Root slipped silently back into the bathroom. She’d reemerge from there unsneakily to keep up the ruse, then return and feign indigestion or some other tedious affliction of the bowels. Or say she’d just gotten caught up admiring the stonework in the bathroom.
Though, come to think of it… it’d be a shame not to use such a fine bathroom while she had the chance. Much nicer than the bushes out along the road back. And it was a good opportunity to change her menstrual cloth now while she had nice clean water too…
Well, she couldn’t ask to use the bathroom again without it being suspicious or embarrassing—or both. What was another couple minutes?
She emerged like she had nothing to hide and made her way to the map room. Inside, Azriah, Beel, and Ron were deep in conversation around a wall-sized map. Ron also seemed to have lost an arm. Er, no, there it was—held in his other hand, like the pointer of a gruesome schoolteacher.
“Sorry for the delay,” said Root, putting a hand to her gut. “I just felt a little—”
“Oh, no, not to worry,” said Ron quickly. “Not to worry at all. Really! All natural, all… you know. Yes. Um.”
Root looked between the spirit and Azriah. Well, that was odd.
Ron asked for Root’s approximation of Halwlau’s whereabouts, which she recounted as best she recalled them. Azriah also asked for Root’s opinion of Halwlau’s containment.
“Oh, she’s… uh…” said Root, trying to read Azriah’s expression. “A… danger…”
Azriah shook his head.
“… ous… ly… safe. And secure? Spirit. Yeah, she’s not going anywhere. Deep underground. And she has no reason to let anyone in—”
Azriah cleared his throat.
“In… vest. In the business idea she said she was working on. Um… children’s fun maze?”
“She could stand to work on the ‘fun,’” said Beel.
“She can’t stand at all, actually,” said Azriah quickly. “Very stuck. Very, very trapped.”
“Hm. Entrepreneurial?” said Ron thoughtfully. “Maybe her years down there have changed her. She hasn’t been seen in a few centuries, so I suppose…”
Azriah shot Root another look when Ron turned aside. The expression held a question. Root nodded.
“Well, thank you all for the information,” said Ron, reattaching his arm. “We do offer small payouts for tips like these—come, I’ll grab your reward and see you to the door.”
They stopped back by his office where he retrieved and divvied up a mantle and handful of whorls to each of them. They followed him back towards the hub and the entry tunnel.
“As for recruitment,” he said, “we would be extremely fortunate to have the three of you on our crew. And don’t worry,” he added, turning to Azriah. “We can work on your geography skills. It’s not a disqualifier.”
“Thanks,” said Azriah.
“So… would you be interested?”
“We’ll have to think on it,” said Azriah. The others nodded. “We were just passing through Corrivack when we saw the wanted list—and traveling when we ran into Krete and Lam—and we have some places to be. But we’ll discuss and return if we decide to join up.”
Of course, there was also the small matter of having just freed one of the facility’s dangerous prisoners, which had a fair chance of invalidating their new job offers. With any luck, they’d be far, far away before anyone suspected a thing.
“Excellent,” said Ron. “It’s a great guild, great culture—and good union benefits. Ah—and there’s Tumb and Kanchitt. They’ll see you out. A pleasure.” He shook their hands again. Root gripped gingerly, afraid to end up with a few fingers as souvenirs.
“Meeting went well?” asked Tumb as they started down the long hall.
“We shared what we know,” said Azriah.
“But no badges,” said Kanchitt with a cocky expression. “So it couldn’t have been all that useful.” The small spirit still rode atop Tumb’s head. He licked a paw and groomed his ear, fluffing up his neck skirt in the process.
“Ron made us all offers, actually,” said Root. She eyed that skirt. One tug and it’d have Kanchitt looking like a bad house cat who wouldn’t stop gnawing at his stitches post-surgery.
Kanchitt flicked his tail but said nothing.
Soon, the two clinkers paused at a wider point in the tunnel with tall metal lockers and a big Mandy head hanging from one wall. Root remembered passing it on their way in.
