Shouts turned to screams as the terron pushed through their group. She barreled down the center of the hall, missing the broken khentauree by finger lengths. She became a blob of a silhouette, heaving up and down as she blotted out the enemy’s light.
Patch swatted the air at the rest of them; with a unified gasp, they ran after, lights wildly bobbing. Sanna grabbed Scand and hefted him on her back before racing after Jhor; Lapis did not envy the person who decided to take advantage of that. Tuft hesitated; she hissed and swept her arms in the direction of the others; his shoulders firmed as if to protest, but he whisked after them.
She and her partner unslung their weapons and brought up the rear. Her heart pounded in her ears, drowning the terror-filled cries, as cyan flares burst around Tia. She roared again, and the shrieks cut off.
They passed cowering people who had crashed through the khentauree, hunkered down, sides to the walls, shielding their heads. They passed armored men splayed over the broken beings, limp, dark splotches marring the metal, and hopped over two downed in the center of the hall, helmets cracked and smooshed, blood leaking onto the floor.
Lapis avoided the bodies, nearly crashing into an older teen with no helmet and squeaky-breath fear. He fell into the wall and she waved her fingers at him as she continued the race to whatever exit Tia discovered. He stared, tech weapon pointed at the ground; that the terron refused to knock him out spoke loud enough.
Rougher men gathered themselves; no one with a Red Trident, but instead, the funky blue buck symbol she remembered from Ambercaast. Hoyt’s people had unloaded those crates, so it represented someone connected to him. The shanks they rescued from the cold seemed clueless, but she bet the Beryl agent knew who it was—and Lorcan let him return to Calderton.
Cyan brightness flared; one of the khentauree aimed their light at the mercs. They cowered away, blinded, hands up, wincing.
Tia burst into a pitch-dark open space so large her charging footsteps rang off the walls and echoed fuzzily back. The rest of them followed, spread far enough apart they would make singular targets instead of a group one. Cyan beams struck in all directions, missing; she and Patch returned fire, as untargeted, but the enemy stopped shooting. Had they taken cover? Good.
“Lanth!” Patch snagged her right arm, yanked her to the side, and shoved her to the floor.
Tink tink.
An explosion blinded her.
She hissed and covered her head with her arms; debris pelted her, though nothing tore through her outerwear. Her partner swore and scrambled to his feet, pulling her up as a metal object with racing white lights spun towards them, rocked back and forth, but did nothing.
An egg. The blue bucks had egg detonation devices.
The handheld lights from their group clicked off just before another explosion erupted between them.
Dammit. They were going to get separated.
Lapis raised her weapon and fired, using one vibrating hand and wildly missing any mark. A cyan khentauree beam struck something mid-air, and yet another explosion flared through the room, highlighting a thick frost coating the floor between them and their opponents. The ceiling crumbled, chunks that sounded large clanging to the ground.
Tuft flowed next to them; she did not have time to question how he reached them without her noticing, but he pointed and raced away, frost trailing after him. Patch pushed her after him and she ran as cyan flashed. A chain of detonations followed.
Why were they using eggs? Did they want to bring down the room? Good luck to them, trapping themselves.
A soft silver glow surrounded the khentauree as they entered a small, round hallway with grooved sides and rough flooring. They did not go far before he stopped, pressed the wall, and a door slid open with a shink. They hustled inside, and he closed it; sound deadened but for the heartbeat drowning her ears. Lapis leaned over, struggling for air, minute trembles speeding down her limbs now that the immediate danger had passed.
“You are brave, to attract their attention,” Tuft said. He still glowed, which illuminated the room. It had grungy tiled walls and floors, and the table and cabinets looked like others used to repair khentauree. Must filled the air, not the scent of sponoil. Strands of dust held together by delicate threads dangled from the ceiling, low enough that, squicked, Lapis crouched to avoid them.
“Thank you for helping us,” she gasped, though she wondered why he bothered. He did not seem enamored of humans, no matter who they were.
He swiveled his head as his body continued around the table and to the far wall. “It may be for naught. These men with the blue deer persist, and chase without mercy.”
“Did they do that before or after the code made the khentauree go berserk?” Patch asked.
“Before, but panicked khentauree ripped from Ree-god’s call did not help.”
“They have eggs.” Lapis rubbed at her chest as her lungs clenched from exertion pain and trepidation.
“Hard to miss,” Patch responded. She whapped his arm, unamused at his humor, upset he sounded normal, not winded.
“The explosives?” Tuft asked.
“Yeah,” Lapis said. “They were Dentherion Empire devices a hundred years ago. They didn’t work right, so the empire stopped making them. Why do these blue deer people have them?”
