Emilie & the Hollow World (16 page)

Charter reached her side. “Where are the others? Who else is with you?”

Emilie set her jaw, prepared for an argument. “There aren't any others. There's just me.”

Charter and Daniel exchanged a baffled look. The other men looked dubious. Cobbier said, “What do you mean, 'no others?'“

“Isn't this a rescue mission?” Daniel added.

Impatiently, Emilie explained, “We came on Lord Engal's ship, me and Miss Marlende and Kenar. But we ran into the Queen of the Sealands and she's forcing Lord Engal and everyone to help her attack these Nomads. Miss Marlende was captured by Lord Ivers, and is aboard his airship somewhere. Rani and I were coming to free you, but she was captured this morning.”

Everyone stared. “Lord Ivers is here and has Miss Marlende? We didn't even know he had a working aetheric engine,” Seth said, astonished.

“Yes, he does.” Emilie finished, “So you'd better stop worrying about my qualifications as a rescuer and get on with finding the others before we all get captured again.”

Daniel looked mulish, but Charter held up a placating hand, stepping forward to examine the door. He said, “I take your point, Emilie. We can't go out the way you got in?”

Mollified, but still wary, Emilie said, “Not easily. I set a fire as a distraction, so I could get past the guards at the outside doorway, but it might be out by now.”

“But is our airship still out there, moored to the top of this tower?” Daniel asked. “Can we get to it?”

“Yes.” It belatedly occurred to Emilie that securing the airship might be a good idea. She had been so fixed on the goal of finding Rani and Dr. Marlende, she hadn't even thought about it. “If you're very, very quiet. The guards were maybe a few steps from the outside doorway.”

“We can get past them.” Charter nodded grimly. “I'll go after Marlende and the others, the rest of you get aboard that airship. Lay low for now, but don't let the ship be recaptured.”

“Cobbier can get the others past the guards. I'll go with you,” Daniel said, looking mulish again.

“And me,” Emilie added. “I have to find Rani.”

“You should go back to the ship,” Daniel told her, his tone bearing an unfortunate resemblance to the way Emilie's brothers spoke to her.

Seth and Cobbier and Mikel were all protesting to Charter that they should stay together, and Emilie knew there wasn't time to argue. She said to Daniel, “You mistake me for someone you have the right to order around.”

He looked taken aback, and Charter cut off all the argument with a sharp gesture, saying, “There's no time for this. Now go!”

Reluctantly, the other men went toward the doorway to the stairs, and Charter knelt to peer into the lock, ignoring the fact that Emilie and Daniel had both remained behind. Charter asked, “Have you got a pocket knife?”

“Yes, here.” Emilie fished in her pocket and handed over the little knife Rani had given her.

As Charter used the blade to probe the inside of the locking mechanism, Daniel said, “It had been so long, we thought Jerom and Kenar didn't make it back to the surface.”

Emilie groaned inwardly. Being the one to have to deliver the bad news was not pleasant, and this was the second time she had had to do it. “Jerom didn't make it. Kenar said the trip was much worse than they thought it was going to be. I'm sorry.”

Daniel took a sharp breath. “Oh.” He shook his head. “I knew I should have gone.”

Still occupied with the lock, Charter said, “Jerom was a stronger sorcerer. He had to be the one to go.”

“Are you a sorcerer?” Emilie asked Daniel.

He frowned at her, as if the question was too personal. “I'm studying to be one.”

Though she should be feeling sorry for him, something about his attitude made Emilie say, not quite innocently, “But you couldn't do anything like get the cell door open?”

Charter snorted, and Daniel frowned even more. “It's not quite that simple-”

“Quiet,” Charter muttered, still working the lock. “I'm about to open it.”

They went quiet. Emilie held her breath, hoping this wasn't the end of their escape. If there were guards in the next room, there was little they could do without weapons. The other men must have gotten up to the trapdoor by this point, and she didn't hear any sounds of fighting or alarm, so that was encouraging.

The door made a dull clunk as the lock snapped open, and Charter winced. So much for stealth, Emilie thought. Charter eased the door open a crack and peered through, then pushed it open and got to his feet.

Daniel stepped forward into Emilie's way, but she managed to stretch to see around him. The door opened into a shadowy corridor, with a curving roof and walls of rough light-colored rock, the air dank and cool. There were no merpeople, but it couldn't be entirely deserted: a flickering lamp hung from a peg on the wall.

Charter stepped through into the corridor, Daniel managing to get in ahead of Emilie. She tugged the door closed behind them; it might slow pursuit, but only for a few moments. The merpeople had to know their captives couldn't escape through the pool's underwater passage. “What is this place?” Emilie asked as they went down the corridor. “The Nomads don't live here, surely?”

