The Mask And The Master (Mechanized Wizardry Book 2) (51 page)

Gaulda tapped her fingers against her tin coffee mug.  “Civics with critical information in enemy hands?  Seems to me extraction ought to be the new objective.”

“Does it,” Sir Kelley said flatly.  Shadows were draped across his pockmarked face.  “I understood our orders were to gather information and engage the enemy
only
if we could do so advantageously.”

“A new situation needs a new assessment,” Dame Orinico said.  “The Golden Caravan has had—what—more than two days with the Civics, already?”  she frowned as Miri nodded confirmation.  “The longer questioning goes on, who knows what information they’ll obtain?”

“Who knows if the Civics are even still alive?”

“Sir Kelley,” Mathias said dubiously, scratching his shoulder, “would the Caravan really go to all the trouble of kidnapping them just to execute them so fast?”

“If they resisted interrogation well enough.”

Samanthi couldn’t stifle a nervous snort.  “Come on, Sir, this is Lundin we’re talking about.”

“I’m fully aware, senior tech, that this is Lundin we’re talking about!”  he raged.

Kelley flew to his feet and turned his back on the fire, stalking away into the dark.  The other ‘nauts exchanged looks over the red embers.  Dame Orinoco’s mouth tightened in disapproval. 

“One moment,” Sir Mathias said, brushing the crumbs off his hands.  He heard the whispers behind him as he followed the senior ‘naut through the trees.  Kelley had scaled a few dozen meters up the ridge, to a vista with a partial view of the brooding castle below. Moonlight gleamed off the arched window on the western face of the spire.

Mathias stopped a few steps away, giving the ‘naut his space. 

“Of all the people,” Kelley said bitterly after a long silence.  He didn’t turn around.  “In a million-person city, that
he’s
the Delian they decide to kidnap.”

“Because he’s a valuable target,” he replied.  “You heard Sam.  If she’s right about how the Golden Caravan works, he could be a real asset for them.”

“Oh, he’s an asset all right.”  His emphasis said it all.

“Look, Sir Kelley.”  Mathias fought the temptation to raise his voice.  “If you’ve got a case to make, you’re not doing any good up here.  Come back down and say your piece, or Dame Orinoco’s going to give orders without you.”

“Maybe she should.”

Sir Mathias blinked.  Kelley turned around, his mouth twisted into something between rage and grief.  “I can’t command this mission.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I.”  He tried to get a hold of himself.  “When Xiaoden and Ignatia went down, I told myself ‘no more.’  I wouldn’t see another person in this command fall, no matter how much it demanded of me.”

“Sir, you can’t keep us all safe.”

“Maybe not.  But I promised that I’d push myself as far as I could, so if anything did happen, I could try to sleep at night knowing I didn’t hold back.

“But for
Horace Lundin
?”  He exhaled sharply through his teeth.  Kelley’s green eyes searched the ground as he tried to put words to what was going through his head.

Sir Mathias stepped into the den of snakes as gently as he could.  “He’s one of us, Sir.  I know he treated you badly.  He made a huge mistake.  But he’s a Petronaut in enemy hands…”

“I know.”

“And he’s got information they—”

“I know, I know, Mathias,” he said, with surprisingly little acid in his voice.  His eyes unfocused as he sank into thought.

“We have to try a rescue,” he murmured.

“And there are two other Petronauts with him, right?  Think about saving them, instead.”

“You know what it is?”  Kelley said.  Sir Mathias dropped his grin at the expression on Kelley’s face as the lean man looked up at him. 

“If it had been Lundin, instead of you?  I wouldn’t have shot the girl.”

Sir Mathias flicked his eyes to the ground, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck.  He saw the girl’s body crumple to the dirty ground; heard the clatter of her crossbow against the path; smelled the smoke rising from Kelley’s gun barrel.

“You don’t mean that,” he said.

“I think I do,” Kelley whispered, a helpless edge to his voice.  “I don’t know how far I can push myself to save Horace Lundin’s life.  And if I’m not willing to push myself to the edge for this mission, that means I’m putting every other ‘naut in danger; every single soldier in each of those platoons—”

“You’re not the only one who’s going out there,” Mathias said, raising his hands.  “You can’t put the safety of everyone on the battlefield on your shoulders.”

“But it is.  I’m the commander.  Ask Orinoco, she knows how it feels.”

