The Lodestone

by J. Philip Horne

  The cats rounded a corner out of the alley they were in, and the group paused at the corner while Gerlock discretely checked the way ahead.

  “Hmmm… this is the servants’ gate. The cats are walking right up to it, bold as can be.”

  “Can we go in?” Sally asked.

  “I doubt it,” Gerlock said, “and if we tried and failed, it might attract unwanted attention.”

  “But what do we do?” Sally said. “We have to find Jack, and we need to find Edalwin, and those cats are all we have right now. They may run away.”

  “The cats,” Gerlock said after glancing once more around the corner, “are sitting in the middle of the road about thirty feet from the gate. They’re waiting for us.”

  Derek looked around the corner for a time. “I only see three guards. Could we handle them? Knock them out or something?”

  “You can’t see it in the dark,” Fortuna said, “but there are slits above the gate in the wall. There’ll be a guard stationed there watching, and the first sign of trouble he’ll drop a portcullis. I don’t think we can force our way in.”

  “Then what?” Sally said, feeling her frustration boil over. “What do we do? Do we climb the wall? Grow wings and fly? How do we get in there?”

  “Back to the inn,” Gerlock said, “I have an idea.”

  Sally hated being hidden in the wagon below the false floor again, and she pitied Verdag. His poor head was simply too large for the space. Several weapons were stuffed into the small space with them. The innkeeper, still unwilling to talk to her, was driving the pair of horses with Gerlock, Fortuna, and Derek all playing the part of his help. If they got into the palace, he would wait with the wagon until the guard changed, and then head back to the inn. The cart rumbled on forever, and Sally thought she was going to go mad. Finally, it came to a stop, and she heard a man’s voice challenging them just ahead. Sally couldn’t hear all the words exchanged, but Gerlock argued with the man for a time, until Fortuna piped in with the offer of a small cask just for the guards. A moment later the cart was rolling forward again.

  Amazing, Sally thought. It was like Gerlock had written a script and the guards had acted their part. She only hoped the cats were still with them. Peppers and the other two had followed them back to the inn, and Sally had seen the three of them acting agitated before she’d been sealed up in the hidden space. She felt the cart turn, and turn some more as it proceeded forward and finally came to a stop.

  There was silence for a time, and Sally’s mind thought of countless fanciful ways to die while she waited. She decided it really would be best to not panic, and so squeezed her eyes shut and started counting her breaths. She only got to five when the beer kegs were shifted off the boards above her and two of the boards were quietly removed.

  “Slip on out very quietly,” Fortuna said, helping her get out of the space and down to the ground. “Now head down those stairs. You too, Verdag.”

  Sally saw they were next to a massive building, well inside the palace wall. A staircase descended below the ground level along the side of the building just ahead, and she saw Gerlock hidden in the shadows at the bottom waving her forward. Sally and Verdag headed down the stairs, and when Fortuna joined them a moment later she was carrying their weapons. She passed out several knives to Verdag and Gerlock, and a wooden stick to Derek. When they were sorting out the weapons back at the inn, Derek had insisted on calling it a hanbo for some reason. All the large weapons had been left behind, despite strenuous protests from Verdag that a dwarf without an ax was as ridiculous as a pig in a bonnet. The analogy had made no sense to Sally, but she’d giggled at the time because it made her picture Verdag in a giant bonnet.

  “All right, one last time,” Gerlock whispered. “We go through this door, and there is probably no turning back, not cleanly at least.”

  “We have to find Edalwin,” Sally said, “and she’ll be able to find Jack. We must. Did the cats go in there?”

  “Yes, it wasn’t latched,” Gerlock said. “We seem to have had a spot of luck. It’s the servants’ quarters, and when I glanced in earlier, I spied a baker going to bed. If these are all kitchen help, they’ll be sleeping soundly at this hour, to rise with the loaves tomorrow, well before dawn. Verdag, lead us. No light yet. Everyone put a hand on the person in front. I’ll bring up the rear. Hopefully those cats know something.”