“No, they use it as a stronghold,” Daniel said. “It was some sort of sacred place for the old Sealands Empire. It's so old, I don't think they're sure what it was for anymore.”

The corridor opened into a foyer with another pool of water. Three more shadowy corridors led away from it. The whole area under the compound must be honeycombed with tunnels, with a system of water passages below it, and one above, connecting the surface pools. Emilie quickly checked the compass again.

The arrow pointed to the corridor to the left. Emilie nodded to it, whispering, “That one.”

Charter took a step toward it. Just then a merman surfaced in the pool, heaving himself half out onto the stone floor. For an instant they all froze, and he looked just as startled as they were. Then he started to push back from the edge. Charter lunged forward, punching him in the head. The merman fell backward but two more surfaced, and Charter yelled, “Run!”

Emilie ran, taking the corridor the compass had indicated before considering whether it was a good idea or not. It was a long corridor, with several guttering lamps hanging on the wall. She heard Daniel shouting behind her and slowed, looking back. Then he and Charter came pounding after her and she hurried on.

They caught up to her as she reached another open foyer, but this one had only one other way out, a narrow spiral stair up to a silvery metal trapdoor in the ceiling. The merpeople had to be right behind them and it was the only way out. Emilie started toward it, but Charter grabbed her arm and whispered, “Wait, don't move!”

Daniel stood at the open passageway, holding up a hand as if pressing against an invisible door. He was whispering quietly to himself. Emilie stared, and then realized: he's doing a spell. She hoped he was more useful as a sorcerer than previous circumstances would seem to indicate.

Daniel took a sharp breath and stepped back from the doorway. A moment later four mermen arrived, sliding to an abrupt halt. Daniel was frozen in place, and Charter squeezed Emilie's arm, reminding her to be still.

The mermen stared through the doorway, obviously puzzled. As they looked around, their eyes seemed to slide past Daniel, Charter, and Emilie without focusing on them. They see an empty room, she thought, holding her breath. And it hadn't seemed to occur to them to step past the doorway and investigate further.

Tension stretched Emilie's nerves almost to the point where she felt compelled to make a sound, but finally the mermen turned away. They started back down the passage, talking agitatedly among themselves. As their voices faded, Daniel's shoulders slumped in relief, and Charter relaxed a little. Emilie let herself breathe again, feeling her pulse pounding in her ears. “It's a charm,” Charter explained, keeping his voice low. “It makes people think they can't see you. But they can still hear you, and feel you.”

“You couldn't use it from inside the cell?” Emilie asked. “To make them think you escaped?” Though that wouldn't do much good, unless the merpeople were incautious enough to lower the bars.

Daniel wiped sweat off his forehead. “It doesn't work if they know you're there. That's why we had to get to another room - we had to be just far enough ahead of them that they would be able to tell themselves that they'd mistaken the passage we took.”

Emilie made a mental note that Daniel was a little more useful than he had seemed at first. And that explained why they had been so certain that Cobbier could get the other three crewmembers past the guards outside the tower; he must be an apprentice sorcerer too. She checked the compass again, and was momentarily puzzled when the arrow made a circle. “Oh.” She looked up at the ceiling. “I think we're close.”

Charter stepped past her and started up the stairs. Emilie and Daniel waited below as he cautiously pushed the trapdoor open just enough to get a view of the next room. After a moment, he opened it all the way and motioned for them to follow him.

Emilie hurried up the stairs. The room was bigger than the foyer below, and better lit, with a larger stairwell spiraling up to the next floor, and a closed door. “I think we're on the surface,” Emilie whispered. The air in this room was fresher, laced with the green scent of the forest. She checked the compass again. “It's still pointing up.”

Daniel went to the door and listened at it. He shook his head. “Can't hear anything.”

Charter grimaced, looking up the stairwell. He muttered, “This place is too quiet.” But he added to Daniel, “You stay here, we'll go up.”

Daniel nodded, and Charter and Emilie started up the stairs. She knew what Charter meant; the merpeople had seen them now and there should be more commotion outside as they searched for them. They reached the next floor, where a wide foyer held a single closed door.

Emilie hurried over to listen at it. She heard voices, and thought:
Uh oh.
But they didn't sound like merpeople; the voices were too deep. Wait, there is something familiar about... “I think it's the Cirathi!” she whispered to Charter.

