The Wizard Hunters (17 page)

The interrogator said, “You were with a native, one of the dangerous primitives that infest the mainland.”

Tremaine saw Florian lift a brow at that comment and privately agreed.
If anybody’s doing the, infesting here, it’s the Gardier
. But it was odd that the man had said “native.”
So the Gardier must come from some other part of this world
. They must have invaded this area because the island made such a good staging ground for their attacks on the coast of Ile-Rien.

Without glancing back, the interrogator said, “If you aren’t truthful with me, perhaps we’ll put you in the same cage with him.”

The words
better him than you
came to mind and Tremaine managed to lock her throat against them. It sounded like the man was still alive, at least for now. Like they were still alive, at least for now.

Tremaine had read in one of the government pamphlets that not speaking at all if captured was the only sure way to avoid revealing any information. That was undoubtedly true; she also remembered her father’s late-night lecture to Gerard and some of his other cronies, about how it was possible to tell one simple lie and stick to it at all costs; it was the unnecessary elaboration that would ruin you. It didn’t apply to Nicholas, of course, who had been able to tell very elaborate lies by adopting other personas. Tremaine already knew she couldn’t pull that off.

The interrogator opened the door at the far end of the catwalk and led them into a bare room with two more doors and a table. At a comment from him the guard who had been carrying their satchel dumped it out on the table and began to sift through the contents. The interrogator gave them a cold smile, touched the medallion and said, “I am Gervas. I command here.” Tremaine saw the patrol leader’s eyes go hooded.
Dissension, oh yes
. She wondered if the explosion the Lowlands woman had mentioned had taken out part of the command structure. He continued, “Where do you get these things?”

Tremaine looked up at him, trying to hold the mental image of a meek little missionary woman. She knew she couldn’t stall much longer but every moment of delay counted. “We’ve been hiding them,” she said.

Gervas dropped the medallion and lifted his hand. Tremaine had time to see it was going to be an open-handed slap before the blow spun her around into the table. She caught herself awkwardly, heard Florian give an involuntary cry of protest. Blinking, carefully putting a hand to her aching jaw, she looked up. Florian must have started forward because one of the guards had her by the arm, twisting it painfully. Gervas’s expression hadn’t changed. He lifted the medallion again and said calmly, “You lie.”

“About what?” Tremaine asked, still trying to look innocent and wishing she had thought of a different plan.

“You—” Gervas caught himself. He stared at her, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “You are not a missionary.”

Stalling is over
, Tremaine thought.
Oh, well
. “Give me a chance to prove it.” She carefully wiped blood away from her mouth, trying to ignore the fact that her hand was shaking, and grinned at him. “Why don’t you ask me some questions about religion?”

Gervas smiled thinly, dropped the medallion and turned to speak in his own language to the patrol leader.
This is over and we’re dead, whatever happens
, Tremaine thought, sick. She found herself staring at the holstered pistol of the guard standing near her, almost within her reach.
Might as well go out with a bang
. She had actually swayed toward the weapon when running footsteps sounded outside one of the other doors. It banged open and another Gardier leaned in, speaking urgently.

The patrol leader tensed, looking toward Gervas, who muttered in frustration and snapped an order to one of the guards. The man strode over to the other door and opened it.

Gervas turned to them. Touching the medallion around his neck, he said, “Get in there,” punctuating the order with a shove to Florian’s shoulder. Florian turned, glaring at him, but moved into the room. Tremaine got a shove too and stumbled after her.

He slammed the door shut and Tremaine heard the lock click. She turned around to see another bare room with a long metal table and chairs, lit by three bulbs suspended from the ceiling. There was a large sheet of paper tacked to the wall, covered with writing in an incomprehensible script. Florian shoved her hair back and started to speak but Tremaine hastily motioned her to be silent.

She stepped to the door to press her ear against it, listening. She heard the men speaking in their own language again in some urgency, then their boots on the stone as they walked away.

Tremaine turned to ask in a whisper, “They have a translator spell; have you ever heard of a translator spell before?”

