“The soldiers are dead, except for Gareth and Syvelin. I don't know where Nul is. I think the women are somewhere near; faintly I can sense Melodia's aura. But we have no way of escape.”
Then I will find one.
“I think I did make a wizard of you, young man.”
Am I only dreaming this?
“Who can say? They tell a story of a king who once dreamed he was a butterfly. The butterfly flew in the sun until nightfall; then it rested with folded wings on a blossom. It slept, and in its sleep it dreamed it flew to the palace of the king, to see him sleeping. It fluttered to a casement ledge and paused there, looking into the throne room. And the small wind it made with its wings wakened the sleeping king, whose eyes immediately fell upon the small blue butterfly. The king crept close to the window, lifted his hand, and brought it down sharply, as if to crush the insect. With that the butterfly awoke, and the king and castle vanished to nothing.”
It's you, all right. I am coming.
“Jeremy? You had better hurry. I think the Hag is up to something terrible. Whatever it is—I think it will happen at dawn.”
Jeremy jerked awake cold, hungry, and strangely heartened by the dream. He arose, found his legs and back stiff from his cramped position, and cracked open the door. The hall outside was empty, and he slipped once more into a maddening maze of corridors, small rooms, large rooms, and rooms where vilorgs turned to stare mutely at doors that opened themselves. Most of this floor seemed to be deserted, but the few vilorgs who lingered here and there had an air about them of waiting, of anticipation. It was contagious, for Jeremy felt threat building, heavy as a sky before a thunderstorm. He began to wonder just how big the castle was and how anything this massive could keep from sinking into the mire of the swamp.
At last he found a way into the square garden, colorless beneath the light of a nearly full moon overhead. The flowers gave off a rank odor, like cabbages well past their prime, as he brushed past them. He spotted the long colonnade. The broken door of the stair was then easy to find, and he slipped past the three-eyes who guarded it with no trouble. He half expected to find the door on the throne room floor intact but for the form of a running man, like a door in an old Bugs Bunny cartoon, but it had been cleanly blasted away and lay in fragments on the stone floor of the landing. Another three-eyes there sniffed the air as he passed, but gave no other sign of recognizing his presence.
Jeremy found no ward at the entrance to the throne room—but neither had he found one there earlier, upon entering. He suspected the wards worked in one direction only and that his passage there would surely arouse the Hag. The only alternative he could think of was to bypass the door by climbing out the windows, but those were far too narrow for him. He paused in the corridor to think, staring hard at the space in front of him.
Presently he became aware of a gauzy kind of light, but when he looked directly at it, it vanished. Experimenting, Jeremy found that from the side he could indeed see a faint glow in the doorway, webbed and strung as if woven by a spider—but a web of light, not of silk. That, he thought, must be the ward spell.
And it began about a foot above the floor.
He crept closer, still turning his eyes aside, and even when he crouched near the door, the space just above the floor seemed clear of any trace of magic. In the gloom he became aware of more lines of force, lying flat on the stones of the walls, the ceilings, the floors. The castle seemed to be held together by them. That, he believed, supported the structure and kept the swamp from claiming its stones. But if the ward spell indeed had a space limitation, he could, if he were careful, slip through without detection.
Jeremy lay on his back and squirmed under the invisible barrier. When he was well within the throne room, he stood. The room was not quite deserted: two more three-eyes stood on either side of the throne. They appeared not to notice him as he studied the opening to the northern passage. Here the web of light was brighter, pulsating: and from down the corridor came darts and flashes, auroralike displays that portended more and stronger magic. The eastern passage, though, was warded no more thoroughly than the western one, and Jeremy wormed his way beneath that spell too.
He began to sense something, presences not cold like the vilorgs but warm, human, from down the corridor. He hurried along, came to a place where a stair led upward—the corridor continued to the left of the stair—and, recalling Kelada's description, he climbed to another level. Then straight ahead, down a windowless passage with rotting tapestries hung on the wall, to another stair. At the bottom of this one, a door had been boarded up. He was on the right track, at least to the cell where Kelada had once been kept. When he turned a corner and saw two more three-eyes standing guard outside a door, he realized that he had found at least some of the prisoners.
