Balanced on the Blade's Edge (Dragon Blood, Book 1) (2 page)

Sardelle waited, expecting a retort, but a
long silence filled her mind—and the pinprick of light grew larger.
When Jaxi finally responded, it was a soft,
Sardelle?

Yes… ?

It wasn’t this
morning.

When, then?

Three hundred years
ago.

She snorted.
That’s
funny, Jaxi. Very funny. How long has it really been?

Those army sappers were
utterly effective in collapsing the mountain. They were shielded
somehow, and our people didn’t sense them. For that… we died. En
masse. The mage shelter saved your life, but it was programmed not
to take you out of stasis until favorable conditions returned to
the outside. In this case, oxygen and a way for a human being to
escape without being crushed.

That part, Sardelle believed. She remembered
Jetia sending out the telepathic announcement—more of a mental
shriek of fear—about the sappers seconds before the explosions had
gone off, before the rocks had started crumbling. But… three
hundred
years
?

If it makes you feel
better, I’ve been conscious for all of those years, watching this
mountain and hoping someone with mage powers would wander by, so I
could call out for the person to retrieve me. I did manage to mind
link with a couple of shepherds and prospectors, but they found my
presence in their heads alarming, if you can imagine that. They ran
off the mountain shrieking. Little matter. I estimate I’m under a
thousand meters of solid rock. There would be no way for a mundane
to reach me. Even you… I would appreciate it if you would find a
way to get me out, but moving that much rock would be too much for
you without me.

Is that so?
Sardelle
managed to lace the thought with indignation, though it was more a
habitual reaction to Jaxi’s teasing than a true objection. And this
had
to be teasing. Unlike with most
sorcerers, who preserved their souls after they had lived many
decades, Jaxi had died young of a rare disease, choosing to infuse
her essence in the soulblade before passing. Despite having had
several wielders and existing in the sword for hundreds of years,
Jaxi retained her teenage sense of humor, often playing pranks on
Sardelle.

Not this time, my
friend.

I don’t—

You’ll see in a moment.
You better pay attention to your surroundings. The world has
changed. Our people were destroyed, and those who remain fear
anything that smells of magic. A while back, at the base of the
mountain, I saw a girl who had been accused of being a witch
weighted down with stones and drowned in a lake. Do not use your
powers where they can be observed.

Sardelle wanted to argue, wanted to catch
Jaxi in a lie. Mostly she wanted for everything to be all right,
for all of her kith and kin to have survived and for this all to be
a joke. The scrapes had continued, and more light—the flickering of
candle or perhaps lantern flames—seeped into her niche. Her eyes
couldn’t yet tell her who was out there, so she stretched out with
her senses… and knew right away the two men clawing at the rock
with picks and shovels were strangers. Though she was often off on
missions, she knew all the sorcerers and mundanes who worked in
Galmok Mountain, the seat of culture, government, and teaching for
those with the gift.

Voices reached Sardelle’s ears, rough and
slightly accented.

“… see something, Tace?”

“Not sure. Maybe a room? There’s a gap in the
rocks up here.”

“Maybe there’s a crystal.” Rock shifted,
pebbles raining down a slope. “That would be cracking—they haven’t
found one all year. We’ll get a pint if we bring one up. The
general might even invite us for dinner.”

They shared chortles at that notion.

Some of the words and
pronunciation have changed over the generations, but you’re
fortunate the language is the same. You’ll be able to communicate
with them without entering their minds.
Jaxi was silent for a
moment, but Sardelle sensed the unease through their link.
Actually… I’d stay out of their minds
altogether if I were you.

Telepathic intrusion
without invitation is forbidden except in emergencies
,
Sardelle thought. The mantra was one of the early ones in the Texts
of the Referatu, something Jaxi surely knew as well as she.

If being buried alive in
rubble for centuries doesn’t count as an emergency, I’ll cede
myself to a doddering geriatric to be used as a cane for the rest
of my existence.

Sardelle
sighed.
I’ll… consider your
point.

