by Dante King
How, though, was beyond any leap of logic I could make.
“Excuse me for eavesdropping,” she said, “but I heard familiar voices and listened despite breeding being against such behavior.”
“How the hell did you know we were going to make our way here?” Leah asked.
“And how did you get here?” I added.
“That is immaterial now,” Mallory said in an offhand voice. “What is of chief concern is that I overheard what you were saying. It sounds very much like you’ll be going on a little relic hunt. You two really need a woman who knows her way around the Castle of Ascendance.”
“And you think that a woman with a bounty on her head is the right chick for the job, do you?” I asked.
Mallory laughed in a thoroughly unconcerned fashion.
“That little misunderstanding? That little bureaucratic error of paperwork? I’ve cleared it,” the Galadriel-like figure said.
“Ooooh, Mort’s not going to like that,” Leah said delightedly. “He hates it when people screw with the system!”
“How did you manage it?” I asked Mallory.
“Gertrude here kindly forged a few letters for me.” Mallory indicated the sweet old woman sitting contentedly in her chair. “She also placed some rather incriminating evidence here and there. Now, the true culprit for a great many bad deeds has a few of my misdemeanors added to her rap sheet. She is already on her way to being arrested, I believe.”
Next to me, Gertrude nodded.
“You’re saying you framed an innocent person?” I asked. “That’s a bit... icy, isn’t it?”
Mallory laughed again and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Oh, Justin. Finding a deservingly guilty and vicious party to take the fall is not hard in Avalonia. My crimes pale in comparison to hers. In fact, I believe I was doing a great deed in ensuring this particular criminal was apprehended.”
“Mallory is correct,” Gertrude assured me. “They were hardly innocent, Justin.”
“If this sweet old duffer is convinced,” Leah said, “then that is good enough for me.”
I looked around at the three women. “All right, then. If it means that you’re free to walk in broad daylight again, I guess I can get on board with that.”
“Fabulous! Now, shall we be about the relic hunt?” Mallory said.
Chapter 12
We left dear old Gertrude to sleep off her tea and scone in her workshop.
Mallory led the way out of the room, her new dress swishing softly about her ankles. Her long-legged strides made the same gentle noise a relaxed sea makes when it laps the shore.
“You’ve known Gertrude a long time, have you?” I asked the Holy Mage as we walked quickly through the echoing corridors.
Mallory thought for a second. In the time that she took to consider the question, I realized that I couldn’t even guess at the ethereal woman’s age. She really was like Galadriel in that respect; she might have been thirty or, then again, she might have been edging toward three hundred.
“Yes,” she said after we had gone ten more paces, “I have known the Inscriber Gertrude for a long time, I suppose.”
“And you trust the old biddy? That’s what Justin is trying to say, I think,” Leah said. “That’s the more pertinent question.”
Mallory smiled a thin-lipped smile.
“Yes, I trust Gertrude. She was one of the first to come over to Zenidor and Istrea’s way of thinking when it was first broached. When their theories for preserving the Universal Magic were first made public. When your father made such a splash with his talk of culling magic users to preserve the fabric of this world and all the others. Before your mother refined that theory, made one that was not so…”
“Morally reprehensible?” I supplied.
“Quite,” Mallory said.
“And even after seeing what my dad might have been prepared to do if no other way had presented itself, if my mother hadn’t come up with a better scheme, Gertrude was still happy to take his side?” I asked.
“Sounds like she took a little more than his side…” Leah said from behind me.
I bit back a retort.
“Gertrude can be trusted to help us, don’t worry,” Mallory said. “There is a common misconception that wisdom comes with age. This is not true. The aged do not grow wise; they grow careful. Gertrude has not survived so long under the very nose of Queen Hagatha by being careless. She has never wavered in her resolve to help the Twin Spirits.”
Whether by chance or by Mallory’s design, we didn’t come across any servants, guards, or palace denizens. I got the feeling that we were using lesser-known routes, perhaps those hallways that weren’t grand enough for the Queen and her chief lackeys to use, but not basic enough for the serving folk to walk through.
“So, how is it that you know your way around here so well, Mallory?” Leah asked as we cut quickly down a side passage to avoid the noise of scurrying feet from a corridor up ahead.
“Oh, I used to spend quite a bit of time here at the Castle of Ascendance,” Mallory said in a blithe tone of voice. “Before the little mix-up that saw me placed on Mort’s bounty list.”
“You should have been very honored,” Leah said, “so far as being put on bounty lists goes. My cousin really is top of his field, you know.”
“I don’t know if bounty hunters enjoy the same prestige and fame as, say, a good proctologist does, Leah,” I said drily. “I doubt people feel all that starstruck to see their friendly neighborhood bounty hunter when he kicks their door in, looking for their head. Even if he is the one with the best reputation in his field.”
Leah made a face. “I’m just saying, that if I was being hunted by someone who was going to take me dead or alive, I wouldn’t want it to be some greenhorn.”
I shook my head.
We carried on in silence for a few more steps, and then Leah said, “That’d be a good nickname for a bounty hunter, wouldn’t it?”
“What would?” I asked.
“The proctologist,” Leah said.