“I bet she know that it goes both ways.”  He put a hand on Sir Kelley’s shoulder impulsively.  “While you’re out there fighting to keep each of us safe, you’ve got a hundred comrades looking out for you in a hundred different ways.  When we win, we all win.  And when we lose, we pick each other up and we keep going on.  That’s what being a team means.

“And I know that when everything’s on the line, you’ll know who’s on your team.  And you’ll fight for them as hard as you would for anyone else.”

Kelley looked up at him, his face inscrutable.  He looked down at the hand on his shoulder.  Sir Mathias withdrew his hand, scratching his head beneath the mass of oily brown curls.  “That’s what I think,” he said to fill the space.

“Thank you for your opinion, junior ‘naut,” Sir Kelley said, with customary venom.

Mathias stifled a sigh and bowed his head in salute.  He froze.  Kelley’s ungloved hand was open at his waist, fingers pointing towards his partner.  Very slowly, Sir Mathias reached out and accepted the handshake, very gingerly, so as not to spook the smaller ‘naut.  Kelley’s skin was cold—
how can you be cold in the middle of summer?—
but his grip was firm, and there was the barest hint of a smile in his green eyes.

“Pardon me, Sirs…”

They looked up to see Platoon Commander Tamore, dipping his head in a bow.  “News of the castle,” he said.

“Something to report, Commander Tamore?”  Dame Orinoco said, lowering her salute and looking down at the much shorter man.   Mathias poured himself another mug of coffee and retook his seat next to Samanthi by the fire.  She raised an eyebrow at him, inclining her head towards Kelley, looking very formal by the Platoon Commander’s side.  Mathias gave her an over-enthusiastic thumbs-up and she rolled her eyes, bumping her knee against his scoldingly.

“Indeed there is,” Tamore said, running a hand through his thin black hair.  The chubby-cheeked officer smiled winningly across the campfire.  “But may I first say what a pleasure it is to have the Feastday Hero herself, here in our midst, after braving who knows what dangers!”

“Well,
I
do,” Dame Miri deadpanned, “But thank you.”  She gave him a gracious wink and he bowed again, glowing with pleasure. 

Tamore cleared his throat.  “A significant party of soldiers have vacated the castle.”

“Vacated…!”  Sir Kelley said.  All the ‘nauts started out of their seats.  “They’ve opened the gates?  Which way are they coming?”  It would take long minutes to get each of them into their armor, and if the enemy was on the move they wouldn’t have anywhere close to that.

“Not through the gates, Sir Kelley.  Through a tunnel.”  Tamore laced his fingers behind their back.  “Scouts heard the sound of tracked vehicles moving due north of the keep.  As far as they could discern from their vantage point, there is a trapdoor hidden in the forest floor, large enough to admit vehicles the size of our commandeered conveyance.”  He inclined his head towards the captured Caravan nearby.

“A trapdoor?”  Samanthi said.  “For this?

“Is that possible?”  Dame Orinoco said, crossing her arms over her chest.  “They actually saw the vehicles use these trapdoors?”

“That is the report, yes.  We conjecture that there’s a tunnel connecting the castle to this hatch in the woods.  Where else would it have come from?”  he posed mildly.

“How many vehicles did they see?”

“Before returning to make their report?  Just one, escorted by at least a platoon of soldiers.”

“And where were they heading?”

“North.”

Kelley and Orinoco looked at each other.  “Commander,” she said, “Call your scouts up again.  We’re suiting up and going with them.”

“You thinking it too?”  Sir Kelley asked, draining the last of his coffee and tossing the dregs into the fire with a hiss.

“We need to keep eyes on how much traffic goes through that tunnel.  If enough of their forces are deploying into the woods, that might mean we have a shot at storming the castle.”

“And saving those techs,” Dame Miri said, sighing with relief.

“I should say,” Tamore offered, raising a hand, “that at present we don’t have any idea how many soldiers and vehicles remain inside the castle compound.  The deployment of one platoon may not make a dent in their overall strength, vis-à-vis our small force.  Besides, we don’t have any siege equipment.”

“On the contrary, Commander,” Kelley said, with a lopsided grin.  His gesture took in the seven ‘nauts seated around the brick-red fire.  “Our siege equipment is sitting right here. Zig!  Ms. Elena!  Prep the suits, on the double.”

Samanthi rubbed her eyelids with her thumbs.  Suiting up the whole company of ‘nauts was an unexpected chore at the end of a long day.  She stifled a yawn, looking down at Dame Miri.  “Sorry our spare equipment isn’t better stocked,” she said.

