Encrypted (17 page)

Tikaya copied the writing from the bottom of
the device and circled spots where the lone symbols on the side of
the box appeared in the groupings. If they were numbers... No, she
better not assume that yet. Just because something reminded her of
an equals sign in her language did not mean anything.

Time bled past, the chalk clacking on the
board the only sound in the building. Infrequently, gunshots in the
distance interrupted. She found herself squinting at the chalkboard
and realized twilight had come. The glowing symbols gave off some
light, and she worried it would be visible through the windows.

A crunch sounded in the snow outside. She
halted her work, chalk poised in the air. More crunches. Footsteps
on her side of the building.

Tikaya eased past the bodies and grabbed
Agarik’s rifle. She wished he had left powder and balls too. One
shot was all she had if someone attacked her, one shot with a
weapon she had never used before.

She cracked the door. Deep shadows lurked in
the hall, and she barely made out the dead wolf. At one end, the
door thumped and banged in the breeze.

Shots fired beyond that door, and she
jumped. “Stop—what—” someone cried. Then screams of pain and
aggressive yells followed. A lot of them. Her mind conjured the
imagine of a wolf pack chasing after its wounded prey. Not Agarik,
she prayed.

“
Where’s the woman?”
someone yelled.

Tikaya swallowed and closed the door. The
voices still penetrated the walls.

“
Find the
woman!”

Someone cackled, and graphic descriptions of
what could be done with ‘the woman’ followed.

Tikaya forced herself to return to the
device. The same set of symbols glowed crimson in the air, taunting
her.

There was an answer here; she just had to
figure it out before time ran out.

CHAPTER 9

A boom rattled windows, shook the earth, and
knocked Tikaya’s chalkboard on the floor. Rias’s group must have
arrived, though she could not imagine him flinging blasting sticks
wantonly.

Chalk still in hand, she ran to the window
to peer between the sloppily nailed boards and through the frosted
panes. Darkness had fallen, but flames burned in a building down
the hill. Two figures with rifles ran through the light before
turning down an alley.

She shivered, wishing for warmth in the
office. The already frigid temperature had dropped noticeably after
the sun had set.

Footsteps sounded at the end of the
hallway.

Tikaya lunged for the rifle, but caught her
heel on the downed chalkboard and skidded to her backside with a
noisy thud. Great. If they hadn’t known where she was before, they
knew now.

She scrambled to her feet and grabbed the
rifle. She hopped over the bodies and slid into the shadows
thickening the corner across from the door.

Finger on the trigger, butt pressed into her
shoulder, cheek against the stock, Tikaya waited. In the stillness,
she could feel her heart pounding in her ears. The footsteps
thudded closer, the steady pace of someone jogging.

The door bumped against the furniture
barricade, eliciting a surprised grunt that sounded familiar.

“
Rias?” Tikaya hazarded
before she could think better. What if he was as crazy as everyone
else out there seemed to be?

“
Tikaya!”

Rias burst into the room, bringing lantern
light with him. He did not seem to notice the artifact or bodies;
he searched until he spotted her in the corner, started forward,
but stopped, gaze dropping to her weapon. He was missing his cap,
his hair stuck up in places, and blood trickled from a gash on his
temple. A cutlass was strapped across his back, two bulges in his
parka suggested pistols, and he carried a rifle as well as the
lantern.

“
Are you...you?” Tikaya
asked.

“
I’m not murdering people
and trying to kick the ore out of everyone’s cart if that’s what
you’re asking. Just a little—” Rias cocked his head, almost like a
dog listening. “Actually, it’s strange but I feel normal in
here.”

Tikaya lowered her rifle. “Yes, I think the
device creates some kind of normalcy field around it, probably so
the operator isn’t affected by whatever it’s emitting that’s
causing everyone to be on edge.”

“
On edge, that’s an
understatement.”