He slipped closer, tiptoeing on bare feet. The nearest guard turned his head, peered down the corridor anxiously, then turned and mumbled something to his companion. The other looked, too. Both of them shifted nervously back and forth.
Jeremy reached for his sword. His right hand felt the hilt. He could draw it, attack invisibly, and the guards would be dead before they knew they were threatened. It would be the work of a moment. Possibly he could even kill them before they could alert the Hag. Certainly now the Hag did not possess either of them, for both vilorgs were nervous and frightened. The blade could taste their blood before they realized their danger, could kill both in the wink of an eye.
The blade could. Jeremy could not.
He took reluctant fingers off the hilt. Somehow he could not bring himself to kill these grotesques, these cold-blooded, froglike beings. Mentally he called himself seven kinds of a fool; he totted up reasons why the creatures had forfeited all claim to mercy, to pity. It was no good. He could not see himself striking from the dark, striking with such advantage, and being the same Jeremy Moon afterward.
All right, he thought. They wouldn't put Kelada in the same room she had escaped from. What had the Hag said? “The deepest hole in the castle.” Yet Barach had the feeling that Kelada was nearby. Barach, Gareth, and Syvelin presumably were imprisoned here. That would mean that Kelada and Melodia were somewhere beyond. He flattened his shoulders against the wall and slipped past the guards. They continued to look with evident apprehension down the way he had come.
He turned a corner. Now there was a door on his right, unguarded, and farther down the corridor, a guarded door on the left. He paused, sent out mental feelers—and felt the presence of Melodia certainly, and Kelada. They were somewhere near now.
For a long time Jeremy pondered the problem. He could think of no way past the guards except to chance the use of magic. He tried to think of a small spell, a spell that would not attract the attention of the Hag. At last he whispered in English, “You are asleep, but you will not fall.”
He crept closer and closer. The guards stood, not exactly at attention but at least fairly straight, on either side of the door. Their eyes were open, he saw. The spell had not worked.
Trying hard to think of something else, Jeremy slipped nearer and nearer the guards. He was only an arm's length away when suddenly both of the creatures’ throats ballooned alarmingly, making him start. They were only breathing, he realized. He watched them for a long time before the throat pouches inflated again, for so long, in fact, that he began to wonder about them. The breathing was so slow—on a sudden suspicion he looked closer at the huge eyes.
He almost laughed aloud. They had no lids. The guards were standing entranced. Jeremy looked hard at the door. Some magic hung about it, an extremely pale web. But it was kept closed by lock and key, not by magic, and one of the guards wore a ring of keys at his belt. Carefully Jeremy lifted the ring and tried the keys in the lock. The fifth one fitted, and he opened the door very slowly, wincing at each tiny groan of the hinges. He passed through the web-shimmer, feeling nothing but knowing that he had broken some ward of the Hag's. He left the door ajar and stumbled into a very dark room.
Very dark and very empty, a cubicle of stone with only the one door. But the sense of Melodia's and Kelada's presence was most intense here. Where could they have gone? Jeremy thought. “The deepest hole in the palace.” He dropped to his hands and knees and felt his way around the floor in narrowing concentric circles. Yes, there, beneath his hands: a ring of cold iron. He grasped it and pulled. A heavy stone grated, pivoted open, and warm air rose against his face.
Lying on his belly, he reached down into the opening. It was about three feet square, and seemed to drop indefinitely into the darkness. He could feel no ladder, no way down. “Is anyone there?” he whispered as loudly as he dared.
Something rustled far below. An answering whisper, indistinct. “Who is that?” Jeremy called.
“Kelada! Jeremy?”
“Yes. Where are you?”
“Down here under you.”
“Where's the ladder?”
“They took it. How did you find us?”
“Tell you later. How deep?”
“I don't know. Three times as tall as you, maybe.”
Jeremy sat back on his haunches beside the trapdoor. Say fifteen to eighteen feet: too much to jump, certainly. He sighed, unbuckled his belt, and said in English, “Stretch.”
