Chapter 53
It wasn’t a long walk to the threads, but Jaas’ sides were starting to cramp up as she moved, and her scalp was still sending little barbs of pain at every step she took. That sick pervert had kicked her a bunch of times, and torn out some of her hair even as she’d stabbed him. He’d probably bruised or broken a few of her ribs, too. At least she’d paid him back for it, and then some. Despite the horror of what she’d done, Jaas could feel a kind of satisfaction at it. She had defended herself, and well. Somehow she doubted her parents or brother would ever believe she could have done something like that, even if she ever got the chance to tell them.
Her hands were shackled behind her back, as the Ascendants had marched her up to the surface and were now making their way to the threads. The captain, still apparently sour about being forced to let some of the Fishbowlers escape, was keeping a close watch on her. Also, they were headed to a different location than the one Tarith had used to escape. No doubt more Ascendants were there waiting for them.
The sky above them was just starting to lighten a bit. Dawn was on the way. Briefly, Jaas wondered how many other Fishbowlers had escaped. Some of them were navigators, and it was possible they’d gotten out through the tunnels before the Ascendants had sealed them shut.
Aside from the captain, there were five other top-knotted men marching around them. Jaas knew she had no chance of escape herself. Not the kind of escape they were expecting her to try, anyway.
This was almost the exact situation she’d been in before, when the Thornes had taken her. They’d meant for her to think she was in trouble, and it had worked spectacularly. But they’d also armored her for the day when it might happen for real. Again, Jaas felt that same sense of calm she’d had while negotiating with the captain. She had nothing to lose, and therefore was at peace.
Jaas couldn’t allow herself to be taken to the Council. Despite her training, she doubted she’d be able to hold up to any real torture, and that meant she’d probably end up giving up her friends. Therefore, when they reached the threads she would do what none of these men expected. She would lunge forward into the threads before any of them could touch her skin. That way her death would be instantaneous and painless.
Arico knew about her dwelling, and probably knew that she’d hidden her notes. It would take a while, but he would find them eventually, after the Ascendants had left. He knew enough to make sure they’d go to Lem. At least her good friends could preserve her work. In the end, that was all there really was to Jaas Senneco. Her work meant everything, and they knew that. Still, Jaas felt a strange stirring in her gut. It wasn’t fear so much as regret. She could see the threads up ahead. It was almost over.
But then suddenly it wasn’t anymore. Arico, Sabra, Nemith, and a few others stepped out of the threads only ten spans in front of them! Including… Codi? How the hells had he ended up with them? The last she knew, he’d been in his dwelling in the Fishbowl!
Her guards all took aim at once of course, as did Arico and the others. Sabra gave a harsh chuckle for some reason, and Arico grinned darkly as well. He raised his arm—for some reason without a prosthetic on it—at them.
The captain grabbed her and put his matchlock against her head. “Don’t do anything stupid, heretic!” He warned quickly. “If any of you start shooting, she’ll be the first to die!”
Sabra snarled at him, and Jaas felt her captor shudder slightly, but Arico raised an arm to quiet him. His face had lost all mirth. “You don’t know your own peril right now, captain,” he said softly. “Let her go, or you and all your men will die.”
He was different, Jaas realized, and a chill ran down her back. Even at this distance, she could tell he meant what he said. This was no idle boast. The captain only tightened his grip. “I’ll do it!” He repeated stubbornly. “Let us go, or I’ll spread her brains all over the grass!”
“Well, this is ironic,” Jaas grumbled.
“Shut up!” He pressed the gun even harder into her temple, and she winced.
In the distance, the rays of light were steadily getting stronger and more numerous. Clouds were parting in preparation for the day. “They’re all navigators, Arico,” Nemith said in dwarven. “What do we do?”
Arico didn’t respond at first, and Jaas wondered why that mattered. Of course they were all navigators. Finally, he looked over at Nemith and spoke softly in dwarven. “We’re going to pretend to let them go.” He kept looking at Nemith, but his tone changed slightly. “Jaas, when I say so, I want you to dive to your right, as quick as you can.”
He gestured them to lower their guns at the same time, and Jaas tried to keep her breathing steady. If any of the Ascendants spoke dwarven—which was admittedly very unlikely—they’d be ready for whatever Arico had planned.
“What did you say to them?” The captain demanded in vasrah. “Tell me!”
