16 #3

The signal sounded through every gallery.

The workers raised their heads. Some dropped tools. Others ran for the exits they knew. Foremen shouted conflicting orders. For years, the bell had meant danger. The body obeyed before the contract.

The records keeper took a knife.

Cori shoved the desk against his legs. She jumped over it, seized the key ring around his neck, and twisted. The cord broke.

“Iron cabinet,” Jesa said from outside.

“I see it.”

Two guards tried to move the wagon. The sailors released the horses and spilled charcoal beneath the wheels. Jesa cut off the extra length of bell cord and used it to tie the axle to a column.

“Medicine for Arvek!” she shouted. “One crate for every worker who wants to carry one.”

The people in the yard understood. They opened the cargo, took packages, and ran. The guards lost the chance to seize everything in one place.

Cori tried three keys. The fourth opened the cabinet.

Inside were books, seals, and a blue cylinder.

The cylinder began to vibrate.

* * *

Isolde ran toward the test chamber.

Ancia was beside her. Kaoran stayed with the evacuation and the six Brotherhood members. Pela led Keden and two wounded people toward the platform.

“One hour,” Kaoran reminded her.

“Get everyone out.”

“Including you two.”

“Including us.”

Raden showed them a ventilation duct. Isolde and Ancia climbed a ladder to a catwalk. The room opened below.

A blue ring occupied the center. It hung from four chains attached to winches. A block of red stone had been placed inside. Brann and Oro turned two wheels under guard. Tesa lay beside a platform with a shackle around her ankle.

Supervisor Cadran Esvan watched from a raised booth. He was a thin man with white hair and a glass mask over his eyes. Beside him, an instrument traced lines on paper.

“Raise the resonance,” he ordered.

“The vein is unstable,” Oro said.

“The shipment leaves in six days.”

“The stone will break.”

Esvan turned a lever.

The chains lowered.

The ring pressed the red block. A cold wave passed along the catwalk. Isolde lost strength in her left hand. Her core pushed against her ribs.

Ydrael appeared in her mind with painful clarity.

The room overlaid his prison. The central ring corresponded to a piece intended for his chest. The four chains imitated the existing anchorages. The stone block served as a substitute during the test. The mechanism sought the frequency that could force a dragon to surrender fire.

“They’re adjusting the fifth chain,” she whispered.

Ancia looked at the pulleys.

“If we cut one, the ring falls on them.”

“We have to release tension at the wheels.”

“Brann and Oro are turning under a lock. Esvan’s lever controls the ratchet.”

Tesa moved. She tried to reach the nearest wheel. A guard kicked her in the side.

Isolde dropped from the catwalk.

She landed behind the man. Her left leg took the impact and gave for an instant. She rolled, drew the short blade, and struck the guard’s wrist with the handle. Ancia came down the ladder and threw a wedge into the gear.

The wheel stopped.

“Back!” Esvan shouted.

Two soldiers advanced from the door. Isolde deflected a spear. Its point grazed her shoulder. Ancia struck the second shaft with her hammer and jammed it between the rungs.

Brann released the wheel.

“Tesa?”

“Alive,” she answered from the floor. “The key’s in the booth.”

Oro reversed direction. The lock kept the winch from moving.

Esvan raised another lever.

The ring absorbed heat from the lamps. The flames went out. Blue veins lit the room.

Isolde felt her core opening outward.

The scar beneath her ribs burned. She dropped to one knee. Every link pulled at a different part: breath, pulse, bond, fire. Rheskan sent an alarm from the sky. Ydrael answered with the weight of his prison.

Esvan saw her.

“At last,” he said.

He recognized her as a source, perhaps a target. His hand sought an adjustment wheel.

“Raise it to eight,” he ordered a technician.

The man stayed still.

“There are people beneath the ring.”

“Raise it.”

The technician stepped back.

Esvan turned the wheel himself.

Isolde pressed her palm to the ground. The impulse demanded an explosion strong enough to break the room. The metal was waiting for exactly that. Every flame would increase its hold.

Three breaths.

Need: release the ratchet.

Limit: preserve the roof and those still evacuating.

Three pulses.

She sent the first toward Ancia’s gear. She heated the copper wedge. The metal expanded and pushed a tooth.

Esvan smiled from the booth. The ring gathered some of the fire.

The second pulse traveled through Brann’s wheel. Oro understood and turned the other way. The ratchet gave half a notch.

The chain above Tesa rose a handspan.

“Again,” Ancia said.

Isolde felt Ydrael sustaining the flow. She could direct the fire inside the vein or let the chain take it. The dragon showed a third option: change the rhythm.

The idea carried his will.

Isolde waited.

Esvan increased the resonance. The ring sought the next pulse at the same interval.

Ydrael struck from Cendral.