  “All right, then,” Verdag said, “enough talk. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 19

  RESCUE

  SALLY RESTED A hand on Fortuna’s back as they slipped through the dark hallway, and Derek kept a light touch on her shoulder. She tried to look past Fortuna and Verdag to see the cats, but it was too dark. They walked for far too long, and Sally was beginning to think they were back in some sort of dwarf-maze.

  “Stairs,” Verdag whispered. “Going down.”

  Sally found it unnerving to climb down the stairs. She’d thought the hallway was dark, but could distinctly see the inky blackness of the stairwell swallow her as she descended one agonizing step after another. Her hand no longer rested on Fortuna’s back, and after a few steps she stopped to catch her breath. Sally felt as though she was going to lose her balance and pitch head forward down the remaining steps.

  “Here you go,” Derek said, stepping down beside her and holding her arm firmly. “I’ve got the wall on the left. You touch the wall on the right. One step at a time.”

  Fifteen steps later they reached the bottom, and Sally sighed with relief.

  “The cats have somehow opened a door,” Verdag whispered from the darkness to Sally’s left. “This way. Link up again so you don’t get lost.”

  Sally reached around blindly until she found Fortuna and put her hand once again on her back. They slowly marched along, taking a turn every so often, and then went down another long flight of stairs. This second flight went better than the first, and the group continued on at the bottom.

  “Unless I’ve completely lost my sense of direction,” Verdag whispered, “and I haven’t, we are well underground now and moving out from underneath the actual palace building. Walls are cut rock now, not the palace stone. Feels like dwarf-work, not mage-work”

  As they moved forward and rounded another corner, something changed. It took a moment for Sally to realize she was seeing the faintest outline of Fortuna ahead of her. Verdag stopped walking and pulled all of them in close.

  “Okay, light ahead, so that means company. Cats just rounded that corner up ahead where the light is coming from. Stay back here. I’m going to scout it out a bit. May take a little time, as I like to be thorough.”

  Sally sat with the others and waited. Minutes dragged by, and still they waited. When he did return, it was silent as a ghost, and in the darkness Sally saw only a dark shape moving toward them and almost screamed before she realized it must be Verdag.

  “It’s no good. Must be five guards and, on my honor, there’s a Black Robe with them. Follow me. We’ll talk in a bit.”

  Verdag led them once again into the absolute darkness of the tunnels, and Sally was soon confident he was not leading them back the way they had come. She counted the turns, and after seven right turns and nine to the left, she heard Verdag push open a heavy door. She trailed a hand to the side and felt the doorway as they entered, and Verdag closed the door. After a minute of hearing the dwarf mutter to himself and mess around with something, there was a loud click and a spark leaped onto the oiled wick of a lantern and light blossomed. It was dazzlingly bright, but Verdag quickly shuttered the lantern, letting only a trickle of light through. They stood in a small room that looked more like a cave than part of a palace. There were no furnishings whatsoever other than the door, which was framed with heavy lumber.

  “A Black Robe,” Gerlock said, “you’re sure?”

  “There were five guards,” Verdag said, “all looking professional, and a man at least trying to play the part of a Black Robe. And the others played along. I saw the wizard ask for a refill on his mug
, and three of the guards jumped to it at once.”

  “All right, what else?” Gerlock asked.

  “They are in a guardroom. Basic setup. Table. Chairs. Some shelves and a rack of weapons. Oh, and crossbows. Nasty business, those. A cask of beer. No sign of the cats, but I’ve seen some small holes here and there, and who knows where they lead. The hallway led up to the room, and a heavy door stood on the far side. Edalwin is somewhere on the far side of that door, I’m sure of it.”

  “How?” Sally asked. “I thought she was a powerful wizard. How could they capture her, and how can we get through that door?”

  “I don’t know,” Verdag said. “Here, you all hole up in this room. I took us far off the path that led to the guards, so it should be safe. This place is a maze of passages and is dwarven-built for sure. I’ve the sense of where that door is, and I’m going to find another way to get there. May take a few hours, though, so get as comfortable as you can. We’ve got, what, a couple skins of water, some cheese and some bread? That’ll be plenty. You’ll be glad you had a dwarf with you when it’s all said and done, that I promise you.”