I only had to think about this one for a second. “Because both bounty hunters and proctologists hold the fate of your ass in their hands?”
“See, it’s a good one!” Leah said in a low, fervent voice. “I’m going to bring it up with Mort. You reckon he’ll go for it?”
I had to think about that one for considerably less time. “No,” I said. “I don’t think he will.”
“Pity,” said Leah glumly.
I touched Mallory on the shoulder.
“You’re absolutely sure that this first relic is where you think it is?” I asked the graceful, put together former priestess who was gliding along at the head of our three-person procession.
“Quite sure,” Mallory Entwistle insisted. “The Chamber of Lock and Key is famous, even outside the castle. I have never been inside the actual room itself, of course.”
“You haven’t?” I blurted.
“No,” continued Mallory in her composed voice, “but I know where the Chamber is located. There has never been any real threat posed for the security of anything in the Chamber of Lock and Key. There are too many doors, requiring too many keys. Coupled with the fact that it is inside the Castle of Ascendance, under the nose of Queen Hagatha and her Arcane Knights, and it is little wonder that it has become a byword for security throughout the kingdom.”
We rounded a corner and entered a large circular hall. Apart from the hallway we had just exited, there were three others entering the circular hall. A number of keys were set over the left and right passageway entrances. Over the central corridor, a large gilt lock was emblazoned.
“We take the central route,” Mallory said in a sure voice.
“The first relic is supposed to be under lock and key,” I reminded her. “Why are you going for the lock corridor and not one of the keys?”
“Because all those who come in search of a lock to open are presumed to have a key,” Mallory said evenly.
I didn’t point out that,
as far as I knew, we were bereft of anything as helpful as a key.
At Mallory’s insistence, we padded very slowly and carefully along the last ten-yard stretch of the central corridor, after following its winding course for about two minutes. All sorts of bizarre pictures hung on the walls, all based around the theme of locks. They were painted in oil and watercolor, drawn in pencil, charcoal and, on more than one occasion, a brown liquid that I suspected was blood.
On reaching the end of the gallery of lock-based artwork, Mallory motioned us to stop. On flannel feet, she crept to the very edge of the wall and eased her head around. Then she eased it back.
“I see the single door,” Mallory said, leaning in close to Leah and me and speaking in a whisper so quiet that I struggled to hear it. “There are two guards.”
“Just one door? Just two guards?” I whispered. “What’s the big idea? You made it sound like some sort of thaumaturgical Fort Knox, like some sort of multi-doored vault.”
The corner of Mallory’s mouth twitched up. She regarded me calmly through her crystal blue eyes.
“You’ll see soon enough, Justin,” she said to me in her soft, sure voice.
“Right, so shall we bowl around there and—” Leah began, her fingers twitching with excitement.
“I think it is probably well advised to let me go first,” Mallory said diplomatically. “I will deal with the guards in a non-lethal fashion and open the way for us.”
Hell, taking a backseat sometimes didn’t bother me. Not if there was someone who had an alternate plan to simply crossing our fingers and hoping we didn’t bring a mountain of shit down on our heads.
I had been expecting Leah, as a Chaosbane, to insist on being involved in the action. Surprisingly, she bowed her head slightly and simply gestured for Mallory to go on ahead.
“Very good,” the Holy Mage said. “Follow behind me, but let me do the talking. Agreed?”
“Sure,” I acquiesced.
Leah grunted.
We walked casually around the corner, Mallory leading.
As Mallory had said, there were two guards stationed outside a single door. The guards were athletic-looking types, with sinewy forearms and well-defined calves. They were the types of individuals who had probably been fighters all their lives. They were dressed in the same uniform as the guards stationed around the exterior of the golden gate had been: all shiny plate, buffed chainmail and those dumb helmets that looked like helmets of a different kind.
The former priestess moved with the stately poise of a royal barge being towed up a river. Her chin was thrust out, as was her substantial bust. She strolled toward the two alert guardsmen as if she had every right to be there.
Leah and I followed, doing our best to stay behind the graceful woman. Her angel-like wings, despite being folded, mostly obscured us from view.
“Halt, if you please, madam,” said one guard, turning to face the approaching vision in white.
Mallory did not stop. She did not slow.
“Halt,” the man said again, more forcefully and less politely this time. The other guard, a dwarf, moved his hand casually from his belt where it had been resting to the haft of the morning-star hanging from his belt.
“I wish to speak with the pair of you,” Mallory said in her most austerely commanding voice.
“Madam, I must warn you that if you don’t stop in your tracks we will have to—” the guard who had been trying to call a halt to Mallory’s march tried to say, but he never got to finish his sentence.
There was a blurring silver-black miasma that swept around and over Mallory from behind. A couple of dull pops. Then, when the thaumaturgical dust had cleared, the two guards had simply vanished, to be replaced by a pair of bright white rabbits.
“What the fuck?” was all I could say.
The two rabbits, still wearing minute bunny versions of their armor, looked at one another.
One of them let out a little squeak, which I interpreted as bunny for “Are you fucking serious?”
They huddled a little closer together, their ears drooping, their noses twitching nervously.
