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were when we discovered those insect creatures on the bottom level and we had explosions of methane in the tunnels.”
    A faint boom came from somewhere above them. It reminded Yanko of the firecracker the proctor at the test had hurled into the air.
    “Does methane set off explosives?” Lakeo asked. “Do insects?”
    Explosives. Is that what they were hearing? Maybe someone was blasting new tunnels. Since Yanko had been gone for over a week, he didn’t know what was on the schedule. But that shouldn’t have caused the alarm to go off. Unless someone had miscalculated and started a cave-in.
    Yanko called for the lift. A few of the overseers had a modicum of magical aptitude, but Yanko was the only one here who’d had more assiduous training. If there was a cave-in or trouble somewhere, the workers might need his help. The way the alarm continued, those gongs deep and urgent, made him certain this was no accidental triggering of the system.
    But the lift never came. Several workers from their level jogged into the open area in front of it, their pickaxes on their shoulders, and soon, a crowd of men had gathered.
    “What’s going on?” one asked.
    “No idea,” Lakeo said.
    “There must be other people calling on the lift.” Yanko imagined everyone racing to it to escape some horrible fate—tunnels filling with methane or some other gas toxic to humans. A chain of cave-ins, each more devastating than the last.
    Stop it. Use your senses to check, fool.
    Right. He could do that.
    “Give me a second,” he murmured, mostly to Lakeo, so she knew to watch his back in case one of the workers decided the confusion would be a good time to club the controller’s nephew in the head and escape.
    They were hundreds of feet beneath the surface, and he struggled to stretch up through the layers of salt and tunnels with his mind. He encountered knots of confused and frightened men on each level. The lift must be stuck somewhere near the top.
    “That’s the only way out?” Lakeo asked.
    Yanko did not know if she was talking to him or the men shifting and muttering behind them, but he didn’t answer. He needed his focus to push his senses farther, higher. Was that the first level? People were running in every direction. He could not tell if the lift was there. The vertical shaft had a feeling of openness that it should not have, not in the mines. Confusion laced his thoughts as what he sensed and what should be failed to match. So many people, so many afraid, but some were angry, some determined, some—
    His eyes flew open, realization coming to him.
    “Pray to the war gods,” he whispered. “We’re under attack.”
    “Attack?” Lakeo asked skeptically. “Attack by who? We’re three days from the coast, and there’s nothing out here. And I do mean nothing .”
    “Not nothing,” Yanko said, touching the salt wall. “This is as valuable as silver and a resource. There’s a reason an honored family oversees it.” He switched his focus to his mind’s eye again. “Let me see if I can find the lift, force it to come down. We need to help.”
    “ We do?” Lakeo asked, glancing at the workers behind them. “What’s it to us if the mine gets sacked?”
    Irritation tensed Yanko’s shoulders, and he snapped, “Your room is up there. They’ll sack your savings, too, and then how will you get to Kyatt?”
    She cursed. “You’re right. Get that lift down here.”
    “I’m trying. But I’m not finding it.” He ground his teeth. They were right under the lift. How hard could it be to send his senses up the shaft? True, finding the life forces of others was easier than identifying inanimate objects, but still. He could feel all the way up to the guard shack with his mind. Or where the guard shack had been . People were jogging about, descending into the shaft and down to the first level, and he realized... “Damn.”
    Yanko tried the obvious thing that he hadn’t before. He leaned into the lift shaft and looked