“I just told them to stand down,” Arico responded soothingly, and he and the rest of them began backing away, letting the Ascendants through.
The captain grunted. “Savages. You don’t even teach your people their own language!” He pushed Jaas from behind, prodding her forward, but he was careful to keep them both facing Arico as they started moving again.
“Now!” Arico snapped, and Jaas threw herself to the right. She let out a cry of pain upon hitting the ground; she had landed on her bruised side after all.
Jaas had expected the captain to shoot her, or at least hold onto her, but while she was still in midair the ground itself had just vanished from under his feet! From under all the other Ascendants as well!
A few of the matchlocks they were carrying went off as they fell—not the captain’s one, thankfully—and they all appeared to fall about twenty or thirty spans down before coming to a stop. The holes hadn’t appeared vertically, weirdly enough. They were slanted steeply towards the threads. If Jaas hadn’t moved when she did, she would have fallen right along with them.
It took her a moment to realize what had just happened. Arico had dug the holes himself, by pulling on the threads! All of them probably extended all the way down to the threads, but they’d collapsed in on themselves partway down, trapping the Ascendants inside.
How had he done that, all at once?? It was well beyond any of his previous work with the threads, that was for sure.
Arico wasn’t waiting for the Ascendants to dig themselves out. He nodded to the others, and they all took aim themselves. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. They even had time to reload before any of their opponents could do anything about it! Before she knew it, Nemith was already at her side, dropping his gun. “Jaas, is there anyone left in the Fishbowl? Are you the only one they took prisoner?”
“It’s all right,” she said, her eyes still straying briefly to the holes on either side of them. “Tarith is fine. Ansanah was knocked out, but I think she’s all right as well, along with a dozen or so more. I saw them all enter the threads together.”
Nemith slumped onto his knees with relief, and took several ragged breaths. “Thank Aquun!” Jaas looked up at Arico, whose face was also taut with worry.
“Durhu’s alive too, Arico,” she said just as quickly. “They captured him first. I heard one of them say he was on the way to Sevvas patch.”
Arico’s jaw clenched briefly, but he shook his head. “We’ll have to deal with that later. There could be more Ascendants on the way. We should get back to the Fishbowl.”
“That’s the first place they’ll look for us, though,” Jaas objected.
Arico and Nemith exchanged a dark glance, and Jaas wasn’t sure what it meant. Arico turned to the others. “Gather food and whatever other belongings you need while you can. Once we’re all ready, I’ll take us into the threads. Quickly now—we don’t have much time.”
-.-
The Hideaway looked abandoned from the outside but just like last time, looks proved to be deceiving. There were already several dozen people inside when Arico and the others arrived.
Nemith ran to embrace his wife and son, naturally, while the rest seemed at least a little encouraged by their survival. Endu and the boys were there as well. Arico’s stomach knotted up again when he realized what he had to tell them. He couldn’t do it right away though, as Endu examined Jaas’ midsection and gave her a tonic for the pain. At least it looked like she was going to be all right, despite having apparently been drenched in blood. Whatever had happened back there in the Fishbowl, Jaas was keeping it to herself for now.
Balter and Veles had been training in another Enclave patch when the attack started, and one of the Fishbowler navigators had brought them here. Strangely, according to them Endu had already been here at the Hideaway, waiting for them. Apparently she’d been among the first to arrive.
While tending to the wounded, Endu said she’d been picked up by one of the navigators and dropped off here. It was fortunate for Jaas, and it would have been for Codi as well. If he’d been here, that was. As soon as the Ascendants had been killed, Codi had rushed off towards the Fishbowl, looking for his niece. He’d gone straight down to his dwelling and refused to leave, insisting that she would come back shortly.
Arico had decided to leave him there. It was unlikely the Ascendants would do anything to him, even if they did come back. He’d already told them everything they might find useful, and they certainly knew any further information from him would be twisted by his delusions. He should be safe there for a few days at least. Assuming the Hideaway stayed a secret, they could take supplies to him in a day or so.
Perhaps one in four of the adult Fishbowlers were navigators, so he supposed it should be no great surprise that so many others had escaped as well. Jaas had explained how she’d bargained for the lives of some of them, but there had also been entire families that hadn’t even been in the Bowl during the attack.
Unlike the dwarves and their keep.