One of his prison’s four chains sent a vibration through the veins. It reached the range out of the expected rhythm. The chamber’s upper link twisted.

Isolde sent the third pulse into that vibration.

Ancia struck the crack.

The link opened.

The chain fell onto the platform. Tesa covered her head. Brann dragged her clear. Oro turned the freed wheel and lifted the opposite side of the ring.

The stored energy escaped through the red vein.

Esvan lost his balance inside the booth. The glass of his mask cracked. The technician fled down the stairs.

“Key!” Tesa shouted.

Ancia climbed toward the booth. A guard tried to follow. Isolde caught his spear shaft with the glove strap, turned, and drove him to the floor. Her left hand opened under the strain. Two fingers lost their strength.

The second soldier dropped his weapon.

“Out of the room,” Isolde ordered him.

The man dragged his companion away.

Ancia reached Esvan beside the panel. He held a key in one hand and a record sheet in the other.

“You’ve destroyed nine months of work,” he said.

“My crew built that work.”

“Your crew signed contracts.”

“My crew received water according to the weight they produced.”

Esvan brought the sheet toward a safety lamp.

Ancia struck his knuckles. The key fell. One corner of the paper caught fire.

Isolde reached them and pinched out the flame. Some of the ink was damaged. Three lines remained legible.

INTAKE PHASE: COMPLETE.

RESONANCE PHASE: FIFTH ANCHORAGE.

OPENING PHASE: AUTHORIZATION PENDING.

Beneath them were Varek’s private mark and the regency’s administrative seal.

“What do they want to open?” Isolde asked.

Esvan spat blood.

“A border your Houses left to rot.”

“The Scar?”

The supervisor looked at the broken ring.

“Ask your dragon.”

Esvan had seen the fire answer the chains. Isolde searched his face for a sign that he knew anything more; the supervisor was looking at the broken ring. Ancia waited with the key in her hand.

A crack ran through the ceiling.

Breaking the link had released the weight of an outer winch. A beam dropped across the exit. Black dust filled the room.

Ydrael showed the collapse before it began.

There were two routes. The main door would stay clear for forty heartbeats. The ventilation duct could hold longer, though Tesa’s ankle was shackled and Oro had an open wound on his back.

“The key,” Isolde said.

Ancia went down with the key. She freed Tesa. Brann put an arm around her waist. Oro walked leaning on the technician who had refused the order.

Esvan remained beside the panel.

“Move,” Isolde told him.

“The machine contains the vein. If I leave, you lose the gallery.”

“We’ve lost it already.”

“Underneath are years of—”

The ceiling shed another stone.

Isolde grabbed his coat. Esvan tried to cling to the panel. Kaoran appeared in the doorway, covered in dust.

“Thirty-one out,” he said. “You and the people in this room are left.”

“Help me with him.”

Kaoran pulled Esvan’s hand from the lever. Together, they brought him toward the exit.

Ancia crossed first with Tesa. Brann and Oro followed. The technician passed with the wounded guard. Isolde and Kaoran pushed the supervisor.

The beam began to fall.

Ydrael held the vein.

The decision came with a burst of pain. One of his chains compressed his body. He could hold the gallery for eight heartbeats.

Isolde counted.

One.

Esvan stumbled.

Two.

Kaoran lifted him.

Three.

The exit was six paces away.

Four.

Tesa came back from the other side and caught the arm of the man who had imprisoned her.

Five.

Oro pulled Kaoran.

Six.

Isolde passed beneath the beam.

Seven.

Esvan fell clear.

Eight.

Ydrael released the vein.

The test chamber closed behind them. The ring, the winches, and the red block disappeared beneath stone. A blast of air threw the group against the wall.

For several seconds, Isolde heard her own pulse.

Then came Pela’s shout from the platform.

“Everyone up!”

The evacuation continued.

* * *

Cori left the office with three books in a sack.

The blue cylinder vibrated among them. Before climbing through the window, she had lifted the bell from its hook; she carried it against her chest, its cord wound up so it would not strike the rungs.

Jesa had opened a route through the yard using the wagon as a shield.

The workers carried medicine, tools, and copies torn from the shift boards. Some guards had joined the exodus. Others protected the pay storehouse.

“East Gallery is coming down,” a foreman said.

“The bells order evacuation,” Jesa replied.

“That signal has no authority.”

Cori threw him the bronze bell. The man caught it by reflex.

“Now you have it.”

The foreman looked at the bell. Then he rang it.

The last workers left the storehouse.

Rheskan descended onto the main tower. The dragon held his wings open and sent a current toward the yard. Dust from the gallery escaped through the vents instead of sinking into the tunnels. He had chosen to come close once the plates were buried.

The Guard from the high road appeared at Arvek’s entrance.