She raised her golden eyebrows at me but drank as carefully as Jason had.
“So, where are we going now? Do you know?” Jason asked me.
“Yep. But I’m not the only one who knows how to get to Bascom’s tower,” I said as I looked at Ragar and put a hand on his tan-and-black-furred shoulder. “I’m sorry, Ragar. You know, you really don’t have to go back there.”
“Oh yes I do!” he growled over me. “I could never knowingly leave anyone in his hands. That it happens to be Heather just makes it all the more urgent that we go now.” A fierce light shone in his green cat-pupiled eyes as he said, “But at least this time I’m going back under my own power and with assistance!”
I looked at our little band of four: Ragar, Jason, Auraus, and myself.
“Let’s go,” I said.
“Wait, Lise. Would you like a couple of Grey Rider volunteers to come with you as well?” offered Dusk. “Bascom no doubt is expecting some sort of an attack on him and may have guardians either of magic or of muscle.”
I drew out my iron bar and slapped it in my free hand as I bared my teeth in an approximation of a smile. “A smaller group will not announce our presence as fast. It’s already worked for us. Plus, Jason and I both have iron.”
“And magical items,” said Emalai hesitantly from behind me.
I looked quizzically at the black-haired Surface-elf. “You’ve just been saved from the Sub-realms. Are you really offering to immediately go on a rescue mission yourself?”
“Me?” she asked, her beautiful face turning pale. “No, no, I just meant that you should take at least some of the magical items we brought up from Chirasniv with you.”
I smacked the bar into my palm again. “What we need is anti-magic when going up against a mage, not magic. Iron defeated him once, and it will do it again,” I said confidently.
I hid my internal doubts about that statement as I turned to mount Saffron.
CHAPTER 30
We mounted up, but before we left, Emalai pressed on us a couple of things, saying that it couldn’t hurt to take them along. I shrugged and didn’t object, but I didn’t take one, either. She gave us her fancy golden vial that poured whatever beverage was wanted from it, and she scrounged from the other Exchangers a gold and ruby brooch that allowed the user to create and shoot small flames from his or her fingertips, a silver bracelet with a rainbow of gems in it that allowed the user to produce pretty colored lights in the air, and a pin of filigreed copper that allowed the wearer to mimic another’s voice and throw that voice like a ventriloquist. Jason thanked her for us, took the ventriloquist pin, gave the vial and the gold and ruby brooch to Auraus, and gave the silver bracelet to Ragar.
“Colored lights?” asked Ragar sulkily. “Jason has a ring that makes frost, Auraus has a brooch that makes flame, and I get colored lights?”
“Don’t forget my making voices pin!” Jason joked with him.
Auraus patted Ragar on the shoulder. “Would you like the vial, too?” she asked. “I would be happy to give that to you.”
“No, that is fine,” he growled as I hid a smile.
Finally we trotted out of the cave into the sunshine, and it was the best feeling in the world as the sun warmed my cave-cold face. Even Saffron kicked up his heels a little at the feel of the heat on his flanks. Auras brought her horse to a dead standstill at the first touch of the light breeze on her skin and looked longingly upwards.
“Go on,” I said to her. “Scout about, but don’t go too high or too far. We don’t need Bascom spying you while you’re up there, and remember the quads of guards around who may still not know there is no valley for them to go back to. Though I would hope they would have an inkling about that by now.”
Auraus looked gratefully at me, slid off her loaned horse, and took off upwards. Saffron and the Grey Rider mounts didn’t react to her leaving, but Melka and the other horses from the keep shied at her departure.
Jason and I were in the lead as we wended our way down the road, with Ragar leading Auraus’ horse behind us, when Jason decided to amuse himself for a while trying out the ventriloquist pin. He made his voice come from inside Saffron’s ear, from under his horse’s saddle, and from other unlikely places—including Ragar. He stopped it with a grin when the mountain-cat-elf gave him a growl.
