by Guy Antibes
One side of the cell wall was all bars, facing a corridor with a blank wall on the other side. Whit heard sounds to his left, but he couldn’t get his head through the bars.
“Where am I?” Whit called.
A female pixie in the same uniform as the others at the manor walked into his view.
“Don’t try any elfie magic on me, dearie,” the woman said. “Your hands are bound with enchanted bindings. You can’t do a lick of magic.” She chuckled. “I’ll fetch a bite to eat. For me, not for you!” she said, laughing as she walked back down the corridor.
Whit’s rest had built up enough energy to levitate the blanket and guessed the bindings were effective on pixie magic, but not on the other magics he could perform. That was an advantage, if he was inventive. He stood up, but the ceiling was low enough that he couldn’t straighten up.
After leaning over and extracting the wand, Whit fumbled with it until it fell to the ground. It took a few more tries to get the wand positioned so the tip was pointing at Whit’s bonds. He used basic elf magic to create a tiny jet of flame strong enough to burn through the rope, but not so strong it would burn through him. The experience showed that the rope hampered his other magics, too, since his magic was exhausted again, but Whit was able to undo one strand and worked the rest of the binding so he could possibly use the rope later.
The wand went back into his boot now that his hands were free just as he heard footsteps approaching. Whit wound the rope around his wrists, so it looked like he was still bound as the same female guard approached.
He expected her to open the door to give him the tray of food that she carried, but she slid it underneath the space at the bottom. Some of the food was pushed off the tray because it was taller than the lowest bar on the door.
“Pity that,” the pixie said. “I’ll have someone back to clean that up.” She laughed and left him looking at the mess on the tray.
There were squashed potatoes and one less slice of some kind of white meat that made it underneath the door. The low bowl of water had bits of food swimming around. Whit didn’t know how long he had been in the jail, so he knew he would have to eat what he could to get his physical and magical strength up.
After eating his fill, he took out the wand and tried to melt the latch, but the metal was too much for the wand and the strength in his body. The wand was powerful, but not enough to allow him to escape.
He sat on the tiny cot and wondered what to do next. The window turned dark, and Whit yawned. One meal during the day, and now he had to manage to sleep on a cot with his lower legs hanging off. He ended up sprawled on the floor.
After a restless night, the deep blue of dawn colored the mottled glass of the window. Whit stood up and produced a magician’s light. Someone had shoved another tray with two slices of bread and another shallow cup of water. He finished the food and stood. Whit didn’t know what to do, so he grabbed the handles of the door and began to pull and push. The construction might be strong enough for a pixie, but the metal parts were giving when worked by a big elf.
Whit kept working on the door until the latch sprung. Whit bumped his forehead as he stumbled out into the corridor into the wall on the other side. He thought he’d be surrounded by prison guards, but nothing happened. There weren’t any other prisoners in the corridor, so Whit walked up a half-flight of stairs and carefully opened the door that led out, surprised that he had broken free using his physical strength.
He crept as quietly as he could through the jail. There was another row of cells ending in another door. These had a few prisoners, but none of them were his friends. He didn’t know if he should have been happy or not. Perhaps they had been killed, and he was the lone survivor. Whit rejected the notion, but it kept creeping back as he made his way through the silence of the sleeping jail.
He finally reached the exit. It had a latch on the inside, but Whit would leave it open since anyone checking on him would see the door to his former cell was sprung. Outside, Whit still didn’t know where he was. He looked up to see more stories above him. The building was on the side of a slope, and Whit didn’t remember anyplace with that much slope in Garri. He took a path behind the buildings and found a tiny door in a rough stone wall. Whit could barely fit through, but it led to the outside.
The light was getting stronger, and Whit began to move away through the surrounding forest. When he was a hundred paces away, he looked back to see castle turrets poking from the trees. The slope led up to a familiar place. Whit recognized the ruins of Saint Varetta’s temple on the edge of the top of its plateau.