The spell must have been used many times before, in many different languages, for the belt remained only a belt. Jeremy thought for a few moments before coming up with: “The Wonder Belt! The amazing belt that can be a rope just long enough to rescue your friends! Something every adventurer wants—and it's yours TODAY!” Lord, he thought to himself. When I get back to Taplan and Taplan, I'll be good for nothing but writing TV ads for Oriental knives and bamboo steamers.
But the spell worked. The belt twisted in his hands, rounded, and became a rope. He heard the tiny sound of the end of it striking many feet below. A second later he felt a chill. The Hag had sensed the latest magic, and she searched for him.
The invisibility spell works against magic too, Jeremy thought fiercely to himself. She can't find me. He hoped that was true.
“Find the rope,” he whispered aloud.
An instant later he felt a tug from below. “Pull away,” Kelada whispered.
Jeremy stood and hauled hand over hand, straining against the weight. In a few seconds he heard someone struggling against stone, and a second later the pull on the rope slackened as the person scrambled out of the trap.
“Help me.” It was Melodia. Jeremy found her in the dark, helped her untie the rope from her waist. Her arms went quickly around him, and she kissed him. “Now Kelada,” she said. “Hurry.”
Jeremy dropped the rope down again. Kelada was lighter, and with Melodia to help, they had her up in no time. The rope twisted again, flattened, and was only a belt. He threaded it through the scabbard and buckled it on again. He felt on the floor for the ring of keys, then found Melodia's hand. “Here, carry these, and keep them from clanking. Kelada, you lead. Don't worry about the guards. You won't be able to see me. I'm invisible right now. Magic. I'll explain later.”
Kelada led them from the dark room to the doorway. Jeremy, sword in hand, opened the door. The two vilorgs still goggled at nothing, still breathed in the peaceful rhythm of sleep. “Come on,” Jeremy whispered. Kelada frowned at him and slipped through. “How did you get out last time?” Jeremy asked.
“I thought you were invisible?”
“Yes. I have this talisman under my belt—” He had taken the belt off in the cell, in the pitch dark. He grimaced. “Forget it. Where's the way out?”
She pointed to the door at the other end of the corridor. “This cell has a window we can get through.”
He paused to take off belt and scabbard. The scabbard he dropped; he gave her the belt. “Take this. It will become a rope when you need it. You and Melodia get out and get away. I'm going to try to find the others.”
The door of the cell swung open easily—the lock was either broken or rusted—and the three slipped inside. The room was not quite dark, for through the eastern casement came the twilight preceding dawn. Jeremy remembered the warning Barach had given him, or that he had dreamed, of some dire event to come at dawn, and he moved a little faster. The unglazed window was easily wide enough to allow the women to escape. “Just a second,” Jeremy said, now daring to speak a bit louder. “I think I know where everyone is except Nul. I want to try to find him.”
He gathered his strength, took a deep breath, and thought of Nul. He was conscious of crying out, not loud but groaning. Then all was darkness until he felt soft hands stroking his face. “What is it?” Melodia's voice, urgent but quiet. “What happened?”
“Nul,” Jeremy gasped. “I—my God, I think he's dying.”
The pain racked his entire body, as if every joint were on the verge of bursting. Nul's mind was there, a blank but for the white-hot glare of pain, pain, pain. Jeremy tried to give some thought of comfort, but could not bear the agony and the knowledge of his friend's suffering. He slipped back into himself, lay gasping.
“Are you well?” Melodia again, a silhouette in the gloom.
“Yes. I've got to find him. Go.”
“No.”
“Yes! Go with Kelada, now!”
“Kelada has already gone.”
Jeremy raised himself on his elbows. “How long have I been unconscious?”
“Not long. A few simi.”
“Why did Kelada leave without you?”
“I told her to go. Come, we must find Nul.”
“But—”
Melodia's soft hand covered his mouth, stopping his words. “Hush. I am a healer. Come.”
“I don't know where he is.”
“Now that you have brought his pain into my presence, I can find him. It is a sense I have, as unerring as Kelada's direction talent. You clear the way, and I will save Nul if I can.”
Jeremy got to his feet. “It's dangerous. I think the Hag knows I'm in the castle.”