Finally enough rock fell away that Sardelle
could make out the men. Her saviors, whether they knew it or
not.

They don’t. This is your
opportunity for escape, but you’ll have to be very
careful.

I’m not leaving without
you.

A lantern lifted to the hole, one that was
now more than a foot wide. A moment later, a man’s face came into
view, his skin caked with grime, a matted mustache and beard
hanging to his chest, his greasy dark hair held back from his eyes
by a dusty bandana.

“There’s something in here,” he said to his
comrade. “I see cloth, and, er…”

“Greetings,” Sardelle said. “Tace, was
it?”

Surprise widened the man’s eyes, and he
stumbled out of view. An auspicious beginning.

“What was that?” his comrade asked.

“There’s a girl in there,” Tace blurted.

“You tugging on my shovel? There’s no girls
down here.”

“I’m a woman,” Sardelle said, “and I’d be
obliged if you dug me the rest of the way out of here.” She
glimpsed a tunnel behind the men. She could handle the rock
barricade in her own way, but Jaxi’s warning trumpeted in her mind.
They fear anything that smells of
magic.

“A woman,” Tace whispered. “A woman down
here.”

“How’d she get in there?”

“I don’t care.” More rocks fell away as the
men worked at them with renewed vigor. “There ain’t no soldiers
’cept back at the cages. They ain’t gonna hear nothing. She can be
ours.”

And with those words—and the burst of lust
that emanated from Tace like heat from an inferno—Sardelle came to
understand Jaxi’s warning.

“What if she’s uglier than your grandma?”

“Don’t care. Last time I tried to get with a
girl, that nasty Big Bretta drove me out of the barracks like I was
diseased. This is a prayer answered.”

A prayer? What kind of man prayed to what
kind of god for a woman to rape? Or maybe the deluded miner thought
she would willingly jump into his arms because he had dug her out?
No, he wasn’t even thinking that—he was simply consumed with lust
like a man digging toward a golden vein. She hadn’t delved into his
thoughts—and wasn’t a gifted enough telepath to do so without
alerting him anyway—but his emotions were on the surface, so strong
she would have had to erect a barrier around herself to keep from
sensing them.

More rock fell away. If she stepped to the
front of the niche the mage shelter had left when it dissipated,
she could have reached the men, had them pull her out, but she hung
back, considering her options. Handling a would-be rapist wasn’t a
difficult matter if she could use her powers, but dare she? There
were only the two men in the tunnel, but she sensed others in a
maze of mines that snaked around inside the mountain. She wouldn’t
kill these two to keep them from divulging her presence. That was
the sort of usage of power that had scared the mundanes into the
sneak attack that had brought this mountain down.

Sardelle swam around Tace’s overpowering
emotions, trying to get a sense of the second man’s state of mind.
Might he be more reasonable? Someone to whom she could appeal? Her
hope was squashed by her first brush with him. A darkness hovered
about him, and she had the impression of a different sort of lust,
of someone who liked to hurt, to cut with knives, to see pain on
another’s face. He would kill his comrade Tace as happily as work
with him, if he could get away with it, and he would kill her
too.

Sardelle drew back, her heart racing from the
chilling contact. She snapped up her barriers to repel further
brushes with their emotions.

I told you
. Jax
sounded sad rather than triumphant.

Enough rocks had been pulled away that the
men could reach her now. They raised their lanterns for a good
look. Sardelle stepped into the light, more because she wanted to
scout the tunnel—and an escape route—than get closer to either of
them. They smelled of sweat and grime, and even someone without the
gift could have read the lechery on their faces. They were both
large men, men who had been toiling here a long time and who had
grown strong because of it. Through accident or design, they were
blocking the narrow tunnel.

“It
is
a girl,” Tace
whispered, eyeing her from head to foot.