Then a thought must have struck him, because he glanced over at me and said, “Hey, Lise? You notice that most of the magical items we’ve seen are rather, well ….” Jason paused as if looking for the right word.
“Ordinary?’ I replied.
“Yeah.”
“That would probably be because the Under-elves would not want to give powerful magic to their slaves, since the magic was supposed to be used for the Under-elves and not against them. How often do you think that a fireball or a lightning bolt would be called for at a dinner party?” I asked him.
“Oh, yeah. That makes sense.”
As I turned back to ask Ragar a question, I forgot about it as I saw the mountain-cat-elf stiffen. Alarmed, I scanned around us, and belatedly, Jason did, too.
“I smell blood,” Ragar said by way of explanation. “And recently shed at that.”
We heard a multi-voiced deep throated yelling start up from over the ridge we were beside, and Auraus came plummeting down to us. For a moment I thought she’d been hurt, but she looked fine as she landed next to our group.
“A quad of guards is on the far side of this ridge,” she said, pointing to the left wall of the canyon road we traveled in. “It is made up of two Trolls, a Miscere Giant, and an Ogre. They look wounded, or so I would guess from the bandages each wears.”
“That must be the source of the blood Ragar smells. Grey Rider work?” I mused out loud.
“Unlikely,” she replied. “The members of the quad would not have gotten away from them, and Dusk would have mentioned it to us before we left the cave.”
The yelling started moving further away, and I wondered if that was a good thing or not.
“Do you think there’s any chance we won’t have to fight?” I asked.
“They saw me and looked eager as they threw rocks at me to try and bring me down,” she replied.
“We’re going to run right into them, aren’t we?” Jason interrupted the Wind-rider in a dry voice.
“Yes,” she replied. “The curve at the head of this canyon road connects both of our paths.”
“I was afraid of that,” he said, but then he brightened and looked at me. “Hey, Lise? Can we play with the toys first before going in swinging at the tower?”
Ragar and Auraus wore their by-now usual confused expression at some of the human words and phrases we used, but I grinned.
“Why, yes! Yes, I think we should! Let’s get an idea what we can do with them before running into Bascom.”
I quickly explained to Auraus and Ragar what Jason meant, and together we devised a strategy to make the best use of the magical items we’d been given by making it seem the canyon way was haunted or something. We brought the horses back along a short curve of the canyon so the quad wouldn’t see them when the guards entered the path, and then we scattered to our positions to wait. Auraus was up above on the ridge, her white-and-gold wings flattened around her so she wouldn’t be seen; Ragar crouched on a ledge across the way opposite her, his fur and his leather pants blending marvelously into the surrounding rock. Jason and I huddled together out of sight in a split in the rock wall not too far from the top of the road.
The quad came around the curve and Jason immediately shot a blast of frost as thick as he could under their feet, making the rocks cold and a little slick. The Ogre slipped and fell down, but the other three managed to keep their feet. They stopped at the evidence of magic use, though, and suddenly I wondered if we could pull off a trick.
“Jason! Pretend you’re Bascom!” I ordered in a whisper.
He obeyed without hesitation. “Guards! What are you doing here?!” Jason growled, using the ventriloquist ring.
“My–my Lord Bascom?” the leader tentatively, for a Troll, asked, looking around. “Where are you?”
“Yes, it is me!” Jason roared. “I am invisible! I have been personally searching this area, weary of my guards not returning with any escapees. There is nothing here. Now, leave, and search elsewhere!”
I pinched Jason’s arm.
“Tell them to go to the valley!” I hissed.
“No,” Jason whispered back, still in Bascom’s voice. It was kind of eerie to hear. “If I send them to the valley, they’ll know something is up.”
“What did you say, Lord Bascom? I could not hear you,” the Troll called out.
He sounded suspicious. Uh-oh. I should have kept quiet.
“You heard me!” Jason roared again. “Do you dare disobey my orders?!”
“But, Lord Bascom ….”
Definitely suspicious now, I thought.
“Then feel my wrath as I call down fire upon you for disobedience!” Jason screamed in Bascom’s voice.
