“Sweet molasses?” Harp suggested. “Bottled sunshine? Goodness and love made into a tasty draught?”
“I was going to say chopped-up bits of local wildlife, but that’s just me,” Boult replied.
Holding his torch low to the ground, Kitto followed the trough to the mossy stones of the far wall where it disappeared through a pipe.
“There’s a door,” Kitto said. The light from his torch barely lit the dark corner that was obscured by the line of cages. Harp and Boult moved to join Kitto when a grating whine blasted their ears and made them freeze in surprise. Kitto grabbed his sensitive ears and darted away from the wall. As the sound faded, there was a moment of silence, and then a hum and clank of gears reached their ears.
“A machine? Here?” Boult looked dumbfounded. Kitto hastened to join his friends as the ground shook under their boots. The cobblestones jostled, and dust fell from the ceiling, covering them in a gray powder.
“Harp, look,” Kitto said softly, pointing at the dark corner. A light shone from under the door-a light that hadn’t been there moments earlier. Before Harp could answer, the sound of smashing glass and metallic reverberations rang out from the other side of the door. Someone or something was in that room.
Before Boult could stop him, Harp raced to the far wall and jerked open the door. A wave of heat and light made him shield his face with his hand and blink his eyes. When his vision recovered, he saw a tall, black furnace on the wall across from the door. Between the grates, he could see a green fire raging inside the metal cylinder. The unnatural green of the flames cast the room in indigo shadows and illuminated the towering machine that dominated the rest of the room.
The beehive-shaped machine had been split down the middle as if cleft in half by a giant’s sword. Framed by curved metal braces, the inner workings of the contraption were a haphazard array of glass tubing and bundles of fleshy red cords twisted around a central black-lit core. Only half of the machine was visible, with the upper portion concealed in the darkness above them where the light from the furnace couldn’t reach.
On the other side of the wreckage of the device, something shattered against the floor. Harp dashed around the machine, startling the slight figure that was clutching a wooden stick in his bloody fingers. He swung the stick at Harp, who easily knocked it out of it his hands. Harp grabbed his arm and twisted it up behind his back, and forced him to his knees just as Kitto rushed around the corner. Harp saw Kitto’s eyes widen in surprise.
“Let her go!” Kitto cried.
At Kitto’s unexpected command, Harp dropped the writhing body like a stone and backed away. Instead of fleeing, the person crouched on the ground like a cornered animal. Now that the figure was still, Harp could see that it had an unmistakably female form. Kitto crouched beside her and brushed back the red hair from her face.
“Liel?” Harp asked, recognition hitting him like a physical shock. At the sound of her name, she looked up at him in confusion. The elf hadn’t changed since he’d seen her years before. Her hair was still the reddish color of a sunset. She had the same graceful curve of her jawbone, the same sea green of her eyes. But she was smeared with blood, her body trembled, and her feet were bare and muddy.
Despite the years, despite her disheveled condition, despite her betrayal, Harp wanted to reach out and touch her. He wanted to carry her through the jungle to the relative comfort and safety of his ship. He wanted a lot of things, but uncertainty kept his hands firmly at his sides. It had been so long since he’d seen her, and she had become a stranger.
“Harp? Kitto?” she implored. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you,” Harp managed to say as Kitto helped her to her feet.
Liel stared at them with bloodshot eyes. “How did you know where I was?”
“Your father hired us.”
“Avalor hired you?” She stared at Boult as if he had just said something.
“That’s Boult. He’s with us,” Harp said. “Come on, let’s get outside.”
“What about the machine?” Liel asked.
“Yes, what about the machine?” Boult looked up at the half-destroyed contraption and back at Liel.
But Harp didn’t care about the machine. He wanted to get Liel out of the place and away from the bars and sticky troughs, and machines made from fleshy cords. But when he tried to lead her to the door, she shied away from his touch.
“We can’t leave it,” Liel said urgently. “We have to destroy it.”
“It’s been split in two,” Harp told her. “I think it’s destroyed.”
Liel hesitated and then allowed him to put his hand on her back and lead her up the passageway. But as they neared the entrance, she grew more and more agitated, casting furtive glances behind her and slowing her steps until she was barely walking at all.
“It’s all right,” Kitto assured her. “We’re close to the ship.”
Liel shook her head. “I can’t leave.”
“Why?”
“I just can’t!”
“What is that machine?” Boult asked gruffly. “What does it do?”
At his question, she stopped walking and turned back the way they’d come. From where they stood, Harp could see the entrance to the cavern. The door was ajar, and outside he could see Verran leaning against a sunlit boulder, looking back at the entrance to the cave. Hearing the rush of the river made Harp want to be gone from the cavern immediately.
“Give me a reason,” Harp said quietly. “Tell me why you can’t leave.”
“Cardew,” Liel said promptly.
Boult frowned. “Cardew what?”
“Cardew’s not in Chult,” Harp told her. “He’s back in Tethyr.”
“Tethyr?” Liel repeated.
“Avalor wants to see you. We’ll take you to the Wealdath.”
“I can’t leave,” Liel repeated. “You don’t know what Cardew has done in the jungle.”
“Show us what he’s done,” Boult said, surprising Harp. But when Harp started to ask why Boult had suddenly had a change of heart about staying in the jungle, Boult silenced him with an abrupt gesture. “Show us the colony.”
“What?” Harp said. “You’re the one who wanted to leave.”
But Boult’s declaration had calmed Liel down. Her shoulders relaxed, and she stared at the dwarf with unblinking eyes. “You won’t believe what he’s planning to do.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
1 Flamerule, the Year of the Ageless One
(1479 DR)
Kinnard Keep, Tethyr
“I’m so sorry about your wife, Declan,” Ysabel said quietly, reaching out and resting her fingers lightly on Cardew’s hand. Cardew gave her a sad smile and her small fingers a quick squeeze. “When did she die?”
Before Cardew could answer, Tresco coughed into his napkin. Excusing himself, he reached for a glass of water. Cardew turned back to Ysabel. Her cheeks were pink from the warmth of the fire. He hadn’t seen her in nearly a year, and she still wore her long blonde hair in a girlish braid down her back. It was very becoming, but an unusual choice for a nineteen-year-old who would be marrying soon.
“She grew ill on the journey to Chult,” Cardew said. “She died our first night on the island. It’s been almost a year. I still think about her, of course.”
“Of course,” Ysabel said. “What was the jungle like? Was it horrible?”
“And how did you ever manage to survive?” Tresco asked. “I heard the colony was attacked by wraiths.”
“No, no,” Cardew said, shaking his head. “Nothing that … supernatural.”
Ysabel and Tresco waited patiently, but Cardew was quiet for an overly long time.
“You don’t have to give us details,” Ysabel said. “I shouldn’t have pressed you. It must have been dreadful.”
Cardew nodded gratefully. For months, rumors had circulated that every colonist had been slaughtered in Chult, including the Hero of the Realm, Declan Cardew. His unexpected and miraculous return to the Court of the Crimson Leaf had caused much excitement among the nobles of Tethyr. How Cardew alone had escaped death and returned home with only a bruised head and a gaunt frame was not yet clear. When pressed, Cardew was a bit hazy on the details of what exactly had happened to him in the dark jungle.