Rias closed the door and hopped over the
upturned furniture. Tikaya joined him in the middle, intending to
show him the device, but he dropped his rifle on a desk and wrapped
her in a hug. Surprised, she found herself crushed against his
chest. There was a desperate fierceness to the grip, but she
managed to get one arm around to his back to return the
embrace.

“
I’m relieved you’re not
hurt or...” Emotion thickened his voice.

“
I’m guessing you’ve had a
worse afternoon than me,” she said, relaxing against him. The fear
that had tensed her shoulders since Agarik left disappeared, and
she felt warm for the first time in hours.

Rias released her and stepped back. “Sorry,
I just... I wasn’t sure if you...” He cleared his throat. “It’s
dangerous out there. Half the people are mildly affected by
whatever’s in the air, and the other half are crazier than the
bloodthirsty maniacs I left on Krychek.” His gaze skimmed the
bodies in the room, and he frowned thoughtfully as he took in the
furniture barricade and the half-boarded windows.

“
I’m glad you were able to
get to me,” Tikaya said. “I need your help. Maybe Agarik can stand
guard while—wait, where
is
Agarik?”

“
I don’t know.”

“
I asked him to go find
you.”

Rias spread his arms, palms up. “I haven’t
seen him. When I realized what was going on, I worried that one of
these lunatics would shoot you, so I escaped at the first
opportunity. I’ve been hunting around, dodging packs of the more
aggressive people, and just now found you.”

Despite the situation, she smiled. Escaped
at the first opportunity. By what creative means had he eluded his
shackles this time? She almost felt sorry for Captain Bocrest.

“
I hope he’ll be able to
stay safe.” Tikaya tapped the box and nodded at the collection of
symbols hovering in the air. “I need your help. I think this device
is responsible for what’s happening out there.”

Rias walked around it, shaking his head and
massaging the back of his neck before he even saw the side with the
runes and indentations.

“
If you press those, the
representations appear in the air.” She demonstrated as she
explained.

“
Oh, Tikaya,” he murmured.
“I’m sorry, but you’ve got the wrong person. We Turgonians may be
good engineers, but students go to different nations if they want
to seriously study alchemy.”

Her breath caught. “Alchemy?”

He stabbed one of the indentions and a
symbol flared to life. “That’s iron, isn’t it?” Another stab. “And
copper.” He shrugged apologetically. “I only remember the ones that
we use in alloys. Since the Turgonians deny magic exists, we won’t
publish anything in our textbooks that was only discovered through
the use of magic. Aren’t your people the ones who first talked
about atoms and electrons and such? We don’t have a microscope that
can see anything that fine. We’ve only got fifty things on our
table of elements.”

Scarcely breathing, Tikaya dropped an
incredulous stare to the symbols. Was he right? Were they looking
at the alchemical table of elements? If so, then this could be her
Tekdar Tablet. She had to be sure before she based translations on
it. “There are almost two hundred symbols. Are you certain? Our
table has seventy-five, I think, and it’s the most complete of any
in the world.”

“
But your people are still
finding new ones, right?” Rias ticked his fingernail on the top of
the device. “You’ll believe me when you see the tunnels, but for
now just trust me when I say these people were more advanced than
us.”

“
More
advanced?”

He had hinted of that in his tale of the
tunnels, but she had not truly thought it possible. Though,
advanced technology might explain how this device had dug its legs
into the earth, piercing tile, wood, and permafrost to do so. She
clasped her hand over her mouth and stared at the runes. There was
no existing evidence that a people more advanced than modern man
had ever lived. This was rewrite-the-history-books kind of stuff.
Incredible. If it was true.

“
I just want to be
certain. I don’t see what you’re seeing to make these
identifications. Nor does the layout of the symbols look like the
table I’m familiar with, but I’ve only had a cursory introduction
to alchemy. It wasn’t anything I thought I’d come across studying
ancient languages.” She realized she was making excuses and decided
to still her lips before it grew more obvious. Rias had thought so
highly of her intelligence; she hated to give him reason to think
less of her.

