Mags and Meggins had crawled up next to Ilbei by then, and they spent a moment watching the six harpies walking in place on their endless stairwells, stair wheels, climbing to nowhere but tedium and misery. Mags gasped.
“What are those things they’re walking on?” Meggins asked a few moments later. “I’ve never seen anything like them.”
“Them there is Kordiak screws,” Ilbei said. “Newfangled water machines, like ya see in the royal mines up north. Like ya
only
see in the royal mines. But I ain’t never seen one what wasn’t equipped with sheet sails and enchanted wind magic blowin em round. That there is right primitive.”
“And cruel,” Mags observed. Ilbei nodded.
“What do they do?” Meggins asked.
“They’re pumpin water out.” He pointed up to the arcade in the wall above.
“Then that’s a good sign. There must be an exit somewhere up that way.”
“Aye. As long as we can fit through it, we’re on our way. Come on now, let’s get up them long-barrels quick. Be ready in case these steppin wretches ain’t as friendly as that other flock behind us.”
But the harpies on the stair wheels gave them as little heed as had the harpies with the picks and hammers in the fire-filled room. Perhaps less, if such a thing were possible. And so they ran to the screws unimpaired, and, with a boost from Kaige, they were all pushed up on the nearest of the three wooden shafts and ready to climb. Mags and Ilbei pulled Kaige up behind them with a grunt, and shortly after, the five of them were in the arcade.
It turned out that the arcade was another pond chamber, much like the last, though this one was more geometric in shape and entirely man-made. It, like the previous, had three vertical screws pumping water up another ten vertical spans, once again disappearing into a low, wide opening.
Again they ignored the harpies on the stair wheels and again the harpies ignored them, the whole experience as strange as anything Ilbei had ever been party to. The chamber above was identical to the one they’d just left. So was the next. And the next. And for a period of an hour they repeated the climbing exercise, one three-screwed chamber after another, ten vertical spans at a stretch.
It wasn’t until they heard voices that they knew the screw they were climbing might likely be the last.
Ilbei crawled to the top of it and peered over the edge, looking into the chamber beyond, expecting to see another set of pumps. He did not. The water fell out and formed a gently flowing stream again, one that ran through a small caged-in space and then out across the floor of a low-ceilinged cavern roughly a hundred spans long and forty wide. This chamber, like the first cavern they’d climbed down into, where the harpy tides washed back and forth in the flaring light of the fire column from above, was producing gold in much the same way: harpy slaves working to extract gold. There were fewer of them here, and they were hacking directly into the far wall rather than into heaps tossed down from shafts dug into the rock face, but other than a few procedural differences, the ultimate circumstances were the same. The voices they’d heard as they climbed up came from two men who were standing near where the screw spurted its water out, kept separate from the harpies by a barrier of bars that were hardly any different from those of a prison cell. Ilbei lay flat and listened.
“… that’s what he said. Just laying there.”
“What did she do, try to kill herself?”
“No. They don’t do that. At least, not that one. I don’t think they can.”
“So what?”
“I don’t know what. He just said to pay attention. Said it looked like lightning.”
“Gangue?”
“Of course it wasn’t Gangue. Why would he do it?”
“I don’t know. All I know is I didn’t sign up to fight wizards. That was the whole point. What am I going to do, throw harpy shite at them?”
“Calm down. There might only be one.”
“How many does there have to be? You been here long enough to know better than that, and ours ain’t even that spectacular as they go. What if it’s one of the royal ones? The Queen has Fours and Fives, and Ys and Zs.”
“It’s not. So just keep your eyes open. Listen for the birds to fuss. They said she was screeching her whore face off before, so they’ll likely warn you if you keep your head straight and your ears on.”
“And if they do, then what?”
“Call out.”
Ilbei could hear the sound of one pair of boots walking away, the voice that was closest to him calling after, “How can I call out if I get a lightning bolt up my arse? Hmm? Anyone mention that up there while they were jawing it over?” The other man never answered, however, so the man who remained muttered to himself as he paced back and forth, mainly a string of profanities.
