Company of Strangers, #1

by Melissa McShane

  Perrin scuffed his toe across the floor, which unlike the great hall was made of heavy, well-smoothed flagstones that were, in fact, free from dust. “What do you suppose it means?”

  A deep creak sounded from somewhere high above, making them all go still. “I have no idea,” Alaric said, “but I think that other door leads to the tower. Let’s find out.”

  He was right. This time, the stairs were intact, though a few of them had rotted out of their sockets. “Can we climb that?” Sienne asked.

  Alaric settled his sword more securely across his shoulders. “We’ll have to crawl, but none of the gaps seem too wide. It’s a good thing we’re small, because I wouldn’t trust my full weight to any of those. Be careful, and make sure only one of us is on a given step at a time. I’ll go first.”

  Sienne ended up nearly at the rear of the procession, with only Kalanath behind her. Once Alaric, Dianthe, and Perrin had clambered up, she put her hands on the first step and hauled herself up. The treads were too far apart for her now-short legs to stretch, but not so far that she couldn’t use her hands to boost herself high enough for her knee to reach the next one. The wood felt soft and splintery under her hands, not quite damp, but unpleasantly moist. She gritted her teeth and kept climbing, carefully not looking down even to see how Kalanath was doing. She heard Perrin’s heavy breathing ahead of her and the scrape of Kalanath’s staff across the stones of the wall. How far had they come? A full story? The ceiling of the great hall had been so high up…but it might have risen the full two stories, if it was like the one in her childhood home.

  She dragged herself up another step and realized she was at the top, or at least had reached a landing. She stood and moved out of Kalanath’s way, looking around curiously. The stairs continued some distance up before—Sienne swallowed and looked away. The roof of this tower had partially collapsed and looked close to completing the job. If it had come down on them while they climbed…! She reminded herself that it had been in the process of collapsing for a long time, and it was unlikely it would choose to collapse further just because they’d arrived.

  Dianthe had her arms stretched out above her head, unlocking a door to one side of the landing. “I think we’ve come high enough that we’ve bypassed the broken stairs in the other tower,” Alaric said as Kalanath came to join them. “We’re going to see if we can make our way across to it.”

  The door creaked open. “Good news,” Dianthe said. “It occurred to me that if anyone had come through here, these doors wouldn’t be locked.”

  “That is good news,” Kalanath said. “But we still have seen nothing worth taking.”

  “Patience,” Alaric said.

  The long, low-ceilinged room they entered next was untouched by the elements—and occupied.

  Sienne gasped. Alaric put himself between her and the enemy, then stopped and gave an embarrassed laugh. “Mannequins,” he said.

  The wood and cloth mannequins looked much as they must have four hundred years before, the sealed room preserving them against the elements. All but a few were bare, and those few held pieces of leather armor as if patiently waiting for their owners to claim them. Alaric examined one. “These could be worth something to the right buyer,” he said, “if we could get them out of here.”

  Frustrated, Sienne said, “I know what spell I’m trading for as soon as we get back to Fioretti.”

  The others laughed. “It’s not important,” Dianthe said. “We’ll make far more if we find the distance viewer and get it to Master Fontanna.”

  Across the room, Kalanath rapped on another door. “This one sounds rotten.”

  “Another good sign no one’s been here,” Dianthe said, pulling out her lock picks again.

  The door led, as Alaric had surmised, to the northwest tower. “It looks like the stairs go all the way to the tower roof,” he said. “Time to climb.”

  Once more Sienne ended up near the back. This close to the tower’s open top, she smelled the sweet odors of fresh grass and sunlight carried by the wind that blew constantly around the tower. It heartened her, reminding her that this dead keep wasn’t all there was to life. When she reached the flat top of the tower, she took a few steps out of Kalanath’s way and went to look over the short wall surrounding the tower’s perimeter—short by normal standards; in her current state she had to pull herself up on the stones to look out. It was a marvelous view, all the way back to the plateau’s edge.

