He called for Viridia, and for her opinion.
"Pretty," she said.
"Very helpful."
"Pretty troublesome," she added. "Surely it does bad things, and we can't avoid it."
Gideon tapped his foot. Ghost? he thought. I suspect this is your old handiwork. Care to fill me in on your genius?
"It looks wrong for enchanted flame," Viridia said.
Gideon nodded. "And wardings of force are usually invisible..." Something nagged at him.
"Wizards," Viridia said disgustedly. "I don't know how they keep all this stuff in their heads without going insane."
"That's it!" Gideon said, suddenly understanding. "Sebastian's father—his specialty was magic of the mind. Insanity. That's how he created the War Fog."
"So it's a warding that drives you insane?"
"I remember something like this being mentioned in class once—the Veil of Nauseating Madness, or some such thing. As I recall, it has a safe side, and a side that drives you absolutely bonkers."
"This must be the safe side, then. But how is it we're so lucky?"
"Sebastian's father must have been more worried about someone coming down the stairs and discovering his secret lab. Sebastian, too." Gideon scratched his chin. "Whatever he expected of us after Bellis, it probably wasn't a high-speed counterattack with bog striders. And that's probably all we've got on our side right now." Until they discover Corvine. "Wait here."
He cracked his knuckles and stepped through the curtain.
It felt like nothing at all, and then he was through. He didn't turn around.
"Please follow me if you would," he called behind him. "But don't look back."
As the party passed through, Gideon scouted up the stairs, reminding himself to descend slowly backward on the return.
"We're all fine," Viridia told him.
"All clear so far."
Four flights later, Gideon heard a voice—not up the stairs, but in his mind.
Gideon Gull.
Gideon slowed, and thought back, Tarquin Tambour. Where's my missing friend?
She ascends a secret path, as you ascend a more open one. There are guards ahead. Be wary.
I will. But frankly, I'm more afraid of your son. And your—wife?
She and I are not truly what we appear to be. The War Fog has a psychic resonance to it. I used that property to imprint my and her personalities onto the fog, so we might better control it. Now her mind and mine inhabit the War Fog—though hers is the stronger. You and your friends can release us. But first—the guards!
Gideon indeed heard low voices and saw light spilling around the corner. He raised a hand to halt Grizzendell and Tyndron. Listening carefully, he counted the voices, then turned and held up five fingers to Grizzendell and Tyndron. They whispered this information to the rest.
"You hear something?" asked one of the voices up the stairs.
Gideon charged.
It was hardly complete surprise. But as luck would have it the guards, clad in the same pseudo-Taldan livery as the men on the ship, were arrayed at nearly the four corners of the landing, with a fifth a few steps above. They gaped as Gideon plunged a dagger into one and flung him aside. Tyndron rushed up and skewered the second.
Then their luck turned.
Grizzendell and Viridia ran forward next, headed for the back rank of guards. For a second it seemed odd to Gideon that the guards were holding back, as if something occupied that empty space.
"Wait—" he began.
It was too late. The center of the landing collapsed under Grizzendell and Viridia. It must have been made of something flimsy, painted to resemble stone.
Viridia heard Gideon's warning, and with her dancer's reflexes was able to careen backward at the last moment. She still would have fallen, but Tyndron was able to grab her flailing arm and pull her aside. The two of them tumbled.
Grizzendell was not so lucky.
In horror, Gideon heard the gnome's cry of shock and outrage as he plunged down and down in a seemingly endless drop.
All surprise gone, Gideon found himself with a swordsman in his face and a looming pit at his side. He backed down the stairs, wrenching words from his throat. "Pit! Be wary!"
The three guards offered grim smiles in return.
The smiles faded somewhat as they saw the opposition coming up the stairs.
"For Andoran!" cried Merrigail. She shoved her shield in the way of the guard nearest Tyndron and Viridia, blocking his thrust. The guard's eyes widened.
"For my shipmates!" screamed Asta, and the kindly sailor transformed into a berserker of the North. Her sword cut deep into Gideon's startled foe, even as Gideon's boot went deep into the man's stomach.