Ilbei carefully backed down the barrel of the Kordiak screw to where the others were. “I reckon they know we’re here,” he said. “Them two up there got word of Jasper’s lightnin bolt, so someone found the harpy that he killed.”
“I never said I killed her,” Jasper said. “I never said that.” He looked alarmed, even horrified.
“Well you shot her with lightning,” Meggins said. “What did you think was going to happen?”
“I already told you—or I tried to tell you—that she wasn’t grounded properly. You people never listen to me.”
“Well, whatever all that is, we don’t have time fer it now,” Ilbei cut in. “So listen up. Seems them fellers are afright with the prospects of wizards runnin around down here, which is a fine piece of luck we’re finally gettin. If’n they weren’t fixated on the magic, they’d damned sure know right where we are, what with us only havin the one way out back there. But the situation now is this: we need to get movin and get movin fast, before they turn out whoever they got lookin fer us in earnest. Sooner or later they’re goin to figure out where we went.”
Meggins, Mags and Jasper all agreed with his assessment, and Kaige was, of course, happy to go along.
“I’m goin to get back up,” Ilbei said, “and see if I can’t knock that feller agreeable real quick. Then ya all come in after. Maybe we can get him to show us the shortest way out.” He set his eyes on Jasper most seriously. “Now, Jasper, ya need to remember that you’re the big, scary mage of this here company, so when ya come up, don’t be shakin and quiverin and askin fool questions. We got one good card to play, and it’s that this here feller thinks you’re gonna burn him down with lightnin, so make sure ya put on yer best scary-wizard face.”
“But I don’t have any scary-wizard faces,” Jasper said. “Much less a best one. Why would I cultivate such a thing? I hardly like being scared, so I certainly don’t like scaring anyone else. I don’t even like being startled, if it must be known. I recognize that some people derive amusement from it, but I—”
“Jasper, I think yer mother needed to clench another month before lettin ya flop out into the world. Yer head wouldn’t be so soft and undercooked if’n she had.”
Confusion contorted Jasper’s face, but before he could ask Ilbei to clarify, Meggins came to the rescue, or at least he tried. “Jasper, it’s easy to play mean,” he said, leaning closer to the wizard and speaking as if he meant for Ilbei not to hear. “Just make like you’re Sarge there. Pretend you’ve got a bad rash or something, then put on one of those growly faces Sarge wears all the time. You can’t get a much scarier model to imitate.” He winked at Ilbei, who rolled his eyes but nodded after seeing that Jasper was actually considering that seriously.
“Whatever gets it done,” he said. “Now let’s get on it. Kaige, you’re with me. Come up right after I go in. The rest of ya wait till I give ya the sign.”
He and Kaige crawled up the barrel of the screw, and once again Ilbei peered over the edge. The man who’d been mumbling to himself had moved across the caged space beyond the opening and was watching through the iron bars as harpies dumped oil on a long heap of firewood. The wood had been stacked against the wall in the time Ilbei had been discussing his strategy, suggesting a long-practiced efficiency. Most of the harpy slaves were standing back near the creek by flumes similar to those Ilbei and company had seen in the first gold-harvesting cavern. When those pouring on the oil were done and had fallen back with the others, the man inside the cage went to the rock wall near where the bars began and threw the lock on a large wooden gear, using a crank handle jutting out from it. He stepped back and let the gear spin. Shortly after, there came a dull thud along with the clinking of chain in the distance. The oil-soaked wood burst into flames right after, and the man immediately began winding the crank handle on the gear as the light flared. The chain that had fallen into the woodpile was drawn back up, and Ilbei saw that it had a firebrand attached to it. Not as high end a process as the larger chamber with its column of flames, but it was effective enough, for soon the whole far wall was one giant sheet of flames. The man locked the wheel in place, then watched the fire burn, his posture that of someone who has seen a thing a thousand times before.
