Emilie & the Hollow World - By Martha Wells Page 0,73
and Daniel waited below as he cautiously pushed the trapdoor open just enough to get a view of the next room. After a moment, he opened it all the way and motioned for them to follow him.
Emilie hurried up the stairs. The room was bigger than the foyer below, and better lit, with a larger stairwell spiraling up to the next floor, and a closed door. “I think we're on the surface,” Emilie whispered. The air in this room was fresher, laced with the green scent of the forest. She checked the compass again. “It's still pointing up.”
Daniel went to the door and listened at it. He shook his head. “Can't hear anything.”
Charter grimaced, looking up the stairwell. He muttered, “This place is too quiet.” But he added to Daniel, “You stay here, we'll go up.”
Daniel nodded, and Charter and Emilie started up the stairs. She knew what Charter meant; the merpeople had seen them now and there should be more commotion outside as they searched for them. They reached the next floor, where a wide foyer held a single closed door.
Emilie hurried over to listen at it. She heard voices, and thought: Uh oh. But they didn't sound like merpeople; the voices were too deep. Wait, there is something familiar about... “I think it's the Cirathi!” she whispered to Charter.
He tugged cautiously on the handle. The door didn't budge, and he crouched to peer into the opening for the lock, taking out Emilie's knife. “We don't know if they're alone in there,” he said, keeping his voice low. “There might be guards inside.”
“We could knock and ask,” Emilie murmured. Then it occurred to her he might think she was silly enough to be serious.
But Charter just gave her an ironic smile and started to tinker with the lock. Then a bang and a muffled yell from the room below made Emilie flinch. Charter shoved to his feet, cursing, but half a dozen merpeople were charging up the stairwell. Emilie ducked back against the wall with a yelp, suddenly confronted with a forest of sharp spear points.
CHAPTER TEN
One of the merpeople shouted an order, and the others drew back a little. A few of them were female, but they all wore belts of some kind of reptile hide, they all carried knives, and they all looked angry. One held a weapon that looked like a wooden spear gun. With a grim expression, Charter dropped the knife and held up his hands. Emilie held up her hands, too.
Two other merpeople dragged Daniel up the stairs, despite his resistance. He caught Charter's eye and said, guiltily, “Sorry. They just burst in through the door-” One of them poked him to tell him to be silent.
Charter said, “It's all right.”
Emilie knew it was anything but all right.
The merpeople searched them first, taking the knife and the rest of Emilie's matches. Emilie thought they would be shoved into the room with the Cirathi, but instead the Nomads prodded them up the stairs. There was a door on the next landing, with a merman standing guard outside it. At a gesture from the leader, he pushed it open.
They were guided into a big room, lit by several lamps, bare of furniture except for a few clay water jars. But it was the occupants who captured Emilie's attention. Rani and an older Menaen man were facing five merpeople. Emilie started forward, only to be dragged back by her guards. She called out, “Rani! Are you all right?”
“I'm well, Emilie.” Rani looked her over, her scaled brow furrowed. “These idiots have not hurt you?”
“No, I'm fine.” She hoped, for the moment. Rani didn't look hurt, and her head wasn't bleeding anymore.
The older Menaen man had to be Dr. Marlende. He had shaggy gray hair and a beard that badly needed to be trimmed, which kept Emilie from spotting any resemblance to Miss Marlende. He wore a rather shabby tweed suit coat over a somewhat the worse-for-wear workman's trousers and shirt. He said, “Charter, Daniel, how good to see you!”
One of the merpeople was less enthused to see them. Holding one of the translation shells, he turned to Rani and said, “You lied. You said you were alone.” He was young, very handsome, wearing a necklace of polished shells and a reptile skin belt set with disks of silver metal. The others with him, three young men and one older woman, wore the same kind of finery; Emilie suspected they were looking at the Nomads' leaders. Or at