by Eve Forward
There were dancers and vendors and showmen, actors and poets ... and musicians.
So much music! Music everywhere! His ears ached from turning, trying to follow every rollicking melody; fiddles and mandolins and lutes reeled out dance tunes, flutes of many different shapes trilled through the air.
Drums throbbed a hundred heartbeats, and harps, some small as his own, some so huge it took two men to lift them, dropped their golden notes into the chanting night.
The air was full of spicy smoke and dust and food and wine and song... Robin was entranced.
Blackmail seemed immune to the festivities; if anything, they seemed to make him more sober, almost angry. He stomped along relentlessly, incongruous in his dark hard armor amongst the soft colorful robes of the Thaularan townsfolk. Several people, made curious by his strangeness, tried to get him to cheer up, or at least buy something, but he shouldered winesellers and sausage vendors out of the way. It was only as he skirted the main square, glorious with its fountains of illuminated water splashing over statues of unicorns, Heroes, dolphins, sun-eagles and other people and creatures, that he suddenly stopped. This caused the dazed Robin, who was forgetting himself and following too closely, to run into him from behind. There was a brief, mutual stumble.
Robin looked up to see what had caught the dark knight’s attention.
The main fountain was, predictably, devoted to Mizzamir.
In wrought brass kept forever golden by magic, and bedazzled by sparkling streams of shining water, was an abbreviated pictorial history of the great Elven Arch Mage’s exploits. From his first encounters with the forces of darkness to his final triumphant restoration of the city Thaulara, sculpture and mural relief chronicled the history.
The knight seemed particularly interested in the earlier scenes. Here, Mizzamir seemed somewhat younger; his face unworn by the hardships and tragedies of the war.
His handsome, elegant Elven features held an expression of gentle self-assurance; in the scenes partway through the War, the face was tinged with the beginnings of sorrow, showing the heartbreak of friends lost and lives destroyed by the horrors of the Dark. Something in that face caused an eerie itch to prick at Robin’s mind and withers; something familiar but frightening ...
Blackmail turned to inspect a post-Victory scene, very small and insignificant, where a calm Mizzamir faced a scowling paladin, the Hero Sir Pryse. In the Restoration after the Victory, the two had had some difficulty in agreement upon how to restore the feudal land of Kwart, long the most strife-torn of the Six. Mizzamir had wanted democratic councils and parliaments such as the other Lands favored, while the paladin, a staunch traditionalist, had opted for the old system and resented the wizard’s good-natured help with his rule. Soon after, the
paladin had ridden off on his famous last quest, to die in parts unknown. After Mizzamir’s newly perfected lightminding process began to eliminate the competitive urge among the various kingdoms, Kwart, in honor of its departed Hero, had opted for and been allowed to keep its feudal system. Robin remembered all this from all the endless ballads of the Victory he had learned; it was one of the few about Sir Pryse. Blackmail must have felt some kinship for the long-dead Hero who had worn plate-mail as did he; perhaps taking the paladin’s Test, in the hidden shrine of Kwart, had given him some new insight into that most mysterious of Heroes? Robin made a mental note-if the knight were ever to speak, that would be one of the things to ask him. Blackmail shook his head at the carvings, motioned to Robin, and continued on, heading for the edge of the Castle grounds, where they could be nearby and ready to help their companions should the need arise.
Meanwhile, Arcie and Kaylana were trying to find their way out of the sculleries under the great halls of the Castle. Getting in had been no problem; in their simple peasant robes they had easily slipped into the kitchens and there were even a number of Barigan cooks and scullions so that Arcie’s presence and accent were unremarkable.
At one point a stout woman handed Kaylana a ‘huge steaming platter of roast doves, with instructions to “Be takin’ that upstairs, dearie, ‘at’s a girl.” Kaylana had wrinkled her nose in disgust at the strong gamy smell, and as soon as the woman had passed out of sight was about to dump the entire platter down a dumbwaiter shaft, when Arcie halted her.
