Amaranthe needed to get him talking, to slow him down from… whatever it was he intended to do to her. “Yes, I’m alive. I’d like to think you have an interest in keeping me that way.”
He didn’t reply. Not promising.
“I’ve been wondering where you’ve been for days.” She didn’t have to feign the anguish in her voice. “The last I heard you’d gone after that soul construct. Maldynado said-”
His hands froze. “Who?”
“Maldynado,” Amaranthe said. “Tall fellow. Broad shoulders, handsome face. Ridiculous hat. His current one has tentacles sticking out in all directions. You couldn’t miss it, even at a distance.” She regretted her flippancy immediately. Of course, he must have thought Maldynado had been killed along with everyone else in Fort Urgot. She had, too, until he, Basilard, and Sespian had showed up at the factory. Oh, she realized with the certainty of a gut punch, Sicarius would have thought Sespian dead too.
Dear ancestors. She dropped her face into her hand. Had he thought everyone was dead? That he was the lone survivor? That might explain how he’d stumbled into this wizard’s clutches. He might have been grieving or stunned or running around heedless of his safety, in some crazed vengeful state.
“Sespian is alive,” she said, then wondered if she should have. Did the wizard hear everything he heard, know everything he knew?
Sicarius’s hands hadn’t started moving again. That was good, anyway. As long as he was here, he wasn’t serving as bodyguard for the Nurian. She felt certain he had come alone to the factory-surely someone less stealthy and less comfortable with moving around in the dark would have insisted on a light or made some noise.
“Where is Admiral Starcrest?” Sicarius asked. There’d been a long gap between her statement and his next words, and she imagined some conversation going on between him and the wizard. Or perhaps some battle of wills. Maybe Sicarius had given in before because he’d had nothing to live for, but might he fight harder now that he knew his son was alive?
“I have no idea,” Amaranthe said.
“You will tell me.” Sicarius’s voice was icier than the frozen sludge pressing against her back.
She swallowed, thinking of Pike and imagining… She squinted her eyes shut. No, she didn’t want to imagine something like that. Not with Sicarius holding the knife. He was her best friend, curse it, and… more. The idea of being tortured by the man she loved, it was too horrible to dwell upon.
She didn’t have the exact information he wanted anyway. They’d decided it would be best that she not know, in case the team couldn’t get to the wizard in time.
Time. Sicarius’s fingers were probing the latch again, feeling around the lock. He knelt back. Pulling out his picks, she wagered.
Amaranthe patted around, looking for a stone or something she could throw. She had a knife, but she didn’t want to hurt him. That was why she hadn’t brought a pistol. But she needed a way to keep him from thwarting that lock. Once he opened that grate, he’d jump down, and his fingers would be around her neck faster than she could duck or dodge, and there’d be nothing she could do about it. On Darkcrest Isle, there’d at least been a hope of escaping, but where could she go from here?
Wherever the sewage goes, she admitted. An unappealing thought, but if there were a large enough pipe or duct…
Sicarius’s hands came into view again. It was too dark to see any tools in his fingers, but she could hear the soft scrapes of metal on metal. Applying those tools through a grate wouldn’t be easy, but she had no delusion of that simple padlock defeating him for long.
Amaranthe shifted about, patting beneath her, trying to find the hole through which sludge could escape. Given the sticky gooey nature of the residue, it couldn’t be a small easily clogged drain… right?
She chanced across an egg-sized stone, or chunk of some hardened residue perhaps, on a ledge beneath her. While she wouldn’t fling knives at Sicarius, a rock that might cause him to drop one of those tools? Absolutely. Knowing she wouldn’t find many projectiles down there, she shifted around and lined up the throw carefully. Sicarius would hear her, she had no doubt, but doubted even his eyes could pierce the darkness at the bottom of her pit.
Trying not to make noise and give away her intent, Amaranthe hurled the chunk. Her aim proved accurate, and it should have smashed against the lock or his fingers, but he anticipated it somehow and caught the rock without dropping any of his tools.
“I prefer dealing with soul constructs to you,” Amaranthe muttered. “At least those things are dumb enough to hurl themselves out windows. I’m fairly certain they’re not well trained in lock-picking techniques either.” Though the one she’d dealt with might have been strong enough to tear the grate off the hinges.
Sicarius set the stone on the floor beside him-how unsporting of him not to toss it back down so she could try again-and returned to work. Since her commentary wasn’t distracting him, she went back to groping around for that drain.
Ah, there. The ledge covered a vertical hole about a foot in diameter, maybe a foot and a half, but narrow enough that her guts clenched at the idea of squirming into it. There weren’t any bars blocking the opening-no excuses not to shift her body around and attempt to crawl inside. Except that she might get stuck. Her breasts and hips weren’t huge by feminine standards, but she gauged that they’d get in the way for this task, or that there’d at least be a lot of uncomfortable squishing. And what if the drain narrowed before it reached the lake or sewer or wherever the sludge dumped? What if there were bars or a grate at the other end? If she were stuck, there’d be no way to turn around. Would she even be able to back out the way she’d come?
A soft click came from above. Curse his nimble-fingered ancestors, he’d already thwarted the lock.
Amaranthe had to contort herself into something approaching a U to lever her body under the ledge and into the hole, but, motivated by the knowledge that Sicarius’s master wanted her tortured for information, she found the agility to do so. Hands leading, she scrabbled at walls bathed in variegated lumps of mold and less identifiable grime. If not for the winter temperatures outside, the clumps might have torn off when she gripped them, but they were frozen to the sides, hanging on with the tenacity of warts, and she used them for handholds to pull her body fully into the hole.
To say it was a tight fit would have been a supreme understatement. The lumpy walls scraped at her hips, and she couldn’t bring her knees up to use her lower body to propel herself along. Her movement relied fully on her arms, and her shoulders bumped against the walls too, limiting her upper body’s effectiveness. She couldn’t lift her head without cracking it on the top, nor could she glance over her shoulder to check behind her. The air was close and stale, the scent of some animal’s scat lingering around her.
The faintest of squeaks sounded-the oiled hinges of the grate opening. Amaranthe pulled herself along faster.
Something brushed the sole of her boot. She yanked her leg away from the touch, banging her knee on the wall. She pulled herself along with her hands, scooting as quickly as she could.
Sicarius. Unless there were rats down there, that had been he, reaching his hand in after her.
“Like there’s room for rats,” she muttered.
As she clawed her way deeper into the drain-she couldn’t see any light ahead, no promise that an end awaited her-she wondered if Sicarius would be able to follow her. His extra six inches of height would make it harder for him to lever himself around the ledge and into the hole, and his shoulders were broader than hers, but his hips were narrower, and hips were the main thing giving her trouble.