“Maybe they’re new? Meergevenis has enough tech knowledge to craft something like them.” Patch pressed different parts of his patch, and the circling pattern altered into a slower, flickery one. “The interference is stronger here.”
“Yes,” the khentauree agreed. “Why are you working with Vision?” he asked as he pushed at a tile. With a protesting screech, a panel that looked exactly like the wall slid back and out of the way, revealing a rough-rock tunnel beyond.
Lapis glanced at her partner, concerned about Tuft’s abrupt change of subject. “Well, Dreamer chased me, Patch and Chiddle, and the group he prayed with. We got separated, Patch was with an injured khentauree named Spring, and I and Chiddle followed the rest of the group to Vision. She promised to help us because she thought we could assist with the Ree-god problem.”
Tuft crackled with loathing. “Ree-god,” he muttered. “Gedaavik warned of her. He said she had blighted ambitions.”
“You could say that. Chiddle said Gedaavik warned them about her, and when he saw her, he was really pissed.” Patch slung his weapon over his shoulder and jerked his chin at Lapis. She stepped to the middle, emotions churning in time with her strained breathing. That blight had continued, uninterrupted, for centuries.
“Who is Chiddle?”
“The other Ambercaast khentauree. The one fighting in the cave entrance.”
“He is powerful,” Tuft admitted. “And different, from the special khentauree here.”
“All the special khentauree seem different from one another,” Lapis said.
“Yes, but he and Sanna have more . . .” He buzzed and faced forward. “We must go. The mines are vast, and the humans do not know their way. We can escape them.” He pranced into the tunnel. Lapis hustled out, and sighed in relief; no weird strings in their way. She straightened and trotted to keep up.
“Is there a way to catch up to the others?” Patch asked.
“Yes. We must avoid a long-ago cave-in, so it will not be quick. There is an old room, one Gedaavik used. The humans have not found it. It is safe—for now.” He shuddered and rubbed at his head. “You are lucky, to have Sanna so invested.”
What did he mean by that?
“Yeah, we are,” Patch agreed. He sounded casual, but Lapis recognized his distrust in the hand he clenched too-tightly over his backpack strap, and the wheeling rush of his patch lights. “Are you speaking with her? The interference is strong enough, my patch tech is unhappy.”
“We speak, but the connection is crackly. She says Jhor created code at Ambercaast that combats this interference. It makes her words clearer, but even so, I don’t have it. I will lose her soon.” He hummed. “Jhor. She is fond of him because he is like Gedaavik. Our coder was kind, he did not see us as exploitable machines with no care if we broke. He saw potential. What has Vision said of him?”
Ah. The true reason he kept them company. He did not like that Vision brought up the secret labs, and prying into what else the other khentauree told them fit with that.
“Not much,” Patch said. “Just that he wrote a code to help you fight Ree’s nastiness, and it worked somewhat. She had a lot more to say about Kez and Ree and their cult than Gedaavik.”
Tuft hummed. “She is of the Cloister, so had more contact with them. Kez and Ree-god affected her, but in a different way. Us of the mines had other experiences, other hurts—though Kez forced all to pray.” A low, angry buzz underlay the last words. “The miners, the Cloister humans, they all thought Kez was Stars’ Blessed and holy. He thought it his due, to force all of us to treat him as if he had paradise’s favor, and that he would ascend, become a Star, too.”
“Paradise’s favor didn’t help him,” Lapis muttered. “He went crazy—or that’s the impression I got. Vision said he disappeared.”
Tuft cocked his head. “Crazy. Yes. Disappeared? I think not. But Vision enjoyed sequestering. She did not help, as Gedaavik instructed. She stayed in her dreams and ignored her charges.”
Interesting, that Spring said the same of him. The bubbling uncertainty she first experienced with Ghost rose; they needed to proceed carefully with him, because, as with Vision, he had another reason for his presence and his questions, and neither held humans in good regard.
“She rolled dice for me and Chiddle,” she said. “It seemed like fake fortune-teller stuff to me.”
He rumbled—a laugh? “Fake fortune-teller. Yes. She behaves that way, but she is not fake. She sees what we cannot and keeps her knowledge close.”
Lapis glanced back at Patch; he shrugged. Not reassuring.
Tuft led them down halls and through rooms, all of them barren of content but for piles of stone rubble that sat covered in dust, and the random jut of fragmented track. The remains of ceiling lights glinted from his glow, the coverings hanging by wires, the bulbs missing or broken. The sense of decay and disuse, of forgotten lives, forgotten events, weighed heavy, and Lapis pulled her scarf high enough that only her eyes remained uncovered.
