Blade Singer

by Martha Wells

  Soon he was rewarded with the smell of burning rope, like a weird combination of burning hay and hair. The crystal was getting warm in his hands, too warm. He wished he had thought to use his knotted shirt to protect his skin, but he didn't dare move the crystal.

  The cage jerked suddenly, knocking Manny painfully against the bars. It hung for a heartbeat, then the rest of the rope gave way. The cage hit the floor with a clang, fell over, and rolled across the room.

  It bumped against something and came to a stop. Manny groaned, holding his aching head, and managed to sit up. The cage rocked with his movement, grinding against the stones around the fire pit that had halted its progress across the room.

  At least I've got plenty of rocks now, he thought woozily. Then he focused on what else lay at the edge of the fire pit, just within reach.

  Metal skewers.

  Hah! Manny's thought blended with a triumphant echo from his inner voice. He grabbed two of the skewers and within minutes managed to pick the lock.

  He shoved the door open, climbed out, and staggered a little. "I did it," he said aloud. "I really did it." Now he needed to get back out through the sewer...

  A sudden noise made him freeze in fear. Voices and footsteps echoed from above. Somebody was coming.

  Morrigan did leave guards! They must have been in the passage just above the lair, and heard the bang when the cage fell.

  Manny grabbed his knotted-up shirt and sprinted across the room, to the base of the stairs. There he huddled back into the shadows and ghosted.

  Two goblins clattered down the steps, their weapons and the chains on their shabby leather armor rattling like bones. They saw the fallen cage and growled in alarm, running to it.

  Manny didn't stay to watch. He hurried up the stairs, ghosting as hard as he could. He reached the top and slipped through the big doorway and into the tunnel. The sewer stink was almost a relief. He knew the way back to the surface, or at least Remy did.

  Now he just had to find a way to save Adriana and the others.

  ****

  Manny took a direct route across the rooftops, glad he could see the Foundry in the distance. He had to detour to the street at one point to bypass a multi-roof pixie city. But he caught a ride on the back of a big wagon stacked high with barrels, without the driver seeing him.

  As Manny neared the Foundry, he ghosted to blend with the Sidhe and humans on the street, just one more kid nobody looked twice at. This time as he approached the high walls and towers of the prison, he was too impatient and worried to feel intimidated. Sneaking up on the place to try to get inside was a lot less nerve-racking than being carted there as an inmate.

  A few men were crossing the bridge over the moat when Manny got there, and he ghosted along right behind them. The first gate still stood open and he slipped past the guards, holding his breath.

  The only people in the first courtyard were the human and spriggan workers. Everyone looked normal as they went back and forth, and some spriggans stopped beside a doorway to talk casually. It was a good sign. Morrigan's creature must not have reached the prison yet.

  But the heavy inner gates were tightly closed. Okay, this could be tough, Manny thought.

  He crouched next to a water barrel, so no one would blunder into him and break his glamour. He might be able to climb the wall to the top, since the stone was old and pitted, but he would have to ghost the whole way; if he slipped for even a second, the whole courtyard would see him. But he couldn't spot any other way to get in.

  Manny sat up as a well-dressed man on horseback rode in. He reined up before the inner gates, waiting impatiently as, with a creak, the portcullis slowly rose.

  Manny stood. The man on the horse must be important, because everyone in the courtyard had turned to watch him. It was broad daylight and this was going to be tricky.

  Wrapping his sense of "you don't see me" around him like a cloak, Manny moved toward the gate. He kept his pace even, unhurried, his gaze on the ground. The glamour didn't make him invisible, it just made people less inclined to notice him; he knew instinctively that it wouldn't hold if he did anything that made people look at him.

  As the gate swung open, the man urged his horse through, and Manny followed right behind him. Once through the big gates, a spriggan hurried to take the horse's bridle, and two others approached to talk to the man as he dismounted.

  Manny carefully didn't look at anyone, just kept walking at a normal pace. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the horse turn its head to look at him as he went by, but the spriggans were talking to the rider and didn't notice.

  He walked all the way across the big courtyard, fetching up against the corner of one of the houses built against the wall, then leaned against the damp stones to take a deep breath. Cold sweat ran down his back. He was tired, and his temples ached. Ghosting at night and in shadow had been much easier.

