“This way,” said Paul. Back under an arched roof, we tried to walk quietly, but five sets of feet on flagstones sent echoes running up and down the passage around us. The light from our torches was too dim to see any distance ahead or behind, though it made our shadows on the stone walls grotesque and gigantic. Little puffs of wind tugged at our damp hair.
Suddenly the torches went out. We all crashed together in the dark, then Theodora and I desperately tried to relight them. It was no use. Plenty of unburned wood remained, but our fire spells no longer seemed effective.
And then, down the passageway ahead of us, I saw a small yellow light, like a candle flame. As we all held our breaths we could hear the steady tap of approaching feet.
The dead torch fell from stiff fingers. “No use running,” I said quietly. “They’ve found us.”
Paul and I stood with the women behind us, waiting for whomever was coming. The cold knot in my stomach already knew. Someone dressed in black satin emerged from the shadows. Just before he came close enough to pick out the features on the white face, Paul gave a sudden, startled grunt and dropped his sword.
I looked down. The blade had transformed itself into a black and white striped snake that now slithered away. Paul reached for the knife at his belt but I nudged him and shook my head.
The person kept on coming. I could see his face now clearly, dead white, split by a smile that showed an unusually large number of sharp teeth. One of the cheeks was just a little crooked; the eyes, behind half-lowered translucent lids, were expressionless stones.
“Daimbert, we meet again,” he said in a friendly tone.
One of the women behind me gave a brief moan of terror. I took a deep breath. “Greetings, Prince Vlad,” I said.
II
“As I recall,” he said, looking me up and down and still smiling, “we had not finished our negotiations when you left my castle so abruptly, the last time we met. I believe I was explaining to you why you should bring me the treasure from the eastern deserts that a certain ruby ring would reveal. . . .”
As I recalled it, when we had last met I had nearly killed him and he had called down curses on my retreating back. But if he wanted to talk for a while before he murdered me that was fine—it gave me time to try desperately to think of a way to get the others out of here.
“You were about to agree to bring whatever you found back to me,” he continued. I wished he wouldn’t keep showing his teeth as he talked, or that his stone eyes would blink, or something. “Since you still appear to be the Royal Wizard of Yurt—a tiny kingdom which, I shall gladly admit, was very hard to find—and have no startling new powers, I assume you didn’t find it. Well, I am here now, ready to forget our little differences in the past, even ready to give you some assistance if you want to look for the treasure again.”
For a second I considered agreeing with him, telling him that I would be happy to have his company searching the East for treasure, and that when we split what we found I would even let him have the larger share.
But I dismissed this as a ploy. Spending weeks or months crossing the eastern kingdoms and the deserts beyond by night, probably with all the others brought along as hostages for my good behavior, and then having to explain to Vlad at the end why there was nothing there to find, would only postpone the problem.
“It’s no use, Prince,” I said, trying to keep the tremor from my voice. “We found it fifteen years ago, even without your assistance. But both the treasure itself and the ruby ring that unlocked its secrets are now gone beyond recovery, sunk in the deepest part of the Outer Sea.”
A faint expression of disappointment passed over his white features. Under that living mask, I thought, must be the face of a corpse.
“Then we shall need to discuss other arrangements,” he said suavely, “by which you and the kingdom of Yurt might compensate me properly for what you have done to me over the years. Otherwise, I shall have to kill you. Nothing personal, of course!” holding up a white hand. “Just scientific curiosity: how long does it take a western wizard to die? And of course sound political practice: I would not want it known widely in the eastern kingdoms that someone had done to me what you did and gotten away with it.
“But I am forgetting my manners!” he continued, turning toward the others. His very politeness made it even worse. “Who are these friends you brought with you?”
“Don’t tell him!” I said sharply.
This intrigued Vlad. “So at least one of them is someone important,” he said thoughtfully, “someone in whom I might be very interested if I knew their identity. Let me look at them.” He lifted his candle higher, and his pebble eyes looked us over. “A rather bedraggled group, I must say. I had hoped for a minute for a member of the royal family itself, but no . . .”
Just when I thought that Paul’s creased and filthy tunic had fooled him he shot an arm past me and put his hand on Justinia’s shoulder.
“But this one!” he said triumphantly. “She is darker complexioned than most of you in the west, and this was once an extremely expensive silk garment. Much more than a townswoman looking for her lost children. Who then could she be?”
He stretched it out, enjoying the suspense. Lost children, I thought, desperately trying to find reason for hope. Then they really were here in the ruined castle! But where were they, and where was Cyrus?
Justinia shrank away from Vlad’s touch, but her almond-shaped eyes flashed. I was afraid she would tell him defiantly that she was a governor’s granddaughter, but she had been brought up amidst intrigue. “My name is of but the smallest import to thee,” she shot at him.
“A Xantium accent!” said Vlad, even more interested. “That I find most unusual. Could she be . . . ?”
Paul grabbed the wizard’s arm to wrench it away from Justinia, but Vlad lifted the little finger on his other hand and the king staggered backwards, doubled over in pain.