Sardelle had been dressed for the president’s
birthday celebration that morning—not that morning, but a morning
hundreds of years in the past, she corrected, for she was gradually
coming to believe Jaxi. She wore sandals and a dress fitting for a
gala, not for tramping through tunnels. Her black hair hung about
her shoulders, instead of being back in the braid she usually wore
for work. Her pale green silk dress didn’t show a lot of skin, but
it did hug the contours of her body, and she realized the delicate
collar had been ripped at some point in her mad race for safety.
Both men’s eyes locked onto that pale exposed flesh.

Tace grinned and stepped forward, reaching
for her arm. Sardelle sensed Jaxi in the back of her mind, like a
panther coiled to spring. The soulblade would attack their minds if
she didn’t find a way to defend herself.

Though rushed, Sardelle called upon a simple
trick she had learned from a field healer, one she had used before
when caught in difficult situations. She gave them rashes.

Their discomfort took a moment to register,
and Sardelle feared she would have to use a more direct attack.
Tace hauled her out of the rocks, and he pushed her against the
cold stone wall, pressing his body against hers. He reached for his
belt, but then he paused, a confused expression twisting his face.
Behind him, his comrade was leaning on his pick with one hand and
scratching his balls with the other.

Sardelle wanted to shrink away from Tace’s
hot breath washing her face, but she held her composure and merely
raised an eyebrow. His hips shifted and the hand that had been
about to unfasten his belt drifted lower, as he too suffered an
overpowering itch.

The pickaxe the other man had been holding
clanked to the ground, and he twisted and bucked, both of his hands
now occupied. Tace’s hands went back to his belt, but not with any
intention of dropping his trousers to molest her. He stepped back,
alternately scratching and investigating what was happening down
there. Both men hobbled to the closest lantern for a better look,
their trousers around their ankles.

At first, Sardelle only took a couple of
steps, easing away slowly and silently, not wanting them to notice.
When they didn’t, she turned her walk into a jog, taking care not
to let the sandals slap on the stone floor. She was already wishing
she had worn her work leathers to the president’s birthday, huge
gala or not. The tunnel was dark and uneven, but her senses guided
her, and she didn’t conjure a light. She guessed that any other
miners she met down there might be of similar mindsets to those
two.

Good guess.

What is this place,
Jaxi?
Sardelle could handle a couple of dark-souled brutes,
but what if… what if this was a representation of what the world
had become? Her people’s beautiful community destroyed, to be
replaced with this? Her people… Her
friends
. Had they all died in that demolition?
Tedzu, Malik, Yewlith? Her brother? Her parents? Even if they
hadn’t, they would have died in the years since. Was she all alone
in the world now?

I’m here.
For once,
there was nothing flippant in Jaxi’s response. She sent a feeling
of compassion and support through their link. Sardelle appreciated
it and wished it were enough. It wasn’t. She was glad for the empty
darkness of the tunnel, for tears were streaking down her cheeks
and dripping from her chin.

It’s been a mine for the
last fifty years or so, and it’s also a prison,
Jaxi
explained.
As to the world beyond this
mountain? I don’t know. I can’t sense that far.

I understand.

If it was a prison, maybe that meant some
sort of sane person was in charge, someone she could talk to about…
about what, she wasn’t sure. How would she explain how she had come
to be in the prison in the first place? And how could she escape
and leave Jaxi buried under tons of rock? For that matter, how
could she escape without investigating further and seeing if
something remained of her people? Of her friends? Wasn’t it
possible that if she had made it to protection, others had too?
Jaxi might simply not sense them because they were in the
hibernation induced by the shelters.

I’ve checked. Hundreds of
times. Trust me, I’ve checked. It’s been a long, boring three
centuries. I’ve also read all the books in the very dusty, very
seldom-used prison library. If you ever need a summary of the
titles, let me know.

Sardelle didn’t appreciate the humor, not
then.
When I was in the mage shelter, could you
tell I was alive?

Yes.

Sardelle struggled to find logic to refute
Jaxi’s certainty as to the others’ passings. She didn’t want to
give up her hope.
We’re linked. Maybe that was
why you could sense me and—