Snake Heart (28 page)

A few other items lay on the desk, a sextant, a piece of a ship’s wheel, a sure-sight artifact, its magical power minuscule next to that of the lodestone. An atlas with yellowed pages was open to a large island—or small continent?

“Those are the items he stole from the museum,” Yanko realized, walking around the rug and toward the desk, drawn by the artifact.

There were no gold baubles, diamonds, or other valuables in sight to take back to Lakeo. This had been the bandit’s office, not his treasure repository. He must have been working here, figuring out where that continent was, but then he’d been caught, his ship sunk before he could go on the search.

“There may be other traps,” Dak warned.

Yanko stopped a step away from the desk. He wanted to snatch up the lodestone, along with all of the other items, but after searching this long, he could wait two more minutes.

Dak finished poking under the rug and peered at the floor and the wall around the desk. Yanko did another check for magical traps, though the lodestone had a power that could drown out lesser Made items. He had not sensed the sure-sight artifact at all until he had spotted it.

“If this was his office,” Yanko said, “he probably wouldn’t have set traps that might have disturbed him while he worked.”

Dak grunted. He pulled open his pack and made some room in it.

Yanko wished he had a pack of his own. Seeing Dak preparing to take all of the items made him uneasy. It would be that much harder to wrestle the lodestone from him if he had it buried in his pack.

Dak stepped to the side of the desk, not touching the chair. He grabbed the book of maps and the sextant first, pausing to look at the open page.

“Southern hemisphere, middle of the ocean, huh. That looks like the Deadly Shoals.”

“What?” Yanko rubbed his fingers, tempted to grab the lodestone himself. Nothing had happened when Dak picked up the maps.

“An area with a lot of shallow water—ships frequently run aground down there. But unless your forgotten continent is underwater, it’s not down there. I’ve sailed through the area. The Shoals are just north of the common trade route between Kendor and the Nurian Chain Islands.” He shrugged and stuck the book in his pack. “We’ll take a closer look later. You know if the women have seen any pirates yet?”

Yanko had been reaching for the lodestone, but he stopped, feeling guilty—and foolish—for not checking in before. It wasn’t as if Arayevo could contact
him
telepathically.

She and Lakeo had left the mouth of the tunnel. Both women crouched near a copse of trees overlooking the cliff a couple hundred meters from the cairn marker.

Arayevo?
Yanko asked, focusing on her mind and listening for a response.
We’ve found the lodestone. Can you give us an update?

They’re on beaches on both sides of the island, Yanko.
Her words came to him more clearly and easily than he had anticipated. It was almost as if they were standing shoulder to shoulder rather than a few hundred meters apart. He touched his mother’s robe, wondering if it helped with telepathic talents as well as with increasing stamina. Or maybe he was just getting better at this. That was a heartening thought.
I think I see your mother
, Arayevo added.
Does she have short hair? She looks so fierce. She’s commanding a bunch of tough men, and they’re taking her orders without giving her any lip.

Yanko sighed.

Dak had moved to the other side of the desk, brushing past Yanko to crouch and study the lodestone and the marble base that held its egg shape in place. He hadn’t touched it yet, though he looked like he was about to. He paused to look at Yanko. “Problem?”

“There are pirates on the beaches. And Arayevo is admiring my mother.”

“Does it concern you that of the two women in your life, one wants to be a pirate and the other is practicing to be a pyromaniac?” Dak’s scrutiny returned to the lodestone and the desk underneath it. He seemed certain that a trap waited for them.

“Honestly, it concerns me more that I don’t know who or what you are.”

“What do you think I am?”

“I thought you were a thuggish brute when I first met you.”

“And now?” Dak brushed dust off the desk around the lodestone, being careful not to touch it yet.

“A spy.”

Dak snorted. “I’m a soldier, Yanko. That’s it.”

“A soldier who can pilot an underwater boat, speak several languages, solve complex math problems in his head, and who knows the Turgonian president’s wife’s family?”

