Miss the beginning? Click here to go to Chapter 1!

23

I could think of places I wouldn’t mind finding out I was trapped. Chief among them, of course, being the bedroom of gorgeous rock star Eva Schmidt.

Assuming, of course, that she wanted me there.

Where I was, though, felt like just about the worst place to discover I was trapped.

A faux-wooden room. Under the Multnomah Channel. Surrounded by wounded and unconscious — and in at least one case, dead — gossaks, whose red, furry bodies were still stinking the place up with the odor of wet animal.

Oh, and each wall had a door in it, and any one of those doors might have brought in more enemies at any time. Even though Brikatika insisted this was a safe house, and so even the gossaks shouldn’t have been here.

Vasco was hurt, and not yet healed. He had some wicked-looking wounds on his chest and arms, from fighting the gossaks.

Magellan looked more than a little dinged up himself. Sure he was moving fine, but I didn’t like that he’d gotten hurt at all.

There was just something wrong with a creature that would hurt a beagle.

Terrible place to be…

No.

Worse than that.

I was stuck inside a constructed space inside a copper veined rock, in the middle of the Multnomah Channel. That meant that this entire place was one big energetic construct, and…

Of course.

I slapped myself in the forehead.

I turned to Vasco, who was gritting his teeth against the pain of applying Bruisebane and Serpent’s Kiss to his several injuries.

“Of course I can’t just portal us out.”

“No,” Vasco said as though that were obvious. “You can’t portal out of a constructed space. We need to get out of here. But first I…” he growled against the pain and slammed his palm against the floor — “but first I need you to maintain watch until I’m ready for action.”

“Isn’t there a less painful way to treat our injuries?”

“Yes.” Vasco slammed his fist down again while his whole body shook as he continued slathering ointments across this chest wounds. “But nothing … that works … this fast.”

I checked the doors one at a time, going through their energies to try to find any triggering mechanisms they might have had.

Yes, I was worried about traps even inside a so-called safe house. More than that, though, I was worried about alarms. That maybe, because Brikatika was never supposed to get out of this room alive — speculation on my part, but a decent working theory — if someone passed through the door, either the dorach was dead or the gossaks had failed.

I didn’t find any alerts set up. Any traps either. And I didn’t find any kind of hidden doors.

Well. I did find out that two of the doors were fake. But that was less finding a hidden door than finding a hidden section of wall.

I even tried casting my awareness up the three chutes in the ceiling, that were the ways one could enter this room from the outside.

Unfortunately, the design of the place meant that there was no up-the-chutes from here. They were exit-only, and even my awareness could not travel upwards.

While I was doing this checking, Magellan kept Brikatika cornered. Growling the whole time.

Frankly, I think Magellan would have been only too happy to give the big dorach a bite for leading us a merry chase. Not to mention getting the poor beagle gossak-handled.

He knew better though.

And Brikatika, he just sat there, dejected. His head hanging down.

I itched to ask him questions. But I couldn’t do it until Vasco finished his litany of growled swearing, which I would take as a sign that he was healed up and ready to go.

So I did the next best thing.

I checked the unconscious gossaks to make sure they weren’t going to rouse anytime soon.

As I did that, another Locksmith spell — skill, whatever — occurred to me.

“Ypnos,” I whispered, with a finger to my lips.

That would keep those unconscious gossaks from waking up until we were long gone.

Useful that. Wish it could have worked while they were awake.

Once I was done with them, I gave the room another pass. Didn’t find anything more though. But at least, when I finished, Vasco was done.

His green felt shirt was still pretty torn up. Just a sign of how hurt he’d been, in my opinion. He’d seemed to take delight in repairing my own torn clothing when I wasn’t looking. But he hadn’t found time to fix his own.

That made me give him a closer look.

He was sweaty, and his wild gray hair all matted down. But he looked healthy enough in his tanned, weathered way as he stripped off his shredded shirt.

He didn’t bother repairing it. Just stuffed the green felt scraps into his duffel bag, and drew out a red-and-black plaid replacement.

While he buttoned up, I said, “Near as I can tell, the doors aren’t trapped.”

“Only one is a way out,” Vasco said. “The other, if this really was a safe house, will lead to living quarters.”

Brikatika pointed to the door to his right.

“Living quarters. Last time I was here, anyway.”

“So that’s the exit?” I said, pointing to the other door.

“Not how I left last time. There was an exit past the living quarters.”

I looked at Vasco. He pulled a spool of red silk cord out of his duffel bag. Even without trying, I could tell that the cord had been worked over, energetically.

I was about to ask a question, but Vasco frowned and shook his head.