“Outgoing checkpoint,” said Tumb. “We have to scan for any possessed items.”
“What, in case one of your bricks is hitching a ride on one of us?” asked Root.
“Procedure,” said Tumb.
“How do you know they’re bricks?” asked Kanchitt, narrowing his eyes.
“I—”
“Krete pulled out a brick to put Lam into,” said Azriah.
Root nodded. Damn it. A sarcastic comment was going to get her killed one of these days.
Tumb retrieved a long tool from one of the lockers—like a crowbar, but lengthened and studded with bits that glimmered.
“This will pick up and pinpoint magic in an object,” said Kanchitt. “It’s accurate and precise, but even if someone managed to evade the scan, Mandy counts and announces all possessions that cross this threshold without authorization. All right?”
“Understood,” said Azriah. He lined up with the others before Tumb and held up his arms.
Tumb waved the rod in front of the three of them. Weep weep weep weep!
Kanchitt straightened up in shock. “Four?”
Root looked down and to either side. Four pinpricks of light had sprouted from the three of them—one in Root’s bag, one in Beel’s, one in Azriah’s, and a second at Azriah’s hip.
“Pull ‘em out,” said Kanchitt, tail swishing, suddenly on high alert. “Let’s see what you’re smuggling.”
Root looked to Azriah. He caught her gaze. This hadn’t been part of the plan.
Azriah shrugged off his bag, which Root took as her cue to do the same. Beel unslung his tiny pack. They laid the three on the floor. Azriah removed Orne Tyn’s sheath from his belt.
Kanchitt jumped down and pawed around their belongings. He stopped at Orne Tyn first.
“Possessed sword, eh? With a face, too—how humane. Hey, bud, you talk?”
Orne Tyn said nothing.
Kanchitt nudged Orne Tyn’s face with his paw.
While Kanchitt shared that tender moment with Orne Tyn, Tumb rummaged around in their bags. The specks of light still hung in the air, visible no matter the angle or what passed in front of them. Tumb removed one wrapped bundle from Beel’s bag, another from Azriah’s, and the third from Root’s.
“And what kind of magic do we have here?” asked Kanchitt, looking to the three mismatched bundles.
“What do they look like?” asked Tumb. “Can’t see, just followed the sparks…”
Kanchitt sighed. “Get a trim, you big ball of fuzz. Look—look.” He jumped back onto Tumb’s head and pawed at the larger spirit’s fluff with both paws. He pulled aside the fur to reveal one eye, then lifted what Root had thought was an ear to reveal a second on the same side of his head. Further down towards Tumb’s neck, Kanchitt drew back the fur to reveal a third, then a fourth.
Root wondered if even Tumb knew how many eyes he had, or if he just discovered new ones from time to time when his hair parted under a gust of wind or a wayward cat paw.
“Hmm,” said Tumb.
They’d been meant to come up clean—that was the plan. They’d expected a checkpoint of some kind—a quick bag search or a pat-down—but they were supposed to come up empty-handed. Did the clinkers know about mote periapts—know about magic items outside their jurisdiction? If they unwrapped the bundles, what would they have to say?
“That’s just my sword,” said Azriah, waving the concern away. “Came in with it—I’m sure you noticed. Gift from a former employer. And these—”
“Family heirlooms,” said Root, thinking quickly. “From our grandmother. Passed down to us.”
Kanchitt eyed them. Tumb eyed and eyed and eyed and eyed them. “Whose grandmother?”
“His,” said Root, pointing to Azriah.
“Hers,” said Azriah at the same time, pointing to Root.
“I was adopted,” they both said in unison.
“Yeah,” said Root, nodding with confidence she didn’t feel. “We were both adopted. Very charitable parents. And grandmother.”
“And you?” asked Kanchitt, turning to Beel.
“Also adopted,” said Root. “Generation earlier, though. He’s like our uncle.”