  “Sienne. Take a look around,” Dianthe said. Sienne turned and saw the others scanning the rooftop and the collapsed roof of the main keep. Wall-walks extended out from two sides of the tower, one terminating abruptly about three feet toward the destroyed southwest tower, the other going all the way to the northeast tower they’d climbed up to the second story by. Sienne walked in that direction. The sun had gone behind some high clouds, dimming its light enough that Sienne could see without squinting. The northeast tower was definitely impassable, half of it collapsed inward so the remaining top of the tower looked like a cake someone had taken an enormous bite out of.

  A gap in the clouds lit the keep briefly. Sienne gasped. “There’s something over there,” she said. “Something metal.”

  Dianthe came to stand at her shoulder. “Where?”

  The clouds covered the sun again. “Near where the stones crumbled, on the far side—the east side.”

  “What did it look like?” Alaric said.

  “It didn’t look like anything. But I was thinking of the coins I found, so light on metal is what I was looking for. It—”

  Another break in the clouds made something gleam dull silver. This time, they all saw it. “Dianthe,” Alaric said.

  “I’ll be right back,” Dianthe said, and started off across the wall-walk.

  Sienne held her breath until she felt dizzy. The wall-walk did not look safe. It was open on one side, toward the collapsed center of the keep, and even though Dianthe was shorter than the outer wall, that wall had huge gaps where enough stones had fallen over the years to make it look like lacework. Dianthe moved lightly, like a dancer leaping from stone to stone across a rushing river. Then her foot came down on a loose stone, and she slipped, sliding toward the open edge.

  Sienne clenched her teeth on a cry, afraid of disturbing Dianthe’s concentration. Dianthe pushed off from the falling stone and flipped backward, landing neatly on the wall’s edge, then bounded forward to safety as the second stone rocked and fell three stories to the ground. Sienne’s fingernails were cutting crescents into her palms. She forced her hands open and let out a deep breath.

  Dianthe stepped onto the northeastern tower’s flat top and hesitated. “It’s really insecure,” she said. “Wait there while I investigate this.”

  Alaric was poised on the balls of his feet, his eagerness to cross the gap palpable. Dianthe edged closer to the crumbling stone, crouched, and crawled the last few feet. She picked up a few loose stones and tossed them past the broken edge of the tower, then swept something away with the palm of her hand. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s metal, and it’s big. It could be the distance viewer. I can’t imagine anything else they’d keep at the top of these towers.”

  “I’m coming over,” Alaric said.

  “You’re too heavy. Kalanath and Sienne can come. One at a time.”

  Kalanath looked at Sienne and inclined his head, indicating that she should go first. Sienne set her spellbook down in a secure place and tried to ignore how her fingers were shaking. She swallowed her nervousness and edged out onto the wall-walk. It helped that she was too short to see over the outer wall to the three-story drop just inches from where she trod. Unfortunately, that meant she was perfectly capable of seeing the collapsed slanting roof of the keep, studded with beams jutting skyward and cracked stone perched precariously on other stones.

  She kept her eyes on her feet, looking for loose stones and debris that could trip her. The wall-walk was about three feet wide, but bits of it were missing, giving its inner edge a
jagged appearance. Between that, and the shaky outer wall, the available walking space narrowed to just under a foot wide. It felt much narrower, like walking a rope strung between the towers. At least it didn’t sway in the wind.

  She tried to think of other things, like what she would do when she returned to Fioretti as a successful scrapper. She’d have money to support herself while she found another job, and this time she’d have a reputation—surely Alaric and Dianthe would say good things about her? The idea left her feeling hollow, and she wasn’t sure why. It was a bad idea to get attached to her current companions, since Alaric had made it clear this was a temporary commitment. Even so…no, it was just sentimentality talking. This was her first experience as a scrapper, so of course she thought of it fondly. Except that wasn’t true, was it? She’d started out—

  Someone grabbed her arm. “Careful,” Dianthe said. “It gets slippery past here.”