The guard toppled into the pit.
The leader had no more laughter in him as he fled. Asta ran after him, but before she could reach him Gideon grabbed his harp and plucked, casting Leothric's spell of sonic assault.
It succeeded. The guard leader reeled, hands upon his ears, and before he could recover, Asta was upon him. Then Adebeyo was beside her, for the First Mate was surefooted enough to leap over the pit.
As if in silent concord, the two survivors of Riposte shoved the leader into the pit.
Now Viridia and Tyndron rose. With three foes ahead, two behind, and a pit to one side, the remaining guard tossed his weapon at Merrigail's feet and raised his hands. His expression was calm. She waved him to her side and began binding his hands. Dymphna, Hammerton, and Briar were similarly binding the two who'd been wounded.
The reality of the swift battle now resonated in their minds. Gideon sagged against the wall, gasping.
"Grizzendell." Adebeyo gazed expressionlessly at the jagged maw of the pit."
Gideon grabbed the captured guard and shoved the man's head down, to look into the cold, stone plunge. The edge had not broken entirely, and bits of it crumbled, falling into darkness.
"How far down does that go?"
"All the way," said the guard. "It slides to an underground river, feeding the Verduran Fork. Your friend's drowned, Andoren. My companions, too."
He does not lie, said the ghost-wizard's voice in Gideon's mind.
Gideon shivered. "I'm Andoren, yes," he told the guard, "but I'm in the employ of your country. Which you will answer to. How many in this castle?"
"Fifty-odd."
He speaks true.
"You can't mean to invade Andoran with fifty soldiers."
"No. More are coming from upstream. From Falling River Fort, I think."
"When?"
The guard shrugged. "We're not told everything. But I think they're on the way. They stop here, then one more War Fog softening, and we're ready."
"'Softening.' Where's Tambour?"
"Usually in the smaller tower. But you'll never get to him. He's got Chelish wizards. And that ghost-witch."
"Tell me about that."
"She's part of the fog, and it's part of her. You'll never get to Tambour."
"We'll get to him. You're going to talk us through. Unless you want the pit."
"I...all right."
They got Tyndron into one of the captured men's livery. Unfortunately, that still left several of them without suitable guard uniforms, so the 'prisoner' gambit would have to do. Gideon wished his disguise kit hadn't gone down with Riposte.
As they ascended, Gideon, thought, Tarquin Tambour?
I'm here, Gull.
Why are you helping us? And how do you know my name?
Both questions have much the same answer. I created the original War Fog, whose successor has taken such an interest in you.
Why would you make such a thing? Did you hate Andoran so much?
Hate? No. Rather, I loved Taldor. I saw your country as a wayward province, in need of return to the fold. And I saw my fog as a better kind of warfare. Its intent was to make populations lose heart, to surrender without fighting. But it all went wrong. The experiment at Bellis shouldn't have come out the way it did. Your brother
shouldn't have died.
No one should have!
I know. It's all ashes. What's the glory of Taldor if it's built on the bodies of dead families? The War Fog was meant to pacify, not destroy. But I failed, and I tried to make amends by destroying myself and my castle, asking forgiveness of whatever might grant it. You see how that turned out.
How could you do this? And how could you make your monster mirror your own wife?
The strength of her imprint was beyond my dreams, or nightmares. She killed herself after I was gone. Perhaps the trauma of that event resonated through the War Fog, and that's why she is so strong—and so distorted. But it took my son to find the sleeping remnants of the fog and restore it to vitality. He used Chelish wizards to help him, and struck a vile bargain. You must stop him. He has gone down a dark road. No more should die because of my dream. Soon—no! She stirs. I must—
The voice abandoned him.
The stairway seemed endless, but at last they reached the castle proper. The stairs opened upon a torchlit chamber within the main keep, with a portcullis facing a winding stone road. The starry sky was still dark, and Gideon was glad of that.
They needed to get past this guard post, sabotage the portcullis, and signal the River Guard as soon as they were inside the wizard's tower.