“Excuse me, pardon me, coming through, animal control here,” Leah said, stepping around me and tossing a black silk tophat that she had generated from out of the ether at the rabbits. The silk topper fell neatly over the top of the bunny guards, trapping them.
“Neatly done as that!” Leah said, turning to find Mallory and me looking at her in stony disbelief. “What?”
“What happened to letting me deal with them non-lethally?” Mallory asked severely.
“Yes, but you were taking so long,” Leah said, hopping from foot to foot. “I wanted to get through the door to see what it is we’re here to see! And it’s not as if I killed anyone. That Chaos Spell is a bit of a wily one—I’m never quite sure what animal my target’s going to be turned into, if I’m honest—so it’s lucky that they were turned into creatures that would fit under a hat.”
“What happens if they escape?” Mallory asked in exasperation.
“Oh, they won’t be escaping from under that hat,” Leah assured the other woman. “No, that’s one of those traditional tophats with the lead lining. No, the only thing that they need to worry about is going a little gaga from the lead.”
“How long do they stay in rabbit form for?” I asked resignedly, watching the tophat wobble from side to side as the trapped rabbits attempted to knock it over.
Leah shrugged unconcernedly. “Not forever. A day or so, maybe? I was a bit excited so it might be longer, might be shorter.” She shrugged again and said dreamily, “That’s the thing about Chaos Magic; keeps you on your toes.”
“I guess we should just concentrate on the business at hand,” I said.
Mallory nodded, but she still looked a little ruffled. I wondered briefly whether she had been hoping to impress me in some way by dealing with the guards in whatever way she had planned.
I looked around us. The hallway we were now standing in was completely deserted, except for the three of us, the pair of white rabbits under the silk top hat, and a single nondescript wooden door. It was a dead-end. It was dead quiet.
I studied the door that stood so innocuously in front of us. It was wood, but it looked to have been carved and cut out of a single huge piece of wood, rather than of many separate planks. There was nothing at all grand or out of the ordinary about it. It might very well lead to this fabled Chamber of Lock and Key, but it might just as well lead to the washroom, or a pantry. The only thing that pointed to it leading anywhere interesting was the carving chiseled across its lintel:
A KEY IS ALL WELL AND GOOD
BUT ONLY IF YOU KNOW WHAT LOCK YOU NEED
Cryptic. The inscription brought a whole lot of questions to mind; questions about what lay on the other side.
Currently, the real question, now that we were standing in front of the damned thing, was how we were going to open it. I looked down at the black hat under which the guards-cum-rabbits were now cowering.
Was the key on one of them?
Had it been shrunk, just as their uniforms and weapons had been, and no longer fit the lock?
I exchanged glances with Mallory. It looked like she had come to the same conclusion that I had. Namely, that we might have just fucked ourselves before we really got started.
“You’re thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked.
“Yes,” the Holy Mage sighed. “I believe I am.”
“Shit,” I said. I stuck my hands in my pockets, head down, while my brain went into overdrive to try and think how we could get out of this Chaosbane-related fumble.
Then, like a bolt from the blue, I remembered. All right, that’s not entirely true. What actually happened was that my hand closed on one of the few items that I kept in the pockets of my jacket at all times, along with my slim spellbook, my mother’s white crystal, and a clasp knife.
The Skeleton Key! The one I grabbed from the necromancer, Horatio, Arun’s cousin, who stole it from
my frat house.
Just as I was congratulating myself on not putting things of importance back into a place where I could always find them, the sound of a door handle rattling brought me back to the present.
The dull creak of hinges echoed through the hallway.
“Door’s open,” Leah said.
“The door is open?” Mallory said in amazement.
“Yeah,” said Leah.
“Damn, that’s a bit of luck,” I said, the smile of relief spreading across my face.
“Luck?” Leah said. “You don’t think I’d just come running in and start turning people into small lagomorphs left, right, and center if I wasn’t sure that the fucking door was open, do you?”
Mallory looked at me and raised an eyebrow. I puffed out my cheeks and made an apologetic face at Leah.
“Honestly…” I said.
Leah cocked her head to the side and puffed out her cheeks. Then she said, in the voice of someone whose thoughts are miles away, “Because if you did, it shows that you’re really starting to get into the swing of the Chaosbane way of thinking and doing things. Much more fun to follow your gut into mayhem than follow your brain into monotony.”
Leah kicked the door open wide and led the way inside the Chamber of Lock and Key.
Stuffing the Skeleton Key back into my pocket, I followed.
“You see,” said Mallory from behind me, “this is why this place is a byword for security in Avalonia.”
“Fort Knox eat your fucking heart out,” I breathed, staring around me.
We walked out into a corridor that stretched for… for miles. It was so long that, to both my right and left, it tapered off into a distance that I could not see. It was far too long to be contained within the Castle of Ascendance, so it must have been some kind of enchanted room or pocket dimension, perhaps.
The huge hall was lit by large fairy-filled globes hanging from the vaulted ceiling. The ceiling itself was high, high enough to accommodate three doors stacked on top of one another—and there were three doors stacked one atop the other.
Three doors high and a gazillion wide. The two higher doors were reached by catwalks that stretched to infinity and beyond, like the rest of the corridor.