“You idiot,” she said as she helped Crick to rise. “Where is it?” He pointed to some cabinets lined up against the wall, obviously intended to hold the soldiers’ effects.
“On top,” he said. “On top of the first cabinet to the right.” This proved to be a narrow cabinet with three lines scratched on it. Batanya opened the cabinet, stood on the lowest shelf, and heaved herself up. Sure enough, back against the wall where it would be out of sight, there was the conjuring ball, hastily concealed by Crick months before. It was wrapped in a rag that had been used to wipe it clean. Remembering where Crick had kept it concealed, Batanya was grateful. She grabbed the ball and leaped down, bounding over to Crick in almost the same moment. He took it and tossed it up to Clovache. Batanya gripped Crick around the hips and lifted. Clovache and Amelia reached down and seized Crick’s upstretched hands, and together they bundled the thief up into the passage again. Once he was out of the way, Batanya made a good leap to seize the lip of the opening herself, and with the help of the two women she managed to join the others, just as the door of the room below opened with a crash.
“Now,” she said to Clovache. “Now!”
Clovache pressed a lump behind her ear where the beacon was implanted. Then she pressed it again. Batanya reached behind her own ear and pressed hers three times. Five people to transport.
Nothing happened.
“Fuck,” Batanya said. “Can the ball get us out of here?”
“I don’t know how to get it to…” Crick began, and then the sounds of pursuit became immediate. Batanya swung around to face the oncoming horde, and Clovache picked up her short spear and hurled it at the lead figure, one of the snakemen. He fell and the others stumbled around him, but it was only a matter of seconds before they were overwhelmed. Crick dropped the conjuring ball, and Amelia retrieved it automatically. “I want to go back,” she said, almost weeping.
Pop!
There was confused swirl of colors and sounds, the impression of a high wind, and they were standing under a brilliant sun on what appeared to be a small island. The sea surged all around; there was no other land in sight. There were a few palm trees, and Batanya heard a bird scream. A wrecked airplane was crumpled on the beach before them, a dead man lying next to it. Amelia’s face was a study in shock, and Batanya was sure her own face matched it. Clovache, thinking very quickly, seized the conjuring ball from Amelia’s hand, and said, “To the beacon.”
Pop!
The sounds and colors again, the dizzying whirling feeling, and then they all arrived on the platform in the hall of the magicians and mechs.
There was quite a crowd in there; and it took Batanya a long second to realize she didn’t need to kill them. Clovache actually took a swipe with her short sword, which made her commander leap back smartly.
“Hold!” Flechette bellowed. “Hold, you fool!”
After a moment of reorientation, Batanya understood she didn’t need to stand in front of Crick any longer, and she stepped aside. Crick was doubled over, gasping in pain. Amelia stared around her, so stunned it would be hard to pick one emotion from another as they crossed her face. After a moment’s evaluation, Narcissus trotted down the few stairs to the handsomest person he could see, a young mech woman. Though he was grimy and wearing his prison tunic, she looked at him as if she’d seen the face of a god, which Batanya supposed was not too very far from the truth. Narcissus held out his hand, and the mech had a hard job to decide whether to shake it or kneel to kiss it. She settled for holding it and basking in the smile Narcissus bestowed. “Do you like dogs?” he asked her.
Batanya and Clovache helped Crick down to the floor. Crick said, “For a bit, there, we didn’t know if you would get us out in time.” He made an effort to sound casual. That was exactly what Batanya had been thinking, but she hadn’t wanted say it out loud (especially in front of her junior).
“This asshole almost prevented us from extracting you,” Flechette said, and for the first time Batanya noticed that Flechette was gripping Trovis by the arm. “He tried to persuade the magicians and mechs that you’d sent a false signal, that the minions of Hell would home in on the beacon if they acted on it.”
“I didn’t believe him,” said the young mech woman, with a shy smile. “I called Flechette to overrule him.”
“Can I execute Trovis?” Clovache asked. “He has tried to have us done in more times than I can count, and all because Batanya wouldn’t lie with him and broke his arm making him back off.”
“Ah,” said Flechette. “Perhaps we shouldn’t kill him… but he must be punished.”
Clovache still had the conjuring ball. Though Trovis made an effort to dodge and to twist out of Flechette’s grip, Clovache ran her arm around Trovis’s neck, looked down at the ball, said, “Go back!” Pop! She and Flechette and Trovis were staring at a vast green sea, scraggly palm trees, a wrecked airplane, and a dead man.
“Drop Trovis’s arm,” she told Flechette, who did, at least partly from surprise at getting an order from a junior. Clovache took a step back from the gaping Trovis herself, gripped Flechette’s shoulder, concentrated on the ball, said, “Back to the hall,” and Pop! They were back in the magicians’ hall.
Minus Trovis.
“Brilliant,” said Batanya.
When she’d collected herself, Flechette said, “This is just. No one will dispute it.”
Trials had never really caught on at the Britlingen Collective.
“Who-and what-have you brought with you?” asked the tall, veiled magician who had ushered them in on the day they’d departed. Every magician and mech in the room, even Narcissus’s new admirer, was electrified with excitement at Clovache’s demonstration.
“This is Amelia Earhart,” Batanya said, taking care to pronounce the name correctly. “She is a… She can operate a flying machine, and she left home, which was America, on Earth, in July of 1937.”
“A time traveler,” exclaimed the magician. His eyes, above the veil, were almost glowing with interest. “And that is surely Lucifer’s conjuring ball.”
“It’s the island. That one tiny island,” Batanya said. “That’s the key. Amelia landed on it by accident, and then as she explored the island, she found herself in Hell. The island is a portal of some kind. Once Amelia had come through, she could pass back, with the help of the conjuring ball. She took Clovache and the rest of us through. Then our homing spell finally worked, and we returned through the portal to land here. So the conjuring ball can take you through the portal, if you’re with someone who’s passed through it once.” Batanya couldn’t decide if her theory was complete nonsense or not. The magicians and mechs could study their magical hearts out and tell her their findings.
In the meantime, she would have happy daydreams of Trovis on a deserted Pacific island in 1937 in the middle of nowhere.
“If this proves to be true, you have experienced amazing magic,” the veiled magician told Amelia, who looked heartened by the greeting.
“Well, thank you very much, sir,” she said. “I’ll try to make myself useful. I don’t guess you can send me home? Not to the island.” She shuddered. “But to America? In my own time?”
“Not at this moment,” said another magician, “but maybe we can work on it with your help.”