“Think about it, do you not!” she snarled in an unyielding voice.
Paul’s eyes swept the room. The image in the mirror was not a reflection. There was no such person present in the room with him. Instead, the woman’s appearance was projecting out of the mirror, not a reflection off the surface of it.
Shivers ran up and down his spine and he involuntarily stepped back, dropping his arm slowly.
“Who dat?” Daneel muttered as he drifted over to the circular stairway leading up to the floor above, dropping his computer frame heavily onto the fourth step.
The woman in the mirror scoffed haughtily first at Daneel and then Paul. “Clueless, you two are. Wonder it is, you defeating Hamadi. Senior wizard, is he.” And she stared at Daneel closely. “Metal wizard, are you. First time ever, I’ve seen. Sight amazing!”
“Who are you?” Paul finally managed to ask, cocking his head to one side. “And why did you stop me? That’s my wife trapped in there. I have to get her out!”
“Ariel-Leira, some call me,” the woman declared haughtily, looking down her nose at him. “Kill her, your spell will. Should not, you try.”
All the backwards words were starting to give Paul a headache. “Why would it kill her?”
“Spell process, you know not,” jeered the image.
“Dad?” Daneel piped up, his face on the monitor screen grey and anxious. “Mom? Ruck-stuck-tuck in the aox-box-cox?”
“Merlin?” Paul quietly asked.
The hologram of the medieval wizard materialized in the room a few feet from Paul. Merlin and the woman in the mirror locked eyes on each other at the same moment and their reaction was instantaneous. Both fell into a crouch, their arms extended in defensive positions, loudly spitting and hissing at each other like enraged alley cats.
Paul slapped his hands over his ears and winced, the commotion was so loud! “Stop it, you two!” he bellowed. “Stop it right now!”
“What he said!” hollered Daneel in an even louder voice.
Merlin backed further away from the mirror, hissing more quietly but hissing nonetheless. Ariel-Leira backed off on her cacophony as well.
“Not to be trusted, that one,” she snarled angrily.
“Merlin is a product of a magical spell and my friend!” snapped Paul heatedly.
“One of the mirror folk!” Merlin mocked with a grimace. “Everything’s backwards with them. Can’t trust a word they say! They’re greedy, selfish, everything they do is twisted!”
“Ah, but useful we are,” Ariel-Leira crooned proudly. “The woman in containment, when this idiot nearly killed, where were you? Asleep? Book reading? Useless, you are.”
For a moment, Paul thought Merlin was going to have a meltdown, his face was so beet red. Instead, the medieval wizard crossed his arms and turned sharply away. “The help of the mirror people ALWAYS comes at a price. Don’t trust her.”
“But help, it comes,” the mirror woman replied insolently. “Competence, worthy of a price.”
The strange turn of events had caught Paul flat-footed and he knew not quite how to proceed. He glanced again at Capie, trapped in the stasis field.
“Merlin?” he implored quietly. “Is she telling the truth? Would my spell have killed Capie?”
To Paul’s surprise, Merlin squirmed while appearing flustered. “I don’t know. Maybe,” he admitted in a low voice. “Depends on the exact nature of the stasis spell that was cast. I wasn’t here when that happened. If there were any spell conditions or materials used to enhance the spell, then yes, there is some risk involved in removing her. I’d have to, ah, run a few tests, to make sure, you see.” And his voice trailed off.
“Here, I was, when spell cast,” crowed Ariel-Leira. “Specifics, I know. Help you, I can. For a small fee, of course.”
Paul shook his head, studying first Merlin and then the woman in the mirror. Inside, he felt uneasy as he first clenched his fists and then made himself unclench them.
“What is your fee?” he warily asked the woman in a strained voice.
Ariel-Leira smiled airily. “Not high, is it. Place this, tired of. Same room, always. Travel, places to see. When you leave, take me. See? Price not bad at all.”
Merlin merely grunted but said nothing, still turned away from the conversation in obvious disapproval.