  “Good luck,” Gerlock said, and Verdag slipped out the door and was gone.

  “Just like good FBI work,” Derek said as he sat down and leaned against a wall. “Always hurry up and wait.”

  Sally sat down by Fortuna, and Gerlock dimmed the lantern. She was exhausted, and it had to be near midnight by now. Her eyes got heavy, but she couldn’t seem to get comfortable leaning against the wall.

  “Here you go, dear,” Fortuna said and pulled her over to lay down with her head on Fortuna’s lap. That was much better.

  The door closed, and Sally woke with a start. How was Verdag back already, she wondered? Derek was just sitting back up across the room from her. When had he moved there? And why did her shoulder ache?

  “Sorry it took so long,” Verdag said. He cocked his head to the side for a moment. “Feels like midmorning. Anyway, I think I found it. There’s actually more than one level to these tunnels, and I found what looks like a bolt hole a level up in a storage room that drops down right in the area below the guardroom. Couldn’t check it out, as I couldn’t tell if I’d be able to get back up, but it feels right.”

  Midmorning? She’d finally gotten a full night’s sleep and it had been on a rock floor? Sally stood up and stretched while the others prepared to go. Gerlock passed around their scant provisions, and she quickly ate a small chunk of bread and a wedge of cheese.

  “I think we’re okay to leave the lantern lit,” Verdag said. “Let’s go.”

  They hurried after Verdag as he led them through a sickening maze. None of the angles were quite right, and nothing was ever quite straight. Doors frequently opened off the passage. It hurt her head to try to keep track of where they were going, and she quickly gave up. All she could tell was they were gradually going up. Verdag saw the look on her face and smiled.

  “Good work, eh?” Verdag said. “Really quality design. Only a true dwarf-sense will keep you going the right way. Wish I knew who built this. It’s the equal to anything we have in the Daggerfels. Maybe superior.”

  A short time later Verdag stepped up to a door and pushed it open. They stepped into a room full of decrepit furniture and rotten barrels, falling apart with age. Several items had been cleared out of the back corner, and Sally could see a trapdoor standing open.

  “How did you find this?” Derek asked.

  “Not as hard as it might look,” Verdag said, “though it took some time. That guardroom we saw is right over there.” He pointed a bit down and toward one of the room’s walls. “I just worked my way to the general area past the door and started searching. Got lucky.”

  “Shall we?” Gerlock asked as he stood over the hole in the floor.

  Derek stepped up to the hole. “I’ll go first. Then send Verdag down so he can scout. The rest of you wait up here until we know what we’re getting into, okay?”

  “Good plan,” Gerlock said. “Go.”

  Derek crossed his arms and stepped out over the hole. He dropped out of sight, and Sally heard him land below. Verdag sat down at the edge and then scooted off. Sally would have never guessed that he was smaller than Derek from the sound he made landing. They waited, and Sally finally lay down and scooted forward with her head over the trap door so she could look down and see what was going on. The room was cloaked in shadows, but looked similar to the room she was in, though completely empty. She could see a door on one wall standing open and another door on the wall to the right of the first cracked open. Derek walked back through the open door, startling Sally so she jerked back from the door. She took some deep breaths to calm her racing heart.

  “All right, come on down,” Derek said. He was speaking very quietly. “This has got to be it. We shouldn’t have that much trouble working together to get back up if we need to. Oh, shutter the lantern. Guardroom door is pretty close.”

  Gerlock handed Sally down to Derek, then he and Fortuna dropped down. The lantern gave off almost no light, but Sally preferred the near dark to total darkness. Derek walked over and closed the door that had been cracked open and then came back to them.