A soldier approached, surprised to see them. Gideon stood at attention, thinking to himself, I am a guard. All you see is a guard. Anonymous and ignorable. Meanwhile the Andoren sailor Briar was carrying all the supposed prisoners' weapons.
"What's this?"
The captured guard from the stairway said, "They claim to be delvers. Thought this place was abandoned."
The new guard narrowed his eyes. "Delvers. They came up from below?"
"Said they stumbled on a secret way. Seem harmless enough. Tambour said not to hurt any civilians."
"They don't all look Taldan. I don't like this. Tambour's orders are that he interrogate all trespassers..."
"Where do you think we're going?"
Suspicion lingered on the keep guard's face, and Gideon never did learn whether it would have lasted longer; because just then something new changed everything.
From the wizard's tower came the now-familiar explosion of magical sound.
Corvine?
"What was that?" shouted the keep guard. "Something in the tower?"
Beside one of the darkened tower windows, a light blazed to life. For a brief, gleaming moment a symbol burned in the air: a shield half blue, half green, with a golden crown above a white lion. The symbol of Taldor, facing downstream.
Corvine.
Chapter Twenty
Aria for Broken Voices
Tambour's warning us!" the keep guard shouted. "Trouble at the tower!"
Half-right, Gideon thought.
The man hustled toward his troops, ordering the portcullis lowered and a force sent to aid Sebastian. Gideon nudged their own "captor," and their group of "prisoners" moved toward the courtyard archway as well.
"Wait!" said the keep guard.
They halted.
"Best you should stay here, until we know the tower's secure." He strode up, frowning. "You sure these are just delvers?" The frown deepened into a scowl. He squinted more closely at the group.
The rope Gideon carried shot out as if of its own volition and snared the guard. He followed it, clamping his hand upon the guard's mouth and shifting between him and his people. Busy as they were, there was a chance the struggle would go unnoticed just a moment longer. He pulled out a bit of fleece and shifted from humming "Haul Away for Arcadia" to "What Will I Dream When the Hangman Hauls?"
Gideon dreamed of a keep guard just like the entangled one, only standing between Gideon and the troops, nodding, looking around at the activity, acting as if nothing was wrong. Gideon added a couple of the guards from the fight on the stairs for good measure.
By the time they reached the courtyard the rope spell had worn off. But by then Adebeyo had demonstrated his skill with sailors' knots. The keep guard struggled, but couldn't break free or warn his people. Gideon had the illusionary guards follow them.
"I'm dead now if you don't silence this man," said the turncoat, sounding unhappy with his choice. "Or else defeat Tambour."
"Gideon," Viridia said. "I'm going to slip away and make sure the portcullis goes up when Ozrif arrives with the Guard."
"Are you crazy?" he said.
"I'm not, and you know it. You've seen me in training. You've studied illusions, but my best spells enhance my movement. I'll blend in better and move faster alone. Trust me."
He looked up at the sky. The stars still filled it, but a hint of gray was appearing to the east. "Good luck."
She was gone almost before he noticed it.
Eight of them now, not including their collaborator and their prisoner. It would have to be enough.
They hid the keep guard in the stable beside the wizard's tower. They hustled to the door of the tower, even as sounds of alarm rose from the keep.
Gideon maintained the illusion of additional guards as they reached the entrance. Even with Grizzendell's loss, they'd been lucky so far. It couldn't hold.
Tambour.
Gull.
Is there a better way inside?
Yes, the passage from the laboratory.
One we can reach?
No.
Is there a passphrase at the door, then?
Yes...
Soon Gideon said, "'The weather is witchy in Westcrown.' We've got prisoners for Tambour. What's going on?"
For a moment the lead guard looked suspicious, but studying Gideon's illusions he saw familiar faces. "An intruder got in here. Just got word Tambour's caught her."
"Bet these are her accomplices, then."
"He'll want to see them up top."
They entered a high chamber perhaps fifty feet across, filled with long tables—a dining hall perhaps. A large stone pillar, carved to resemble swirling clouds, rose from floor to ceiling. Gideon wondered what would require such a massive support.