Paul shrugged and weighed his alternatives thoughtfully while studying Merlin’s profile. The super-intelligence was behaving in a totally atypical fashion. Not only was he not offering any suggestions, useful or otherwise, but he seemed to be responding in a clearly emotional manner. Even now, Paul could see a mixture of such emotions sweeping across Merlin’s face, ranging from embarrassment and a touch of fear, to stubborn pride, guilt and worry.
Since Merlin seemed either unwilling or unable to help, Paul snorted in impatience, turning back to the mirror.
“Fine,” he announced reluctantly with a grimace. “I agree to your terms. Help me get my wife out of stasis and I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. Within reason, of course.”
“Fast, not so!” came the response. “Not here, can it be done. This place leave we must first.”
Even more warily than before, Paul asked the obvious question. “Why not here?”
“Not here are the items special needed for the spell. Rare, they are,” she announced arrogantly.
“Paul?” Merlin appealed to him as he shuffled his feet nervously. “I really hate to admit this but she’s right. I know how strongly you feel about Capie, how powerful your desire is to release her from her this spell. But she is in no danger right now. Not really. On the other hand, you and Daneel are. You can’t afford to hang around here, performing magical experiments and ignoring Daneel’s condition. You need to leave this place and the sooner the better. When you and Daneel are safe, then you can work on releasing Capie. And that’s the absolute best advice I can give you.”
Paul swallowed hard and closed his eyes.
For a few moments, he considered the possibility of getting the information needed to release Capie from Hamadi instead. After all, it was Hamadi that had put Capie in the field to start with. He would surely know the procedure of how to release her. In theory, Paul could use the Truth Mirror on the Errabêlu wizard just as the other wizard had used it on Paul. But a quick look at Hamadi convinced Paul that it wasn’t really a good option right now. The Errabêlu wizard had been slugged really hard and indeed appeared to be completely comatose. Even with magical spells, it might take some time to revive him enough to interrogate him. And then, Merlin was right, drat it all anyway! He didn’t have the time to engage in magical experiments! Wrong time, wrong place.
So it would seem his only option was to trust the woman in the mirror. And it would be no big deal, after all, to take the mirror with him when they left the castle and then he could drop it off someplace along the way.
Ah, leave the castle? And just how would they do that? With a groan, Paul came the sudden and depressing realization that he had spent so much time and energy rushing to Transylvania that he had not given any thought on how to get away again, especially now that he was encumbered with so much additional ‘baggage’ to haul off with him. Paul abruptly realized that he simply could not afford to leave Hamadi or the Oni here. They knew too much and would jeopardize Paul’s operations in Australia. And too, there had been all the other wizard’s questions about the super-talismans. Obviously, the Errabêlu wizard had learned quite a bit from questioning Capie—and yes from Paul too—under the spell of that magical mirror.
No, Paul couldn’t leave anybody behind. And that included the mirror woman.
He mentally added up all the weight: six Oni bodies, one male wizard, Daneel, Capie in her stasis field and now one large mirror in a metal frame. Ugh, that was a lot of weight.
“I, uh, don’t have an exit plan, uh, yet,” he admitted sheepishly to the mirror.
Ariel-Leira stared at him in disbelief for several seconds then began laughing in a very irritating manne
r—what most folks would call a donkey bray. Very annoying. Worse than squealing brakes, in Paul’s opinion.
“There was no time!” he protested feebly with a small shrug. “Capie’s life was in danger! I had to move fast!”
The woman in black waved a negligent hand. But she at least stopped laughing—although her condescending smirk was nearly as bad.
“Can get you out of here, I can,” she told him. “But higher is the price.”
“And what would be the price then?” Paul cautiously asked.
“What no other mirror has seen, to see. Sights, people, places. The price this is.”
A vision of the mirror taking a grand tour of Mars flashed suddenly into Paul’s mind and it was his turn to smile.
“Granted. A place I guarantee that no other mirror has ever been to before or seen,” he explained, feeling a bit better about the situation.
“Excellent! Start, shall we? The Great Hall, first. Of this room, sick I am!”