“I’m over forty—I’ve been assigned to a lot of duty stations over the years. You have to learn new skills for different jobs at different duty stations.”

“Spy skills?”

“You may want to back up. I can’t find anything that looks like a trap, and assuming you don’t sense anything, I’m going to grab this egg.”

Yanko checked for the fifth or sixth time. “Nothing magical.”

Dak hesitated, then picked up the lodestone.

The floor shifted under Yanko’s feet. He blurted a startled squawk. The chamber darkened as he lost his concentration and his mage light went out. The floor continued to tilt, and he scrambled backward, groping for something to grab. Dak cursed and jumped onto the desk. It remained stable, the rock under it not moving, but the rest of the office floor tilted almost to vertical. Yanko slid inexorably downward. It all happened so quickly that he hardly had time to think of levitation or using air to slow himself. The sloping floor dumped him into the equivalent of a laundry chute, and he skidded downward, picking up speed. Light appeared below him, and he glimpsed the blue of the ocean far below. He did his best to slow his fall, even as the draft rushed past him, pushing his robe up to his waist as he hurtled toward an opening in the cliff wall. He channeled air under him, pressing it against his body, against gravity. Meanwhile, he turned to face the rock slipping by and patted around with his hands, trying to find something to grab.

He caught a rough nub even as his legs slid over an edge. Daylight nearly blinded him after the dimness of the office. The rug that had been lying on the floor skidded down, swatting him in the head and almost knocking him loose. It fell past, and the wind caught it, batting it and whipping it around as it fluttered down more than a hundred feet to land on a boulder-strewn beach below.

Yanko squinted back up into the dark gloom of the chute and managed to get his second hand up to further grasp the nub of rock from which he hung. If it broke off, he would be practicing his levitation skills again, whether he wanted to or not.

Something clanked and clunked down from above. Dak’s lantern?
Dak?
If the big Turgonian struck him in the head, that would do a lot more to knock him loose than the rug.

But he felt the object skidding toward him before it came into sight. Its magic preceded it, and he reached out at the right time, catching the lodestone, paperclips still attached, before it could tumble to the rocks below.

“Yanko?” Dak called down. “Are you there?”

“For the moment,” Yanko called back, his voice coming out squeaky. He dangled from four fingers and a thumb now as he tried to one-handedly find a safe pocket in his robe for the precious artifact.

“I’m on the desk. I’m going to lower a rope. Hurry up and grab it. I’m not sure how long the floor will stay canted.”

“Hurrying sounds good to me.” Yanko spotted movement below.

A group of pirates was running down the beach. They reached the end of the sand and did not hesitate to scramble onto the boulders. Maybe they wanted to catch him if he fell. More likely, they wanted to catch the lodestone if he dropped it.

You found it,
Pey Lu spoke into his mind.

Yanko hadn’t recognized her from so far above, but when she looked up, meeting his eyes across the distance, he realized she was leading the group.

We did, yes.

We? You and the Turgonian? His people are coming with ironclads. They’re on the horizon. I’m sure they would be happy to take you and your find with them, but I wouldn’t recommend that to you. Turgonians like to torture Nurians for information, especially those from
moksu
families. They’re always convinced you know a great deal about how the government works.
Bitterness came through with Pey Lu’s words, and Yanko wondered if she had been captured and tortured by Turgonians before. Then he wondered what was taking Dak so long with that rope.

A faint thump came from the darkness above.

“Can you reach it?” Dak called down.

“No.” Yanko stuck the lodestone into a pocket, careful to make sure it was snug and secure before lunging upward and catching the nub with his free hand again. His other hand ached from holding up his body weight. How he was going to climb up to reach a rope, he did not know. So far, he had only managed to slow himself with his levitation skills. If he let go, could he give himself enough of a boost to go upward instead of downward?

You’re in a precarious position
, Pey Lu observed. She and her pirates were directly under him now.

I’ve noticed
.

One of the pirates lifted a pistol, but Pey Lu stopped him.

She could have had Yanko shot—or shot him herself. Then they would get the lodestone when he dropped to his death.