He now had a destination, and he began to lope toward the east to intersect with the road that would take him to the top. Whit continued to rest and then ran until he almost reached the top of the plateau. He heard sounds from below on the road making him scramble in the dim world of early morning. Bushes lined the road and Whit took refuge inside a clump of them.
Riders trotted past him. Whit was able to tell they wore uniforms, but he didn’t know what kind. Neither Deechie nor the prison guard rode with them. Whit emerged, and from that point on, he darted from cover to cover all the way to the top and had to hit the ground when the riders unexpectedly appeared riding back down from the top.
No one found him, but Whit waited a few minutes until he continued his journey to the workers’ courtyard. He found an observation spot, still hidden by the early morning shadows and waited until the lights inside were extinguished.
The bed inside the temple ruin beckoned. He laid down and quickly went to sleep. He dreamed of Saint Varetta caressing his hair like a devoted mother.
“Up, you,” the caretaker said, her friendly demeanor was gone. “You’ve cost me some sleep last night.”
Whit rubbed his eyes; the magic rope was back on his wrists. “Why have you trussed me up again?”
“You are an escaped prisoner,” she said. “The Perisian guard pulled us out of bed and had us standing in the courtyard fearing for our lives while they searched the property. They said if you appeared to tie you up. I was almost sure there wasn’t anyone in the temple last night, but here you are this morning.”
“You have sent one of the hands to fetch the guard?” Whit asked.
“I sure did. Their headquarters is at the bottom of the plateau. It won’t take them long to arrive and,” she turned her gaze to Whit’s tied hands, “And those magic strings will keep you still.”
“My friends. Did they mention them?”
The woman pixie shrugged. “I was so tired I barely found my way back to my bed.”
Whit nodded as he sat up. He sighed as he started to struggle with his bonds. The caretaker’s knots weren’t skillfully done, and after the woman left the temple, Whit walked to the opening in the ruined nave, looking down the steep slope below.
Whit launched himself into the air. His flying ability wasn’t working as well as it should, but then he remembered the rope. He loosened it from his wrists and let it fall into a thicket on the slope.
Whit immediately rose in the air. With a sinking feeling he wondered if he should have kept the rope. It didn’t matter now, as he headed away from the plateau. The magic-killing wand was tucked away in his boot, and he could use that if he had to.
He spotted the castle turrets sticking up from the forest to his left, a few miles to the southwest. The town of Lilypond where Whit picked up Yetti from the retreat lay almost directly south. With the local bearings firmly in his mind, Whit descended upslope of the castle to rest and reconnoiter in sight of the cluster of buildings that held his former jail.
Whit had lots of cover. The castle grounds hadn’t had much attention, and the walls were currently overgrown with vines and full-sized trees sending limbs over the wall and into the courtyard. He flew into one of the taller trees and found a secluded spot from which to observe the Interior Ministry guards.
Nothing was happening, so he flew to the other side of the castle. He spotted four Aycean carriages sitting together i
n a graveled area. His friends had to be incarcerated, but they weren’t in the cells when he had escaped.
No one was around so he landed by the carriages. The seats in their carriages had been stripped and the floorboards ripped out, but not all of the secret compartments had been discovered, including one that held the purse containing the group’s money. Whit checked his pockets. His personal purse had been taken, and he was about to retrieve some coins when he heard voices. He had to scurry for a hiding place as three guards walked around a corner.
Two were joking about the love life of the third as they continued walking through the yard and disappeared in the vegetation around the castle. Whit retrieved the purse and decided to fly to the town and buy some supplies. He knew it was a risk, but he hadn’t eaten since the bread and water before dawn.
He flew to Lilypond a few miles away and tried to stay away from pixies so his height wouldn’t be so noticeable. It was a market day, so he quickly bought a fresh set of clothes including a dark cloak and extra market food. The food wasn’t the best, but it was better than anything the guards had served him. He ate and drank his fill and decided to wait until dark, finding a tiny clearing behind bushes along the road leading to the castle.
