Emily heard a groan from beside her and turned her head, as best as she could. Alassa was tied to another chair, her once-fine white robe stained with a greenish liquid that had dribbled from her chin. The Royal Princess’s eyes were unfocused, but she was slowly recovering from being stunned.
Emily looked back at the third speaker, noting that he was an older version of the first bandit, and scowled. They had to be insane to kidnap, of all people, a Royal Princess. Whitehall would never stop searching for Alassa.
Contractors, the third speaker had said. But who were they? And who were they working for? Emily worked the problem out in her head as the three kidnappers chatted quietly amongst themselves, trying to understand what had happened–and why. If Alassa had been the target, why hadn’t they slit Emily’s throat as soon as they’d had both girls helpless? And if they’d wanted Emily, for whatever reason that might make sense to their minds, why hadn’t they killed Alassa?
Actually, that wasn’t a hard puzzle to solve. Alassa’s family would want bloody revenge if their only daughter–their only Heir–met her end in Dragon’s Den.
Or ... what if the Accountants Guild wanted Emily dead? But they were far away, and even if they had sent kidnappers all the way to Dragon’s Den to kidnap her, if they’d even worked out that Emily had supplied the advanced numbers, why would they kidnap their own Royal Princess? They’d have to be completely insane.
But the only people Emily knew who were insane enough that it wouldn’t matter to them were the necromancers.
She snorted, which drew the attention of all three men for a long moment, before they returned to their huddle. For all she knew, the kidnappers had picked them completely at random and they didn’t know they’d kidnapped a Royal Princess. But surely someone couldn’t just walk into a cliché like that...
“Whitehall will be looking for them,” the third man pointed out. “How do we get them out of the city?”
“They will be safe here until dark, as long as you can keep your fool yaps shut,” the sorcerer growled. He looked down at Emily, and then ruffled her hair like a proud father. “This one will fetch us plenty of gold, and that one”–he nodded at Alassa–“is worth a King’s ransom.”
Emily cleared her throat. “So which of us is the target and which of us is the innocent bystander?”
The sorcerer drew back his hand and slapped her across the cheek.
Emily yelped, tasting blood. She desperately tried to cast one of the painkilling spells she’d learned from books. The spell refused to work properly, but the mental disciplines helped push the pain to one side.
The sorcerer cackled and turned back to his allies.
“You can see that this one is a Child of Destiny,” he said flatly. “She shows as little fear as she can, for she knows that Destiny will not let her die.”
“I could kill her now,” the first bandit said. He produced a small knife from his belt and held it up in front of Emily’s face. “One slash and Destiny will find himself cheated ...”
The sorcerer moved his hand in a simple pattern and the bandit was hurled across the room, right into a solid stone wall. “You’re a fool,” he growled. “She’s worth nothing to us dead.”
“Wait,” Alassa said. Her voice sounded fearful but determined. “You must know that you won’t get away with this.”
“One of the terms of your ransom will be a mighty oath from your father that he will not seek revenge on his daughter’s kidnappers,” the sorcerer informed her. His face, twisted more by old age and malice than magic, leered at her. “And if he refuses to deal, we can always offer our services to the rest of your family.”
He smirked as Alassa choked back a sob. “You won’t have any magic until you are released,” he said, nastily. “But just to keep you from talking ...”
The sorcerer picked up a lump of cloth from a table and stuffed it into Alassa’s mouth, ignoring her protests. A moment later, he did the same to Emily, who found herself forced to leave the makeshift gag in her mouth. He could have cast a spell to silence them both, she thought frantically, trying to keep down the fear hidden at the back of her mind. There had to be a reason why he wasn’t relying on magic to keep them prisoner. Maybe he just wasn’t a very strong magician?
“Get some rest,” he advised as he headed for the locked door. “You have a long trip ahead of you tonight.”
Emily could hear his laughter for several minutes as he and his allies walked through the door and banged it closed behind them.