“Wait a tic there, lassie, I’m all about famished!” he exclaimed, grabbing one of the birds from the platter and tucking into it with gusto. “By the sides, we’ve a far piece to go, yet, and what could be more a better camouflage than genuine food to be servin’?” He winked at her, offering her a crispy golden wing. Kaylana made a face, and turned away, but gripped her staff tighter in her hand and balanced the tray carefully. “Can you not get rid of yon great muckle stick, Kaylana?” asked the Barigan, watching. “It’s not the sort o’ thing a young serving lass should be dragging about.”
“No,” she replied firmly. “This staff is mine, a part of me. It is what I am. It stays in my hand.”
“Well enough, have it as you would,” sighed the thief.
“But dinna blame me if them mages will be asking after who you took it from.”
Cautiously but ever so servantly, they headed to what they hoped would be upstairs into the main rooms, and the full conglomeration of hundreds of the world’s most skilled wizards.
Sam and Valerie crept cautiously through the castle gardens, keeping to the walls and the shadows. Sam was no more noticeable than a cloud on a moonless night, and Valerie’s natural dark-loving tendencies let her keep to the shadows gracefully. Her footsteps were not as silent as the assassin’s, however, and he had to caution her several times.
“What are you so paranoid about?” she hissed, as they crunched softly through a well-kept herb bed. The scents of marjoram, coriander, and sage drifted about them.
The only other sounds were those of distant music and a droning voice drawing to a close. There was the rushing of distant applause, echoed next to them by Nightshade adjusting his ebony plumage. “No one can hear us inside with all that racket.”
“You never know,” Sam murmured under his breath, soft and inconspicuous. “They might have guards posted ... perhaps magical warding beasts of some sort.”
“I don’t think so,” came the whispered reply as they moved on cautiously. “Light mages are so smug and selfconfident ... guards are far too plebeian for them. A place like this would have some magical scrying system, to focus in on intruders ...”
Unseen, in the Tower that loomed above them, Mizzamir’s crystal scrying font dimmed and swirled of its
own accord. Shown rippling in its depths were the figures of a man and a Nathauan, creeping along the dim walls and coming nearer... the gemstones set around the edge of the font flashed agitatedly, but the room remained silent and empty. Mizzamir was currently two floors below, heading a panel on The Cause and Effect of Spontaneous Manifestation.
They reached the base of the Tower, and Sam swore softly under his breath. Valerie came up beside him, and looked up.
A new problem had presented itself. Though the tower in the darkness had seemed to be of the same rough golden-ocher sandstone as the rest of the Castle, indeed most of the buildings in Thaulara, it was actually made of some sterner stuff. Something that felt like marble, in fact, yellow-gold and smooth as ice, without crack or seam where blocks might have been joined. Sam ran his hands over it, looking up.
“This is impossible,” he hissed. “Slick as a greased eel and straight up, with a wide sloping overhang up there at the top. Not even any cracks or ivy ... how could something like this have been built?”
“By magic, fool,” replied Valerie in the same volume.
“It’s quite obvious. Your surface wizards like to build towers, and they build them as well as they can. Mizzamir must have shaped this tower by raw magic and then had the rest of the Castle built around it.”
“If it was so obvious why didn’t you mention it before we came out here?” came the reply. Valerie half-lowered her eyel
ids, glaring, and Nightshade the raven stuck his tongue out again.
“Can’t you just use magic to fly up to the window?” asked Sam, wearily contemplating the prospect of finding a more indirect route to the Tower chamber. Valerie scoffed.
“If I were to draw on the powers of my Darkportal here, with this many Light mages about, there would be far more trouble than we could deal with; we who use magic are sensitive to it, especially to the opposite form of the sort we use ... my power would scream out, to every mage’s senses through this entire castle.” Sam sighed and moved back along the wall, the way they had come. Valerie followed.