Nothing had happened save a few patrols coming and going until it was close to twilight. He heard the clatter of a coach and horses neighing along with the crack of a whip long before a fancy carriage rolled past him at speed, followed by thirty or so guards, dusty from travel. The riders looked grim and worried, but Whit wondered if that was his imagination.
He was tempted to get closer to the castle, but he waited, intending to leave when it was darker. His wait was interrupted by more coaches and more men. These moved slower, but it was clear the uniforms were different. Whit didn’t know who these were, but he hoped the coach was being chased by this second group.
Whit was certain he spotted Pin and Jonny Evia sitting in one of the carriages. He took off and flew on the roof of Pin’s carriage and leaned over the window.
“Hello,” Whit said, when he confirmed it was Pin along with Jonny Evia and one of Pin’s friends, now dressed in leather armor.
“Come on in,” Jonny said. “We thought we came to rescue you.”
“I rescued myself, but I’m afraid all my friends are in need of some help. From what I understand, the castle is under the control of the ministry of the interior?” Whit asked.
“That shouldn’t have taken you too much effort to learn,” Pin said. “I am sorry to say Lulu was effective in diverting us from the Wessia manor. We had to fight our way out of an ambush. One of my friends is a friend no longer, having changed allegiances. Do you have any ideas?”
Whit shook his head. “The castle isn’t defensible with all the vegetation and overgrown trees.”
“Walls don’t do a particularly good job of keeping out pixies,” Jonny said. “They are for large animals and foreigners who can’t fly.”
Whit shrugged. “Then I can’t help you. I don’t know how pixies defend their forts.”
“I do,” Jonny said. “I was with a unit of the interior minister’s guards until two days ago. I left them too soon, so Pin fell for the story his friend told them.”
“Who are the mounted men?” Whit asked.
“The royal guard. King Quiller has decided to come along after we returned to Garri, failing you,” Pin said.
“You did fail us, but there is always redemption,” Whit said.
“We will enter the castle from different vantage points. Where were they keeping you?” Jonny asked, pulling out a plan of the castle.
“In the dungeons. I was in a cell just below ground level.”
“There is only one cell block,” Jonny said. He pointed to a slice of the building. “Here.”
“That’s right. There were three stories above me,” Whit said.
“How did they retain you?” Pin asked.
“A knock on the head took care of most of it. I was bound with a magic rope that I think the captors thought would restrain me, but it only reduced my power. I flew out of the compound and made my way to the temple plateau on foot.”
“And you returned here?” Pin asked, stunned by Whit’s story.
Whit shrugged. “I had to find out where my friends were. I stayed close when I spotted our carriages.”
“Now you have a lot of help,” Pin said as the carriage stopped. They got out and gathered.
King Quiller did a double take when he recognized Whit. “We came to free you.”
“There are still people to be freed,” Whit said. “I found our carriages around the side of the castle.”
The king nodded. He had two fancy-uniformed pixies standing next to him, but surprisingly, Ritta Misennia had ridden with the king. Six officers had exited the other carriage.
“Lulu has continued on into the castle?” the king asked.
An officer on horseback dismounted. “He has, along with the same thirty-six guards that brought him from Garri.
“So, we outnumber Minister Gastian?” Quiller said.
“We do, but not by much. I am hoping we can liberate some additional fighters along the way,” one of the officers riding with the king said.
Jonny spread the castle plans on the road and let the others gather round. Someone lit a magician’s light, and everyone looked down as the strategy was discussed. It was disappointingly simple, Whit thought. One of the generals talked about the attackers spreading around the castle and then converging in the middle.
As Whit stared at the plan, he realized how lame the instructions were. “We can’t do that,” he said to the others.
“Why not?” one of the officers asked.
“There is no center, no middle courtyard,” Whit said.
Two of the mounted officers nodded, and one of them said, “He’s got a point.”
