Arasan rubbed his hands together. “Now, should we try to hide or go for speed?”
Blind Seer quoted, “‘It is too late to take cover after the prey has been flushed.’”
“But what if they escape while we are picking our way through rubble?” Wythcombe protested after Firekeeper had translated.
“Then we can track them,” Firekeeper answered. “Blind Seer is right. We cannot choose to hide once we have been seen, and I do not care to reveal this little pack to those who created storm, thunder, and lightning back on Mount Ambition.”
That slowed Wythcombe, who had been about to stride defiantly forth.
Blind Seer added, “These fallen buildings create a forest of a sort. Let us stay close to them, use their shadows as cover. Remind the humans that the eye sees motion first, so to keep their actions slow and contained.”
Firekeeper did so, adding, “I ask Sun Diver to show which routes are less visible from above.”
With Sun Diver guiding from above, they progressed through the shattered urban landscape, moving quickly when a portion of roof hid them, slowing when they must skulk in the open. The terrain smelled like a peculiar marshland, for the shells of buildings often held dank water, sometimes partially frozen. Doubtless when warmer weather came, these pools and puddles would evaporate, but frozen ground, heavy with crumbled masonry and ash, made a nearly impermeable seal.
The tension of the humans—who kept glancing nervously toward the designated tower—saturated the air with the acrid scents of apprehension and indecision well before their small group reached the base of the structure. Sun Diver departed as soon as they were safely situated near an opening in the tower’s shadow—no doubt to hunt, for the wingéd folk needed to eat even more often than did humans. As the eagle departed, Farborn dropped from his chosen cranny, skimming the edge of the tower with consummate skill.
“Three humans remain above,” the merlin reported. “For this long time they have simply sat still, two occasionally talking with each other, while the third seemed to sleep, although his eyes remained open. Then the third awakened and spoke with the others. Now they are all busy at something. You should find sneaking up on them very easy… Or you would if you had wings. There is a steep climb from below, for the tower holds no stairs, and all the floors are gone but for the one these humans are perched upon.”
“Can we reach them?” Firekeeper asked.
Farborn shrugged, a gesture that came easily to a bird. “Those other humans did not seem to have wings.”
“Well said,” Firekeeper replied. She turned to the humans. “Farborn says that much of the guts of this tower were burned away long ago. High above, one floor remains and that is where the humans are. Wait. I will sneak in just far enough to learn how we may reach them.”
Blind Seer went with her. No light came from the opening in the tower’s side and he knew that, if they moved slowly, to human eyes the pair of them would hardly show even as shadows. At first inspection, the tower was a hollow shell, its rough stone sides interrupted by the stubs of floor beams, burned and blacked. This tower’s shell brought back memories of other such shells and the deaths of dear ones within them. Firekeeper shaped no words to speak of these old sorrows, but the tang of her sweat spoke for her.
Far above was the partial floor of which Farborn had spoken. Between this aerie and the tower’s base, there was no stairway. However, on the far side from where the wolves lurked, fresh gouges had been dug into the stonework. Without further comment, Firekeeper withdrew to report. Blind Seer waited, patiently searching for the source of a scent in the air he could not account for.
He flicked one ear back to listen as Firekeeper reported soft-voiced to the humans. “Someone has cut climbing holds, fresh from how they show against the blackened stone. Those are the only way up, so we must climb without stair or ladder. If you do not think you can climb, wait. I will go up and lower a rope when I can.”
Blind Seer felt a wash of despair, for although he had learned to climb ladders, upright surfaces and ropes remained beyond him. He considered regrowing his moth wings, but Wythcombe’s warning about how mana dug channels caused him to reluctantly decide that he needed to save this option for an emergency or risk having wingéd wolf be the only shape he could create.
But there were ways to lead a pack without surging to the fore. If Blind Seer admitted his weakness, none of the others—he thought particularly of Wythcombe and Arasan—would feel they were shaming themselves if they didn’t make the climb. He was about to ask Firekeeper to speak for him when Ranz, silent for most of their hike, spoke.