Now that the danger had passed, and he’d had a chance to go back and cover up what he’d done at the keep’s gates, Arico just felt like sitting down on the ground and weeping. So many of his friends were just gone! The Hauld had been like a father to him, and Chanul like a brother. It was as if some great force had reached into Arico’s gut and hollowed him out. Only grief and despair remained. No, guilt and shame were there too, as he thought back on those guards he’d cut down.
He slumped down on one of the bunks, staring emptily across the large room. Nemith explained to the rest what had happened to the keep itself, as he just sat there watching. To some of them—the younger ones especially—it didn’t look like the news was really sinking in. Kids often had a hard time accepting death, in Arico’s experience. Even weeks later they would sometimes ask where their loved one was, and what they were doing.
Even as hollow as Arico felt right now, his mind was working overtime. Tactically, this was a disaster beyond compare, but there were still things to do. Still lives depending on his actions. This was no time to be sitting here and feeling sorry for himself.
Nemith had already told Endu and the boys what had happened to Alzhi, so at least he didn’t have to do that. When someone brought up the question of why the attack had happened now of all times, he finally chipped in.
“It was Alzhi,” he said slowly, and the rest quieted a bit.
Arico stood up and made his way over to the informal circle of people around the fireplace. Even Sabra had squeezed his way in here and was taking up his usual way-too-much space just as before.
“He sent us word of the Council’s secret base a few days ago. He must have asked one too many questions in the process. They scooped him up, tortured him, and learned what they needed to attack the Enclave.”
Taen snorted. “There’s no way Alzhi would have sold us out. Even under torture!”
“I agree,” Arico responded, “but the Council has been watching the Enclave for years. They could have figured out where most of the tunnels were on their own by now. All they really needed to know was that Alzhi was our spy. Once he was out of the picture, they could take the dwarves by surprise. They would have to act quickly after he was taken out—before the Hauld realized Alzhi was gone. Otherwise the dwarves would have evacuated, or at the very least fortified against the attack.”
Kerik handed Jaas the pack they’d retrieved from Raggas patch. “This is what we got down there. It doesn’t look like much to me, but there might be something in there. Enough for a little payback against the Sustained at least.” Several of the group voiced their assent at that idea.
The circular door at the entrance ground its way open again, and the entire group reacted at once. The children huddled behind bunks and parents, and the adults all had weapons at the ready. They relaxed a bit though, upon seeing the new arrival. It was Betal, Banos’ wife, and one of their remaining navigators.
The Hideaway was supposed to be secure, but now that Durhu had been captured it might not remain so. Arico doubted the Council had anyone who could understand handtalk, even if they could coerce Durhu to give them up. If push came to shove though, he supposed he could just pull the threads in here and jump all of them to safety. Doing so might damage the Hideaway he’d worked so hard to build, but it would be worth it.
Betal embraced her husband for a moment, and then turned to the rest. “I was out looking for other survivors in Sustained patches near the Enclave. I didn’t find anyone, but I did see this,” she produced a parchment from her robe. “They were posting it everywhere in Sustained territory. I saw it being posted in stra’tchi patches, too. Most of the stra’tchi still can’t read, but their magistrates will probably read it to them.”
She handed it to Arico and then paused, a sheepish expression on her face. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said understandingly, and Nemith took it instead.
“It’s an execution notice,” Nemith said grimly, after perusing it. “It says the ‘brave and powerful’ Ascendants managed to drive the dwarves out of their rat-tunnels and-” he paused, looking up at Arico with a startled expression. “And capture their leader, the Hauld!”
Arico was at his side instantly. “The Hauld is alive?”
“They seem to think so, anyway,” Nemith said skeptically. “It says he’s due to be executed, along with the other rebels they captured, at the Twin Suns celebration in three days.”
A rustle of excitement made its way through the small crowd, but Taen shook his head. “There’s no way the Hauld would let himself get taken alive, Arico! He was willing to blow up the entire keep just to spite the Council!”
“Maybe he didn’t have a choice,” Arico said thoughtfully. “If he was close to the surface they could have grabbed him early on, possibly at the same time they took Durhu. Either way, there’s still a chance we can rescue them. Durhu’s in Sevvas patch, most likely in the Spire’s dungeons. They probably took the Hauld there, too.”
Jaas took the parchment and looked it over as well. “This can’t be a coincidence, though. The part about the Hauld I understand. The Council would want to make a spectacle of his death. But why even mention the other rebels they captured? Most Sustained don’t even know about them!” She shook her head. “This doesn’t smell right.”