He approached Brikatika.

“Paw,” Vasco said.

Brikatika extended his left forepaw without looking.

Vasco tied some of the cord around that forepaw. He tied a little more around his own left wrist. He slipped a big combat knife out of his brown hiking boots, then cut the cords from the main spool.

He held the knife up so Brikatika could see it. Or maybe see the energies at play along it. I’m not sure.

Vasco cut the cord that bound them.

“You understand?” Vasco asked the dorach.

“I’ve heard of smithcord,” Brikatika said.

The word brought the explanation to my mind. So bound, Brikatika couldn’t leave any room Vasco was in. And he couldn’t get more than a hundred of Vasco’s paces from him, even out in the open.

Vasco tucked the rest of the spool in his duffel, and sheathed his knife.

Next, Vasco used a different paste to treat Magellan’s dings and scuffs and likely bruises.

If the ointment caused Magellan any discomfort, I couldn’t tell. So I hoped it didn’t.

When Vasco finished, he gave the good beagle two treats.

Vasco then stood, drew a deep breath, and popped a restorer in his mouth.

The thought of one of those vitality gumballs made my stomach growl and my muscles complain about how tired they were.

“Need one?” Vasco asked.

“No,” I shook my head.

I wasn’t nearly as exhausted as I’d normally be after a few good games of basketball, no matter how much my body was trying to tell me otherwise.

“You lead then,” Vasco said. “I’ll stay rear guard with the prisoner.”

I approached the door that might have been an exit. I took the handle in one hand. Assumed a balanced stance and readied my other fist.

“Ready?” I asked.

Magellan yipped. Vasco nodded. Brikatika only stared at the floor.

I ripped the door open.

Another shaft down.

“I don’t like the look of this,” I said. “Smells like a trap.”

“Let me check,” Vasco said.

I almost objected. But he had been doing this a lot longer than I had. So I let him be the one to send his awareness down the shaft.

It also meant I was right at hand when he started to dive forward.

“Hey!” I grabbed Vasco by the collar and yanked him backwards.

His good flannel shirt started to rip. And Vasco gave me no help. It was as though his mind was already down at the end of the shaft, just waiting for his body to join him.

I grabbed his shoulder with my left hand. Planted one foot on the wall.

Not enough.

I needed both feet on that wall. I needed every ounce of strength I had, and every erg of magic I could bring to bear.

And Vasco was still edging slowly forward.

“Magellan,” I said through gritted teeth. “Little help?”

Magellan jumped forward and nipped Vasco’s ankle.

Maybe it was the shock of the nip. Maybe it was a signal the two of them had previously established for themselves. Whatever it was, that little bite on the ankle did the trick.

Vasco’s mind was back. He shook his head.

But his body was still edging forward against everything I could do to keep him where he was.

I tried to speak, but only managed a strained grunt.

But now Vasco could add his strength to mine. And maybe more important, his own magic.

Vasco planted a hand on each side of the doorway, focused all his renewed strength and energies, and shoved himself backwards.

That did the trick.

We tumbled back onto the supposedly wooden floor, which felt a lot more like stone than wood.

The door slammed shut.

“So,” I said through heavy breaths. “I’m thinking that’s not the way out.”

“There you’re wrong,” Vasco said, rolling to his feet and offering me a hand up.

“But—”

“That’s likely a permanent way out.” Vasco turned to Brikatika. “Clearly they want you dead. Can’t wait to find out why.”

“We should interview him now,” I said. “Before something else happens.”

“No,” Vasco said, voice firm and a dismissive little shake of his head. “We need to get us out of here before reinforcements arrive. Or worse.”

He nodded with his head toward that fate he’d narrowly avoided.

“That someone set that up meant they thought Brikatika here might evade his gossaks.”

“Or hris was cleaning house,” I said. “Killing the gossaks when they tried to leave.”

Vasco gave me an approving look. “Not bad. But either way, we need to get out of here before hris simply shuts the constructed space down.”

Now that … hadn’t occurred to me.

Constructed spaces, from what little I suddenly remembered knowing about them, were neither cheap, nor easy to set up. Collapsing one would mean giving up a valuable resource.

Of course, given that Locksmiths now knew about this one, its value might be plummeting rapidly…

Something rippled through the energies of the constructed space.

“So,” I said, “the other door then?”

“And quick,” Vasco concurred.

---

Remember, come back the day after tomorrow for the next chapter. In the meantime, if you’d like to read the whole thing right now, you can get the whole story by clicking either of these…

Or, if you’d just like to show your appreciation, you’re free to drop something in the tip jar.