“I could not call myself a healer if I did not at least try.”
“Come on, then. I think I'll have to kill two guards.” Jeremy, now beltless, grasped his sword, and its light flickered pale against the stone walls. “All right. Let's go.”
At the corner, Jeremy motioned Melodia to say behind. He tensed himself, gathered his strength, and sprang. The sword did not fail him: one guard had fallen before the other even moved, and the second was down an instant later. Quick thrusts made the killing certain. Jeremy did not like the victory, or the feeling of excitement it gave him.
This door was of flat, woven bars of iron, with a larger, heavier lock than the others. Only three of the keys on the ring Melodia carried looked as if they might fit. The last one did, turning easily. Jeremy pushed the door open. “Barach?”
A jingle of chains in the dark. “Here! Jeremy? Then it was not a dream at all!”
“Where are you?”
“Here, chained to the wall.”
“A moment,” Melodia said. She stepped into the hall, over the fallen body of one of the guards, and came back almost immediately with a lighted torch.
Barach, Gareth, and Syvelin lay manacled hand and foot, shackled to rings set in the stone. “Hold still,” Jeremy said, and with quick strokes of the sword he severed the iron. “Can you move?”
“Well enough to fight,” Gareth said grimly. “Syvelin?”
“Stiff but unwounded.”
Barach got slowly to his feet. “I fear the Hag knows we are out. I feel her anger even now, but distant, divided.”
“Dawn has come,” Jeremy said. “She has her attention elsewhere. There is a way out.”
But none took it. Gareth and Syvelin each picked up a sword from the fallen guards, and in a body they went down the stair, back toward the throne room. At the foot of the second stair Melodia suddenly stopped. “Nul,” she said, turning to look past the stairway down the corridor. “He is there somewhere. I feel it.”
Barach laid his hand on Jeremy's shoulder. “Day is breaking. We must try to e
nd the Hag's evil, and soon.”
Unbidden, a picture came into Jeremy's mind: snowcrowned Whitehorn Mountain, Tremien's stronghold at its summit. The white snow lay in the sun blotched and streaked with red. Blood, human blood, ran down from the top in rivulets, spreading and staining. Unwillingly he said, “We can't help Nul now. We have to stop the Hag's magic.”
“He is dying!” Melodia cried.
“One life or many,” Jeremy said. “I'm sorry.”
Gareth seized Melodia's arm. “I'll take her. The rest of you go on, and quickly. Here, the torch should be yours, for your way is the darker. Lead the way, Lady.”
Jeremy nodded, Barach took the torch, and the two fled down the corridor. Syvelin, Jeremy, and Barach took the other direction toward the throne room. They did not pause at the entrance, but burst through the ward. The guards inside were ready for them. As the three charged, spears flew. One seemed ready to skewer Jeremy, but missed by inches—and Jeremy remembered the spells Tremien had placed on him. Then he was on the guard, his sword swinging. Three blows ended the battle. He whirled to face the other guard, and found the vilorg already stretched on the floor, Syvelin's sword thrust into its torso. Syvelin himself was crouched on his knees at the thing's feet. Jeremy touched his shoulder. “Come on.”
The soldier fell sideways, and only then did Jeremy see the shaft of the spear. The point had pierced Syvelin's mail, and some fell magic crackled about the shaft still. Barach bent over the fallen man. “There is nothing to do.”
“Then let's find the Hag.”
They entered the northern passage side by side, and Barach stiffened immediately. Jeremy felt it, too: powerful magic, more concentrated than any he had known, bristling invisibly from the walls, ceiling, and floor of the passage. They waded against a thick tide of it, found themselves invisibly held back as if they were yet in the bog fighting for every step. They reached the doorway and the magic held them, encased them, let them go no farther.
Inside the chamber the witch stood with arms folded and bony chin sunk on her breast. Light streamed from the mirror to illuminate her. “You will die,” she said without looking at them. “You will die, as Tremien's other helpers will die. You will die, or worse. And Whitehorn shall be mine.”
Moon Dreams (The Jeremy Moon Trilogy Book 1) Page 25