Cade did not argue. Could not, for now Arhys would have a true Weapon to protect her. They halted near the dragon fountain. Water was slopping over its sides as well, but the slaves had not gotten to it yet. They must have been overwhelmed elsewhere.
“I will leave you here,” the Guardian said, then told him how to reach the museum. “I will go to the princess and her governess now, before the whole palace is aroused.”
They clasped one another’s wrists in a warrior’s leave-taking. “My thanks,” Cade said.
“Just see that Rider G’ladheon succeeds.”
Cade nodded, but the Guardian was already away, trotting back down the way they had come. Cade moved quickly, too, choosing the corridor that would lead to the museum. Perhaps it was his exhaustion from captivity, but from the moment he had left Karigan to go to Yolandhe’s cell, it had seemed he moved in a dream. A dream of witches and blood and legendary warriors.
INTERLUDE
As Yolandhe the sea witch, unfettered after her long imprisonment, passed through the grand corridors of the palace, the turbines far below spun out of control with the force of water. Fountains overflowed, pipes burst, and the stream flowing toward the throne room rushed. The very foundation of the palace trembled. Outside, waves swelled on the lake that surrounded its island as though driven by a storm. The surfaces of the ordinarily mirrorlike canals throughout Gossham and beyond, roared like swollen rivers, causing barges and smaller boats to buck and capsize.
All the way to Mill City currents ran wild and high. The Amber River threatened to pour over its banks. It churned into Mill City’s canal system. The strong currents led the mills to shut down their turbines to protect their machines from the unprecedented force of the water. Those who oversaw the locks and dams feared they would not hold and the city would flood.
Standing in the execution yard of Mill City’s prison, Mirriam, former head housekeeper for Professor Bryce Lowell Josston, and conspirator against the empire, stood against a wall blindfolded and with her hands tied behind her back. The yard smelled of blood, expelled bowels, and gunsmoke, but even as the commander prepared to order his squad to fire, a sniff of the air made her think of spring rains. The damp, clean smell was pleasant, brought her some measure of peace. She wondered if it was going to storm, but she would never know, for the order rang out and the last she knew was thunder and smoke.
Up in the Old City, where the best engineered drill in the whole empire chewed through the remains of the old realm’s castle and deep into the royal tombs, the drill’s maker, Heward Moody, oblivious to the threat of flooding down in Mill City, worked the steam engine that powered the drill at its utmost efficiency, while slaves, under the watchful gazes of overseers and archeologists, sorted through the tailings for artifacts. The bits and pieces of jewelry, ceramics, gold, and bone were well and good, but the ultimate prize would require the exploration of the realm beneath. Once Moody deemed they had drilled deep enough, the archeologists would go below to search for the dragonfly device Dr. Silk so coveted.
Dust fogged the corridors in the sacred depths of the royal tombs. The Weapon, Joff, pursued Chelsa past recumbent kings and queens, princes and princesses, the treasures that had been interred with them in death flashing in the light of his taper. Joff found himself lagging behind more than once, for Chelsa ran like a woman possessed, her gray robes flapping behind her. He had tried to reason with her, then argue against her heading into the sections of the tombs compromised by the accursed drill, but she had not heeded him, and only replied with, “I must try. All my research has led to this.”
There had been cave-ins where the drill ground through bedrock and corridors. It had desecrated many of the dead, who had been so diligently tended by caretakers, and protected by Weapons, for so many centuries. But they, the tomb Weapons, had been unable to protect the tombs from Dr. Ezra Stirling Silk’s drill.
As if the drill was not threat enough, Serena had reported sudden flooding in the lowest levels of the tombs.
The Weapons had evacuated all the living inhabitants to the Village, for safety’s sake. The dead were left to fend for themselves, their halls left unlit for the first time in recorded history.
The Weapons had a strategy in place against those who would invade the tombs, but they were too few against the power of the empire. Plans had been made to move everyone out of the Village if it proved no longer safe, with the aid of helpers who lived in the outer world. This would go against everything caretaker society believed in. It was taboo for them to see the living sun. Joff did not believe many of them would make the transition well.
The dust grew heavier the closer they got to the area where the drill drove into the earth. The ground beneath and above them vibrated with its power. Chelsa finally halted at a passage mostly blocked by rubble. Joff raised his taper observing all the cracks in the ceiling, walls, and floor. Chelsa surveyed the damage, too, and he hoped she would see reason.
“I think I can climb over the rock slide and fit through the hole near the ceiling.”
No, she had not seen reason. “Chelsa, please. This could all collapse at any time. You are doing your people no favors by endangering yourself.” As if to augment his words, silt showered down on them.
She rubbed grit out of her eyes. “Joff, I have to. This could end everything—the empire’s power, everything.”
“Then let me go.”
“I don’t think you’ll fit through that hole. Besides, I have to see the artifact for myself to know if it is the correct one.”