  “That goes to a hallway. The guardroom door is to the right. You can see the light coming through under the door. There’s a bunch of doors we think are cells off to the left. They all have a narrow opening near the bottom of them, so Verdag’s checking them for Edalwin, assuming she can respond and let him know she’s there.”

  ~~~~

  Edalwin could feel that the time had come. Her body was spent from the effort and lack of sleep, and in the back of her mind she feared failure might bring death. Her jaw tightened in resolve, and she concentrated with renewed effort on the shackles. Her power had soaked into the shackles like water into a porous stone. Now she would harden her will and hopefully break the iron bands, as water expands when freezing with a force that can split boulders.

  As she breathed slowly, she heard the noise of someone quietly approaching her cell. She ignored the sounds, utterly tuning out the world to concentrate on the shackles. She thought of all the wrong that Drakin had yet to do. She pictured the monster that stood in the shadows behind Drakin. Mostly, though, she thought of the children she had been entrusted to foster. She thought of Sally, who needed to get back home and have the chance to grow up. Lastly, she thought of Jack and her love for him. Somehow she had stopped thinking of herself as his foster mom, and instead viewed him as her son.

  In that moment, her will hardened. The shackles exploded into dust. Clothed in power yet so weak her knees shook, Edalwin rose to her feet and called on light. The cell blossomed with a clear, dim light that overwhelmed her eyes after so much darkness, and she was forced to will it dimmer. She put a hand on the door, leaned on the doorframe with the other to brace herself, and pushed. The door exploded outward into the hallway, and Edalwin stumbled out after it.

  She saw movement to her right, and turned with a snarl. A terrified dwarf stood staring at her with huge eyes.

  “Edalwin, ma’am, please,” the dwarf said, his hands held out. “I, I mean no harm. I’ve come to save you.”

  “Prove yourself,” Edalwin said, staring down at him.

  “Sally. And Jack. I’m with them.”

  Edalwin sagged against the far wall, overwhelmed by exhaustion and emotion. She opened her mouth to ask after the children, when a door banged open behind her. She saw the dwarf’s eyes widen in fear, so immediately threw what little energy she had into a wall of force behind her. As she turned to face the threat, a crossbow bolt slammed into the invisible shield and shattered.

  “This is not good,” the dwarf said. “I’m Verdag. Listen, they have a Black Robe with them.”

  Five guards had stepped into the hall, flooding it with light from two lanterns. Behind them she saw a wizard she didn’t recognize. The wizard stepped to the front and led the men forward to within twenty feet of her and stopped. He wore the black-as-night robes of all D
rakin’s disciples, and carried a poisonwood staff. With her full power, Edalwin was confident she could have dismissed this upstart wizard easily. In her weakened state, though, she knew it would take more than raw force.

  “Edalwin, you have given me a most delightful gift,” the wizard said. “My master would not concede that I should be the one to kill you in captivity, yet here I find you escaping, and weak as a novice. What fault will be found when you die attempting to escape?”

  With that he thrust the staff out at her, and a bolt of angry bluish energy shot at her. Edalwin, however, had already moved her force wall up the hallway toward the men and and angled it across the space. His bolt struck the shield and deflected into the tunnel wall near him, shattering the rock and sending small, sharp fragments out with explosive force. Edalwin’s shield held just long enough to block the shrapnel, then collapsed.

  The other wizard and the guards, however, took the force of the explosion unshielded. The wizard still stood, having some sort of protection woven over himself, though he looked momentarily stunned. Four of the guards, however, were down, and while two rolled about in pain, two lay unmoving.

  Edalwin sat down hard, her knees finally giving up. She looked over at the dwarf and smiled. “Friend dwarf, I fear I am done. Perhaps you have a trick up your sleeve.”

  “I do. Look.”

  She looked, and was shocked to see Gerlock, Fortuna, and another man running up behind the remaining guard and the wizard. The guard went down hard, his crossbow firing as he fell. The bolt ricocheted off the wall, and Edalwin heard more than saw it hit the dwarf beside her. Then the group swarmed the wizard, and Edalwin put all her will into holding back his defenses, stripping him bare. A moment later, she toppled over unconscious, her body sprawled next to the dwarf, his blood pooling under her.