“No one needs to stay behind,” the young man stated firmly. “There is ample water here.” He gestured toward the puddles that created a peculiar sort of moat around the tower. “I’ve mana enough to make a stair of packed snow and ice.”
“Excellent!” Firekeeper said. “While I would go up alone, I would rather we ran with the full pack’s strength.”
Blind Seer had continued to search for the source of the peculiar scent and had located a shadowed place, darker against the tower’s shadowed interior. He padded a few paces closer, then drew a deep breath, confirming his suspicion.
“Firekeeper, there is an opening here. From the scent, I suspect it leads to a warren from which this tower jutted up. That may be where those above came from—and they may have left allies behind to cover their back trail.”
Firekeeper reported, then said crisply, “Ranz needs some little time to build his stair. Let you and I examine the depths.”
Upon entering the now unwarded chamber, Kabot, Uaid, and Daylily realized that getting through the ward might be the least of their difficulties. Kabot had thought that they might need to search for Palvalkay, but there was no doubt where it was. To the normal eye, the artifact was merely an ornate gold coin stamped with myriad runes, but to eyes that saw mana, it blazed. The question was, how were they going to get to it?
Palvalkay was suspended within a lattice of crystals that was integral to the surface on which they now stood. None of them doubted that if they were to simply break Palvalkay free, at the very least, the floor would shatter beneath their feet. Doubtless the spellcasters who had created this peculiar safe had known how to release the artifact from its protective matrix, but they had not left any convenient instructions where intruders might find them.
“You must admit,” Daylily said hesitantly. “This is a very clever way of keeping Palvalkay secure from theft, while leaving it where it could be easily studied, perhaps even tested.”
“Clever, it might be,” Kabot replied acidly, “but such cleverness isn’t precisely to our advantage.”
An argument might have broken out then, but the Voice, no longer barred by wards, shouted within their minds. “I just felt a mana surge near you, one that doesn’t seem associated with you three. Perhaps you should find out what caused it.”
Daylily closed her eyes in concentration, and immediately paled. “It’s close! You two figure out how to free Palvalkay. I’ll deal with it.”
Before either of the men could protest, she ducked through the hole in the wall. Kabot heard the Voice again. From how Uaid didn’t react, Kabot was certain she spoke to him alone.
“Now that Daylily is actively looking, I can refine my perceptions. It’s Wythcombe and his companions. They’re at the base of the tower. A young man in their company is building a staircase—apparently from snow.”
“Our retreat’s cut off then,” Kabot replied, remembering not to speak aloud. There were times that the Voice seemed more real to him than either Uaid or Daylily.
“Maybe physically,” the Voice replied, “but there are options. The Unweaver meant these threads to be woven to each other, so they have an affinity for each other. You can use that affinity to enable you to create a transportation spell far more rapidly than if—say—you wanted to go back to Rhinadei.”
“As if we would,” Kabot responded derisively. “Far better to confront Wythco
mbe and his cronies. But Palvalkay is locked into that lattice.”
“I think you will find that Uaid has an idea about how to get it loose. Give your attention to your companions. Daylily is returning to report. Calm her and Uaid, then suggest you have a way to rescue them. Don’t mention me.”
Kabot sent a feeling of gratitude as he shifted his focus to encompass Daylily and Uaid. Phiona had always understood that a team functioned best when there was a single strong leader.
“What’s happening?”
Daylily’s report was brief and to the point—and duplicated what Kabot had already learned from Phiona.
When Daylily finished, Kabot favored her with a warm and appreciative smile. “That’s not good, but I have an idea how we might leave without needing to confront Wythcombe and his cronies. Let’s use Palvalkay to pinpoint the location of another of the threads, then I’ll transport us there. It would be best if we could take this one with us, but…”
He trailed off and, as the Voice had anticipated, Uaid filled the gap. “I’ve had an idea about that. Freeing the artifact from the lattice will take study—their manas are interwoven. However, I believe I can break a chunk of the lattice free, permitting us to take both lattice and artifact with us.”
