by Alex Kosh
“They look a bit miserable to me,” I remarked.
“That’s right,” the vampire agreed. “I have a feeling we’ll be sitting here until the invaders decide what to do with us.”
“You know,” I whispered to Kelnmiir. “Without any energy these Higher Craftsmen don’t look so very high. Just a group of old men ...”
“You noticed that, did you?” the vampire laughed. “You’re growing, my friend.”
“All right, let’s assume the Craftsmen can’t think of anything. But you could probably do something if you had a drink of blood ...”
“Would you like to donate?” asked Kelnmiir, baring his fangs in a smile. “Okay, I’m joking. I don’t have any tricks in my arsenal that could help us. No matter how many litres of blood I might drink ... I can’t break through several metres of Distant Mountain stone, and teleportation isn’t one of our specialities.”
Kelnmiir picked his sword up off the floor.
“Well then, shall we go and have a word with your uncle?”
But of course! The sword!
“Kelnmiir, could you charge a technomagical device with energy?”
“Let’s think logically here,” the vampire declared. “If I could charge technomagical devices, I would have charged this thing a long time ago ...” he took the teleport disk out of his pocket “... and cleared out of this place.”
Ah, I’d forgotten about the teleport. I wondered how much energy it needed.
“Yes,” I said, jumping up off the bench. “I need to talk to my uncle urgently.”
“And what was it I just said to you?”
We didn’t have to look for my uncle very long. He found us.
“Where are you going?” Romius called as soon as we’d taken a few steps.
Was he following us, then?
“We were on our way to find you,” the vampire said happily. “Zach has something to tell you.”
“I wonder what that could be?” Romius enquired.
“You don’t really think I’m a traitor, do you?” I suddenly blurted out. I didn’t mean to say it, honestly, it just came out ...
“Why use the word traitor?” asked Romius, not embarrassed in the least. “You might not even know that you’ve become a spy for the other side. You’re carrying signs of hypnosis ...”
“That was applied ten years ago,” Kelnmiir interrupted. “Do you seriously think he was programmed by Tabernacle specialists ten whole years ago?”
“Are you sure?” Romius asked. “How can it be ten years? I was told that when he entered the Academy, the signs of intervention were still fresh!”
I stood there without saying anything and listened while they discussed me as if I wasn’t there.
“Maybe even longer than ten years. Maybe fifteen ... I wasn’t able to determine the precise period from a superficial check. And as for the fresh traces, they were merely signs that the program was malfunctioning. On that day something disrupted it quite seriously, and certain side effects surfaced.”
Side effects? So maybe my sensitive shock was one of those side effects? Or maybe not ... maybe I’d been programmed ten years ago to get into the Academy and commit sabotage? Stop! They’d really got me going. What sabotage? What spying? I could remember everything I’d done quite clearly. I hadn’t tried to ferret out any information ... Nonsense. What was I thinking of? Me, a spy? It was simply im-poss-ib-le.
Then, let’s say that’s the case,” Romius agreed hurriedly. Too hurriedly, in my opinion. “Zach, what did you want to discuss with me?”
“Have you thought of any way for us to get out of here?”
Romius was embarrassed: “Well, we’re working on that problem ...”
“Very amusing,” Kelnmiir remarked.
“I have a question,” I went on. “As I understand it, the teleport that we used to get here can be recharged. But for some reason Kelnmiir can’t do it ...”
“Of course he can’t,” Romius agreed. “Vampires use a quite different form of energy, it can’t even be measured in our usual mags, and all the technomagical devices work on simple mags from our Reservoir.”
“How many mags does it take to charge up a teleport?” I asked, and held my breath as I waited for the answer.
“About a hundred.”
A hundred. Well, that left me with egg on my face.
“That’s a pity,” I sighed.
And I’d been hoping I could use the ring to charge the teleport ... Stop! The ring ... the sword ... from my dream! That was it! What if we tried using the sword?
I grabbed the stonecutting sword out of the vampire’s hands.
“What about this sword that cuts through stone? How many mags does it need to work?”
Romius shrugged.
“Well, that’s fairly simple technomagic, so five or ten mags would do it.”
Yes! I was a genius!
“A sword that cuts through stone!” Kelnmiir exclaimed in amazement. “I just picked that lump of metal up off the floor ...”
Yes that was a real stroke of luck. And it was good thing Kelnmiir had decided to keep the sword and not the poleaxe.
“Then one final question,” I said, trying hard to conceal the note of triumph in my voice. “Can you cut through the walls of the Academy with a stonecutting sword?”
“Are you crazy?” Romius asked in amazement. “Distant Mountain stone is one of the strongest minerals in the world. And it’s quite impervious to any kind of magical influence.”
