Emilie & the Hollow World - By Martha Wells Page 0,72
curving roof and walls of rough light-colored rock, the air dank and cool. There were no merpeople, but it couldn't be entirely deserted: a flickering lamp hung from a peg on the wall.
Charter stepped through into the corridor, Daniel managing to get in ahead of Emilie. She tugged the door closed behind them; it might slow pursuit, but only for a few moments. The merpeople had to know their captives couldn't escape through the pool's underwater passage. “What is this place?” Emilie asked as they went down the corridor. “The Nomads don't live here, surely?”
“No, they use it as a stronghold,” Daniel said. “It was some sort of sacred place for the old Sealands Empire. It's so old, I don't think they're sure what it was for anymore.”
The corridor opened into a foyer with another pool of water. Three more shadowy corridors led away from it. The whole area under the compound must be honeycombed with tunnels, with a system of water passages below it, and one above, connecting the surface pools. Emilie quickly checked the compass again.
The arrow pointed to the corridor to the left. Emilie nodded to it, whispering, “That one.”
Charter took a step toward it. Just then a merman surfaced in the pool, heaving himself half out onto the stone floor. For an instant they all froze, and he looked just as startled as they were. Then he started to push back from the edge. Charter lunged forward, punching him in the head. The merman fell backward but two more surfaced, and Charter yelled, “Run!”
Emilie ran, taking the corridor the compass had indicated before considering whether it was a good idea or not. It was a long corridor, with several guttering lamps hanging on the wall. She heard Daniel shouting behind her and slowed, looking back. Then he and Charter came pounding after her and she hurried on.
They caught up to her as she reached another open foyer, but this one had only one other way out, a narrow spiral stair up to a silvery metal trapdoor in the ceiling. The merpeople had to be right behind them and it was the only way out. Emilie started toward it, but Charter grabbed her arm and whispered, “Wait, don't move!”
Daniel stood at the open passageway, holding up a hand as if pressing against an invisible door. He was whispering quietly to himself. Emilie stared, and then realized: he's doing a spell. She hoped he was more useful as a sorcerer than previous circumstances would seem to indicate.
Daniel took a sharp breath and stepped back from the doorway. A moment later four mermen arrived, sliding to an abrupt halt. Daniel was frozen in place, and Charter squeezed Emilie's arm, reminding her to be still.
The mermen stared through the doorway, obviously puzzled. As they looked around, their eyes seemed to slide past Daniel, Charter, and Emilie without focusing on them. They see an empty room, she thought, holding her breath. And it hadn't seemed to occur to them to step past the doorway and investigate further.
Tension stretched Emilie's nerves almost to the point where she felt compelled to make a sound, but finally the mermen turned away. They started back down the passage, talking agitatedly among themselves. As their voices faded, Daniel's shoulders slumped in relief, and Charter relaxed a little. Emilie let herself breathe again, feeling her pulse pounding in her ears. “It's a charm,” Charter explained, keeping his voice low. “It makes people think they can't see you. But they can still hear you, and feel you.”
“You couldn't use it from inside the cell?” Emilie asked. “To make them think you escaped?” Though that wouldn't do much good, unless the merpeople were incautious enough to lower the bars.
Daniel wiped sweat off his forehead. “It doesn't work if they know you're there. That's why we had to get to another room - we had to be just far enough ahead of them that they would be able to tell themselves that they'd mistaken the passage we took.”
Emilie made a mental note that Daniel was a little more useful than he had seemed at first. And that explained why they had been so certain that Cobbier could get the other three crewmembers past the guards outside the tower; he must be an apprentice sorcerer too. She checked the compass again, and was momentarily puzzled when the arrow made a circle. “Oh.” She looked up at the ceiling. “I think we're close.”
Charter stepped past her and started up the stairs. Emilie