The Perilous Sea (The Elemental Trilogy #2)

He did his best to breathe slowly, with control—once he made his first move, there was no stopping until he had carried it through.

Or failed altogether.

She laid a hand on his shoulder, signaling that the sandstorm was as violent as she could make it. He took another deep breath and mouthed, Tempus congelet. Tempus congelet.

The chaos of the scene provided a rare opportunity to apply a time-freeze spell to each Atlantean soldier. This gave Titus approximately three minutes.

He and Fairfax ducked out from underneath the armored chariot, took the soldier’s wands, which were in the shape of an octagonal prism, and hurried toward the armored chariot’s starboard hatch. The seam of the hatch was barely visible, but when they flipped open two small round covers and pushed the Atlantean wands into the protected openings underneath, the hatched opened quietly.

The interior of the armored chariot was suitably austere for a military transport vehicle, all steel sides and titanium ribs. Titus applied the time-freeze spell to the pilot before the latter could turn around.

He and Fairfax climbed into the armored chariot and shut the hatch. Immediately he applied the time freeze to her. A mage under a time freeze was immune to most spells and curses; he hoped it would offer her extra protection against the blood circle. If not, at least it should delay her reaction for a few minutes.

He strapped her into one of the harnesses attached to the fuselage and sprinted to the pilot, dodging handhold straps that hung from the ceiling. The pilot’s wand was already wedged in an octagonal opening next to the seat.

In front of the pilot, rising up from slots on the floor, were a set of reins. Titus wrapped his hands around the pilot’s, picked up the reins, and shook them. The armored chariot rose, silent except for the relentless assault of the sandstorm.

He banked and turned the armored chariot’s nose around. The place where Fairfax had signaled her location was at the eastern rim of the blood circle. He pointed the armored chariot southwest.

A glance backward showed Fairfax motionless, looking perfectly normal for someone under a time-freeze spell.

Now it was all a matter of luck.

He pushed the armored chariot to its maximum speed, using the clock by the pilot’s seat to gauge the amount of time he had remaining. At one minute fifteen seconds into his flight, he yanked hard on the reins. The chariot came to a sudden halt and would have thrown him against the viewports if he had not held on to the strapped-in pilot.

He ran back, opened the hatch, unstrapped Fairfax, and dropped her to the ground. Then he closed the hatch, turned the vehicle around, and raced back toward the blood circle, using the gauges on the dashboard to retrace his path exactly. Upon arrival, he parked the vehicle in the same orientation as earlier, leaped out, closed the hatch behind him, returned the wands to the soldiers, and vaulted.

But when he reached the spot in the desert where he had left Fairfax, she had disappeared without a trace.





CHAPTER 12


England

TITUS CRASHED INTO THE LABORATORY and extracted a vial of granules, each one worth his weight in gold.

Panacea.

When he returned to Baycrest House, Kashkari was struggling to keep Wintervale from choking on his own tongue. Titus took hold of Wintervale’s head and somehow managed to force a double dose of panacea down the latter’s gullet.

Almost immediately, Wintervale’s convulsion subsided into mere quivers. Beads of sweat appeared on his brow and his upper lip. He panted, even as a bit of color returned to his face. Within ten minutes, he had dropped off into an exhausted slumber.

Kashkari wiped the perspiration from his own brow. “Now that’s German medicine I wouldn’t mind keeping around.”

Titus looked at his watch—they needed to be back at Mrs. Dawlish’s before lights-out. “We had better get him to the railway station,” he said, still panting with afterfright, “or we will miss our train.”

Kashkari gripped the back of a chair, likewise breathing heavily. “We have all these strong backs—getting him there is the least of our concerns. I just hope the movement of the train won’t disagree with him.”

“He will be all right,” said Titus.

Wintervale had enough panacea in him to survive an execution curse, let alone a little rattling from a railway car.

“I hope to God you are right,” said Kashkari. “I hope to God.”