Books shifted from foot to foot as Maldynado stroked back to shore. He was an adept swimmer, and he had been underwater a long time. Long enough to get a good look at the submerged device?
With night’s fall, the location was unmistakable, but its distance from shore suggested depths one could not reach by swimming. Unless, instead of lying on the bottom, it hung suspended somewhere beneath the surface. The fact that the light was visible gave him hope. He had already run the calculations, figuring the brightness an object had to possess to be visible through twenty, fifty, and one hundred feet of water.
Across the lake, the large fire at the soldiers’ camp was burning down. Books paced about the beach, nominally on watch, while Akstyr read his healing tome. The eyes of youth apparently had no trouble picking out sentences in the deepening gloom.
Naked and shivering, Maldynado splashed out of the shallows. Books handed him dry clothes.
“Did you see it?” Books asked. “What did it look like? Fragile? Destructible?"
“Mind if I dress first?” Maldynado’s teeth chattered. “Nobody wants to be interrogated in his brothel suit.”
Books paced. He had let Amaranthe down by sleeping with Vonsha instead of investigating the house, and he felt the need to redeem himself. She was too nice to do more than raise an eyebrow at his bedroom exploits, but he knew. He had failed. He wanted to succeed here.
“It was too deep for me to see,” Maldynado finally said. “The glow got brighter as I went down, but that’s it.”
“Emperor’s eternal warts.” Books clenched his fist. “We can’t stop it if we can’t get close to it.”
“I reckon they’ve had the same problem.” Maldynado waved toward the camp across the lake.
“If we could fish it up somehow,” Akstyr said, “and I could look at it, maybe I could figure out a way to destroy it.”
“Not happening,” Maldynado said. “It’s got to be one- or two-hundred feet down.”
“We do have that much rope back in the lorry,” Books mused. “And I imagine we could fashion a hook. It’d take a lot of luck to find it down there, but the light would be something of a beacon. I wonder if it’s magnetic.”
“It’s big,” Akstyr said. “Probably too big to lift. I can sense that much.”
“Someone lifted it to chuck it in the lake in the first place,” Maldynado said.
“Telekinetics,” Akstyr said in Kendorian, a word Books knew only because he had been teaching the young man enough of the language to read those magic texts. Turgonian had no terms to describe the different mental sciences. It was all “magic” in the empire, and none of it existed supposedly.
“Huh?” Maldynado asked.
“He said we either need to hire a gifted shaman,” Books said, “or we need to physically get down to the bottom of the lake to examine this artifact up close.”
“He said all that in one word?” Maldynado asked.
Books heaved a sigh. “Go stand watch, you uneducated lout.”
“You’re enjoying ordering me around far too much. I can’t believe I dove into a frigid glacier-fed lake for you. Next time I’m making sure Amaranthe puts me in charge.” Maldynado adjusted his belt and swaggered toward the head of the beach, though he paused to question Akstyr on the way by. “You didn’t really say all that, did you?”
“Naw,” Akstyr said.
Books turned his back on them and rested his chin on a fist. “What we need,” he muttered to himself, “is a diving bell.”
Perhaps he could make one, something they could lower down by rope that would be big enough for Akstyr and perhaps one other to fit inside. It would have to be spacious enough to cup plenty of air beneath its concave form. That would allow Akstyr to take short trips out to investigate the artifact. Unfortunately, the forest would not provide anything suitable for the purpose.
“I wonder what kind of tools and equipment are in the dam,” Books said.
An owl hooted, a cranky sound rather than the usual inquisitive one. Twilight lay thick amongst the trees, and more eyes than the owl’s glowed from the shadows. The effect was...eerie.
“Should we light a fire?” Maldynado asked.
“It’d be visible from the soldier camp,” Books said.
A mosquito nipped at Books’s neck, and he slapped it with more urgency than normal. What if being bitten by something that drank the water could pass along the strange symptoms?
“Do we care?” Maldynado asked. “Maybe they’ve got some hard cider or brandy over there. When the forest is full of creepiness, humans should band together.”
Something that sounded like a dog whining came from behind them. Books turned his back to the lake. He could no longer make out Maldynado and Akstyr’s faces.
Leaves rustled. A thunk came from Maldynado’s direction, the sound of a hammer being cocked. Books tensed.
“It’s us,” Amaranthe called.
Three figures appeared out of the darkness.
“Find anything, Books?” Amaranthe asked.
“Not yet, but I have an idea.” He explained his diving-bell concept.
“That would provide enough air to stay down long enough to study the device?”
She sounded more impressed than disbelieving, and Books allowed himself to feel a touch of pride. Had she not heard of such a thing? Perhaps all the trivia nestled in his brain had a use for this group after all. He went on to detail the historical precedent, citing instances where diving bells had been used within lakes as well as the sea. Maldynado groaned several times during the spiel, but Amaranthe listened patiently.
“You think you can make such a thing?” she asked when he finished.
“I should not wish to oversell my manual abilities, but—”
A hand clamped over Books’s mouth.
“Yes,” Maldynado said. “Yes, he can make it.”
Books shoved his hand away. “I need supplies. I’m hoping I can find them in the dam.”
“And I’m hoping we don’t have to spend the night out here amongst the plagued and eerie,” Maldynado said.
Silence fell after their words. Amaranthe faced Sicarius for a long moment. He said nothing, as usual. Books wondered what she got from exchanges with him.
“Something wrong?” he asked when the silence continued.
A retching sound came from the woods. A snarl followed, then a snapping of jaws and a squeal of pain.
“Wronger,” Maldynado said.
Sicarius spun and fired into the dark. Books jumped. Something dropped to the ground. Wordlessly, Sicarius reloaded.
“The dam may not be safer than the forest,” Amaranthe said, “but if your supplies are there, we will go.”
Books’s earlier pride faded as he wondered what trouble his idea would land them in.
YOU ARE READING
The Emperor's Edge 2: Dark Currents
FantasyIt's been three months since former enforcer Amaranthe Lokdon and the notorious assassin Sicarius thwarted kidnappers and saved the emperor's life. The problem? Nobody knows they were responsible for this good deed. Worse, they're being blamed for t...