Some mounds had glints of aquatheerdaal, hinting at a rushed evacuation from the mine or the miners would have taken the chunks with them. Some had more disturbing content.
“Tuft, can I ask a question?” She ignored Patch’s warning poke to her back.
He swiveled to look at her. “Yes?”
“There were human remains in the tunnel Dreamer chased us down, and there are remains here. What happened?”
“Dreamer does not like humans,” he said. He stared at her, then a wispy buzz escaped from him. “There was much chaos when he retaliated against the Cloister. The priests closed the tunnels he accessed and left the bodies to rot. That caused anguish in the humans and many fled. I do not know why they did not send Dreamer to silence then. Their cruelty never cared for khentauree distress, and he proved how much he hated them.
“Days later, a new leader rose. He allowed caretakers and guards and those of high rank to remain at the Cloister, but all other worshippers transferred to the mines. The new leader told the humans to mine aquatheerdaal, then send it to Kez’s family. He said this would pay their way into the sky after death. Leaders after him said the same thing, and so it continued. When large transports arrived to take them away, they did not want to leave. The immortality of their souls required they continue to mine aquatheerdaal. The men in the transports did not care. They were not kind to the stubborn.”
Interesting. “They didn’t leave anyone behind?”
“They did not know of the Cloister. It is more open, now, because khentauree made it so, but at the time, the entrances from the mine remained hidden. Humans fled there and escaped, but I don’t know what became of them. Those that did not reach it were taken away or sent to silence. The men did not take the silent with them when they left.”
“When did this happen?” Patch said.
“It was six hundred sixty-two years and fifteen days ago.”
“Hmm. That’s around the right timeframe of the Taangis Empire pulling out of the western countries.”
“Why didn’t they take the khentauree?” Lapis asked.
“They saw us as machines not worth the bother. That was good for us. We had more freedom, so we hid when others came and looted. We were left alone after that. Mostly. Only a brave few enter the mines anymore. They leave screaming.”
After seeing him? Without knowing what a khentauree was, she would have done the same, if she nosed about the mines and upon an ethereal being with a human torso, an equine body, and ghostly hair.
“Thank you for telling us. I don’t know if we can use any of that to help the khentauree affected by Ree-god’s code, but—”
“Why do you wish to help khentauree?” Tuft’s suspicion raised her neck hair.
“Because none of you deserve what happened to you, and helping you is the right thing to do.”
“Humans are not fond of the right thing to do.”
“Not all of us, no. And a lot of us have no power to do what we know is right. But some of us don’t give up, and do what we can to see kindness and compassion and justice overcome corruption and hate.” An ideal, one promoted by her parents to explain their leadership in the rebellion, one that Faelan and Midir still ascribed to. Those ideals became the Jilvayna rebellion’s goals, even if achieving them dwelled in dreams of fancy.
Tuft’s gritty buzz hinted he did not think she spoke true.
They proceeded on through rough tunnels, some with veins of aquatheerdaal gleaming gently in the khentauree’s glow, some with loaded mine carts. Lapis found it intriguing that the Taangis Empire military pulled back from their Ragehill base, forced a cult to go with them, and left the valuable mineral behind. How many other abandoned mines still had deposits because of similar evacuations? What would happen to the khentauree, in however many mines they lived, if Bov Caardinva or the markweza restarted them?
Since the aquatheerdaal supply was running out, it made sense that governments would jump at the chance to extend their tech’s efficacy. Dentheria would not care about harming mechanical beings in order to mine the stuff, and she doubted Gall would let the terrons and khentauree at Ambercaast be if he thought he could extract more of the mineral to power his rule.
Patch caught her step, put a hand to his eyepatch and pressed. “Who are they?” he asked, over-calm. Her throat clogged. Who?
“They are Luveth and Dedi. Luveth is priestess to Dreamer’s priest. Dedi is Ree-god’s caretaker.” Tuft’s tone lowered to a disenchanted buzz. “He did not lose sense when the link died. He should have. He is not special khentauree. I think there is more Ree-god to him, than Gedaavik.” His buzz deepened even more. “They hold no truth. Gedaavik was wrong, to entrust Luveth with his code.”
Trust among the Shivers and Cloister khentauree was nil. Ghost, Sanna and Chiddle seemed to get along well, even after the markweza’s scientists got a hold of them, but she did not think any of the special khentauree she had encountered there had the same fondness for one another. Did it have something to do with Ree’s code messing with whatever connections might have formed through Gedaavik? How much misunderstanding developed, because they refused to communicate with each other?