Ilbei glanced over his shoulder at Kaige, nodded, then grabbed the edge of the screw barrel and pulled himself up and over it. In two quick strides he was upon the man, his powerful arms around the man’s neck and choking him like a vice before he’d had time to turn halfway around at the sound of footsteps.
“Now here’s the situation, friend,” Ilbei said. “I have need to know some things, and you got need of breathin. So, bein as we both have somethin to trade, what say ya play nice and don’t make trouble fer anyone. That gonna happen, or is this gonna be yer last day down here mindin the fires, and with only a horde of harpies to see ya off to the afterlife … assumin Mercy sees fit to send ya along to it?”
The fellow’s eyes grew like boils in his head, and he nodded fervently that he would cooperate, even before he realized there was another giant of a man now standing before him wearing a sword nearly as long as he was tall.
Ilbei relaxed his grip and nodded for Kaige to signal the rest of them to come up. “So, here’s how ya save dyin,” he said. “First you’re gonna tell me how I get out of this here complex. No mammoth-sized heaps of dung neither. Tell me true. And next you’re gonna tell me who’s takin all this gold. The truth of that too.”
The man again nodded that he would comply, a rapid up-and-down movement, or at least as much as he could muster given how securely wedged he was in the crook of Ilbei’s elbow.
“So go on then, speak up. Not too loud now.”
“Up that way, behind us,” Ilbei’s captive said. “Go up to the original drift tunnel, go right and stay with it until it starts to bend. You’ll come to an intersection. Go left up the next passage where all the stacked baskets are. You’ll hear the river as you go up. Follow that out, half a measure.”
“Any guards out there? Patrols?”
“No patrols, but there are two guards at the entrance where the river runs out.” He stammered a little and added, “Well, there usually are two. They’ll have archers out if they think harpies are around.”
“From what I’ve seen, there’s always harpies around, or what’s left of em. Don’t be funnin me, son, this ain’t the time fer it.”
“No. Not these. Wild ones. They come back sometimes.”
“That seems a fool thing to do, given what ya got goin on here.”
“You asked me. I’m telling you.”
“That’s fine. You’re doin good. Might actually survive. So now, who’s doin all this? It sure ain’t Her Majesty.” He noticed that the fire was dying down as he looked up, the motion of Meggins climbing over the ledge of the screw having drawn his eye for a moment.
His captive nodded that it was true. “It’s not the Queen, but I can’t say whose mine it is.”
“Oh, you’re gonna say.” Ilbei flexed his bicep, which in turn pressed vice-like into the man’s tender throat.
“No,” he gasped, his face transformed by panic. “They never said who. Nobody ever said.” His eyes bulged as he groped uselessly at Ilbei’s forearms with his hands. He might as well have tried to claw through iron with kitten paws.
“Listen here, you,” Ilbei said. “Ya don’t really think I’m dumb as all that, do ya? I might take insult to it if’n ya do.” He began to squeeze harder, not enough to hurt the man, but enough to scare him quite a lot. The rock of his bicep swelled and drove into the side of the gasping man’s throat, crimping down on his windpipe.
“I swear, I don’t know; I don’t know. They never said. They never told me.” He could hardly get it out.
“Quiet now, not so loud.” Ilbei let the pressure off just a bit. “No man works fer nobody, and since this here ain’t yer cache, then there is somebody else. So who is payin ya? Who divvies up yer cut?”
“The overseer does. He’s the one who pays us. He pays us all. Keeps everyone in line.”
“And who’s he work fer?”
“I don’t know. I’ve only been here eight months. They don’t tell me anything.”
Ilbei flexed a bit harder. “What they never told ya ain’t much use to me, is it? So tell me what ya heard from other folks what do talk about such things, even ones what are guessin. Men get to speculatin about such things in their off hours, ’specially as nights in a place like this get short fer conversation and long fer wine and mead. So go on and spill me the rumors and gossip as ya come to find.”
“I …,” the man started, but stopped. So Ilbei squeezed a good deal harder than before, causing the poor man’s eyes to swell, nearly right out of his head. He continued to squeeze until the fellow gagged.