He tugged cautiously on the handle. The door didn't budge, and he crouched to peer into the opening for the lock, taking out Emilie's knife. “We don't know if they're alone in there,” he said, keeping his voice low. “There might be guards inside.”

“We could knock and ask,” Emilie murmured. Then it occurred to her he might think she was silly enough to be serious.

But Charter just gave her an ironic smile and started to tinker with the lock. Then a bang and a muffled yell from the room below made Emilie flinch. Charter shoved to his feet, cursing, but half a dozen merpeople were charging up the stairwell. Emilie ducked back against the wall with a yelp, suddenly confronted with a forest of sharp spear points.

One of the merpeople shouted an order, and the others drew back a little. A few of them were female, but they all wore belts of some kind of reptile hide, they all carried knives, and they all looked angry. One held a weapon that looked like a wooden spear gun. With a grim expression, Charter dropped the knife and held up his hands. Emilie held up her hands, too.

Two other merpeople dragged Daniel up the stairs, despite his resistance. He caught Charter's eye and said, guiltily, “Sorry. They just burst in through the door-” One of them poked him to tell him to be silent.

Charter said, “It's all right.”

Emilie knew it was anything but all right.

The merpeople searched them first, taking the knife and the rest of Emilie's matches. Emilie thought they would be shoved into the room with the Cirathi, but instead the Nomads prodded them up the stairs. There was a door on the next landing, with a merman standing guard outside it. At a gesture from the leader, he pushed it open.

They were guided into a big room, lit by several lamps, bare of furniture except for a few clay water jars. But it was the occupants who captured Emilie's attention. Rani and an older Menaen man were facing five merpeople. Emilie started forward, only to be dragged back by her guards. She called out, “Rani! Are you all right?”

“I'm well, Emilie.” Rani looked her over, her scaled brow furrowed. “These idiots have not hurt you?”

“No, I'm fine.” She hoped, for the moment. Rani didn't look hurt, and her head wasn't bleeding anymore.

The older Menaen man had to be Dr. Marlende. He had shaggy gray hair and a beard that badly needed to be trimmed, which kept Emilie from spotting any resemblance to Miss Marlende. He wore a rather shabby tweed suit coat over a somewhat the worse-for-wear workman's trousers and shirt. He said, “Charter, Daniel, how good to see you!”

One of the merpeople was less enthused to see them. Holding one of the translation shells, he turned to Rani and said, “You lied. You said you were alone.” He was young, very handsome, wearing a necklace of polished shells and a reptile skin belt set with disks of silver metal. The others with him, three young men and one older woman, wore the same kind of finery; Emilie suspected they were looking at the Nomads' leaders. Or at least the leaders of this group of Nomads.

Rani snorted, amused. “Of course I lied. You keep dragging me and my people off by force. We are not friends, Prince Ise.” To Dr. Marlende, she explained, “That is Emilie, who came here with your daughter.”

“Excellent!” Dr. Marlende said, and nodded to Emilie.

Prince Ise rounded on Charter, demanding, “Where are the others?”

They haven't caught them, they don't know they're aboard the airship, Emilie thought, relieved. His expression stony, Charter said, “I don't know. We split up, to look for Dr. Marlende and the Cirathi.”

Prince Ise spoke to the mermen guards in his own language, and three of them hurried off, probably to organize a search. Emilie just hoped no one thought to check the airship. Prince Ise turned back to Dr. Marlende and Rani. “You can't expect me to negotiate with you after this. You have tried to escape, to attack my people-”

Rani eyed him with contempt. “Oh, and if you were in our position, you would sit in a cell and do nothing, and wait for your captors to 'negotiate.' Is that what you would do?”

Ise set his jaw, furious. He's young, Emilie thought. Younger than the Queen, certainly. Dr. Marlende said, “Oh, I think in our position Prince Ise would be fighting quite hard to escape. And I think we can agree that it is generous of him to speak to us at all, with everything he has to deal with at the moment.”

It had given Ise time to get his self-control back. He said, more evenly, “I have been generous. I offer you an alliance. If you would help us fight the Queen's forces, we would treat you as honored guests.”

Dr. Marlende shook his head. “My airship is for exploration, not war. And neither we nor the Cirathi have any business interfering in your disagreements with the Queen. Our involvement would cause you nothing but harm in the long run.”

Ise folded his arms, his whole body communicating contempt. “I might have believed that, before the metal ship joined the Queen's fleet. Our spies say they have the same magics and projectile weapons that you do. I'm only asking you to even the balance.”