She promptly glanced at Alassa, saw the fear in her eyes, and then looked down at the chair. The knots remained firmly tied no matter how hard she struggled against them, even leaning back in the chair ... wait a minute!
Leaning was the answer. The realization hit her like a physical blow. She put it into action before she could think better of it. Emily pushed the chair back, hoping and praying that she could put enough pressure on the weak wooden structure to break the legs and smash the chair.
At first, all the chair would do was creak. And then it made a much louder noise ... and then, to Emily’s delight, the chair shattered with a terrifying crash. She looked up, listening for sounds of the sorcerer coming to see what had made the noise, but heard nothing.
Good, she thought, as she started to pull her hands free. The sorcerer had tied them to the chair, rather than tying them separately. Several seconds of wiggling freed her hands, allowing her to push the rest of the ropes aside. She was free!
Emily reached into her mouth and pulled out the gag, throwing it into a far corner. Alassa looked up gratefully and then nodded in understanding as Emily tapped her lips before starting to untie the Princess. Once she was free, Alassa picked up a chunk of wood and prepared to fight, although Emily was less sure that it would be a useful weapon. The chairs had been so decayed that it was a minor miracle they hadn’t broken before Emily had forced the issue.
“Thank you,” Alassa said, rubbing her wrists.
Emily glanced down at her own wrists and saw evil red marks where the ropes had cut into the flesh.
Alassa blinked at her. “But how are we going to get out of here without magic?”
Emily looked around, cursing her own stupidity. She should have checked out the room before she started her ill-planned escape. It was almost completely empty, just like a storm cellar, apart from a stone table in one corner and a glowing magic crystal to provide lighting. The door was wooden, but solid. Irritatingly, a single unlocking charm would have sufficed to break the lock if they’d had a spark of magic between them.
“I can’t feel any hexes waiting for us,” Alassa whispered. “Is ... is that normal?”
“I don’t know,” Emily admitted. It had never even occurred to her that there was a way to dampen magic, at least for a short while. The necromancers wouldn’t have been so dangerous if they could easily be rendered powerless. She pushed her palm against the wood and tried to sense any magical booby traps waiting for her, but felt nothing. Did that mean that there were none, which seemed unlikely in a sorcerer’s house, or that she could no longer sense their presence?
“They left the key in the lock,” Alassa muttered. “The wrong side, naturally.”
“Of course,” Emily agreed. It would have been pretty silly if they’d put the key on their side of the lock. That only happened in stories about evil wizards who were stupid as well as evil, twirling their moustaches while they obligingly told their captive everything because he was locked up and therefore somehow no longer dangerous. “Do you have anything we could use to pick the lock?”
“Just a few dozen hairpins,” Alassa said, removing one of them from her head. “I don’t think its strong enough to move the lock.”
Emily nodded. Practical lock-picking hadn’t been taught in Whitehall, or in any other school she’d attended. Or, for that matter, how to make gunpowder or modern medicine or anything else she had to reinvent on her own. Whoever had come up with the list of subjects for modern kids needed her head s
lapped, several times. Before coming to this world, Emily didn’t seem to have been taught anything useful at all...
She looked at the lock, then she looked at where the door met the floor, then she looked at the lock again. If someone was behind the door, they’d be caught instantly, but there was no choice. Pulling off her undershirt–and ignoring Alassa’s gasp of shock - Emily carefully pushed the fabric under the door. It would have been easier with a newspaper or a sheet of parchment, but she had to make do with what she had. A moment later, she took the hairpin and started to push at the key’s head, trying to maneuver it out of the lock. There was a clinking sound as it hit the fabric. Grinning, Emily pulled her shirt back into the cell along with the key.
“Clever,” Alassa said, her face lighting up like the sun. “How did you think of it?”
“I was desperate,” Emily muttered back, as she picked up the key. It appeared to be made from solid iron rather than anything more exotic. She half-expected a hex to explode in her face the moment she inserted the key in the lock, but it clicked open normally. They stepped into the hallway. “Keep very quiet...”