Daylily frowned. “That simple? That implies the lattice is a very weak protection.”
Uaid shook his head, his expression both annoyed and smug. “Not at all. It would take someone skilled in crystal dynamics—as I am—to break the lattice without causing the floor to shatter beneath our feet. Even for me, doing so is going to create a great deal of ‘noise.’ In the days when this was an active university, such noise would doubtless have attracted attention long before the artifact could be stolen. However, since it’s too late to be ‘quiet,’ we don’t need to worry about that.”
Kabot nodded briskly. “Excellent. You start cutting the lattice. I’ll build the transportation spell. Daylily, anything you can do to delay pursuit would be ideal. Try not to kill anyone, if you can help it.”
“Of course,” Daylily snapped. “After all, we’re trying to prove that our interest in blood magic does not automatically make us monsters. However, if they pursue us into dangerous situations, then their blood is on their own hands.”
“Precisely!”
Kabot sank to the floor, finding the Voice lighting his way as he prepared to cast his mind into Palvalkay. “Daylily, I’m trusting you with my life and that of Uaid. I know you won’t fail us.”
Although Laria had seen Ranz both create and build with snow several times during their journey through the ruined lands of Rhinadei, the process had lost none of its wonder. She was trying hard not to stare, because then the Meddler would certainly smirk and ask her oh-so-casually what held her so captivated. Laria’s determination to direct her gaze anywhere except where the next tread was taking shape under Ranz’s hands meant she was the first to notice that someone was moving far above.
The wolves are right, motion is what you see first, was all Laria had time to think when a rain of fire showered down, centered directly on Ranz and his stair. The young man cried out in pain and surprise. As his creative trance broke, the tread Ranz had been crafting softened into slush. The completed treads hissed wherever a fiery drop hit them, but retained their form.
Wythcombe had been leaning against a segment of the stone wall, resting as Ranz worked. Arasan had been keeping watch outside the tower from the cover of the hole through which they had entered. When he dodged back inside, Wythcombe waved him off.
“I’ll protect Ranz! You make sure nothing is sneaking up on us.” The rough crystal atop Wythcombe’s staff flared, emitting a light that shaped a curving umbrella between Ranz and the rain of fire.
Laria froze, indecisive, until the first of the fiery droplets struck the heavy woolen cloak she wore. She was pulling the hood up to protect her head when a shrill shriek of defiance sounded from above, followed almost immediately by a shocked cry and a reduction in the intensity of the rain of fire. Fierce little Farborn had taken the attack to the enemy. The distance was too great for Laria to discern details, but it looked as if he had grasped something pink and fine—could it be a woman’s hair?—with his crystalline talons and was pulling upwards.
Spellcasters are powerful, Laria remembered, but if you can distract them, you can break their spell.
Ignoring the scattered gouts of falling fire, Laria ran to where hand and footholds had been cut into the stone. She didn’t know how quickly she could climb, but she wasn’t going to leave Farborn to fight alone. She was a few body-lengths above the floor when Firekeeper and Blind Seer burst from the tunnel. Without bothering to use the pre-cut hand and footholds, Firekeeper leapt for the rough stone of the wall. Catching one bare foot on an outcropping, then grasping above for a slight jutting protrusion, she began swarming upwards. Laria redoubled her own efforts, and was only a short distance behind when the wolf-woman pulled herself up and onto the landing.
Farborn had been forced to retreat, but his attack had broken the rain of fire. A beautiful woman—her hair was pink—gaped at Firekeeper. The wolf-woman was, admittedly, a fairly horrific sight. She had ripped open her right hand while climbing the wall but, ignoring the pain, had drawn her Fang and held the knife, its long blade dripping blood, as she advanced on the sorceress.