“What are you doing now?” she asked. Sam took out his tiger-claws and slipped them onto his hands. Moonlight gleamed on the open-fingered gloves with the strong steel hooked blades projecting from the knuckles. A fearsome and flashy weapon that Sam seldom used for that purpose; Cata had taught him how to fight with them, he remembered now, seeing the shine of the blades in the moonlight. To use them in combat brought back too many memories, but if you had the knack, they were excellent climbing gear.
“I’m going to climb up to that window there,” he explained, indicating a circle of yellow light high above, “and then pull you up as planned. We’ll have to try to get to the Tower from the inside.”
“What if there’s somebody inside?” whispered Valerie.
Sam shrugged. Valerie frowned. “Blast it, your lack of planning will be our downfall yet, blond sunlander. I’d better send Nightshade up.”
She took the black raven from her shoulder and cooed softly to it. It fluffed itself, then cocked a bright intelligent eye up at the window, and took off. It flapped up into the air, past the window, up further, and then began to spiral down, pausing in mid-air to drop a smear of stinking white excrement with pin-point accuracy on Sam’s shoulder. As the assassin snarled and wiped in disgust at his tunic, the raven returned to his perch on his mistress’s shoulder with a definitely smug expression.
“Fluffykins says the room is empty ... and do shut your foul mouth, assassin, the mages are likely to hear you.”
Sam recovered himself and began to climb, stealthily hooking the tiger-claws into cracks, then pushing himself up until his feet had just enough purchase for a stretch, drag, hook, then pull up again. He flattened himself against the wall as another burst of fireworks exploded overhead; fewer and less showy this time; the efforts of a couple of half-drunken red-robed apprentices on the upper parapets. A few sparks nevertheless drifted past him, and the faint smell of sulfur wafted down. Talking animatedly about pyrotechnics control, the wizards staggered back inside, and Sam resumed his slow climb. The freeze had cost him; keeping his weight supported only by the strength of his knuckles (for his boots were too slippery to hold him steady and the tiger-claws had to be held at the proper angle to grip firmly) had sent slow shooting pains up his tendons. But he climbed on with spider-slowness until at last he could peer into the round open window.
The room inside was indeed empty, a small sitting room of sorts lit by a single magical lamp. The door was slightly ajar, and couches settled against the walls and around the window. A few paintings of pastoral Elven scenes shared the walls with the stuffed head of a cockatrice, whose impressive chicken-lizard head and peacock coloring did not fully dim the effect created by the expression of whimsical stupidity on its face. Sam unslung his silk rope and lashed one end to a thick oaken bench set into the stone of the windowseat, and tied the other end into a rough harness. He dropped this down to Valerie, and a few moments later hauled the sorceress up to the window. She stepped out of the rope with an expression of distaste at the undignified means of travel, and the two of them went to the door and peered cautiously around it.
The hallway was brightly lit by the now-familiar magical lamps, here shining in a soft rosy sunset color. Long carpets, richly woven, muffled their footsteps as they paced down the hall. A sudden tattoo of footsteps sounded from a corner, accompanied by talking voices; Sam swirled and seemed to vanish instantly behind an ornamental display case, but Valerie was not so quick; she had barely taken a step back when two red-robed apprentices, male and female, turned the corner and almost ran into her. They startled, then seeing only her blue robes and shocked expression, immediately dropped their eyes and began making obsequious apologies.
“Oh dear, so sorry mistress, a thousand pardons, please forgive us...” They backed away hurriedly, bowing respectfully, then turned down a side passage and fled. Valerie had half-raised her hand with the intent of following old instincts to leave no witnesses, but a hand from behind the case grabbed hers and pulled it back.
“No magic, remember?” hissed Sam, coming out of his hiding place. “And if I’m seen and anyone asks, I’m your personal bodyguard ... I think Shadrezarian mercenaries still wear black.”
“You’re far too pale to ever pass yourself off as a Shadrezarian,” scoffed Valerie softly as they continued swiftly down the hall. “But we’ll hope that any more young apprentices will be just as foolish as you.”