The sorcerer’s home–if it was the sorcerer’s home–was eerily silent, almost deserted. No matter how much she listened, she could hear nothing. The sorcerer might be gone, or he might have used silencing charms to keep unwanted guests from hearing his footsteps. There was barely any lighting at all.
Emily crept along the hallway towards a hint of light in the distance. Alassa followed, still carrying the chunk of wood. She looked like a warrior princess, complete with a determined expression that surprised Emily. But Alassa had been raised to be a Princess.
They turned a corner–
- and walked right into the young bandit. He let out a yelp of surprise, grabbing Emily and shoving her back against the stone wall.
Emily tried to bring her knee up to strike him in the groin, but his armor absorbed the blow. The Sergeant would have given her a sharp rebuke if he’d been there, part of her mind noted ...
... just before Alassa brought her wooden club down on the bandit’s head. He folded and hit the ground with brutal force, groaning in pain. Emily knelt down beside his body and stripped the bandit of sword and dagger.
“Kill him,” Alassa ordered.
Emily stared at her in horror. She couldn’t kill someone in cold blood, not yet–and perhaps not ever. But Alassa was right; if the bandit raised the alarm, they might be unable to escape. Emily gripped the sword tightly, ready to bring it down and slice through his head, and then lowered it again.
“No,” she said, and hoped that she wasn’t making a mistake. “Hit him again and then we can run.”
Alassa gave her a sharp unreadable look, then struck the bandit a second time. Once he’d stopped moving, she and Emily moved quickly down the corridor.
“The sorcerer must be watching for us,” Alassa gasped. “Most sorcerers know everything that happens in their house.”
Emily nodded, holding the bandit’s sword in front of her like a talisman against evil. It wouldn’t be enough, she knew, if they did encounter the sorcerer. There were books about what happened to swordsmen who fought sorcerers on even terms, all written in the same mocking style as the Darwin Awards back home. The rare times that a swordsman overcame a sorcerer helped to winnow out weak and useless sorcerers from the gene pool, not that they’d put it quite like that.
But no magic reached out to snare them - or to kill them - as they reached the main door. It might have been hexed, so Emily used the sword to lever it open. Nothing happened, so they stumbled out into the bright sunlight. They didn’t seem to have moved too far in the city at all, although it was difficult to tell. Alassa grabbed her arm and pulled her onto the streets, ignoring her tattered clothing and distinctly unpleasant appearance. She, at least, seemed to know where they were.
“You,” a voice snapped. Emily turned to see a man wearing chainmail armor, escorted by three other armsmen. “You’re the missing Princess?”
Alassa pulled herself up to her full height. “I am Princess Alassa of Zangaria,” she informed him, in a tone that left no doubt that she was telling the truth. “And we have escaped from the kidnappers who took us from your city. My father will hear of this.”
“I must escort you to City Hall,” the guard said. Emily found herself wondering if he’d actually meant to say City Hall, or if it was the closest adaption the translation spell could do. “The City Fathers have been very concerned.”
“I suggest you have the bandits in that building arrested,” Emily said before they could be led away. No doubt the City Fathers would be relieved to find Alassa safe and sound, but the kidnappers were still alive and free. “They might take the time to escape.”
“More guardsmen are on their way,” the guardsman informed her. His voice was insufferably confident, mixed with a fear that Emily didn’t quite understand. But then, someone would have had to pay for the lapse in security. “The bandits will not escape.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
AS IT HAPPENED, THE CITY FATHERS weren’t the only ones who wanted to see them.
Mistress Irene had been staying at City Hall and, by the looks of things had been wearing out the carpet by pacing back and forth while waiting for news of her missing charges. Judging from the comments Emily had overheard as they were escorted into the building, Mistress Irene been an unwelcome guest, probably because she took her responsibilities seriously. God help anyone who got in Mistress Irene’s way.