Fortunately Auraus understood her cue and shot magical flames down upon the quad, and Ragar joined in on the fun by making the air fill with confusing, changing lights.
“Yes, Lord Bascom! At once, Lord Bascom!” the quad cried, and they scrammed out of there; practically scrambling their feet like a Bugs Bunny cartoon character in their hurry to get away.
As soon as they were no longer able to be heard fleeing down the road, the four of us came together in the middle of the trail-way, feeling relieved and clapping each other in congratulations on the back and shoulders.
“It worked!” I laughed.
“When you altered the plan, I was concerned,” said Ragar. “Lise, I know I am not a leader, but please do not pull any changes like that again unless you can somehow let all of us know ahead of time, all right?”
I was chagrinned. “Sorry, Ragar. You’re right. I promise I won’t do that again.”
“But,” he said begrudgingly, “I guess the bracelet is useful after all.”
“Your change was inspired,” Auraus said, coming to my defense. “I froze when I heard Bascom’s voice, but then I remembered that ventriloquist pin.” She put an arm around my shoulders. “This gives me hope that we will be able to accomplish our rescue.”
“We will not be able to fool the mage with his own voice,” the mountain-cat-elf growled.
“But what about maybe with his ex-lover and ex-partner, Morsca’s?” I asked slyly.
Auraus’ face lit up. “Lise! That is brilliant! Surely Bascom could not have found her body in the cavern below the keep before the battle started!”
Ragar’s face looked hopeful at the Wind-rider’s words. “It is possible,” he said slowly. “At the very least, it may cause him to freeze just at the wrong time long enough for one of us to get a good shot in on him.”
Jason smiled. “What are we waiting for, amigos?” he asked. “Let’s go try it out!”
CHAPTER 31
To prepare everyone for what might be ahead, all along the way to Bascom’s tower I told them as much as I could remember about the last two times I’d been in the lair of the mage: first with Arghen and Heather, and then when I’d gone back with just Arghen. When I was done with my recital, Jason rode beside me with his mouth hanging open for a short bit.
“Remind me to never again doubt if you can pull anything off that you set your mind to,” he finally said.
“But I didn’t do any of it alone,” I argued.
“So?” he shot back. “Just because you needed help to do all that stuff doesn’t wipe out the fact that you actually did it. You need to give yourself a little more credit than you do, chica.”
That made me feel good all the way to the area where Bascom’s tower was located. Looking around, I found that the trail was still hidden by illusion, like it had been last time. I told everyone my sideways eye trick for locating it; and with the four of us searching it didn’t take us long to find the pathway up. We stopped at the top of the trail to survey the scene. There, in the middle of the mesa with the lavender-colored grasses and Technicolor wildflowers, sprung Bascom’s tall, black stone, movie-evil tower. All seemed quiet.
“Okay, here’s the first part where it’s going to get tricky,” I said. “If you were still unaffected by magic, Jason, this would be where you would have taken Heather’s part. But that’s no longer an option.”
Auraus, who’d ridden her horse with us because she had wanted to hear about Bascom’s tower, suggested, “Why not do as you did before and close your eyes to ride across the mesa?”
“How will the horses know where to go if we aren’t guiding them, and how can we guide them if we aren’t looking where we’re going?” I asked.
She smiled. “Because I can close my eyes, leap forward a few wing strokes, then land and turn back and guide you to me with the sound of my voice. And when you have reached me, I can do it again. It will be in essence like what we were doing underground on the way to Chirasniv, except this time I will be taking Arghen’s part.”
The Wind-rider looked a little sad as she mentioned the Under-elf’s name.
“Can’t hurt to try,” I said.
Auraus spread her white and gold wings and leapt forward into the air, eyes tightly closed. She landed at a guess about fifty feet away, then turned around and called back, “Are you ready?”
I looked at Ragar and Jason. “You boys set?”
“Let’s go,” Jason replied.
The three of us closed our eyes tightly and urged our mounts forward, following the continuous sound of Auraus’ voice, and adjusting as she corrected us whenever we started to drift.
