“Your professor mucked it all up.”
“He was trying to—”
“Playing at an opposition is not the same as being one. Your professor goes to his parties, plays cards with his enemies. Their only opposition is to see who can be more polite than the other. Meanwhile, the rest of us suffer under the emperor’s rule.”
Who was this Jax, Karigan wondered, that he knew of the professor and his opposition?
“We have waited for your professor’s group to do something, but nothing ever comes of it.”
“I know,” Cade said again.
“Weeell,” drawled Thadd, tearing his attention from his sore ribs to attend to the conversation, “so you finally admit it. Your professor is not gonna change things.”
“I have been coming to this conclusion for a while.”
“Oh? And what decided you?”
“Various things,” Cade replied evasively. “The professor’s failed attempt to slow the drill is not least in my mind.”
Karigan wondered if his experiences in the tombs had sealed this change in him, given him a resolve that had not been there before. She was relieved that he did not mention the tombs, Weapons, or caretakers. He apparently trusted these men but honored his secrets.
“Then destroying the emperor,” Jax said, “comes down to us. As the hard work always does.”
So they were another opposition group? Did the professor know about them as they knew of him, or had Cade been going behind his back? Had he shared his knowledge of Arhys’ existence with Jax and his cohorts, or had he honored that secret as well? This furtive activity was fascinating, but very un-Cadelike. Or at least, unlike the Cade she thought she knew, who was utterly devoted to the professor. How much did she really know about this brooding student of archeology, anyway?
She mounted the steps and sat on the top one, trying to distance herself as much as possible from the haunting cellar. She rested her arms on her knees, then her head on her arms. It had been another very long night, and she’d already been short on sleep. She tried to listen as Cade argued with the other men about this plan and that, but her eyes sagged closed. This was not her world, after all, not her war. She had not wanted to get involved in its problems. If she could get home, she’d take care of Amberhill from there before he had a chance to make himself an emperor. Problem solved, just like that. She laughed tiredly to herself.
She drifted into an uneasy sleep filled with images of slaves beseeching her to unlock their manacles. They called out to her for help, and there, across the waves of people in bonds, stood Lord Amberhill. She saw him clearly, large in her vision, his gray eyes now dark, burning holes. He held a cruel looking whip, ready to lash it at the slaves, and the dragon-eye ruby on his ring winked at her.
• • •
Cade shook her shoulder. “Tam? Tam Ryder?”
“Tam Ryder who?” she mumbled.
“Tam Ryder you.”
Karigan gazed blearily at Cade. “Is it time to go?”
“Dawn is breaking, so we need to get you back.”
The murmuring of low voices down below indicated that Jax and his fellows were still there. The sound of a new voice indicated Jonny had regained consciousness.
Cade helped her rise. “I ask that you speak to no one of this. Not least of all the professor.”
So the professor did not know about this group. “What’s a few more secrets?” she replied.
“That is what I ask myself all the time.” He extinguished his lantern before opening the door to the main floor. He peered about before stepping through.
Gray light provided dim illumination through the barred windows high above. As Karigan made her way around the back of the stage after Cade, she saw that the mule and Raven had been dozing, but with her arrival, Raven perked up and whickered.
“Cade,” she said, sounding as tired as she felt, “why do you meet in an auction house for slaves?”
“Abandoned auction house,” he replied. “It closed years ago, and the trade moved across the canal to the horse market in the center of town. This location, when we use it, reminds us of what we are fighting for.”
“To free the slaves?” The dream images of so many terrified people penned up in the cellar to be bought and sold came back to her.
“To free us all.”
Karigan checked Raven’s girth and untied him from the railing. “And those men downstairs? They are . . . opposition?”
Cade stowed his lantern in a saddlebag. “Yes, but a different opposition. The real folk of the empire, the laborers, the merchants, the Dregs. Not the elite like the professor and his friends, who have gotten nowhere. Jax, Thadd, and Jonny? They see the professor’s opposition as a bunch of useless old men, and as much as I love the professor, I’m beginning to agree. Just seems like there is never enough of us, though, or power enough, to oppose the might of the empire. Too many are too scared to go against the empire, as well they should be.”
Karigan leaned against the railing while Cade tightened the straps of his mule’s gear. The gray light revealed paint peeling off walls and debris strewn across the floor. She imagined the room thronging with people bidding on human livestock.
“I once told you,” she said, “how in the Long War women took up weapons to fight Mornhavon the Black because so many of the men had perished in battle.”
Cade paused what he was doing. “Yes . . . ?”
“Don’t exclude half the empire’s population in your efforts. To do so would be very stupid. This is their home, too, and they have, perhaps, more to lose.”