Tuft stopped. Lapis peered around his hindquarters. Two others stood in the entrance to a crossroads, where bright, unnatural light still shone from ceiling boxes. Did the khentauree use these tunnels, or had Caardinva’s people lit them?
The one on the left nodded and buzzed. They waited, buzzed again, then froze in place when Tuft did not respond. “You brought them to us.”
“I did not.” The same force he used to deny leading the enemy to them filled his tone. “They are not for you, Luveth.”
“They hurt Dreamer. The Stars will punish them.”
Patch snorted, loud enough to catch their attention. “You’re talking Lyddisian,” he said. “Which means you downloaded our code for language. Did you download the code to end the Ree-god program?”
Curt, to the point, and anger simmered below the duller overtone. Why did he pick a fight? They walked on fragile ground, and Lapis did not want to do any more falling. He settled his hand on her back, but he would not placate her on this.
Luveth swished the air at Patch, still facing Tuft. “They invade our home, destroy us, and you protect them?”
“They did not destroy us. They are not the blue deer ones.”
“They were in Ree-god’s domain!”
Is that how she saw the undignified crypt?
He stamped his hoof and folded his arms across his chest. “Ree-god was no god. She was a parasite.”
“You walk blasphemous ground. The khentauree—
“—were forced to worship when they did not wish to. Those who want will be free.”
“They defiled her,” she accused, pointing at Lapis. That finger belonged in Patch’s direction, but she stood stoically while nausea tore up her insides. Could she dodge a beam? Would hiding behind Tuft be prudent?
“Defiled?” The khentauree swiveled his head to look at her, his hair dancing about his head as if a breeze played with the strands.
“Chiddle and I unhooked her from the console,” Patch said, as if he spoke of inconsequentials.
“Oh.” Tuft hummed, with as much pleasure as she ever heard in a khentauree’s tone, and turned back around. “Luthier says she is nothing but dried skin over bones. No thought, no movement. How do you defile that?”
Khentauree certainly had odd ways of looking at things. Jiy may have the Pit, but other places in Jilvayna, other countries, considered messing with a dead body a grave sin. Disrespect, even for the callous, cold, vicious and evil, earned terrible consequences for the transgressor.
But the khentauree had a point. Skin, dried flesh, bone. Human was something more than a meaty shell.
“You hid, so you do not know. You cower because humans will harm your dreams,” Luveth hissed.
“Dreams are for Dreamer,” Tuft replied. “They are for Vision. Not me.”
A loud clatter, followed by softer scraping, reverberated to them. Patch turned, pressed his fingers into his patch, then shook his head.
“I’m not picking up anything,” he murmured. “But that sounded like someone’s coming.”
“The interference is buzzy,” Tuft agreed. “Let us go.”
“You must leave them, Tuft,” Luveth said, pointing. She buzzed and Dedi accompanied her, a cacophony of anger.
“I will not leave them. I promised Sanna I would not.”
“Sanna?”
“The one you fear. She is not the terror you claim.”
“Lies and deceit plague your steps.”
Was that a warning or a curse? Lapis wished she understood the personal dynamics between them. She wished she understood why Luveth feared Sanna. She never had interactions with the Ambercaast khentauree that prompted her unease. Did Jhor’s comfort in her presence mitigate negative reactions?
The two other mechanical beings scattered. She glanced behind, expecting to see the mercs; Patch grabbed her hand and pulled her after Tuft, who hastened to the opposite tunnel.
They hit a dead end. The khentauree pressed a metal panel in the left-hand wall and led them into a room with countertop, sink, stovetop, drawers, table and tipped chairs. It looked like a kitchen, but for the crumpled skeletons piled against the bottom cabinets. Utensils, dishes and glasses looked like they remained where they had initially fallen when the people died. She could not hurry out fast enough; deep, dark places had more wrong with them than her nightmares ever expressed.
Patch set his hand on her shoulder, and she slipped her fingers over his. Her rock, her support, who never feared the dark. He bundled up her terrors and swallowed them, and when she was with him, she never had to worry about the tentacles of dread unknown drowning her.
Grinding, whirring, the growl of a chugging machine, filtered to them before they reached a tunnel that did not have lighting of its own. A larger room beyond provided ambient illumination from several tall tech lights on metal poles. The wall to the left gave way, exposing the rock walkway to whoever worked below. Someone shouted, and Lapis jerked in response. The chugging machine stopped briefly before continuing, sounding as if it choked on gravel.
She and Patch hunched down, and Tuft faded from view.
She stared. How did he do that? He—he just . . .
