“It lacks buoyancy,” Sicarius said. “We can’t drive off a cliff.”
“Ah, yes, that too,” Books said.
“Given how often we end up cruising around on lake bottoms,” Maldynado said, “perhaps diving suits should be part of our regular gear.”
“Or we could get a submarine,” Akstyr said. “That’d be golden. We could go anywhere there’s water and nobody could find us.”
“I don’t think a submarine is in the budget,” Amaranthe said.
“Why not? Don’t we have all that money the emperor brought?” Akstyr lifted his head, clunking it on the ceiling. “Who has that money anyway? We didn’t leave it on the steamboat, did we?”
Amaranthe twitched a shoulder. She’d never seen it.
“It’s safely hidden,” Sespian said.
Rocks crunched beneath them as Sicarius turned the craft around.
“That’s good,” Maldynado said. “We don’t want imperial money to be wasted. Extra funds should be set aside to hire a sculptor to immortalize our team in statue form.”
“The team or you?” Yara asked.
“I’m thinking of everyone here,” Maldynado said. “Don’t imply I’m a more selfish lout than I am.”
Sespian cleared his throat. “Is that some sort of illumination up ahead? Or simply sunlight from the surface?”
“No,” Sicarius said.
Sespian looked at Amaranthe, the way he might if he needed a translation of Basilard’s hand signs.
“He’s a little selective in which questions he chooses to answer,” Amaranthe said.
“I wouldn’t mind a return to the surface,” Books said. “Did you see that library full of books in the house? I’m certain some of them could help with my current project, a project that was severely derailed by that fire in the engine room. I was fortunate to get most of my paperwork out before the flames spread.”
“Books was working on his project while we were being fired upon,” Maldynado said, “and yet I’m the one who gets blamed for the crash.”
Amaranthe had forgotten how much the men talked-and bickered. Part of her was glad to be back with them, but part of her missed the quiet of being alone with Sicarius.
“Maldynado,” Amaranthe said, “why don’t you give Basilard a break back there?”
Amaranthe thought he might object to being singled out for work, but Maldynado merely rolled up his sleeves and eased past Yara to take Basilard’s place. Amaranthe wondered how much of his willingness to accept the task had to do with the way one’s forearm muscles tended to flex and ripple while manning the crank. Yara’s gaze did follow him. Yes, Amaranthe would have to give up on her hope of setting Yara up with Sespian.
“There is light over there,” Akstyr said. “I see it too.”
Though Sicarius had been ambiguous with his answers, he had turned the vessel in the direction Sespian had noticed. A rocky cliff dropped down from the surface before leveling out where it met the lake floor. Amaranthe recognized the cliff; she’d stood on the top when checking out the hot springs above. The water bent and contorted the light, but it seemed to be leaking from a fissure.
The vehicle rumbled closer until Sicarius stopped it at the base of the cliff.
“The light may simply be the sun filtering through from an opening above,” Books said.
“What sun?” Akstyr asked. “It was raining harder than a pissing donkey by the time Am’ranthe picked us up.”
“Lovely imagery,” Books murmured.
“It’s wider than it looked from back there.” Amaranthe waved toward the fissure. “Think we can drive inside?”
Sicarius slanted her one of his unreadable looks.
“What?” All right, wider wasn’t the same thing as wide, but Amaranthe didn’t think the opening was that narrow. Just because it twisted and turned and one couldn’t see anything except darkness and rock ahead…
“I was wondering who would get blamed should the vehicle crash,” Sicarius said.
A few silent heartbeats skipped past before Akstyr whispered, “Was that a joke? Did he make a joke?”
“Nah,” Maldynado whispered back, “he doesn’t know how to do that.” He raised his voice and said, “It’s been my experience that it’s never the woman’s fault.”
“That is my concern.” Sicarius nudged the vehicle forward and gripped the control wheel.
Amaranthe smiled as they crept into the fissure, inching across a bottom that had changed from rocks to sand. “It’s good to have the team back together.”
“Says the woman who has her own seat and isn’t wearing Basilard’s elbow on her belt,” Books said.
Busy watching their progress through the fissure, Amaranthe didn’t see if Basilard signed a response, but something prompted a few snickers from the men.
Minutes passed as Sicarius guided the vehicle through a zigzag of turns that made a lightning bolt seem straight. They were climbing slightly, and Amaranthe wondered if this might be a secret passage up the inside of the mountain, one that would take them all the way to some hidden entrance below the house.
“Are you sure you didn’t know about this?” Amaranthe asked Maldynado.
“Uh uh.”
“If this passage comes up beneath your bed, we’re going to have trouble believing you.”
“The only thing beneath his bed is a stack of smutty Lady Dourcrest books,” Yara said.
“That’s not true.” The crank stopped rasping as Maldynado stood straight, clunking his head on the ceiling. “Actually… that might be true. I was eleven or twelve the last time we came down here. That’s about the age I got curious about biological matters.”
“ Very curious if all the dog-eared pages are an indicator,” Yara said.
“Lady Dourcrest,” Books said. “Such erudite literature.”
“They’re sure to be classics,” Maldynado said, then poked Yara. “What were you doing snooping around in my room anyway? You must find me fascinating if you thought to research my childhood.”
Yara sniffed. “I was merely searching for secret passages, as I was instructed.”
“Continue cranking.” Sicarius’s voice cut through the chatter like a knife slicing butter.
Maldynado grumbled something and went back to work. The vehicle continued to climb, the light growing brighter as it advanced. The walls lining the fissure changed from the water-eroded edges of a natural formation to the jagged contours of something carved out by men. The passage straightened as well.
Without warning, Sicarius halted. Though they hadn’t been going fast, the abruptness threw Amaranthe forward in her seat, and she had to brace herself with a hand on the controls. An inch of air had appeared at the top of the viewing window. Uh oh. That meant the access hatch and a foot of the vehicle’s domed hull would be visible above the water if anyone was out there to see it.
“There are four people on a ledge,” Akstyr said, his voice stiff with the concentration he used for applying the mental sciences. “And a bunch of other things with us in the water.”
“ Things? ” Amaranthe asked, envisioning giant lake monsters.
“Inanimate objects, I think. Boats maybe. Or-”
“Submarines.” Sicarius pointed at something ahead and to the right of them.
The dark shape was hard to make out, but Amaranthe agreed that it might be the hull of a submerged vessel.
“Are the people armed?” Sicarius asked.
“I can’t tell,” Akstyr said. “Maybe.”
“There’s four of them and… uh… seven of us,” Maldynado said.
“Your counting skills are impressive,” Books said. “Are you volunteering to go first? Because we can only pop out of this sardine tin one at a time.”
“My job is to turn the crank,” Maldynado said. “I can’t be spared for target practice.”
A thump sounded on the roof. Sicarius leaped from the controls, somehow finding a spot to land where he faced the hatch. His black dagger appeared in his right hand, a loaded pistol in his left. The latter he pointed at the hatch.