“And if we meet any high mages?” Sam led the way, counting doors, then listened intently at one. Valerie kept watch down the hallway. From all sides came constant random pulses of all sorts of Light magic as various mages demonstrated their skills or just used magic as they were accustomed to.
“We’ll have to be sure we don’t.”
Sam tried the door and jumped back. A fat blue spark had popped silently off the handle, shocking him. Valerie brushed past him, eyes narrowed.
“A magical ward of sorts,” she muttered, “designed to scare off inquisitive students and the like. But it shouldn’t have discharged like that... not on a non-magical person. Any history of wizardry in your family?”
“No,” Sam snapped softly. “None. It’s probably residual from your blasted Darkportal.”
“Perhaps. I’d better see if I can unweave it.” She began to close her eyes, but the assassin again caught her arm.
“Wait,” he insisted. “Is it on the lock, the door, or the whole portal?”
“The latching mechanism,” Valerie reported, after a moment’s concentration, using not her magic, but instead the innate Nathauan spell-sight. “All right ... keep watch.” He drew out a set of seldom-used lockpicks, and, with the occasional angry indigo spark popping out around his knuckles, set to work.
Kaylana and Arcie wandered through the convention halls with that wonderful invisibility that the servant class enjoys in the company of those it serves. Kaylana’s plate of doves had been apprehended by a group of yellow-robed young journeymen from one of the southeastern provinces who were playing some magical game in one of the large open activities halls. Arcie kibitzed for a moment, as Kaylana, growing claustrophobic from the stuffy warmth of the halls and the chattering crowds of mages, pinned herself against a wall near a large water cask. The game played by the journeymen seemed at first to be some complex variant of chess; an intricate board was set up, and scattered with pieces that represented various long extinct monsters and some human types.
Dice seemed to determine how the figures would move, and whether a dark dragon could take out a violet mage and three knights. After a moment of watching, Arcie shook his head and walked away; it was far too confusing for his liking. One of the players had a very elaborate set of pieces, and dice made from semi-precious stones- gifts, he had proudly stated, from his master. His figures were so finely carved and painted they seemed almost to move. Arcie, unable to help himself, helped himself; to one that caught his fancy, a beautiful rendering of a hellbeast, with its blue-black scales and flowing fur, all wings and fangs and spiky talons. He slipped the miniature out of the wizard’s pouch and into his own pocket, then went to peel Kaylana off the wall.
“ ‘Tis dangerous wandering through all these mages,” he confided to her as they ducked out of the room. “We’d best try to find the other two.”
“How are we to do that?” replied the Druid. “We don’t even know where we are, much less where
they might be.”
“Och, lass, trust of’ Arcie. We rogues have many and secret talents what few ever ken.” He laid a finger alongside his nose and grinned, and scooped a tray of filled glasses off of a passing buffet table. Then he turned to a butler who was walking past. “’Ere, guv, t’mages give me an order for drink to go to the high tower,” he chirped, grinning winsomely. “But blasted iffen I ken where yon be. Give us a point, please, sahr.”
The butler sighed. “I suppose that means someone will have to be dispatched to clean up those rooms as well, after the festivities,” he said. “We hoped they would all stay in the lower rooms, but each must have his own private conferences... follow this hall, take the first left and then the staircase at the end, turn left and go down the hall at the top. It’ll be the last door on your right.”
“Thankee kindly, guv,” replied Arcie, tugging his forelock respectfully. As the butler moved on among the crowds of mages (who were eagerly heading to a presentation on Realistic Illusions presented by the famous High Wizard Lorem), he grabbed Kaylana by the arm and steered her down the hall, his tray of clinking wineglasses held high.
Sam wrestled with the lock for what seemed like ages.
Not only was it well-made and stiff with disuse, but the sparks would cause his fingers to involuntarily flinch when crucial delicacy was vital. He’d never been that good at locks anyway; that was partly why he’d always had Arcie along on his missions that required such tasks.