Emperor's Edge Republic Read Online Free PDF Page A

glowing and blinking doodads—or Made devices, as the practitioners called them—around the sub, but she hadn’t heard this before.
    Sicarius headed for the compartment. The cabin didn’t hold much more than a bed, but that bed had cabinets beneath it, and he delved into them. As soon as he opened the one on the left, a bright yellow glow washed over him.
    “Er.” Amaranthe hadn’t realized she had been sleeping above some strange wizard device during the whole trip. “What would that be?”
    Sicarius set it on the bed. “A communication artifact.”
    “Oh, right.” She had seen a set of those before—her first nemesis Larocka Myll had communicated to her Forge allies with them. “Is someone trying to reach us? Or maybe someone’s trying to reach Starcrest.” Who from superstitious Turgonia would know how to use one of these devices? Maldynado would probably think it a lamp or a hand-warmer. She smiled at the thought, a twinge of homesickness touching her. Though she had enjoyed her time with Sicarius, she did miss her friends back home.
    Sicarius placed a hand on top of the orb. This seemed to be the required gesture, for the yellow glow faded, and shadows stirred behind the opaque surface. President Starcrest’s head and shoulders came into view. The short gray hair, dark eyes, and handsome if determined visage were as Amaranthe remembered, though the furrows along his forehead and the creases framing his eyes seemed deeper, his face more tired.
    She would not want that man’s job.
    Starcrest turned his head toward something or someone out of sight—the orb showed only him and a few maps on a wall behind him.
    “Ready,” a faint voice said. Professor Komitopis?
    Starcrest nodded and faced forward, giving the illusion he was gazing at them.
    Sicarius straightened like a soldier coming to attention. Amaranthe found herself leaning forward with interest. Nobody had contacted them before. This might signify trouble.
    “Sicarius and Ms. Lokdon,” Starcrest said, his voice sounding tinny through the device, not quite the rich baritone she remembered. “I trust you are both there and well. I apologize for interrupting your vacation, but we have... a problem here.”
    “Just one?” came the faint voice from the side again. Yes, judging by the fondness in Starcrest’s not-quite-squelching glower to the side, that was definitely his wife.
    Starcrest faced forward again. “We have one problem in particular that’s proving nettlesome, and I hate to ask, but...”
    Amaranthe braced herself, anticipating some soul-devouring favor. A request to return to the capital to lead her men again. A request for Sicarius’s assassin skills, skills she wanted him to be able to retire. Some mission that would thrust them both into the deadliest dangers again.
    Starcrest cleared his throat. “We need the sub back.”
    “What?” Amaranthe blurted, but he was still talking. This wasn’t a live conversation, she realized, but a message that had been saved to display when she and Sicarius noticed the flashing orb.
    “Building a new one would take time,” Starcrest said, “and if there are any Makers looking to open their shops in the new Turgonian Republic, I haven’t heard of them yet. Again, I apologize for this inconvenience, but I would appreciate it if you would return as soon as possible. Thank you.”
    The orb went dark, though Sicarius continued to gaze at it for a time.
    “What do you think’s going on in the city?” Amaranthe asked. “Or in the lake?” Starcrest couldn’t need the sub for any land-based purposes, surely.
    “Unknown.”
    Amaranthe tried to decide if he looked pensive, or if she was, as usual, reading things into his bland features that weren’t there.
    “We’ve left a few, uhm, inconvenient relics on the lake bottom in the last year,” she said, thinking of the underwater laboratory in particular. “Someone might have dug them out. Or started up a new underwater base from which to