  Sienne looked over her shoulder. Perrin looked like he was praying. She wondered if it was the kind of prayer that might receive divine intervention, and if so, what kind. Alaric’s face was set like a statue, unmoving, but even at this distance she could tell he was willing them to be careful.

  Kalanath was about two-thirds of the way across and using his staff to balance, exactly as if he felt it was a tightrope, too. He had his eyes closed, but his face was relaxed, not at all afraid. When he stepped onto the tower, he opened his eyes and blinked twice. “I did not think I would do that ever again,” he said. “I am glad I still can.”

  Sienne wanted to ask him what he meant, but Dianthe said, “Take a look. It’s embedded in the rock fall—the wall collapsed on it. We can dig it out, but we have to be careful not to collapse the wall further.” She had brushed away the loose scree that concealed the object, and more of it was visible: about a hand’s breadth of dull silver, scoured to a matte finish by the elements.

  “If we lie flat, we will not be so heavy,” Kalanath said.

  Dianthe nodded and got to her knees, then prostrated herself like a worshipper of Lisiel coming before the avatar in her temple, her hands flat to show they were empty. She scooted forward to the edge of the pile of rubble. Kalanath followed suit. Sienne knelt, and said, “There’s not enough room for all three of us.”

  “I’ll scoot over,” Dianthe said.

  “No, don’t. It might not support our weight.” Sienne sat back on her haunches. “I can lift the lighter stones from here.”

  “Lift—you mean, by magic?”

  Sienne nodded. A fist-sized stone drifted off the top of the pile and floated far out past the intact side of the tower, then dropped. Moments later they heard the thud of stone striking bare earth. “They can’t be very heavy. I can only lift weights of about six and a half pounds. But it’s something.”

  “Perfect. Let’s do it.”

  After a minute or so of getting in each other’s way, they fell into a rhythm. Kalanath had a sense for which stones needed to be moved, and he directed Dianthe and Sienne’s efforts, pointing with the tip of his staff at each stone. Sienne sat cross-legged behind the other two and fell into the meditative state that made working low-level magic easy to do for long periods of time. She started flinging the stones away, far from the walls so they wouldn’t land on anything and destabilize it further. Part of her wondered if she might not hit a creature, but she reminded herself they had seen hardly anything living and kept on doing it, enjoying the feel of releasing the stones to fly far.

  Gradually, the thing became visible. When Alaric and Dianthe had talked about a distance viewer, Sienne had pictured a telescope, only one studded with semiprecious gemstones that gleamed with magical light. This was more of a flat box, about three feet long and half as wide, with no visible seam, and heavily dented. Possibly the distance viewer was inside? Sienne heaved another stone free and reached for one more. “I’m surprised no one who could fly found this before.”

  “I bet it was more thoroughly concealed five years ago, when everybody and their dog was out here sniffing around,” Dianthe said. “Wait. That’s enough.” She carefully took hold of the box and rocked it free of the remaining stones. One fell rattling to the tower roof, and they froze, waiting for another collapse. But nothing happened. “Back across,” Dianthe said in a low voice, as if she feared a loud noise would bring the tower down around their ears.

  Sienne waited for Kalanath to cross before making her halting way back along the wall-walk. It was hard to move carefully when she wanted to run and skip with excitement. It felt like forever before she stood beside Alaric again. He had his gaze fixed on Dianthe, who was using the box for balance as Kalanath had his staff. “Come on, come on,” he murmured under his breath. Sienne was certain he didn’t know he was doing it.

  Dianthe handed the box to him before stepping off the wall-walk and letting out a deep breath. “I could use a stiff drink right about now,” she said.

  “As could I,” Perrin said, “though as I did nothing but watch and petition Averran for your safety, my need is rather less pressing than yours, I imagine.”

  Alaric ran his fingers along the sides of the box. “This could be anything,” he said. He closed his eyes and brushed the smooth, flat surface. “I don’t want to go back to Master Fontanna with something that turns out not to be what he—” A smile spread across his face. “Hah,” he said, pressing down with his index and middle finger on a blank spot near the center of what might have been the box’s top.