“Do not interrupt me,” Vlad said chidingly. “She is clearly important, a princess perhaps?” He enjoyed the suspense a moment longer, then said, “I think, my lady, that you are none other than Justinia, granddaughter of the governor of Xantium! The Thieves’ Guild is looking very hard for you.”
Paul, gray-faced in the candle light, caught his breath and wiped sweat from his forehead but showed no sign of trying anything else.
“And who informed thee I was here?” Justinia snapped. “Who hath betrayed me?”
Vlad widened his mouth in a tooth-filled smile. “Then you are the Lady Justinia! Thank you for confirming my guess. The Guild will pay me extremely well for discovering you.”
She pulled her lips together angrily, either at him or at herself for letting herself be taken by such an old trick. The mage Kaz-alrhun had entrusted Justinia to me, I thought bitterly, and I had brought her straight to someone who would deliver her to her worst enemies.
“When they could not find you in Xantium, my lady,” Vlad continued pleasantly, “they put out the information all over the East that they were looking for you. News even crossed the Central Sea and the mountains to reach my own little principality. A rumor or a guess that you might have fled to the western kingdoms was all they had to go on. I promised, of course, to help in the search for you during my own quest to the kingdom of Yurt. The Guild should pay me enough when I deliver you to them that I may be able to buy the services of Xantium’s greatest mages, thus making up at least in part for the loss of that which Daimbert so carelessly let disappear in the Outer Sea.”
“If thy plan is to hire Kaz-alrhun to assist thee in making the simulacrum of life from dead flesh and bones,” said Justinia haughtily, “thou shalt be most gravely disappointed. These are forbidden arts, and even the greatest of Xantium’s mages will not follow their dark ways.”
“He may change his mind when he sees the Guild’s money,” suggested Vlad.
“By now,” I interrupted, “Kaz-alrhun must have all the money he could possibly want and more.”
Vlad dismissed the
se concerns with a shrug. “Then my money shall buy whatever does still interest him.” He took a step backwards and motioned with his arm, like a genial host inviting in his guests. “In the meantime, I need to keep you safe—I am quite sure you will be worth more to the Guild alive than dead. And all these other people may have secrets of their own. If not, I shall still want to keep them secure until after Daimbert and I have finished our, shall we say, negotiations.” He blinked once. “Perhaps there is some personal feeling after all in what I would like to do to Daimbert. Some of that feeling might be assuaged by giving him the opportunity to watch his friends die slowly—but that is a matter for later. Come with me, and I shall take you to a dry chamber.”
The second he turned his back I threw together a spell of light that should have lit up the passage in a blinding flash. Light, the light that broke down the magic of blood and bone, was the only weapon I had against him.
But the words of the Hidden Language twisted and turned to dust before I could finish formulating them. “I must say I am disappointed, Daimbert,” said Vlad without turning around. “How could you have thought I would not be prepared for the spell with which you defeated me last time?”
We reluctantly followed Vlad, holding tight to each other, because there didn’t seem much else to do. The chattering of my teeth was due to much more than the chill of the night, and from the sound of Theodora’s breath she was again on the verge of hysterical tears.
Lit only by Vlad’s candle, the tunnel was nearly black, but at least I saw no giant cockroaches and heard no bones rattling. The demon must still be down in the bottom of the castle. The children had better not be down there with it.
Vlad opened a heavy oak door and motioned us within. “I am afraid I moved into this castle very recently,” he said apologetically, “and have not yet had a chance to install suitable furnishings.” The candle showed a cold and empty but dry room, its only window very far up and much smaller than a human could squeeze through.
As he motioned the others inside, lightning flashed for a second from the high window, followed by a sharp clap of thunder. Vlad flinched at the lightning. “Your weather is not as tractable as I had hoped,” he said. “I wanted clouds but not lightning. I am afraid we shall have to postpone our conversation at least briefly, Daimbert, until I have restored suitable conditions. You will be so good as to wait for me, I am sure.”
He handed me the candle and slammed the door, and I heard the bolt going across. His feet tapped away down the corridor.
All of us let out shuddering breaths. I counted to twenty to give Vlad time to get away, then started on a lifting spell to slide the bolt back again. But it was no use; he had put a magic lock on it.
“Shall we try kicking the door down?” suggested Paul, his jaw set.
“A magic lock strengthens the door itself as well as the locking mechanism,” I said, shaking my head and thinking fast. “But we might be able to set it on fire—”
I immediately began working on fire spells, and Theodora, who had been trembling and clinging to Gwennie, took a deep breath and started on her own magic. But our spells were no more effective on the door than they had been on our torches. Vlad must have wanted to be sure there were no sources of light in his castle other than the small candles he lit himself.
We were safe and even dry for the moment, safe from Vlad, safe from the demon. But the safety only lasted until Vlad returned. And I still had no idea how, even if we escaped alive, I was going to find Antonia.
“How about the window?” said Paul, low and urgent. There was another lightning flash and more thunder. Good, I mentally said to the weather. Keep Vlad occupied as long as possible.