“
I’ve spent my life
looking for patterns and trying to find the predictable in
situations others see as unpredictable. If this odd skill can be of
use to you now, I’m delighted.” Rias slid next to her in front of
the interface and poked one of the simplest runes and brought it to
life before their eyes. “The atomic structure is incorporated into
the symbol itself.”

“
Oh!” As soon as he said
it, she saw it. “Hydrogen.” She slapped herself on the forehead. “I
thought these might be numbers. It never occurred to me that an
ancient people might have this kind of scientific knowledge, with
specialized symbols for...”

Rias tapped hydrogen again and another rune.
The symbols appeared in the air. “How do you—” he started, but
bonds formed on their own.

“
Water.” Tikaya grinned.
The symbols were not nearly as simple as the diagrams her people
used to represent the various elements—indeed, these reminded her
of the bizarre perception puzzles a professor had distributed
during a lesson on optics—but if one knew what to look for, the
structures were there.

The water molecule flashed twice, then
disappeared to be replaced by the far more complex image she had
been seeing all afternoon.

“
I guess that isn’t the
answer.” Rias gave her a sad smile. “I’m afraid that’s about the
extent of my knowledge in this area. I haven’t an idea what that
could be.” He swiped his finger through the dozens of linked
symbols hovering in the air. The image did not waver. “Something we
haven’t invented yet, probably. I can look through the shelves in
the offices. It’s a long shot, but there might be a book that has
our mediocre table of elements in it. Maybe that’ll help you with
translating. Sorry I don’t have the answer.”

“
Sorry!” Tikaya grabbed
his arms. “You have no idea how much this helps. I mean, this could
be the key to translating this whole language. You’re amazing!” She
kissed him on the cheek, then danced back to her chalkboards. Now
that he had pointed out the structures so cunningly crafted into
the symbols, she could pick out ten or twelve she remembered from
school. That was enough to get her started. Although...

“
Actually, yes, I could
use a book with your table in it.” She turned back and was about to
ask him to look, but he was staring at her, his fingers touching
the cheek she had kissed.

“
Yes, of course.” He
lowered his hand.

She bit her lip, tickled at his reaction.
“Do you not get praised often?”

“
It’s been a while,” he
admitted. “And before Krychek, uhm, more often by men than
women.”

“
Not even your
wife?”

He snorted. “Especially not by her.”

They shared a chuckle, and she admitted
herself curious about the woman, though it should not matter.
Rias’s past relationships were none of her business, and they had
more important things to worry about. Besides, he had left her
anyway. Tikaya blinked. Or had he? Maybe she was something, like
his land and his name, that the empire had taken from him as
punishment. Still, he did not sound disappointed.

“
Horrible woman?” she
asked, fishing.

“
No, but we weren’t a good
match from the start. It never would have lasted as long as it did
if I hadn’t been away at sea so much of the time. She had my home,
my money, and the freedom to spend time wherever—” he winced,
“—with whomever, she pleased.”

Tikaya grimaced in sympathy. Like her,
Parkonis had not been perfect, but he had always been faithful.
“How’d you end up together to start with?”

“
I was twenty, she was
pretty, and our parents thought it would be a good idea.” Rias
laughed ruefully. “But mostly I was twenty and she was pretty.” He
waved away further discussion. “I’ll get that book.”

“
Be careful.”

He waved an acknowledgment on his way out,
and Tikaya shifted uneasily, as worried for him as for herself.
Agarik had walked out, and she had not seen him since. Rias was
only going to search this building, she told herself, and settled
into work.

A few moments later, Tikaya had three
chalkboards lined up, all full. She listed the translations for the
atoms she recognized. Also, she listed runes she remembered from
the rubbings, those displaying what she now recognized as molecular
structures. The elements came up surprisingly often in what she had
assumed was normal writing. Perhaps the subject was always science.
Or maybe these people—this race?—had a language specifically for
scientific matters. The Herdoctans had a different written language
for religion, so why not?