The Emperor's Edge 3: Deadly Games

The Emperor's Edge 3: Chapter 15 Part 4

Basilard waited with a rag pressed to the back of his shoulder, watching as Sicarius shoved equipment against the hatch. Soon everything that could be moved, or torn free, blocked the only entrance. Like the pipe in the lock wheel, it did not seem enough against wizards, but maybe they wouldn’t want to risk destroying their own engine room.

Basilard dropped his hands so he could sign, What now?

“Back up plan,” Sicarius said over the grinding and chugging of the engine. “If we can’t steer to the surface, we may be able to float there.”

Float? Basilard stared at him. He could not imagine this sprawling maze of tunnels and chambers moving at all, much less bobbing about at the surface of the lake.

“The air you’re breathing would typically make us buoyant,” Sicarius said, “so this craft must have ballast tanks.”

Basilard occasionally found Books too verbose for his tastes, but he wouldn’t have minded more of an explanation just then. Sicarius turned his back to study symbols on panels—writing presumably, but not in Mangdorian or Turgonian, the only two languages Basilard could read.

He walked about, in part to see if he could find some way to help and in part to distract himself from the metal ball grinding against his shoulder blade.

He found a storage locker holding a pair of flintlock muskets that appeared only a model or two up from the old matchlocks. More weapons that would prove useless against practitioners who could generate shields. There were a couple of axes, too, and he suspected this was a supply the engineer and his mate were supposed to use to defend their station.

Which raised a question: where was the engineer?

Had he fled the room at the sound of the alarm? It still throbbed in the corridors outside, along with a few bangs and scrapes. The practitioners up to something, no doubt.

Basilard took one of the axes—they had a satisfying heft, and he imagined smashing some of the machinery with it. If Sicarius could not find these ballast tanks, perhaps they could convince the structure to rise to the surface by destroying the engines. At the least, they could make sure this vessel never navigated into imperial waters again to harass its citizens.

That thought made him freeze mid-step. When had he come to care about the empire and its citizens? This place had done little enough for him, and the old emperor had been responsible for the ruthless assassination of Mangdoria’s rulers.

But Amaranthe, Maldynado, and Books were Turgonians and they were the first friends—the first family—he had been allowed to have in years. He wished he could see his daughter again someday, but, coward that he was, he feared her reaction. She would see his scars, know the violence he had been involved in, and would condemn him. She had to. That was his people’s way. It pained him to think that he might have more in common with these warmongering Turgonians these days than his own kin.

He flexed his fingers around the axe haft, bringing his attention back to the moment. This was no time for daydreaming. He prowled around the flywheel to consider an angle of attack and almost tripped over two bodies in Turgonian army fatigues. Their throats were slashed. Basilard glanced at Sicarius. He supposed it had been a matter of defense, but if they were alive, they might have been coerced into helping with the engines. Basilard shrugged and stepped past them.

A glint of light near the ceiling caught his eye. A small, transparent cylinder floated in the air beneath a grate—no, a vent. It was filled with something yellow. The same stuff that had incapacitated him in the stadium?

Basilard crept closer. It hung in the air for another moment, then dropped, as if the invisible hand holding it let go.

He dove for it, hitting the deck chest first. A fresh wave of pain erupted from his shoulder, but he flung his arm out and caught the vial before it smashed to the floor. He opened his fist, worried he might have cracked the glass. It remained intact but now what was he supposed to do with it? For all he knew, the practitioner who had levitated it in could snap the glass with his mind.

“What is it?” Sicarius asked.

Basilard showed him the vial, then pointed at the furnace. Should we burn it?

“That’ll release the fumes, and the furnace isn’t airtight.”

Sicarius found a flat sheet of metal, then fished in the toolbox again and pulled out a screwdriver. He held a hand out for the vial. When Basilard gave it to him, Sicarius slid it back into the duct from whence it had come and screwed the metal sheet across the vent to block it.

They’ll try again, Basilard signed.

“Yes. Continue to stand watch while I read.”

You’re welcome, Basilard signed.

“What?”

For saving you—both of us—from a trip back to the laboratory tables.

“At this juncture, it’s more likely they’d kill us.” Sicarius bent his head over a manual he had found.

Basilard remembered how he had not thought of him as one of the people he considered friends or family. No mistake there.

You’re an ass, you know that? he signed, sure Sicarius would not see with his head bent over the book. I can’t believe I’m planning on not killing you when you are so deserving of being killed.

Basilard scowled at himself. That didn’t even make sense. Before he could stalk away in disgust, Sicarius spoke.

“What changed your mind?”

Basilard froze. Er. He lifted his hands, but hesitated. Trying to explain his emotions would be futile. Sicarius had saved his life in the corridor, and possibly on the laboratory table as well, but Basilard did not want to admit to any feelings of gratitude, not to someone who would brush them aside. He signed, Because Amaranthe would never forgive me if I was successful.

“Huh.”

With that, Sicarius went back to reading. Basilard sighed and found a spot where he could watch the duct and the door. He wished Amaranthe were there with them. If nothing else, she would have convinced Sicarius to find clothes by now.