Are you offering a better deal?
Yanko found himself asking, both because his hands wouldn’t support his weight indefinitely and because this was, however unlikely it seemed, a chance to get away from Dak and make sure the Turgonians didn’t get to the new-old continent first.

Same deal as before. Come with me, and I’ll teach you what I know. You will have to stop helping to destroy my ships, though. I might start to take that as a sign that you’re an ungrateful son.

What about the lodestone?

It goes to the people who hired me, unless the Nurians want to pay more.

That does nothing to improve our family’s standing in the eyes of the Great Chief.
Nor would it help him earn the exoneration he needed after the crimes he’d committed when fleeing Red Sky.

The Great Chief can lick the barrel of my pistol.

“Can you reach it now?” Dak called. “How far did you let yourself fall, Yanko?”

“Too far,” Yanko muttered. He had fallen too far.

He looked up toward the shaft, then down toward the rocks. Days ago—had it truly only been that long?—Dak had said a man always had a choice and that to pretend he didn’t was to make himself a victim. But what was he supposed to do when neither of his choices put him in a better position? When either would be a betrayal to his people. His family. His honor.

“Puntak, puntak,” came a familiar cry from off to the side. Kei flapped toward Yanko, his calls quite cheerful.

Yanko wished he could manage some return cheer for the parrot. While he was relieved that Kei had escaped death on the
Prey Stalker
, he wanted nothing more than to shoo the bird away, lest he settle on Yanko’s shoulder and the added weight broke the small nub that he hung from.

Not now, friend parrot,
he whispered into the bird’s mind, then added an image of Arayevo and Lakeo and where they could be found, promising they would share seeds.

Kei soared past, his wingtip brushing the back of Yanko’s head, then flapped toward the top of the cliff. Good. The parrot should be safe up there. Yanko wished
he
could be safe somewhere.

Something twitched in the shaft above him. Somehow Dak had extended the rope, and the tip dangled within sight. Another couple of feet, and it would be within reach. If Yanko could give himself a magical boost, he might be able to grab it now.

Someone else’s magic raised the hairs on his neck. Expecting an attack from Pey Lu, Yanko wrapped a shield around himself, similar to what he had used to keep cannonballs from striking the lifeboat. He didn’t think to shield the nub from which he hung.

Between one eye blink and the next, it snapped, and he plummeted toward the rocks.

Chapter 20

W
ith his heart trying to leap out of his throat, Yanko focused on channeling the wind rushing past him and creating a platform under his flailing feet. He definitely did
not
focus on the sharp rocks jutting upward below or how quickly he descended toward them. The wind gathered, as he commanded it to, and his robe flared outward like a sail to further slow his fall. The latter was luck—though it might be a source of embarrassment when he landed, since the pirates down there had a good view of his smallclothes.

A second wave of wind came up under him, halting his fall completely. It took him a moment to realize that Pey Lu was helping him. Again.

Even though she did not speak to him while he was falling, the words
ungrateful son
echoed in his mind. She’d said them in jest, or at least with her usual dry humor, but wasn’t there always a kernel of truth in a joke?

He wished he could be grateful for her help and tutelage, but didn’t she see that he was betraying his people whenever he worked with her?

When Yanko landed, one foot on one pointy rock and the other on another, he found six pistols aimed at his chest. Gramon and five other pirates were ready to shoot him.
Eager
to shoot him, their cold, hard eyes said.

Pey Lu’s pistol was in her holster, and she stood with her hands on her hips, her face difficult to read as she gazed at him. He felt her rake over him with her senses, then her gaze shifted to the pocket that held the artifact.

“The lodestone,” Pey Lu said and extended her hand, palm up.

“You wish to discuss its properties? I’m open to doing so. It appears to be quite interesting.”

“Yanko.”

Was that all the warning he would get? Gramon’s finger tightened on the trigger of his pistol. He glanced at Pey Lu, waiting for an order.
Hoping
for an order? He and the other pirates must blame him for the destroyed ship.