Jonny smiled as Whit explained what might happen if they used that strategy. “They can isolate our forces and cut down our numbers before we have a chance to converge.”
“Whit has shown a flaw in the strategy,” Jonny said. The pub-owning pixie laid out a more sensible plan. Whit suggested that the pixies fly into windows and work their way down through the buildings, but he didn’t know what kind of defenses there could be, and Jonny might, so he didn’t comment as the rest began to take their orders from Jonny as the king and his two generals nodded away, agreeing with Jonny’s commands.
“Just who are you?” Whit asked Jonny. “Everyone obeyed you as if you were the head of the guards.”
“He’s my brother,” one of the king’s generals said. “Jonny isn’t suited for full-time command, but he knows how to attack a castle better than I.”
Jonny smiled a little sheepishly at Whit. “I hope you don’t mind. I still own the pub and have my gang of angry pixies at my disposal.”
From the lackey who pried into Yetti’s mind to a master strategist, Jonny was someone Whit was glad to have on his side.
“What can I do?” Whit asked.
“You will be a big target. Are you sure you want to join us?” Jonny asked. “Stay close to the buildings. Your friends are likely in the building above the jail. The other tower was the lord’s tower before the castle was taken over by the crown.”
“I’ll go with the group that will save my friends,” Whit said.
“Then stay close to me.”
Whit looked at Pin. “And you?”
“I’ll be protecting the king.”
A few officers who were with King Quiller heard Pin and grinned and said to Pin, “Then we will be protecting you!”
Chapter Thirty
~
W hit crouched over, to be less conspicuous, following Jonny and six guards. The guards were very familiar with Jonny, and Whit suspected they might have come from the pub. They all wore satchels filled with equipment of some kind.
“Make sure you don’t get in our way,” one of the pixies said to Whit. “Can you fly?”
“Almost as well a
s you,” Whit said.
The guard laughed. “Make sure you can fight almost as well as me.”
They flew to a balcony midway up the side of the building. Whit floated outside the window as one of Jonny’s men got through the lock, and all eight bounced into the empty room. The ceiling was low, so Whit had to continue to crouch. If they got into a real conflict, Whit had decided he would have to use the wand, since he couldn’t physically attack anyone bent over.
Whit hadn’t had the time to memorize the floor plan, but he was sure Jonny had. He followed behind the group as they darted from room to room. Whit expected a trap to close on them at any time. Jonny turned around and put a finger to his lips. Whit took out the wand as Jonny crept forward toward a band of light indicating a doorway.
Whit moved closer but was stopped by one of Jonny’s pixies. “Stay behind. We are using a secret weapon.”
That was all Whit knew when the pixies rolled something into the room and Whit saw, heard, and felt a flash of light. The guards and Jonny moved in, running into pandemonium. Enemy pixies were trying to fly and use their wands, but nothing worked.
Whit’s first thought was that the rolling magic killer was a wonderful magical device. The next thought was that he wasn’t constrained by the pixies, so he stood in the center of the room and rose as far up as he could, maybe half his height, and began to use the wand to collect huge amounts of water in the air and push Lulu’s guards toward a corner.
He spotted Lulu himself, running with a squad of his men through a door. Whit wanted to pursue him, but he called out to Jonny, who nodded, but continued to work with the drenched opponents.
Subduing the guards with magic-killing ropes was the primary goal, now that Whit saw what Jonny’s men were doing, and he used his superior physical strength to help them pacify their enemy.
The job didn’t take very long.
“Now we can follow Gastian,” Jonny said.
The door was almost too small for Whit, but at least he wasn’t crawling. He lagged behind the others as they rushed through the corridor. Another room had an open door. Jonny’s men used the same kind of device, and there was a replay of the first encounter. The difference was, the room was larger, and Whit’s friends were tied up, leaning against a wall with gags over their mouths. Sitting with them were Barine Jarkian, Sedge Oriole, and another one of Porch’s team members.