Florian shook her head. “I’ve seen one that translates documents; you can make the writing appear in a mirror in another language. But it only works when the person casting it knows both the languages so there’s really not much point to it.”

Tremaine nodded. The translator was something else Gerard and Niles and the others at the Institute would give a great deal to know about. She frowned. “And the Gardier are capturing civilians as slave labor. Did we know that?” She could see why the government would have concealed that little detail; people were panicked enough already.

“I didn’t.” Florian grimaced. “If we can just get home, the invasion troop can rescue them.” She looked over the room. “Strange. There’s no switches or pull cords for the lights. We can’t turn them off.”

Tremaine’s face was going numb and to distract herself she moved to the far wall to study the paper tacked there. It was mounted on a wooden board, with long pins topped with different-colored beads stuck in it to mark various paragraphs. It was obviously a checklist or an agenda or something similar. “Why do you want to turn the lights out?”

“So we could lure them in and...” Florian’s brows drew together as she considered the variables in that plan.

“Get beaten up?”

“Something like that.” She added abruptly, “You didn’t flinch.”

Busy working one of the long pins out of the wall, Tremaine glanced up, confused. “What?”

Florian pushed her hair back, looking confused too. “When he was about to hit you. You just... watched him. It was creepy.”

“Well, yes,” Tremaine had to admit. “I should have flinched. It made him more suspicious when I didn’t.” Thinking that hindsight was a wonderful thing, she stepped back to the door to listen at it again. Still nothing. All four men must have left in response to whatever the urgent summons had been.

“And we got that poor man caught, whoever he is,” Florian added, pacing back and forth in agitation. “I wouldn’t mind so much if it was just us. I don’t mean exactly that but—”

“I know.” Tremaine nodded glumly. “Did you catch it when Gervas called him a native?”

“Yes! He said he came from the mainland.”

Now they knew there were people in this world fighting the Gardier, potential allies for Ile-Rien. More information they should take back home. “If he hadn’t stopped to help us, they would never have caught him.” Tremaine tried the handle carefully, then stooped to look through the keyhole. If they were caught trying to escape, could the Gardier possibly do anything worse to them than they undoubtedly already planned to do?
Sure
, she answered her own question.
Lots worse
.

“It’s a metal door—we can’t break it down,” Florian said from behind her. She hesitated. “Can we?”

Tremaine looked at her. The other girl was trembling, her arms folded tightly and her hands tucked into her jacket. Tremaine thought of the contempt in Gervas’s eyes, the scorn evident in locking them in here like a couple of truant children.
We should do this
. She turned, looking around the room. “I think . . .” She stepped past Florian to the papers tacked onto the wall and plucked another one of the pins out. “. .. this might work.”

Florian stared as Tremaine knelt by the door. “You can—” She lowered her voice even further. “You can pick the lock?”

“Maybe. I’m out of practice.” Tremaine held her breath, probing at the lock and trying to visualize the tumblers. It had been a long time.

The moment stretched until her lungs started to hurt. Then the lock clicked and she felt the door move.

Florian gave an excited bounce. Heart pounding, Tremaine edged the door open enough to peer out. The room was empty.

“Yes,” Tremaine breathed. She pushed the door open, shoving the pins into her pocket and climbing awkwardly to her feet. Florian stepped out behind her, carefully pushing the door to again and turning the lock. Tremaine nodded approval and looked around. She saw their bag on the table, the contents spread around, some of the ration packages torn open.
At least we didn’t have the sphere
, she thought, grabbing the satchel and holding it as Florian hastily scooped in the remaining rations, medical kit, boxes of matches and the other intact supplies.

“I want to check that room that looked like it had cells.” Tremaine jerked her chin at the door that led to the larger prison chamber. Gervas had made his comments about natives when they passed through there, as if he was reminded of the other prisoner. She slung the satchel over her shoulder as Florian turned to the door.

Breathless with fear and excitement, she listened at it briefly, then tried the handle. “Locked,” she whispered.