“Stop!” she said, and when we reined up and opened our eyes we found her just in front of us. “You made it!” she said happily. “The trick has worked!”
“Is the trap even still on?” Jason asked curiously. “Maybe Bascom deactivated it.”
“No, it is still active,” Auraus said with a smile. “I tried walking backwards while guiding you three to me, and I did not get one step closer. And the only reason I realized that fact was because you kept getting nearer and nearer. It is an insidious piece of magic, because did I not see you actually approach me, I would be firmly believing I was getting closer and closer to the tower, when in actuality I was not at all.”
We did four more leapfrogs like that, and we ended near the base of Bascom’s tower. Remembering from my stories that we needed to stay away from the front gate, we headed towards the hidden back door.
As we walked our mounts around the base of the tower, Ragar suddenly said, “Stop!”
We all reined our horses in hard.
“What?” I asked cautiously.
“I smell the scent of newly-turned earth, but I see nothing that should give off that kind of a scent.”
“A camouflaged hole would,” Jason said sourly.
“Another pit trap, you think?” I asked.
Ragar shrugged.
We dismounted, drop-reined Saffron, and then tied the Grey Rider horses to him so they wouldn’t wander off. We crouched down and crawled forward on our hands and knees in a line, testing the earth ahead of us with each step. About twenty feet from the back door, all of our hands disappeared into the dirt. This broke an illusion covering a pit that matched the pit I remembered from the front door.
“Wow, he does seem to be a one-trick pony,” said Jason, sitting back and looking down into the hole.
It was probably about twenty feet deep and about forty feet in length, though only maybe twenty feet in width. But even so, thinking it was ‘only twenty feet in width’ was like saying ‘it was only a little rain’ when a hurricane was blasting outside your apartment building.
“How do we get across this?” I asked.
“I have an idea,” said Jason.
Soon we were all standing on the far edge of the pit directly across from where the back door should be.
“There are no guarantees in life, chica,” he said with a cocky grin.
He rappelled down the piece of rope that we’d secured to the edge of the pit with a couple of climbing pitons. He carefully tap-tested the ground as he crossed the bottom in case Bascom had become a trap-with-a-trap kind of guy, but he made it just fine. As Jason crossed the bottom I felt my eyes starting to close, so I took out the waterskin of the pep-me-up stuff and uncapped it.
“Are you sure that is a good idea?” asked Auraus, eyeing the waterskin.
“I need it, and I promise I’ll only take a little bit,” I said before taking a couple of swallows.
Like before, it really woke me up. I’d probably become a millionaire if I could figure out how to duplicate this in our world, I thought to myself as I debated drinking a couple more sips. Auraus frowned at me, though, so I put it away reluctantly and checked on Jason’s progress instead. When we saw he’d arrived safely on the other side, Auraus launched herself across the pit, pulling her wings in close to her body at the top of her arc, and landed what looked like partially inside the black stone wall.
“Ooof,” she said.
“You okay?” I called to her.
“I am fine, Lise. I just misjudged a little, that is all,” she reassured me.
She turned around and rubbed her nose with one hand with a rueful smile while bracing herself in what had to be the door arch with the other. The Wind-rider turned back and tried the door, disappearing ever so slightly inside the illusory stone. Not too surprisingly, this time it was locked. Then, through careful bending and twisting gyrations, she secured another rope with another couple of pitons to her side of the pit. She spread her wings to fall softly down into it away from Jason, who climbed up to take her place on the doorsill. While Jason worked on the lock, Auraus climbed up out of the pit via the rope closest to us, since her wingspan was too awkward for the pit size. When Jason got it open, Ragar and I made our way to join him. While Auraus collected the rope and pitons from the far side, I told Jason how to spider-climb across the wall and where the button to deactivate the inside floor pit trap was. When Jason had successfully done that, Auraus flew to join us inside the short corridor. We swung open the door on the far end carefully and quietly into the ground floor room of the tower.
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