City Hall itself was a massive building that reminded Emily of the Roman Senate. Dozens of young men ran around the building, carrying letters and packets from one room to another, while a cluster of older men supervised their every move. There were no women at all, apart from Mistress Irene–and, given the looks that the two girls received as they entered the building, Emily suspected that women were generally barred from entering City Hall. Like so much else about the strange new world she’d discovered, it seemed surprisingly primitive–and barbaric.
“May all the Gods be praised,” Mistress Irene said when Emily and Alassa were escorted into the small antechamber. “I feared that the worst had happened when your friend told me that you were gone.”
Emily and Alassa exchanged glances.
“I had to send the others back to Whitehall under escort,” Mistress Irene said. “Now tell me, what happened to you?” Her eyes darkened. “And if this was some kind of practical joke ...”
“No,” Alassa said in a very small voice. She sounded as if she were going into shock, now that the immediate danger was over. “Mistress, we were abducted.”
Mistress Irene looked towards the open door and glared at one of the young men. “Fetch some Kava and be quick about it, or I will turn you into the pig you are,” she snarled. She turned back to Alassa as the boy fled for his life. “Start at the beginning and tell me what happened.”
Emily took a moment to gather herself as Alassa ran through the entire story, from the moment they’d been stunned to when they’d run into the City Guard. In hindsight, she couldn’t understand why they hadn’t been guarded more carefully, or simply left drugged until the time came to move them to a more permanent prison. Alassa was worth her weight in gold, literally, and Emily ... Who wouldn’t want to get their hands on a Child of Destiny?
Void had told her that the status might come in handy. He hadn’t told her that it might also be a magnet for thugs, kidnappers and murderers.
Her lips twitched. Void had probably felt it went without saying.
“I see,” Mistress Irene said, after Alassa had finished speaking. “Emily, do you have something you want to add?”
The young man returned with a jug of Kava and three golden goblets. Slowly, he started to pour out the Kava, obviously hoping to hear more of the story before anyone else. Mistress Irene growled at him as soon as he had finished filling the goblets and waved him out of the room impatiently. He retreated with as much dignity as he could muster.
&nbs
p; “Not really,” Emily said. The Kava tasted strange, oddly fouled by the bad taste in her mouth. “Alassa knocked out a bandit with a club of wood.”
“Good for you,” Mistress Irene said to Alassa. The Royal Princess had glossed over that part of the story. “Now, I’m afraid that the City Fathers wish to see you -”
Alassa caught her arm. “My parents? Do they know - ?”
“I’m afraid the City Fathers sent them an urgent message,” Mistress Irene said. Her brown eyes held a hint of sympathy. “They were quick to try to duck blame for whatever had happened to you.”
“And so they should,” Alassa said, her eyes flaring. “I was told that Dragon’s Den was safe!”
“The kidnappers should have known that Whitehall would never have let you simply vanish,” Mistress Irene said. “We could have put a hundred combat sorcerers into the city and searched it from end to end. I can’t imagine how they intended to get you out without being noticed.”
Emily frowned. “A portal? Or teleportation?”
“Perhaps, but the city’s wards would have made that difficult,” Mistress Irene said. “Setting up an unregistered portal is a crime almost everywhere - and it could hardly have gone undetected. The simplest way would be to take you out on a cart, but the City Guard sealed the gates and have been searching everything.”
The tutor shook her head. “Perhaps they were just very stupid bandits. But stupid magicians don’t tend to live very long.”
Mistress Irene headed for the door, giving another young man a brief message as she walked outside.
Emily thought hard. They’d definitely escaped too easily, which meant ... what? That their kidnappers had thought stripping them of magic would be enough to prevent them from escaping? Or that they’d somehow been meant to escape? Perhaps the whole episode had been intended as a warning to Alassa’s parents that their daughter was vulnerable, that she could be threatened. But all it would do would cause them to raise their guard.
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