  He needed to get into the tower above the dungeons, where the others were being held, but its heavy ironbound doors were still securely shut. Manny could try pickpocketing the keys, if he could figure out which spriggan had them, but he would have to open the door in full view of the court.

  Or I could get in from above, Manny thought, craning his neck to study the tower. Above the second floor there were barred windows, and one was near the partially enclosed gallery running along the third floor of the house behind him. Right.

  Manny worked his way along the front of the building, and found an open archway with steps leading up to an unlocked door. He slipped into a stone-floored hall with more doorways opening off it. Voices echoed from the back. Some quick frantic searching and Manny found the stairwell, hurried up it to the third floor and then found a door out onto the gallery. It was wooden, partly enclosed, with open sections looking down onto the court below. He reached the end nearest the tower just as someone, a woman spriggan, came out another doorway. Manny froze, but she just shook out a blanket over the railing, then turned to go back inside.

  Breathing again, Manny climbed up onto the railing of the last open section, and eased along it until he could grab one of the bars across the tower's window. He hauled himself up for a peek, and found the window was in a corridor. Good, 'cause you'd feel pretty stupid sneaking in to find yourself locked in another cell, Manny thought. He pulled himself up onto the ledge and wiggled through the gap between the bars.

  The corridor wasn't well-lit, just the light coming through this window and one further down, so it was better for ghosting. Manny hurried, hearing faint noises of movement and voices from behind the locked doorways.

  He reached a narrow spiral stairway lit by a couple of oil lamps and hurried down it, successfully ghosting past two spriggan guards who were having a conversation in the stairwell.

  On the first floor landing he recognized the foyer area he and the others had been taken through that morning. Across it was the doorway that led down to the dungeons. Through one more doorway he could hear a distant mutter of voices, as if the speakers were one or two rooms away.

  Manny made to dart across to the stairs, then hesitated. Can I pick the lock on the cell door? he thought, directing the question toward the part of himself that was Remy. It had looked a lot more complicated than the simple padlock on Morrigan's cage.

  The sense he got from Remy was doubtful. Manny decided he had better try to get the keys, and only attempt picking the lock as a last resort. He was pretty certain the spriggan with the keys had come out of that other room as they had been led to the stairs. He edged along the wall, and took a quick peek inside.

  It was a guard room, with racks along one wall for muskets and swords. A doorway in the far wall led to another room, the source of the muted voices. But the thing that caught Manny's attention was the big wooden table in the middle of the room littered with a pile of weapons and sword belts.

  On top of the pile was Etienne's sword Amechanteur.

  The sword was sheathed, but Manny recognized the silver design guarding the hilt. He stepped
forward, thinking that this was great. Adriana's short barreled pistol lay near the table's edge. He meant to grab as many weapons as he could and keep moving, but instead he found himself taking hold of Amechanteur's hilt and drawing it.

  Even in the dim lamplight, the crystal caught and captured the light, trapping the fire in the long narrow blade.

  That's weird, Manny thought, a little dazed.

  It was like the sword had just called him over here and told him to draw it. Even now, with guards in the next room, a monster on its way, and his friends to rescue, he couldn't put it down.

  That's really, really weird. And I really wish whatever was doing this would stop.

  Then a spriggan turnkey stepped into the doorway from the foyer. Manny met his gaze, startled. He’d forgotten to ghost. The turnkey blinked, equally startled, and said, "Curse my teeth! Who the blazes are you?"

  A huge crash echoed from somewhere below their feet, followed by an animal roar that shook the tower's foundations.

  Oh no, Manny thought, horrified. Aloud, he said, "It's here!"

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  After the clatter of overturned chairs from the guardroom, three more spriggans rushed in. They stared at Manny, and one demanded, "What was that?"

  Another roar split the air. Someone shouted, "It's coming from the dungeons!" and the spriggans ran for the stairs, ignoring Manny.

  His heart pounding, Manny shoved Amechanteur back into its scabbard and slung the belt over his shoulder. He grabbed one of the flintlock pistols as well as Adriana's smaller gun, stuffing that into his belt. Remembering that they needed a lot more stuff to load them than regular guns, he grabbed the other belt that had the pouches for balls and powder. He then raced down the stairs after the turnkeys.