“They were tricked!” Emilie had to interrupt. “They think you attacked the ship, but it was the Queen's people, pretending to be Nomads. And now they're only helping her because they think the Queen has Miss Marlende and me as hostages; they don't know I escaped with Rani and that Lord Ivers has Miss Marlende prisoner. If you let us all go, they have no reason to fight you.”

“Yes, Rani informed me that Lord Ivers has my daughter prisoner,” Dr. Marlende said, sounding grim. “The nerve of the man.”

Ise regarded her a moment in silence, and Emilie couldn't tell if her speech had had any effect on him or not. He looked at Rani and said, “She tells the same story you told.”

“Of course she does.” Rani was exasperated. “It's the truth.”

Prince Ise paced away from them, obviously torn. But before he could say anything, another merman pounded up the stairs, calling out. He spoke rapidly to Ise, who answered sharply in his own language. Then Ise turned to Dr. Marlende and said, “The Queen's forces have found our concealed cove. We'll drive them off, but when I return-” He hesitated again, but added, “This conversation is not over.”

He strode out, the other merpeople following, leaving them alone in the room. The guard outside shut the door, and Emilie heard the lock thunk into place.

Rani said, annoyed, “Well, that was not a timely interruption.”

“I'm not certain it would have been any different had we talked all night,” Dr. Marlende told her. “We might convince him, but the Nomads have many leaders, and I don't know how much influence he has.” He motioned for them to draw together in the center of the room, and said quietly, “Keep your voices low, please. Prince Ise usually leaves the translation shell with the guards.”

“They've made a mistake, leaving us together like this,” Rani muttered. “Surely Ise will recall it and send the guards to separate us soon.”

“You can't use your magic to escape?” Emilie asked Dr. Marlende, keeping her voice low.

Daniel looked offended that she had asked the question, but Dr. Marlende smiled at her. He said, “I can create a few rather flashy illusions, but I need access to my airship's aetheric channeling devices for anything more effective.” He turned to Charter and Daniel. “Any suggestions, gentlemen?”

Charter glanced thoughtfully at the door. “There's a room above this one? Is there a trapdoor in the roof?”

“Possibly, we've never been allowed up there,” Dr. Marlende said.

Rani put in, “But we're three levels up, and there are guards on the ground below. This stonework is not so easy to climb.” She added to Emilie, “I tried earlier. It was very embarrassing.”

“We don't need to climb,” Charter told her. He looked at Dr. Marlende. “Cobbier, Mikel, and Seth are in the airship.”

“Ah.” Dr. Marlende lifted a brow, and exchanged a look with Rani. “The guards will expect us to try to escape through the ground level exit, so they'll concentrate their efforts there.”

Rani said, “Then what are we waiting for?” and started for the door. Charter followed her.

Daniel looked from them to Dr. Marlende. “Do we need a spell, a charm? I can try-”

“They know my abilities,” Dr. Marlende told him. “They wouldn't be fooled by the illusion of an empty room.”

“We are doing it the old fashioned way.” Rani took up a position to one side of the door, and gave Charter a nod.

Charter pounded on it, and shouted, “Help, we need help!”

From the other side of the door, a merman's voice said, “Be quiet!”

“Please!” Charter kept pounding. Rani made a frantic gesture at Emilie. Emilie, interpreting this as best she could, shrieked as loudly and ear-piercingly as possible and flung herself on the floor.

Emilie kept shrieking, and Dr. Marlende began to caper around her tearing at his hair and giving a good impression of hysterical grief. Emilie wasn't sure how long they could keep it up; she felt she was already close to bursting a blood vessel. But a moment later, the door started to open.

The guard was cautious, entering spear first, but Rani moved like lightning. She grabbed the end of the spear, jerked the lighter merman through the doorway, and slung him across the room. As Emilie scrambled to her feet, Daniel hit the staggering merman with a water jar. The jar cracked and the merman collapsed.

The guard still outside tried to shove the door shut, but Charter wedged himself into the gap, holding it open. He cried out and Emilie gasped, knowing he must have been stabbed. But he held the door long enough for Rani to throw her considerable strength against it, slamming it open.

With the guard's captured spear, Rani slashed at the remaining merman, and he ducked away and stabbed at her again. Emilie reached the door and caught Charter as he slumped, staggering under his weight. The right shoulder of his shirt was already soaked with blood. Behind her Daniel reached the doorway, just as another merman charged up the stairs. Daniel was still holding the cracked water jar and, leaning down, slung it across the floor. “Oh, clever!” Emilie said, as it rolled down the first few steps, struck the merman in the shins and knocked him flat.

With a sudden lunge, Rani shoved the other guard's spear up, flipped her spear around and whacked him in the head with the butt hard enough to knock him back into the far wall.