“No complaints here.”  Miri wiggled her toes inside the seven-leaguers; mercifully, a good fit this time.  “I’m better off than I’ve been for days.”

The tech propped up her feet on the corner of the boxy Communicator.  It was wound up and ready to receive, its little glass display glowing purple with a full charge.  If Kelley or Mathias had anything to report on the movements outside the castle, she could relay the message to the platoons nearby.

Dame Miri stood up, testing out the stride of the new boots.  She tromped a few steps up the hill, away from the firelight.  Samanthi was just about to close her eyes when she heard the ‘naut’s gentle voice.

“Ms. Elena.”

“Dame Miri.”  Samanthi mimicked her cadence, tilting her head upside-down to look.  Something about the way Miri was standing got her attention.  She pulled herself to her feet and shoved her hands in her overalls pockets, crossing over to the black-haired woman.

“You can just see the top of the spire from here,” Dame Miri said, pointing with her stiff-fingered hand.  Samanthi stood on her tip-toes.  Sure enough, the pointed black tip of the tower was visible against the gray-blue sky.  “It’s so strange to think that my squad’s in there, and I can’t even let them know we’re here.”

Samanthi had a flash of Lundin’s long face, his brown eyes, and his ever-fidgeting hands as she walked away from him in the warehouse.  Two weeks ago, was it? 
Spheres, there are people who go through decades less crowded than this burning month,
she thought.  She shook the image of him out of her head.

“Your squad, huh?” she smiled.  “You’ve really moved on from the Parade stuff, haven’t you?”

“Not sure,” she said, clenching and unclenching her hand; some kind of exercise, Samanthi guessed.  “I still spend most of my time
acting
like I know what I’m doing.”

Samanthi rocked back on her heels, a little uncomfortable.  “You’re a flaming hero, though, right?  That means everything you do, everyone will assume you meant to do it.”

“A real comfort, thanks,” she grinned.  She drew her jacket closer around her.

“Heroes don’t change the world, though,” she said, softly.  “Ideas change the world.  And I just don’t like thinking that good guys like us aren’t in control of this idea anymore.”

They looked down at the castle.  A squirrel jumped between two trees above them, the rustling of its minute movements barely audible even on the quiet night.

“Well,” Dame Miri exhaled, “What can we do?”

“Storm the place, stuff Lundin into a sack, and haul his butt out?”

“Hey Lundin!  What color sack do you want?”  Dame Miri pretended to shout into the night, raising her palm to the side of her mouth.

“I don’t think he can hear you,” Samanthi said, giggling.

Dame Miri’s eyes went wide.  “He doesn’t need to hear,” she breathed.

Samanthi looked at her, nonplussed, as she fumbled for something inside her jacket.  Dame Miri pulled out a thin leather journal, its surface scuffed and some of its corners torn.  “It’s the perfect signal.  What’s the range on a magic spell?  Twelve…?”

“Fifteen kilometers,” Samanthi said, startled at the sudden turn.  “What’s in the—”

“Fifteen?  Spheres, I could have done this yesterday!  Not that it would have done any good.  Not that it might do any good now…”

“Dame Miri?”  The ‘naut looked up from the tiny pages of the journal.  Samanthi glanced down.  The blocky characters looked an awful lot like Lundin’s handwriting.

“The spell box takes about three minutes per disk.  Say seven minutes, then, times twenty-five disks… Do you speak Mabinanto?”  Miri demanded, swinging suddenly to the tech.

“I—I remember the pronunciation rules.  Pretty standardized.  I don’t have enough vocabulary to say much of anything, though.  Dame—”

“Fantastic!  Between the two of us, I think we can make this happen.”

“Flame of ages, woman!  What are you talking about?”

She held the journal up to Samanthi’s face with a triumphant flourish.  The word ‘Greatsight’ was written at the top of a page full of Mabinanto.

“We’re going to tell Horace we’re here,” Dame Miri said, her violet eyes sparkling.

Chapter Nineteen

Fresh Eyes

Lundin kept his eyes pressed shut.  He could feel the sunlight grazing against his face from their tiny windows.  Dawn was at least an hour past, by now. 
But the sooner I get up, they sooner I have to face the fact that it’s morning, and the sooner it’ll be when Iimar calls for the techs
.  They’d been up most of the night, finishing the transcription.  He’d turned in before them, too exhausted to be any more use.  Whatever rest he’d been able to get, it certainly wasn’t enough.  His head felt strange as he lay against the straw mattress.