Paul nodded and waved a hand, levitating all the bodies in the room including Capie and Daneel. A flick of his finger took the mirror off the wall, floating it forward to the center of the room.
“Point the way,” he said, with a small bow.
• • • •
With the mirror ‘leading’ the way, Paul carefully guided everybody and everything past the debris on the floor of the tower room and through a more or less undamaged modest wood-framed door. Merlin followed along quietly while Daneel hummed an odd tune. Their path took them down a stone corridor lined with tapestries and oil portraits of various people dressed in old clothing. A sharp bend at the far end dropped them into one side of the castle’s massive Great Hall. Paul was taken aback at the size of the room with its high vaulted ceilings, huge arched windows, ostentatious furnishings, and subdued indirect lighting. He frowned in consternation, and sent the mirror down to lean against a small table, while simultaneously lowering Capie to the floor. Then he plopped himself down into a gothic wooden chair to think. Daneel touched down on an end table next to Paul’s side, his humming more noticeably ragged than before.
“I dare say, young man, that you get yourself into more situations and in even far less time than Arthur,” Merlin sadly noted, from his position a few feet away. The specter took a moment to glance around the Great Hall and sniffed in disdain. “Must be the maid’s night off. And the interior decorator’s century off. Most of this stuff was out of date during Queen Victoria’s reign.”
Paul leaned forward, looking at the mirror. “Okay, we’re here now. What’s your plan?”
“I too can’t wait to hear your plan,” Merlin declared with a snide sneer to Ariel-Leira. “You can’t ask Paul to portal us out of here, not with all of this mass. The energy signature would linger for hours. Much too easy to follow.”
Merlin looked downward with a thoroughly sullen look. “Paul, even that trick you used under Lake Michigan wouldn’t work here, due to the amount of energy you would have to use for your portals. Of course, levitation is an option. Less energy required for that and the spell would dissipate before morning. But, ah, levitating this much mass for even a hundred miles cross-country would exhaust any wizard, even with two wizard talismans. And even that’s not far enough to help us in this situation. We need to get a hundred and fifty—or even better two hundred miles away.”
With a thoughtful nod, Paul said, “I agree with all of that. I suppose I could build something to use as transportation,” he muttered. Another quick glance around the room revealed several medieval heater shields hanging on the stone walls, each decorated with crosses, dragons or some form of coat of arms. “A huge sled, perhaps? Using the front doors and those shields? We are on a mountain so we could slide downhill—”
Merlin was slowly shaking his head. “You could build a sled, yes, and before daybreak, yes. But it would only take you to the foot of the mountain and there it would leave you stranded as well as exhausted. Try again.”
“If only I had an airplane—” Paul started to say.
Merlin was still shaking his head. “The nearest airport is hundreds of miles away. And building an airplane would take you a minimum of a day to carry out, probably more like two. Do you really want to hang around in Romania that long?”
“Not really, no,” Paul muttered unhappily, looking back at the woman in the mirror.
“If the two of you finished are, tell you, I will, of my plan. But a suggestion, first. These creatures, bind their hands, gag them, you should do. Too, the wizard. Regret it otherwise, you will.”
Merlin grimaced and actually seemed to pout. “A good idea, that. Oni have a remarkable constitution. Any of them could wake up at any time.”
It seemed like a good idea to Paul too. But what should he bind them with? Shredded tapestry? No, not a good choice. Ah! Those shields! Some of them were obviously made of wood but others appeared to be of steel.
With a flick of a wrist, one of the metal shields, a red griffon painted on the front of it, broke loose from its mount and flew through the air towards Paul. Another flick of the wrist and, with a horrid shriek, a strip of metal two inches wide tore off one edge, followed by others until the shield had been turned into confetti. Each strip then wrapped itself around a set of Oni wrists or ankles. Two more shields were sacrificed in the same way until all the Oni and Hamadi were bound tightly. A lace curtain from a nearby arch window suffered the same fate to serve as gags.