Dr. Marlende reached Charter, trying to take his arm to support him. Charter said, “No, get up to the roof, signal the airship! I can make it.”

Dr. Marlende snapped, “Then hurry, damn you, I'm not leaving anyone behind!” and charged up the stairs. Stumbling a little, Charter started after him.

Emilie hesitated, her first impulse to help Charter, but Rani and Daniel had plunged down the stairs, going to rescue the Cirathi. No, better help them, she thought, hurrying after them.

The merman Daniel had tripped with the jar had hit his chin on the stone steps and was dazed. Daniel snatched up his spear in passing and Emilie, about to step over him, remembered, that door is locked, we need the key. Hoping this was the guard from that landing, she stooped down to pull at his belt, looking for the key, but there was nothing there. Suddenly he grabbed her arm, and a surge of panic almost blinded her. She snatched his big knife out of the sheath and hit him across the head with the hilt. It made an unpleasant thunk as it hit his skull and he fell backward. She pulled away, breathing hard. Hitting a person was very different from trying to hit the plant-creature who had attacked Miss Marlende. She felt sick, but there was just no time for it. She hurried down the steps.

Another merman was already down, sprawled on the floor of the landing, and Rani and Daniel blocked the stairs, struggling with three others. Emilie dashed to the fallen merman, found a round metal knob attached to his belt with a cord, and jerked it free. As she stood and shoved it into the lock opening, Daniel fell backward and Rani lunged in to cover him. Gritting her teeth, Emilie forced the key to turn. The lock clicked and the door flung open, nearly slamming her against the wall. But a strong scaled hand caught her arm and steadied her as several Cirathi rushed out the door. They overwhelmed the mermen on the stairs and drove them back down the steps.

The Cirathi holding Emilie up was a young woman, only a little taller than she was. She spoke in her own language, then switched to Menaen, saying excitedly, “You are rescuing us!”

“We are!” Emilie replied.

The young Cirathi threw a worried look around. “How?”

“Oh, right! Up, we have to go up, to the airship!” Emilie said hurriedly, pointing up the stairwell. Rani shouted something in her own language that must have confirmed this, because some of the Cirathi started up the stairs, a few remaining behind to help Rani and Daniel hold off the merpeople.

Emilie followed them, past the next landing and up to the very top. They found Charter struggling up the stairs, and one of the larger Cirathi caught him, heaved him over a shoulder, and continued to climb.

They reached the landing at the top of the tower, where a doorway set at an angle opened into a large room. There was no trapdoor in the ceiling. “That's not good,” Emilie said under her breath. There were windows, fortunately, big round ones with no glass panes; Dr. Marlende was hanging out of one, waving a lamp that burned like a white firework. As Emilie reached him, he pulled himself back in, saying with satisfaction, “They've seen it, they're coming!”

Emilie looked past him and her heart leapt. In the light from the ground lamps, the big silvery shape of the airship was lifting above the other towers, turning toward them.

Dr. Marlende said, “Where's Charter? Ah, there he is.” Charter was upright and conscious though bleary-eyed, leaning on the shoulder of the Cirathi man, holding a crumpled handkerchief to his bleeding shoulder. Five other Cirathi had come up with them. All except the man supporting Charter were fairly small, scarcely taller than Emilie. Rani must have ordered the younger ones to flee up the stairs, with the one adult to take care of Charter.

Dr. Marlende looked around the room, tapping his bearded chin. “Now if we can just hold off our captors until our transport arrives...” The lamp he still held was the usual sort the merpeople used, a convoluted shell hanging from a woven strap of reed or seagrass, which burned fish oil. Except this one was glowing white and spitting sparks. Emilie assumed Dr. Marlende had done something magical to brighten it so that the men in the airship could see it.

Shouting, thumps, and crashes sounded from the stairwell, and Rani, Daniel, and the rest of the Cirathi hadn't appeared yet. There was no door, nothing they could use to block off the doorway. Emilie ran to the opposite window, the one above the front of the tower. Two of the young Cirathi were already there, looking worriedly down at the shadowed compound. One pointed for Emilie and she saw a group of merpeople running toward the tower. “Yes, they're sending reinforcements.” Emilie bit her lip. It sounded like Rani and the others could barely hold off the guards now. She turned to Dr. Marlende. “Can we do something? Go outside, to keep more of them from coming into the tower?”

Dr. Marlende strode over to look out the window. He nodded grimly. “Yes, I think we'd better try a fire illusion.” He glanced around the room. “If you could find me another couple of lamps...”