  They reached the dungeon corridor just as another ear-shattering roar echoed off the stone. The spriggan in front of Manny stopped so abruptly that Manny slammed into his back. Manny ducked around him, then froze.

  The door to the cell where the others were held stood open, wrenched partly off its hinges, the ironbound metal singed and blackened, still steaming with heat. One spriggan turnkey and a human guard lay crumpled in the corridor nearby, their flesh singed and their clothes smoking. Manny swallowed down bile, trying not to look at them, forcing himself to move closer to the cell. If his friends were already dead...

  Then he heard Gaudulfus curse loudly, followed by a crash like a chair striking stone. They're alive! He darted to the cell doorway.

  The first thing he saw was Morrigan's newt grown to the size of one of those giant twelve-foot salt water crocodiles from Australia. It perched on the wall of the cell, its barbed tail whipping back and forth. The long fanged jaw gaped, making the creature look as if it was mostly teeth and gullet.

  Manny gasped, and almost strangled on the breath. The air stank with the reek of burning, and something acrid like oil fumes.

  Then he saw Etienne, Gaudulfus, and Adriana had backed into the far corner, armed only with the broken stools from the cell.

  Etienne said, "Be ready, wait— Now!" Just then the dragon hissed out a stream of fire. The three barely moved in time, ducking away from the flames.

  Etienne darted in and cracked the creature across its jaws with the stool, trying to distract it as Adriana lunged for the doorway. But the creature moved too fast and leapt to the opposite wall, and slapped at Adriana with its tail. She fell, but rolled away, cursing, and came to her feet.

  Gaudulfus ran at the creature, swinging his stool, but it hissed another breath of fire. To Manny's complete surprise, Gaudulfus simply turned his face away as Etienne and Adriana shouted in alarm. The flames engulfed the dwarf, igniting his doublet. Gaudulfus stumbled back against the wall, shaking his head and beating at his flaming clothes. Although his hair and beard were smoking and glowing in patches like smoldering embers, Gaudulfus seemed mostly unfazed by the attack.

  He's fireproof? thought Manny, gaping in surprise. Then he abruptly remembered he was holding their weapons. "Here!" he shouted hoarsely.

  As Etienne looked up, Manny ran through the doorway and tossed Amechanteur's scabbard to him. The elf caught it and Manny ducked back as the dragon rounded on him. Its roar blasted Manny and the sound actually staggered him. Then it took a hissing breath and whipped back around as Etienne slashed it across the back.

  His ears ringing from that last roar, Manny stumbled sideways, trying to see.

  Etienne stood, holding Amechanteur. The dragon seemed to watch him warily, and Manny realized the crystal sword had split a long gash in the creature's rough hide. Black blood from the dragon's wound dripped like acid on the stone floor.

  Gaudulfus and Adriana shouted at Manny; he couldn't make out the words past the ringing in his ears but he knew what they wanted. He pitched the flintlock toward Gaudulfus, then slung the belt with the ball and powder pouches after it.

  Etienne had the dragon's full attention. He stood back against the far wall of the cell, moving Amechanteur's point in slow hypnotic circles. The dragon angled its huge head to follow the movement, tail lashing back and forth. Manny saw the wary expression in its heavy-lidded eyes; it knew Amechanteur could hurt it, and it knew it could kill Etienne, if it timed its next fiery breath just right.

  Then Gaudulfus dropped the flintlock and fumbled with the powder pouches, while Adriana stood guard over him, the last leg of a broken stool her only weapon. Manny remembered the spriggan guards and turned to shout for help.

  They had all vanished.

  Manny figured it would be a little too much to hope they had all run to get their big muskets. He looked back to see the dragon's spine ripple as it surged forward.

  Etienne lunged to meet it and sliced it across the face, but the armored skin deflected the blow away from the dragon's eye. A swipe from its leg slammed Etienne down and stunned him. The creature's chest swelled as it drew a hissing breath, ready to loose a stream of fire.

  Manny didn't think, he just charged in, yelling. He almost collided with Adriana, who leapt forward and flung a broken stool at the dragon's head.