I’d goofed again. Me and my dreams ...
“Then there are no more questions,” I sighed miserably.
“But a stonecutting sword doesn’t have an independent power source,” said Romius. “How were you thinking of charging it if it really could cut through Distant Mountain stone?”
“I have this little trinket that I picked up in the Museum,” I confessed.
I took the ring out of my pocket.
“Aha ... a charge ring,” Romius exclaimed delightedly. “I think we’ll be able to find some use for that. Well done, Zach!”
Praise at last. Well, thanks for that, at least. But the clear message written on his face was: “Well done, of course, but better let the grown-ups deal with these problems, and you go and take a rest.”
“You go and take a rest,” Romius told me with a smile. “And Kelnmiir and I will think about how to use this advantage that we have unexpectedly acquired.”
There, what did I tell you? They thought of me as some strange mixture of ordinary child and dastardly spy.
I sat back down on the bench and couldn’t help heaving a miserable sigh. Now what was I supposed to do? Sit there and wait until all my friends were captured by the invaders? I just hoped that Chas and Alice hadn’t been caught yet ...
But I wasn’t allowed to just sit there and wait. It all started with a girl who sat down beside me for no obvious reason in particular.
“How are you getting on?” she asked with a sweet smile.
“Fantastic,” I replied with a sad smile. “This is a great way to pass the time, isn’t it?”
The girl nodded.
“I saw you arrive in the hall.”
“Really?”
“I thought magic wasn’t working in the Academy.”
“It isn’t,” I confirmed.
“Then how did you get in here?” the girl asked curiously.
“It was just that Kel ...” – and then I realised why the girl had sat down beside me. “Well, you see, I can’t tell you anything right now, you understand ... The Craftsmen have forbidden it ...”
“I understand,” the girl sighed. “But you can tell me ... in secret ...”
So that’s what it was. Oh yes, I knew that kind of secret – in half an hour there wouldn’t be a single person in the hall who didn’t know it..
“I can’t,” I said more firmly and turned away.
After that they came thick and fast. Absolutely everybody came up and sat near me: pupils, senior pupils, even a few C
raftsmen. I could sympathise, really, I could, everyone wanted to know what was going on; everyone wanted to know why I miraculously arrived with a vampire. It was getting on my nerves. Suspicion and curiosity were a powerful combination. I was approached by my acquaintances Nick, Anna and Serge, the whole of our faculty of fire, and even Angel and Lens had the audacity to come up and try to draw me into friendly conversation.
Eventually I got fed up of sitting there with a guilty expression on my face, trying to explain that I couldn’t tell anybody anything. I had to explain the same thing over and over again. After half an hour I was ready to blow my top. For the sake of my nerves and the health of everyone around me, I had to hide among the Craftsmen.
At least the old duffers behaved with more restraint, believing it was beneath their dignity to talk to me. I could see that very clearly in their eyes, together with their obvious curiosity ... but the former overcame the latter by force of habit. I could sit calmly among them and think my own thoughts. For instance, wonder where Alice was right then ...
What a creep I was, really. I couldn’t abandon Neville and Naive, but it hadn’t even occurred to me that I was abandoning Chas and Alice. On the other hand, Alice was a vampiress, after all, she should be able to take care of herself, and Kelnmiir had said she was all right. I just hoped he wasn’t wrong ... But that still left Neville and Naive, and Caiten ... they’d definitely been captured, and Kelnmiir and I had abandoned them. Steel was still somewhere in the Museum too ... maybe he hadn’t been caught.
“Why so sad?”
“The pat on my back almost sent me tumbling down the terraces.
“Kelnmiir, you shouldn’t sneak up on people so quietly,” I protested furiously.
“You know, it seems to me you can’t sneak up any other way but quietly,” the vampire laughed.
“So what were you discussing with the Craftsmen? Or this time did they make you promise that you wouldn’t tell me anything?”
“No, they didn’t think of it this time either,” said the vampire, positively glowing with satisfaction. “I see you’ve started examining the events taking place around you more closely. This time we discussed the possibility of using my own beloved self as our main weapon against the trolls.”
“Meaning?”
“The honourable Craftsmen considered the possibility of providing me with blood in exchange for my active assistance in the defence of the Academy.”
“That was only to be expected,” I said. “But you told me yourself you don’t have any abilities that could help us to get out here.”
“And I told them the same thing. But I think they don’t believe me, they really believe I’m hiding something from them. But since they couldn’t prove it, we worked out a plan that doesn’t include donations of blood.”
“So we do have a plan, after all,” I exclaimed happily.