“I could transform us all into birds so we could fly out,” I suggested half-heartedly. Keep thinking, I told myself. Don’t dwell on the demon downstairs. Don’t think about how evil Vlad is. Think of a plan. “But I couldn’t shape the words of the Hidden Language as a bird, so we’d all have to stay transformed unless another wizard realized who we really were and broke the spell. Or I could transform the rest of you and stay behind, and then when you were all safely through the window break the spell from in here . . .”
“Leaving us sitting on the roof in the storm?” asked Paul.
“No,” I agreed, “we’d all still be trapped. Maybe all becoming birds is still the best plan. We’ll get away from here and wait somewhere along the road for Elerius—he’s bound to find this castle eventually,” I heard myself babbling. “And when he comes maybe we can spell out a message in birdseed or something . . .”
“This is the most stupid plan I have ever had assail my ears,” said Justinia, her voice ragged.
Theodora took my arm. “Vlad has not harmed us yet in spite of his threats, and we know we must be close to the children.” At least she didn’t say my plan was stupid.
We huddled together in a corner, my arms around Theodora, Paul again with an arm each around Gwennie and Justinia. A corner of my mind was interested to note how social conventions did not stand up against true danger; this was not a king embracing a foreign princess and his own cook’s daughter, but three people trying to deny their fear by clinging together desperately. Rain pounded above our heads, and the candle flickered as the wind blew in. For a minute the storm seemed to be weakening, but then three lightning flashes in a row cast glaring blue light into the room. Vlad should be occupied for a while yet.
Justinia seemed to be struggling between fury and despair. “I should have been far wiser than to let Kaz-alrhun ever send me into the western kingdoms,” she muttered. “I should have known that I would stand out to the first person who came seeking me, and that the local magic-workers would have no protective spells.”
I declined to mention that if she had let me take the carpet myself she would now be safely home in Yurt.
“Perhaps the path of wisdom is to cast myself from this castle to the rocks below,” she continued determinedly, “so that the Thieves’ Guild will not have a live prisoner with which to pressure my grandfather, and so that I need not submit to the caresses of a dead man!” Paul held her tighter and made soothing sounds—as he would to one of his horses, I thought.
“Is he even alive?” Theodora asked quietly. “And do you know why he captured the children?”
“He’s alive,” I said, “and he’s not using the supernatural power of a demon himself, but that’s all the good I can say about him. I don’t know if capturing the children was his idea or an independent plan of Cyrus’s.”
For a minute I paused, waiting for some sort of reaction from Vlad if he were listening. But weather spells, I thought—as well as maintaining his defenses against fire and light here in the castle—must be taking all his attention not already devoted to keeping the castle invisible. “I think half of his body is made from the flesh of others,” I went on, “and much of the rest from stone. The flesh must rot; I don’t want to think where he gets more. . . . He is aged beyond reckoning, animated only by spells darker and more subtle than any I know.”
“I remember hearing your tales about him,” said Paul, “years ago, when you and Father came back from the East.” He turned to Justinia with the good-natured assumption that she would want to hear the story too. “They were maneuvered, by wiles that set the eastern kingdoms aflame with war as I recall, to a black obsidian castle. And there lived a princely wizard who had once, a great many years earlier, betrayed my uncle, an uncle who died long before I was born.”
I nodded slowly. “When we met him in the East he already felt injured by the royal family of Yurt, and since then he’s had an especial reason to hate me. He has wanted for years to find Yurt.”
“And it was the will of God that he find it when I was there,” said Justinia gloomily.
We fell silent, listening to the thunder continue to rumble around the ruined castle. Gwennie suddenly spoke up. “Do you remember, Paul,” she said, not bothering with his title, “one time when we were little, and it started to thunde
r like this, and you put your arm around me like this and told me you’d protect me?”
Justinia looked past the king at the other woman, her eyebrows raised as though in approval. He gave a low chuckle. “I certainly do remember. I was just as scared as you were but I didn’t want to admit it. What would we have been—maybe about five?”
Antonia’s age. And there was no one to comfort her.
Theodora shifted and spoke as though deliberately trying to distract her own mind from Antonia. “So Cyrus, you think, is Vlad’s pupil?”
“He must be. The unliving warriors who attacked the royal castle were made by the same magic. I think now that Cyrus was sent into the West as Vlad’s agent, to find Yurt and to attack the castle for him, and to send word back when he found it. If the warriors—and the spell of madness in their bones—or the wolf succeeded in killing me or the king, all was well; or, if not, Vlad himself would soon arrive. At the time I thought those attacks a little too easy to overcome.”
“What do you mean, easy?” protested Theodora. “You were almost killed!”
“Well, yes, but I did overcome them. I still haven’t found a way to oppose Vlad’s magic directly.” With this depressing thought we all fell silent
Then, over the sound of the storm, I heard approaching steps. Here he comes, I thought, pushing myself to my feet. If I could take him off somewhere for a private conversation, he might not guess who King Paul was, and maybe I could stall until morning or until such time as Elerius ever got here—
But it was not the regular tapping of Vlad’s feet. It was someone running.
He hit the door hard, and then I felt more than heard a sharp crackle. Blue light flared for a second around the doorframe, and I could sense a powerful spell breaking up. I hadn’t known it was even possible to break a magic lock.
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