A man’s voice shouted in heavily accented Pellish, akin to that of Wythcombe and Ranz, “Daylily, get in here!” The woman, presumably this Daylily, ducked through a ragged hole in a still-closed door, then half ran, half rolled toward a light so brilliant that it brought tears to Laria’s eyes. She blinked, scrubbing her sleeve over her face to clear her vision. When she could see again, the woman and the brilliant light were both gone, leaving a sense of emptiness behind.
Firekeeper paused to wrap a piece torn from her shirt around her hand. She growled when Laria began to crawl into the adjacent chamber. “We not know if those leave traps. Wait. Wythcombe comes. Ranz builds, even in the fire, and the stair is nearly done.”
Laria obeyed, but she didn’t move from where she could keep a careful eye on the chamber that, until a handful of breaths before, had held at least two other people. Peering through the opening, she saw neither door nor window, only an intricate crystalline lattice with a hole ripped out of its middle. Laria wondered if the people had somehow crawled through the hole, even though she could see through the lattice and knew there was no one on the other side.
A gust of cold announced when Ranz’s stair reached them. Not long after, Wythcombe was kneeling at Laria’s side.
“Where did they go?”
Laria shrugged. “There was a bright light. When I could see again, it was like that.” She gestured to the empty chamber. “We haven’t gone in. Firekeeper thought there might be traps.”
“Smart,” Wythcombe admitted. He made a few soft murmurs, passing his fingers over his eyes, almost as if he were donning spectacles. “Looks as if they didn’t have any time to set traps, but the room radiates a tremendous amount of raw mana. Some of it must be from whatever enchantment they used to escape, but some… It permeates the chamber.”
“Permeate?” Firekeeper asked respectfully.
Despite his evident concern, Wythcombe was looking oddly cheerful. “Like the way the smell of an onion sinks into the container that has held it. I’ve learned something else, too. Kabot was definitely here. I know the signature of his casting. He worked the spell that took them away.”
“Where did they go?” Ranz asked eagerly. “Can you take us there?”
Wythcombe’s momentary cheer faded. “I have no idea. I recognize the spell. It’s one commonly used for one-way transportation. However, that doesn’t tell me where they went, only how they went. I’m also astonished that they were able to do the spell so quickly. Usually such spells demand a great deal more preparation and mana.”
Arasan’s voice startled Laria. She hadn’t realized he had come up but, when she looked over her shoulder, she saw that F
irekeeper had gone to keep watch below, leaving those with more magical knowledge to consult.
“Could they have drawn power from that ‘onion’ you caught the reek of?” Arasan asked. “That hole in the crystal lattice looks fresh. If something was encased there and they ripped it loose…”
Wythcombe nodded. “I was getting to that. Either they used that, or they found some other source of mana when they explored the ruins.”
“It seems like a weird coincidence,” Ranz said tentatively, “just now. I mean, they can’t have been up here by chance or for very long. I bet Blind Seer could tell us how long they’d been here by how much scent they left.”
“We should ask him,” Wythcombe agreed. “As for coincidence—maybe so, maybe not. We approached through areas that may have been warded to alert Kabot if anyone was approaching. They may have decided to grab what they could and get out of here before we caught them. Kabot would be like that.”
Ranz’s comment about lingering scent gave Laria an idea. She slid into the chamber, delicately extending her perception, centering it on the area where the light had been brightest. No matter what Kabot had used to give power to his spell, surely he would have needed to concentrate on a destination. Maybe she could learn what that had been before the memory faded.
“Laria!” Wythcombe cried out, careful for her safety as he had not been for his own.
Arasan interrupted, preemptory and authoritative as he rarely was. “Let her. She knows the risks and this may be our only chance to trace them. Somehow I don’t believe they will have left us a diary or list of possible destinations. Remember, these renegades may be from your land, but they have invaded ours.”
He had more to say, but Laria didn’t hear it except as a music of encouragement, of belief in her and her abilities. She let her eyes slide closed, seeking, listening, shutting out her own hopes, her desire to be admired, the hint of fear that she would be successful and that once again they would set out after these people who seemed to have lost all sense of proportion in the intensity of their ideals. She felt…
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