  The dragon whipped toward Manny and Adriana, eyes blazing, jaws open. From behind them Gaudulfus shouted, "Get down!"

  Adriana pulled Manny to the floor, shielding him with her body.

  Gaudulfus rushed forward and flung a bulging pouch at the dragon's mouth. The creature jerked its head aside at the last moment and the pouch bounced off its lip.

  Gaudulfus cursed and leapt at the monster, his powerful arms outstretched. The dwarf collided with the dragon and locked his arms and short legs around the creature's head and neck. The dragon thrashed around, shaking its head violently and trying to dislodge the growling dwarf.

  "The pouch!" Gaudulfus yelled. "Get the pouch!"

  Adriana scooped up the pouch and ducked as the dragon's tail lashed the air above her.

  Etienne regained his feet and lunged, his crystal sword glittering. He slashed and thrust, scoring several hits on the monster while keeping out of range of its claws and tail.

  Gaudulfus had managed to get one of his arms over the dragon's snout. Using his legs to keep himself firmly in place, the dwarf wedged his thick fingers into the dragon's mouth and began to pull the monster's jaws open.

  "Throw it!" bellowed Gaudulfus.

  Adriana leapt up and threw the pouch right down the dragon's gullet.

  The creature reared back, startled, then made a funny gulping noise. Gaudulfus released the monster, dropped to the floor and rolled to his feet. A thud, like a small muted firework, sounded from inside its stomach. Almost matter-of-factly, Gaudulfus turned to Manny and said, "Now run, lad. Very fast."

  Adriana grabbed Manny's arm and they bolted past the dragon into the corridor. "What about Gaudulfus and Etie—" Manny started to say, then both men came barreling out.

  Etienne shouted, "Get down!" and Gaudulfus slammed the cell door. Manny flung himself on the dirty stone flags, Adriana landing next to him a second later.

  The ce
ll's window flashed a blinding white and heat washed over Manny. A tremor passed through the stone floor and dust rained down from the beams overhead, and it smelled like a gas station had exploded. Then the heat died away with a whump, like a gas furnace going out.

  Manny sat up on one elbow, cautiously, and looked at what remained of the door. The splintered wood was singed and smoking.

  "Was that the newt?" Manny realized he was shouting to hear himself. He shook his head, but it felt like there was cotton stuffed in his ears.

  "That was a wyrm, boy," Etienne shouted back. "And yes, it blew like a powder keg." He sat up and gave Gaudulfus a slap on the back. Large pieces of the dwarf's scorched clothing fell off in tatters. "Thanks to your quick thinking!"

  Gaudulfus shook his head, thumping one ear with the heel of his hand. "I'd heard rumors that wyrms were vulnerable to their own fire. An overstuffed pouch of black powder down the gullet seemed the most opportune way to test it."

  Manny blinked at Gaudulfus. "You're immune to fire?"

  Gaudulfus shrugged. "To a degree, lad. Most dwarves have that talent." He glanced down at his ruined doublet. "Although as you can see my clothing does not share my gift."

  Adriana grabbed Manny in a hard hug. "Lady of the light, you're alive! I thought they'd taken you away to kill you."

  "Me, too," Manny gasped, so relieved that she was okay.

  Etienne asked, "Manny, where were you, and how did you escape Magneric?"

  Manny pulled away from Adriana. "It wasn't Magneric, it was Morrigan, she had me taken to her hideout in the sewers. I escaped, but Morrigan is really Queen Mab! And it's not Magneric doing this at all, it's her, and she's going to kill the king—"

  "Morrigan is Queen Mab?" Etienne looked more horrified by this than he had the wyrm's attack. "It can't be true!"

  "Manny, are you certain?" Adriana demanded. "She would have been lying to confuse you."

  Manny shook his head furiously. "No, I saw her. She turned into Queen Mab. The Morrigan thing is like a magical disguise. She only showed me because she was going to kill me. And there's something important she thought I knew, but I didn't. I think it's got to do with the magic that brought me here, like she wanted to know what it was, or wanted it, or something. I didn't understand everything she said," Manny admitted, "but I know she and Lord Grim were going to the palace to kill the king."