It took Pyre a handful of heartbeats to get his breath and voice back. For the people seated at the low tables around the throne, those few seconds turned out to be their salvation. Whether the fumes enhanced their mental processes or whether they were simply naturally observant he didn't know, but by the time he was able to function again all of them had apparently deduced who he was and were making mad dashes from the room. Within seconds the scene was deserted.
"Damn," Pyre murmured under his breath. The smoke, he discovered, tasted odd, too. Clicking up his audio enhancers, he held his breath... and from somewhere out of sight among the free-hanging curtains he heard the faint sound of shallow breathing.
So they hadn't all made it out of boltholes. Was the straggler armed?
Probably... though none of the others had tried to use their guns, and that carried some interesting implications. But even if the skulker was afraid to shoot. Pyre had no desire to hunt him down in this maze, with only the diffuse sounds of breathing to guide him. But there might be another way. If the mojos were really as touchy about weapons as they'd seemed when the contact team first stepped outside the Dewdrop's lock...
Left hand ready for trouble, he reached down with his right and drew his stolen pistol.
The sound of steel on leather was loud in the silent room-and the single flap of bird wings that followed gave direction enough. Ahead and to the left... he sprinted around the curtains there and came face to face with a crouching, terror-eyed man.
For a second they gazed at each other in silence. Pyre's main attention was on the Qasaman's mojo, but the bird seemed to realize that an attack would be suicide, and it stayed put on its shoulder perch. Shifting his full attention to the man, Pyre said the only Qasaman word he knew: "Kimmeron."
The other, apparently misunderstanding, shook his head wildly. "Sibbio," he choked, slapping his chest with an open palm, eyes dropping to the gun still in
Pyre's hand. "Sibbio."
Pyre grimaced and tried again. "Kimmeron. Kimmeron?" He waved his free hand vaguely around the room.
The Qasaman got it then. Even through the haze of fumes Pyre saw his face visibly pale. Doesn't know where the mayor is? Or does know and the place is top-secret? The latter, he suspected; Sibbio's clothes seemed too ornate for a mere servitor. Taking a long step forward, the Cobra glared as hard as he could at the man. "Kimmeron," he bit out harshly.
The other gazed into Pyre's eyes and silently got to his feet.
The bolthole was right where, in retrospect. Pyre should have expected to find it: directly in front of the cushiony throne. Sibbio showed him the hidden lever that released the trap door; looking down the hole, Pyre saw the meter-square shaft change a few meters down into a curving ramp that presumably dumped the passengers into the safety of a heavily guarded room somewhere down the line.
Unfortunately, the trap's position implied it was also useful for getting undesirables out of the mayor's sight, which meant the guards below would be trained to handle potential nuisances. But there was nothing Pyre could do about that on his time budget... and now that the trap was open, there was no point in further hesitation. Giving Sibbio's mojo one last glance, the Cobra stepped into the pit.
It was a smooth enough ride, the curved section of tunnel beginning early enough and gradually enough to ease him onto his back for the final thirty-degree slope. It was also a much shorter trip than he'd planned on, and he had barely registered the dim square outline rushing toward him when he shot through the light-blocking curtain and landed flat on his back on a giant foam pad, the gun slipping from his grip as he hit. His eyes adjusted-
To find a ring of guns surrounding him.
Five of them, he counted as he lay motionless. The guard nearest his fallen weapon scooped it up, jamming it into his own empty holster. "You will make no move," said a man standing at Pyre's feet in the middle of the semicircle, in harshly accented Anglic.
Pyre locked eyes with him, then sent his gaze leisurely around the ring of guards. "I want to talk to Mayor Kimmeron," he said to the spokesman.
"You will not move until you are judged to be weaponless," the Qasaman told him.
"Is Kimmeron here?"
The other ignored his question. He spoke instead to his men, two of whom handed their weapons to the others. They knelt down on either side of Pyre... and the
Cobra kicked his heels hard into the pad.
The pad was spongy, but the kick had servo strength behind it and an instant later Pyre was flipping rigidly around the pivot point of his head. One of the guns barked, too late-and then it was too late for any further response as Pyre triggered the laser salvo he'd set up while looking around the guard ring. For an instant the room blazed with laser fire... and by the time Pyre's body had completed its flip the five Qasamans were kneeling or lying on the floor in various stages of shock, their flash-heated guns scattered among the dead mojos.
Pyre got to his feet, eyes seeking the spokesman. "I could as easily have killed all of you," he said calmly. "I'm not here to kill Mayor Kimmeron-"
Without warning, the other four Qasamans leaped to their feet and rushed him.
He let them come; and as the first one got within range, he snapped out his arm to catch the other in the chest with his palm. There was a wumph of expelled air, the sharper crack of snapped ribs, and the Qasaman flew two meters backwards to crash to the floor. The other three skidded to a halt, and Pyre saw an abrupt swelling of fear and respect in their faces. It was one thing, he reflected, to be disarmed by effectively magical bursts of light; it was quite another to see brute physical force in action. Or to feel it, for that matter.
The temporary numbness in his palm was wearing off and the skin there was aching like fury. The Qasaman would feel a lot worse when he woke up. If he ever did.
Pyre's eyes caught the spokesman's again. "I'm not here to kill Mayor Kimmeron, but merely to talk with him," he said as calmly as his tingling hand permitted.
"Take me to him. Now."
The other licked his lips, glancing over to where one of his men was ministering to his injured colleague. Then, looking back at Pyre, he nodded. "Follow me this way." He said something else to his men, then turned and headed for a door in the far end of the room. Pyre followed, the two remaining Qasamans falling into step behind him.
They passed through the door, and Pyre felt a split second of d‚j… vu. The same cushiony throne and low tables as in the office upstairs were here as well. But this room was smaller, and the hanging curtains had been replaced by banks of visual displays.
And glaring darkly at one of the displays was Mayor Kimmeron.
He looked up as Pyre and his escort approached, and the Cobra waited for the inevitable reaction. Kimmeron's gaze swept Pyre's matted hair and growth of beard; his borrowed jacket over camouflage survival suit; the dead mojo now hanging over his shoulder by a single thread. But his expression didn't change, and when he looked up again at Pyre's face the Cobra was struck by the brightness of the other's eyes, "You are from the ship," Kimmeron said calmly.
"You left it before our cordon was set up. How?"
"Magic," Pyre said shortly. He glanced around the room. Another fifteen or so
Qasamans were present nearly all of them staring in his direction. All had the usual sidearm and mojo, but no one looked like he was interested in making any move for his weapon. "Your underground command post?" he asked Kimmeron.
"One of them," the other nodded. "There are many more. You will gain little by destroying it."
"I'm not really interested in destroying anything," Pyre told him. "I'm here mainly to arrange our companions' release."
Kimmeron's lip curled. "You are remarkably slow to learn," he spat. "Didn't the death of your other messenger teach you a lesson?"