The pillar wasn't the only peculiar feature. The heads of strange creatures hung upon the wall: a bear whose fur was interrupted with sharp bone extrusions, an owl with an equally gigantic head, another oversized bird with a cruel beak the equal of a battleaxe, and a three-headed fusion of dragon, lion, and goat. Stone stairs hugged the wall, rising out of sight through a gap in the ceiling.
Ascending, they found the workshops of a wizard. Many of the tables and items were hidden by sheets and dust, but some stood unveiled. The only commonalities of these chambers were the windows, the stairway, and the central pillar that continued upward through each of the stories.
Are we on the right track, Tambour?
The path to slaying my son? Yes.
Must he die?
You would spare him?
Twisted as he is, I would. I have seen too much killing.
Gideon sensed the ghost's approval. He was right in wanting to keep you as an ally, then. I wish he'd grown up far from our shadows, among friends such as you.
They passed the second floor with its shelves stocked with bizarre creatures and substances. Gideon glanced at the nearest such shelf and noted the cryptically labeled jars. Warp Dust (swirling and glowing and seemingly changing in mass); Psychic Kudzu (something like blurry ivy, with leaves covered in arcane script); Clutterbugs (a writhing pile of insects that resembled lost thimbles, spoons, and clasps); Arcwight (a stick-figure of lightning pounding on the glass.)
Did he truly think I would support him? Gideon asked.
I cannot sift his thoughts. But he had heard of your disenchantment with your family and countrymen. He made the War Fog's advances against Andoren more potent, to make the Andorens seem more susceptible. In the end, I think he believed his own propaganda about Andoran's instability.
Gideon thought about that. If they'd not crossed paths with Merrigail's party, if he hadn't seen those Andorens' bravery, would he have been swayed by Sebastian
's arguments? The fog was getting out of his control, though. Just as it escaped yours.
They reached the third floor. Here a number of crystalline vats held groups of rats. Tubes connected the vats to smaller versions of the barrels he'd seen earlier, those labeled with the red handprint.
Yes, Tambour said. It afflicted his crew more than he'd intended, making him mistrust them. And he'd never wanted any Mendevians attacked. But the War Fog hungers, and she who guides it now is a tormented soul, causing ruin, yet pining for lost innocence. I think that may be why she clutches at you, Gull. You are also scarred by the fog, yet you retain an innocence, like our son in better days ...
On the fourth floor was a wealth of mirrors, many glowing with strange lights and reflecting, not the chamber, but far places. Gideon glimpsed the Grand Bridge of Oppara greeting the sunrise, the Field of Concord in Almas dotted with lanterns as merchants assembled for market in the gray predawn, and the blade-like towers of the Chelish capital of Egorian, festooned with torches burning in the ebbing night. Other mirrors showed alien landscapes beneath suns of red, orange, or blue. In one mirror, strangely curved and bordered by metalwork bat wings, Gideon saw his own party distorted into nightmarish shapes. Adebeyo was like a ghost with raiment of torn sail. Merrigail was a sculpture made of blades. Gideon was a man sliced in two, entrails dangling, yet still walking, as though he'd been chopped down the middle. He looked away.
"I don't like this place," Merrigail said.
The collaborator said, "I warned you. And we haven't even seen the ghost-witch."
"Nowhere to go but up," Gideon said, thinking of all he'd heard. He dropped the illusion of the guard from the keep, suspecting they'd be carefully questioned soon. Crossing his fingers, he ascended.
The fifth floor was surely the last before they would confront Sebastian, for here their path ended, and four guards protected a spiral stairway rising beside the far wall. There was also a pale woman in black robes embroidered in flowing diabolic symbols. Although the marks did not actually say I am a devil-summoning evil wizard, Gideon figured that would do for a translation.
The pillar was still here, rising to the chamber above. Now Gideon remembered the shaft in the ceiling of the cavern laboratory. If the War Fog spawned down there, it had a clear path to the tower top.
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