposes.”

  Mee Nar’s response was somewhere between a snort and a laugh. “Exploration, yes. No doubt.”

  “Perhaps informing your chiefs of its existence would cause them to look upon you favorably.”

  “Perhaps. But if I am to help you, I want more.”

  “Such as?” Rias asked.

  “I want the schematics.”

  Tikaya snorted. Sure, he did. She didn’t know how Rias had known, but he seemed to have guessed correctly.

  Hands still clasped behind his back, Rias dropped his chin and studied the threshold. “I must have a moment to consider this.”

  “Understandable,” Mee Nar said.

  Surprised he hadn’t outright denied the request, Tikaya trailed Rias off the lanai and back to the path where they’d parked the bicycles. He put his back to the house and gazed out at the sea.

  “What are you going to do?” Tikaya asked.

  “Stand here thoughtfully for a few moments in discussion with you, then agree to give him the schematics.”

  “Er. Really?”

  “It was to be my bargaining tile from the beginning.”

  Tikaya studied his face. Just when she thought she had him all figured out... “Won’t that be seen as a betrayal by your emperor? Aren’t you worried the Nurians will use the technology to build submarines of their own and spy upon, or attack, your military? Your former military,” she amended and a new thought came to mind. “Or are you doing this to snub the emperor? As revenge for the wrongs he’s bestowed upon you?” Even as she spoke the words, she shook her head. That didn’t seem like him. Oh, maybe he’d snub the emperor if he got a chance, but to do something that would put soldiers and marines at risk, men who had once served under him...