“That’s exactly right, we have a plan,” Kelnmiir replied. “I told the Craftsmen I would only help them if we worked together as a team.”
I blinked at him in amazement.
I felt pleased at this announcement, but I wondered if I really should.
“It is the Craftsmen’s opinion that soon most of the teleports the trolls are using in the Academy will stop working,” Kelnmiir went on.
“Why’s that?”
“Well, you see, teleports are designed to transport people. And, in case you didn’t know, people don’t weigh more than about three hundred and thirty pounds. But can you imagine how much a troll weighs?”
“Not really,” I admitted.
“Tons! The teleports simply aren’t designed to transport so much weight at one time. So soon one of them will be torn to pieces in transit, and then the teleports will simply stop working.”
“Maybe all the trolls will get torn to pieces in the teleports and that will be the end of it?” I said hopefully.
“Right, in your dreams,” Kelnmiir laughed. “But you’re thinking along the right lines. Basically, the Craftsmen believe that soon, when the teleports start breaking down, we’ll be visited by a delegation from the invaders.”
“To take a couple of Craftsmen to fix the teleports?” I suggested.
Kelnmiir looked at me as if I was an idiot.
“Do you think the invaders are stupid enough to give the Craftsmen the energy they need to repair the teleports? Not very likely. And where would they get that energy from? The most they will do, if they’re not total cretins, of course, is use one of the Craftsmen to check which teleports are working properly.”
“Let them go through first, you mean?” I asked, confused. “But any ordinary pupil will do for that ...”
“Hmmm ... we didn’t consider that possibility,” Kelnmiir admitted. “In any case, if there’s the slightest possibility that they will show up here, we have to be ready.”
“For what?”
“For anything. They’ll give us two sets of Craftsmen’s livery, we’ll put them on and stand at the ready by the teleports, together with one real Craftsman.”
“We’re going to act as bait?” I guessed instantly.
“We’re going to try.” The vampire looked around. “Unless, of course, you have any other ideas. Feel free to mention them, we’re all friends here. Don’t be afraid to appear stupid.”
I thought about it.
“I don’t really know. Well, the different levels can’t be completely isolated from each other, there’s some kind of ventilation system ... or just cracks between the blocks of stone, if it comes to that.”
“That’s an idea,” the vampire agreed. “I wonder why the Craftsmen didn’t think of that?”
“Probably because there’s no way for a human being to exploit an opportunity like that.”
The vampire snapped his fingers.
“But that’s a human being! If necessary, I can crawl through the crack under a door ... You go to the teleports and get dressed in your Craftsman’s livery, and I’ll try looking for a ventilation system or a crack of suitable size.”
“Agreed,” I said.
Kelnmiir dissolved into the crowd, and I picked up my all-purpose battle broom and set off toward the teleports in the corridor. On the way I was stopped by men on guard at the entrance to the Main Hall, but they let me through as soon as I gave them my name.
At the teleports I was met by Shins.
Oh no! Surely the “real Craftsman” wasn’t going to be Shins? What had I done to deserve torment like this?
“Here, take this,” he muttered, flinging a set of red livery at me. “I don’t know what the vampire wants you for, but don’t let it go to your head. I’ll be watching you all the time, and if you try anything suspicious, you’ll have to take the consequences.”
“Why do you dislike me so much?” I asked, unable to hold back the question that had been bothering me for so long.
“I’ve always hated spies,” Shins hissed through his teeth. “And I won’t let any Tabernacle scum harm the Academy.”
Clear enough. He thought I was a spy too.
“But I’m not a spy,” I repeated yet again. “Just because someone used hypnosis on me, that doesn’t prove ...”
“It’s proof enough for me,” Shins said drily. “Put that livery on quickly and ... where’s that vampire?”
“He’ll be here in a moment,” I answered, leaning my broom against the wall and starting to put the livery on.
We were standing right in front of the teleports, so we noticed immediately when one of them flashed.
A stone troll walked out of the teleport.
“I need one craftsman,” he growled. Shins and I glanced at each other.
“We’ll go and get him for you,” we said almost simultaneously, both taking a step backwards. Shins simply wanted to get out of there, but I was hoping to pick up my broom without being noticed and sweep the troll right off the floor.
“I’ll think you’ll do for me,” the troll said, once he’d taken a look at us. “I’ll take two instead of one. T
hat way I’ll have a spare ...”
Before Shins or I could take a couple of steps, the troll grabbed us and stepped back into the teleport.
Before the flash, I just had time to think that the combined weight of the troll and the two of us was more than a teleport could handle. Consequently, the chances of being smeared across all the levels of the tower were greatly increased ...
Scene 6
“You’ve brought two Craftsmen instead of just one?”