  A chime of two notes like birdsong rang out, and the top of the box opened like an iris, revealing a sheet of gold and two silver styli on either side of it. Amber light flickered along the perimeter of the gold sheet, clear and bright one minute, dark the next.

  “Is that…it?” Kalanath breathed.

  “It’s what he described. When it’s activated, the gold sheet shows a picture of whatever another distance viewer sees,” Dianthe said. “And it’s still mostly working. By Kitane’s eyes, this is an incredible find.”

  Alaric shifted the awkward load and felt around its edges. “There should be…there it is,” he said, and the iris closed, returning once again to a blank, flat silver surface.

  “We found it!” Sienne exclaimed.

  Alaric and Dianthe exchanged an unreadable glance. “That we did,” Alaric said. “But I think we’ll make sure we’re not leaving anything else behind.”

  “You said nothing else of value was here,” Kalanath said.

  “I said probably nothing. It doesn’t hurt to look around. Those doors were locked, after all.” He set the box down and removed a coil of rope from around his waist. “I’ll tie the box to my back so we can get it down those stairs.”

  Sienne watched silently as Alaric and Dianthe secured the box. There was definitely something they were keeping secret, but what? It made sense to explore the keep, just in case. Not knowing the fit spell for objects annoyed her. Carrying the armor out was impractical even if they hadn’t been two feet tall. The same might be said for anything they found. So why weren’t Alaric and Dianthe satisfied with what they’d come seeking?

  Climbing down from the tower was far more terrifying than climbing up had been, if only because Sienne had to look down at the bottom, covered in rubble. She could imagine how much it would hurt if she fell, though it was far enough that she likely wouldn’t feel pain for long, because she’d die shortly thereafter. When she reached the second story landing, she was shaking, and had to take a moment to calm herself. Perrin noticed, and put a hand on her shoulder. “Almost done,” he said quietly. Sienne nodded.

  There was a third door in the armory, not locked, that led to the remains of a gallery overlooking the great hall. They followed it as far as they could in both directions, but found only one other door, so blocked by stone and crumbling wooden beams it was impossible for them to break through. “It’s probably whatever’s on the other side of that hole in the wall we saw,” Dianthe said. “Not worth worrying about.”

  They clambered down the last
flight of stairs in the northeastern tower, barely averting disaster when a stair Perrin had just put his weight on snapped and forced him to cling to the one above, panting and swearing. When he reached the ground, he was as pale as a Rafellish ever got, and sweating visibly. “Averran is accustomed to hearing his name taken in vain,” he said, panting, “but I believe no priest of his has ever been so creative in his profanity as I was just now. I think I will avoid stairs in the future.”

  “How much time before the shrinking spell wears off?” Alaric asked.

  Sienne consulted her pocket watch and discovered it had stopped running. She’d forgotten fit could have that effect on machinery. “I think another two, maybe two and a half hours,” she said. “But if it does before we leave, I can just cast it again to get us out.”

  “Let’s try to be done before that happens,” Alaric said.

  “But are we not done?” Kalanath said. “We have seen all there is on this bottom floor.”

  “Maybe,” Alaric said. “I want to look at that empty room again.”

  It wasn’t any less empty the second time, but it was darker. Sienne realized the magic lights were fading and summoned more of them. Now the room was as bright as a full moon, and still completely empty. Alaric and Dianthe circled it, probing the walls with their fingertips. “What is it you seek?” Perrin said.

  “Nothing,” Alaric said, too quickly.

  It irritated Sienne. “If you tell us, we can help,” she said. “Or is it a secret?”

  “I’m not looking for anything in particular,” Alaric said. “Just…this room is mysterious, don’t you think? So…secret doors, trap doors, anything like that.”

  Kalanath tapped the floor in a sweeping pattern, listening for an echo. “This is not about your quest?”

  Alaric stopped. “What quest?”

  Kalanath shrugged. “It is not a secret. Mad Alaric Ham-fist looks for lost knowledge. Impossible knowledge. I was told this when I said I would join you.”