Kanchitt leaned over Tumb’s face and swatted at the scanner tool. “Scan again, see if any of them have been logged here before.”
Tumb adjusted something and scanned the four items a second time. Weep weep weep weep!
“No logs,” said Tumb.
Root breathed a silent sigh of relief.
“Hmm.” Kanchitt hopped down again and assessed their belongings, pausing at Orne Tyn. “I see. Well, nevertheless, procedure says we are still required to confiscate them temporarily. Check our records, log them, make sure they’re all safe or determine if they need to be interned here. Prisoner, magic—even nonmagical belongings that we’ve determined to be too dangerous—we’ve got vaults for all sorts of cases.”
Root forced a chuckle. “Oh, no, that’s really all right—thank you though.” She started to reach for one of the bundles.
Kanchitt batted it away. “That’s procedure. If we determine they are of no consequence, they will be returned to you.”
Root looked ahead down the tunnel. Pure, pitch blackness. Eleven miles. What had the clinkers said on the way in? That they progressed faster because they were welcome? What did that mean? If they tried to make a run for it now, would they have to go the full eleven miles? Or more than eleven miles? They’d never make that—and there had been more guards posted periodically, not to mention the ones at the entrance and probably several Mandys…
Judging by Azriah’s expression, he was running the same calculations and coming up with equally unfortunate numbers.
Kanchitt picked up one bundle in his mouth, then went towards the next. Root wracked her brain. She needed an answer, and fast. Maybe—
The mountain shook.
Dust rained down as a thunderous rumble echoed through the halls. Root caught her balance as the tremor subsided, but a second quickly followed.
“What—?” said Tumb.
“Mandy!” shouted Kanchitt. “What’s the report?”
“Ehloshionsh in aihshass seh-eny-nye an ehy-uhn.”
“Air shafts seventy-nine and eighty-one?” said Kanchitt, turning. “Source of explosions?”
“Uhnohn—eshteeyoh.”
Kanchitt turned back to the three of them. “Stay put—we have to respond to this.” Already he’d remounted Tumb and the pair was on the move.
“Sorry, we’re in a bit of a rush, actually,” said Root, picking up her bundle and stuffing it back in her bag.
“No!” said Kanchitt. “Stay put! Those might be dangerous!”
“Don’t worry, they’re from grandma, honest! And she hated dangerous things! So these really are no biggie!”
“Stay!”
Another explosion.
“And get crushed by a cave-in?” shouted Beel.
Root nodded. “Exactly—gotta get out of here!” Beel and Azriah were grabbing their things as well.
Kanchitt looked back and forth between the three of them and the direction he and Tumb were headed, pausing there. Finally, he threw his paws up. His skirt poofed with the gesture.
“Fine! But good luck with them—it’s your life!” The pair ran off.
“Lucky break,” said Azriah, reattaching Orne Tyn’s sheath to his belt.
“Let’s not have any more breaks,” said Beel, eyeing the ceiling warily.
They ran across the threshold and into the tunnel ahead.
“Unauhoishe uhsheshionsh at shreshole: one, too-shree, oar… ihe,” said Mandy overhead.
Ajis sprinted downhill across gravelly ground. Explosions rocked the cliffside behind him.
“Keep up!” he shouted over his shoulder. “What are those oversized feet for if not escaping?”
“Yes master!” yelled Kurg. He stumbled over himself as he ran a pace behind Ajis.
Ajis did a double take. “Are you still holding charges?”
Kurg looked down at the sizzling sticks in his hands as if they had just appeared there. The fuses were nearly spent.
“Ah! I appear to be, master!”
“Well, get rid of them!”
Kurg stopped. He set one on the ground, then took the other in both hands, looked around, and threw it like it was his first time using his limbs for such a maneuver. It didn’t go far.
“And the other?” shouted Ajis, pointing to the one at Kurg’s feet. He didn’t wait around—he only had enough time to dive for cover.
Fffweee—KA-ROOOOM! Ajis looked back over the top of the rock. A wisp of glitter shot eastward overhead as debris rained down.