Tremaine was still reeling over being able to get them out of their makeshift prison; she just hoped she didn’t fail now. She stepped past her to peer into the keyhole and thought,
Oh yes
. The key was still in it. She looked down and saw the door wasn’t flush with the floor; there was a nearly half-inch gap.
Good thing this place is jury-rigged
. She glanced up at Florian, holding her hands about a foot apart. “I need a piece of paper, about this big.”

Florian bolted back to the other room and reappeared a moment later with a large square torn from the papers on the wall. Tremaine slid it under the door, then used a pin to poke the key out. It fell onto the paper with a faint clink and she carefully drew it back under the door and into reach.

With Florian performing an abbreviated victory dance behind her, she quickly unlocked the door and peered through. What she could see of the large room below the catwalk appeared to be unoccupied. As she opened it further a voice just on the other side of the far wall turned Tremaine’s blood to ice. She froze for an instant but Florian’s frantic pounding on her shoulder galvanized her.

Tremaine stepped hastily out onto the catwalk. Florian slipped after her and they both pushed the door shut. Tremaine leaned over the railing to look down into the lower part of the room and saw with relief that it really was empty.

They both stood frozen as the voices grew louder. After an endless moment when Tremaine was ready to throw herself off the catwalk just to bring it to an end one way or another, they heard the voices fade as the speakers moved away. Florian leaned against the door in relief. Tremaine made herself breathe and turned to walk softly toward the ladder at the far end of the catwalk. She winced as the metal creaked with each step. Her palms leaving sweaty marks on the metal ladder, she started down, Florian right behind her.

At the bottom Tremaine got her bearings. There were three cell doors in one metal wall, two in the other, and one solid door under the catwalk.
I bet that leads to a guardroom
. If they got caught now, not only would they look stupid, they would have simply saved the Gardier a few steps.

Tremaine peered through the grates on the first two doors, seeing empty cells, bare except for the usual electric bulb set high in the ceiling. From the other side of the chamber Florian whispered her name and waved urgently. Tremaine hurried over.

Florian was looking through the grate and Tremaine stood on tiptoe to see over her head. He was sitting back against the wall on the far side of the cell, his hands pulled above his head and the heavy manacles encircling his wrists fastened to a ring set in the stone. He looked startled, then delighted to see them. Florian waved at him.

“All right,” Tremaine muttered, stepping back to look over the door. “So far so good.” There was a wheel instead of a handle and it was set low in the door, so there was no possibility of an occupant reaching it through the grate, even if he had hands small enough to work through the narrow mesh of bars.
So therefore
... She tugged on it experimentally. It turned sluggishly and Florian glanced at her, saying ruefully, “I could have done that.”

A door banged nearby and Tremaine flinched. “Oh no,” Florian whispered. Muffled shouts sounded from somewhere through the metal walls, then running feet.

Tremaine swore as she pulled the cell door open and they slipped inside, dragging it hastily shut. There was an inside handle but the heavy door didn’t want to stay closed without the outside wheel being turned. Tremaine swore and crouched as low as she could, clinging to the handle to keep it shut. Florian dropped down beside her and they both flattened themselves against the door.

The prisoner stared at them, his expression torn between admiration and severe doubt, probably of their sanity. Tremaine couldn’t blame him for the latter; she didn’t feel very sane at the best of times and the circumstances of the moment weren’t helping. Heavy boots thudded on the catwalk, Gardier voices called to each other, the ladder creaked. If there was some way to look at those wheel handles and see they were unlocked this was all over. Tremaine’s heart pounded painfully and her own breathing sounded loud in her ears; her stomach tried to lurch and the unpleasant odor of the cell floor wasn’t helping. She clutched the satchel to her chest with her free hand though it made a very inadequate object to hide behind. She heard footsteps cross the lower level of the chamber toward the cell door.
This could be really, really humiliating
.

The footsteps stopped just at the door. The prisoner glared murderously at whoever was looking in through the grate, his eyes carefully not straying down to his new cellmates. A voice commented harshly in Gardier, then the footsteps receded.