“It’s a message to me,” Arico explained, hints of anger working their way through his emotional numbness. “The Council knows that Durhu’s my father, and they want to taunt me into trying to rescue him. If we try it, they’ll probably just kill him on the spot.”
“We have other priorities too, Arico,” Nemith reminded him. “There are a lot more lives at stake than just Durhu and the Hauld, remember?”
Arico nodded slowly. The Hauld’s standing orders. He’d never thought they would be applicable, not during his lifetime—but then he’d never thought those barrels of sparkpowder in the keep would ever be used, either.
The orders were supposed to be a secret, but there wasn’t much point in hiding them anymore. “The Hauld left instructions for Nemith, Alzhi and me, in case this day should ever come,” he said firmly, and sighed. “In case the Enclave ever fell.”
Nemith hesitated at first, but then nodded. Perhaps he, too, recognized that they all deserved to know the truth. “As of right now, we are under orders to kill the entire Council. Every single one of them. It shouldn’t be that hard, though. Years and years ago, before the Fishbowl even existed, the Hauld had a tunnel dug underneath Sevvas patch. He put a cache of sparkpowder right in the middle, underneath the Spire.”
He grunted. “The tunnels have probably collapsed a bit after all this time, but that won’t be a problem. I figure with Arico doing his thing, we can clear them in a few hours. Then all we need to do is wait for the Council to meet inside the Spire, light the fuse and send them all to the Shemra together!”
A bunch of the others nodded their agreement and made approving noises, but Jaas wasn’t one of them. “Wait a minute!” She interjected hotly. “This movement has never been about killing anyone! We were supposed to get the stra’tchi to stand up against the Council, and force them to grant equality to everyone. We weren’t meant to just slaughter all the Councilors!”
“Pretty lady didn’t see what we just did,” Sabra said thickly. For once his expression was easy to read despite the scars, and his hands trembled as he gripped them into fists. “Pretty lady wasn’t there. Didn’t feel the smoke rising from blasted dwarf tunnels and burned dwarf bodies! Didn’t have to cover her face against breathing in dead dwarf! If anybody deserves to die in fire and dust, it’s the Council. Pretty lady knows this as well as anyone! By the Waters, pretty lady still has Ass-end blood all over!” He gestured at her face and neck.
Jaas glanced away for a moment, and Arico felt a pang of sympathy. Sabra’s nose and eyesight were particularly keen. Apparently the blood all over her was not her own, and he could tell that. Suddenly her reluctance to say what had happened back there made a lot more sense.
“But if we go ahead with this, how are we any different than they are?” She continued, apparently moderating her tone a little. “Or different than Ta’anu, for that matter? He was willing to wipe out most of the city to achieve his goals! How do we win the loyalty and trust of the stra’tchi if we prove that we’re just like the people we’re trying to stop?”
Arico pressed an arm to her shoulder, and she turned. “Jaas, it’s over,” he said as gently as he could. “The movement has ended. We lost! The dwarves are all gone, and without them backing us, the stra’tchi will be too afraid to stand up to the Council. The deal you made with Cartwright will keep him from helping us, even if he was inclined to do anything. Terres Huun won’t lift a finger to help us either, even if we did have any money to pay her with. And as for the Thornes,” he glanced up at Sabra. “We’ve had no contact with your sister Velya, not since just after we stopped Ta’anu. Do you think that she’d be willing to help us?”
Sabra hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. “Sabra’s sister would want to help, yes. But the others are all too afraid, and they would vote to overrule her. None of the Thornes will help, not if it means risking that the Council might find out about them.”
After another few seconds, he growled irritably. “Some of them might even try to silence her, if Sabra reached out to her. Sabra will help little man as always… but no other Thornes will.”
From her expression, Jaas was still wrestling with disbelief at what had happened, and with grief. Arico doubted that she would be able to accept any of this for a while, at least.
He shook his head slowly. “Even if we somehow convinced the stra’tchi to overthrow the Council, we no longer have anyone to put in their place. Winning isn’t on the table anymore, Jaas. All that’s left is survival. As long as the Council is alive, they will be hunting what’s left of us right into the grave!”
He looked around at the rest of them. “We’ll rest here for a few hours. Then I’ll get to work on that tunnel.”