He did not completely disappear, but if she had not known where he stood, she never would have noticed him. Was it some sort of camouflage? No wonder he seemed to materialize out of nowhere. In a dark space, no human would ever see him coming. Could Patch sense him when he faded? They needed to ask Jhor about it.
“They drill to place sensors,” the khentauree said, a crisp bite to his words that rocked Lapis away from her shock.
“Do they think Gedaavik’s labs are around here?” she whispered. “That’s what Bov Caardinva and Markweza Eldekaarsen were looking for at Ambercaast.”
“If that is what they search for, then that is good for us, for it keeps them far away from our home.”
Good to know. “Luthier and the khentauree who made it to Ragehill said they trapped the Shivers khentauree.”
Tuft buzzed. “Those in hidden spaces cannot leave,” he admitted. “But not trapped as Luthier thinks. Those she led, they became prey for the humans. She was desperate to save them and ended up locked away from the mine. We will need to free them.”
“Where are they?”
“There is a camp in the largest chamber. It once held large machinery and several tera-khent. Many crates and boxes and strange machines are there. The humans live there. Some work in the rooms attached to it and poke and prod khentauree, some drill as here, some explore, but they all return to sleep in the chamber. We watched, we know their movements.”
Spying to gather intel? A wise choice, considering who they faced. Lapis firmed her resolve, despite the uncertainty twittering through her at the thought of facing the mercs Caardinva commanded. They needed to get to that chamber, for both the khentauree and the scientists who wish to flee.
Patch flattened against the floor and crept to the edge, peering over. He raised up slightly, then crawled backwards and motioned for her to go. She, too, hugged the ground, while Tuft paraded to the other side. Good for him. Could he share the invisibility thing?
She tried not to think sour nasties at him as she crept along, unwilling to put her elbows through the black thready whatevers that decorated the joint between wall and floor, but not wanting to move too close to the drop-off and expose herself. Her scarf scraped the ground, and she winced, knowing it collected dusty crap. Ugh, she needed a shower.
She glanced over her shoulder; Patch peeked over the edge. Good for him, too. And if he got caught, he could have fun guarding their retreat.
Grumbling about her partner’s lack of forethought concerning consequences, Lapis reached the other side without mishap and scurried into another darkened way. Patch rose and smacked his hands on his pants, dust puffing out and floating to the floor. She swiped at herself, smearing the fine powder around rather than dislodging it, then removed the scarf and shook it out. Bits rained down, and she did not want to put it back on.
When he deemed them far enough from discovery, Tuft again glowed, illuminating their path.
“I don’t think they’re searching for labs,” Patch said in a subdued tone as they hastened down a hallway. This one had stone tile and peeling white walls. Closed doors contained clipboards attached by a clamp just below the tiny, grungy windows. Paper debris cluttered the floor, and fluttered in the breeze caused by their passing. A medical wing?
“Why do you say that?” Lapis asked.
“The machines they have. They remind me of modder’s equipment, and they’re installing them. I think they’re planning to turn that into a khentauree research room. How close are we to the camp?”
“It is three levels up, at the entrance.”
“How much equipment do they have?”
“Many crates and boxes. There are larger but strange machines with many arms, and scientific equipment. They have drills, but no shovels, so they cannot clear the entrance. It is strange, they come to a mine with no shovels.”
The digging they intended had nothing to do with rock.
“Ragehill’s working on opening the entrance,” Patch said. “The scientists called for help. They don’t want to be down here any more than you want them here. But the blue deer guys aren’t so accommodating. They want to find Gedaavik’s labs.”
“They will not. We do not like one another, we khentauree of the Shivers and Cloister, because Ree-god interfered. But we will protect his legacy from those who will harm it.”
Lapis thought that wishful dreaming. There seemed to be too much resentment and distrust on all sides for the khentauree to work together like that.
“Ree-god. You unhooked her.” Again, he sounded pleased.
Patch nodded. “Yeah. It was the right thing to do. Whatever the khentauree got from the static coming from her, it wasn’t godly sentiments.”
“I said so, long before the humans abandoned the mine. She thought khentauree could make her a Star, but she failed. Kez knew this, but he needed a fiction to keep his human followers. His priests told Dreamer to wait for her ascendancy, so Dreamer looked for her words in the static. He told Luveth and Dedi and the prayer khentauree to do the same. The humans saw their devotion and believed she became a Star. They wanted their own immortality, so remained with Kez and his deceptions. I told Dreamer this. I told Luveth and Dedi this. They refused to listen.”
Lapis did not think Dreamer listened to any other but himself. “Do you know what happened to Kez? Vision said he disappeared.”
He paused, then swiveled his entire torso to face her. “I unhooked him,” he said.