“There!” shouted a voice. Two spirits charged in his direction. Ajis leapt up and continued his dash down the hill.
Stupid—stupid, stupid, stupid! Bringing mote periapts into the Capsoul headquarters! What did those useless, brainless humans think was going to happen? He’d saved them—saved that pesky group, saved the mote periapts, saved them all. And what did he have to show for it? Running for his life.
Carrying them in, expecting to carry them back out. Ha! Nothing that crossed that threshold ever left again—unless maybe on the empty promise of parole.
But if they’d been successful in extracting Ago Sog—and that was yet to be seen—then maybe, maybe, they might just stand a chance with this foolish idea of robbing the Eternal Palace. Foolish as it might’ve been, he just couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this. If someone was willing to make that leap, he had to hope they succeeded. For his own sake.
Any day now, he thought, thrusting the thought outwards with as much impatience as he could stick to it.
“Halt!” cried one of the Capsoul clinkers.
Ajis raised one hand, rubbing his thumb across the glassy obsidian surface of the side of his ring. It pulsed as he whipped outward, a great web of roots arcing, weaving, winding, seeking—hungry to find something, like lightning stretching down from the sky.
Energy cracked. Both of his pursuers halted, dazed. One crumpled to sit on the rocky ground and buried her head in her hands.
Ajis slid down a steep slope. Another clinker waited below, hurrying towards him.
A shimmer split the air ahead. A tear opened, gold and glittering. Ajis made a mad dash for it.
“Not so fast!” shouted the clinker just as Ajis was about to dive through the portal. The clinker swept through the air with one arm. A glowing beam connected their hand to the portal, snagging the bottom, levering it up—
Ajis missed it by a hair, the portal now facing skyward. Could he double back? No, the clinker was on him now. The portal snapped shut and Ajis continued ahead.
One hand on his dagger, Ajis clenched a fist. The air went cold, the color drained. A ball of energy thrummed, pulsed, shot towards the clinker. The spirit exploded, shredded in an instant. A Capsoul badge clattered to the ground.
Ajis reached a cliff and suddenly recognized where he was. Below him, the door to the entrance tunnel loomed. Clinkers stood on either side, alert and scanning for danger.
A portal opened in the air just below him. Ajis jumped.
Something slammed around his chest. Ajis seethed and writhed around, grappling for whatever had ensnared him.
It was a long, stone tongue, wrapped twice around his ribcage, the other end snaking out of the tiny mouth of a bust above the door’s peak. It mumbled something incoherent.
“There!” shouted a clinker below.
Ajis looked to the portal. Movement stirred just on the other side. Suddenly, the portal’s rim lurched up, swallowing him as the tongue slowly reeled him in.
The portal zipped closed as soon as Ajis cleared its bounds. The rubble of the tongue hit the wood floor all around him.
Ophylla sat on the couch, watching Ajis closely. “Kurg?” she asked.
“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” he said. “Kurg died a fool’s death. We’ll go retrieve him shortly.”
“Did you see them?”
“No.”
“But you know they escaped?”
“I know I gave them the best chance they had.”
“Hm.” Ophylla twirled one of her viny locs. “Should we not return to intercept them and retrieve the three mote periapts?”
“It’s too late for that,” said Ajis. “They beat me there. Now, the location is compromised. Capsoul will intercept any portals. They’d dump us directly into cells.”
“Perhaps we should’ve thought of that.”
“We should have?” Ajis balked. “It’s your witless ex-employees who led us here in the first place!”
“Well, now they’re at large again.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Ajis, brushing more rubble off his clothes and smoothing his shirt. “We know where they’re headed. And if they can pull off a Capsoul prison break—and I can’t even believe that much—maybe they’re not so useless. Maybe they stand a chance against David and his army of brainless lambs. I want the halo out of that palace. After that, it doesn’t matter where they go. Our time will come, but in the meantime, there’s still more to be done.”