“Done,” stated Paul with smug satisfaction. “Now, how do we get out of here?”
The mirror woman smiled insolently. “Simple. Stables there be, in the center of the royal courtyard. Awaiting there, transport is. Portal there, introduce you, I will.”
“Introduce us?” Paul asked, his voice rising a bit in pitch. Just what kind of transportation was she talking about?
• • • •
With an incredulous stare, Paul studied the—well, there was no other word for it—creature in front of him.
It—he—whatever, more or less resembled an old-fashioned delivery wagon, a large box with big black spoked wooden wheels, brightly colored paneled sides, and a flat top. However, in the front, in place of a driver’s bench was a face.
Paul knew it was a living creature for two reasons. One, the face had eyes (large, with black pupils and white irises), a thick hooked nose, a crooked mouth with wooden teeth, a chin and eyebrows. The sight of it strongly reminded Paul of some Disney character.
And second, the creature spoke to him.
“Hello, wizard. Nice to meet you,” it said in a mildly pleasant voice.
Paul’s skin tingled from head to toe in an emotion remarkably similar to alarm and he could only produce a timid nod in response.
Ariel-Leira was doing that funny weird laugh again as she watched Paul’s reaction.
They were in the stables, not far from the center of the courtyard. The stalls here—indeed the entire building—were all larger than necessary to stable horses, or so Paul thought. Ten feet tall, each stall was lined of gray wood slats, the dirt floors padded with fresh strewn straw. However, all of the stalls were empty so there was no telling just what sort of creatures had been housed in them in times past.
All except this one stall, of course, the one with the, uh, transport sitting in it.
“Oyaji, night carriage, this is. Paul Armstead, young wizard, this is,” said Ariel-Leira, as she performed the introductions. “The special transport, Oyaji is called, of which I spoke. The night winds, he rides. Can carry, you and your, ah, cargo. Out-of-range of the castle by morning can be. From there, you can portal undetected.”
Merlin was rubbing his jaw while scowling. “It might work. I’ve heard of night carriages, of course. Japanese in origin. A yokai or supernatural being. They travel only at night and must bed down during the day in a dark place.” And he glared around at the stables. “Which this place definitely qualifies as, even during the day.”
“How do you do?” rumbled Oyaji amiably. “I like my
digs here. They’re quiet and comfortable. But the wizards that come to the castle no longer take me out anywhere. They say I don’t fit into the modern world anymore. Say, is that why you’re here? Do you need a ride somewhere? I can take you anywhere, as long as I’m back in a dark place by sunrise. What do you say?”
“Merlin?” Paul asked, walking around to the back of the “vehicle” and checking out the accommodations from there. There was no rear door, just an open framed interior with padded benches on each side. “What do you think?”
“It should work,” Merlin reluctantly admitted. “The energy signature a night carriage leaves is not a significant one. By morning, it will be too weak to track. Of course, this mode of travel isn’t very fast. But if you leave right away, you might get 150 to 200 miles from here by sunrise. Far enough by that time that you can portal away in short jumps from that location. You might be able to reach a monolith and from there back to Australia in a day or so.”
“What about the night carriage, after he…it, drops us off?” Paul asked, coming back around to the front of the creature.
“I’ll sleep wherever we land during the day and then come back here at nightfall,” answered Oyaji.
“See you?” asked Ariel-Leira. “Midnight tomorrow or later, it will be, when he returns. You long gone, you will be, at that time. No trail to follow.”
Rubbing the back of his neck, Paul conceded that the plan did have merit, however unenthusiastic he was with the approach. Indeed, the whole idea of riding inside a magical creature(?) made him downright squeamish. He would much rather have designed and built something such as another racer! Or just an ordinary jet plane!
But he made himself shove those thoughts aside.
“It’s a deal,” he dolefully declared. “Merlin, we need a destination. Let’s take a look at the possible escape routes.” And he waved a hand to create a holographic display of Google maps in midair.
Orders of Magnitude (The Genie and the Engineer Series Book 2) Page 28