If he had survived Vale, he could cope with Torvaston’s tower. And if not, I’d just have to be brilliant in some unguessable way, and fix him.
No problem.
Jay and I fell silent as we went through the doors, too awed — and too wary — to speak. Beyond lay a huge hall, its walls hung with long tapestries depicting some kind of courtly scene. Troll figures, of course, and royalty, judging from the jewels and the crowns.
‘Farringale,’ Jay said. ‘I recognise that one.’
He pointed, and I saw at once what he meant. A troll lady wearing a seventeenth-century silken gown and decked in jewels stood before a backdrop I knew at once for the great library at old Farringale.
‘That one,’ I said, nudging Jay. On the opposite wall, a proud-looking troll king posed in a throne room. I’d seen that crown before. ‘Torvaston himself?’ I suggested.
‘I don’t know why I don’t have twenty-foot-tall portraits of myself in my hallway,’ said Jay.
‘Opportunity missed,’ I agreed.
‘There’s still time.’
Pup did a speedy circuit of the hall, nose to the ground, tail wagging. I watched her in case she picked up any interesting scents, but she did not appear interested in anything much; she returned to me, and sat grinning. ‘Pup,’ I said. ‘Find the thing.’
‘Try being a bit less specific, if you can,’ said Jay. ‘You’re not being quite confusing enough.’
‘The thing,’ I said. ‘The magickal silver thing, the— oh, curse it. What do you suppose Torvaston called it?’
‘The Work in Progress,’ said Jay.
‘The Saviour of Enclaves and Britains,’ I said. ‘Find the Saviour, Goodie.’
She sat, tongue lolling, and panted.
‘We’re on our own.’
Jay’s smile faded as he looked around the echoing hall, and took in the number of doors leading off into parts unknown. ‘Much as I would love to explore every inch of this place, it would take us about three weeks.’
‘Which we don’t have,’ I said, watching him carefully for signs of magickal disorder. ‘You’ll be scrambled egg inside of twenty-four hours.’
‘There is that. Also, Ancestria Magicka apparently knows about this valley, thanks to Wyr. They’re bound to show up eventually.’
A point I had forgotten, in all the turmoil. Where were they? The last I’d heard, Fenella Beaumont — and an unspecified number of her associates — had been banished from this Britain by an irate Melmidoc, and sent to… one of the others. Had they managed to return?
If they had, where were they?
If they hadn’t… how long would it be before they did?
‘We need to be long gone before they show up,’ I said.
‘You think?’
‘Right. Where in this town-sized tower might Torvaston hide his priceless life’s work?’
‘Judging from the look of this hall, the tower had some ceremonial function; it wasn’t just a workshop,’ said Jay. ‘So not in any of the central areas, most like.’
‘Nowhere ornate, and dripping in gold.’ That would disappoint Goodie. ‘Cellar, or attic?’ I suggested, thinking of Home, and particularly of Orlando. There was something of a precedent for hiding the crazy stuff in one or the other of those two.
Jay pointed up. ‘Griffins,’ he said succinctly.
‘Yes. Where better to develop, and test, a griffin-substitute than in the middle of a gigantic griffin nest?’
Jay sighed, and squared his shoulders. ‘Why do so many of our missions come down to invading griffin lairs and praying we don’t get eaten?’
‘That’s actually quite new,’ I said. ‘Terrible timing on your part.’
‘No griffins on past missions?’
‘Not too many, no. Ogres and unicorns and alikats, though. Some of them rabid.’
‘Yours is an interesting job.’
‘Our job, Jay.’ I set off towards the nearest door, Pup trotting along beside me. ‘Stairs. Help me.’
‘Stairs, or an elevator, like outside?’ said Jay. ‘Why bother climbing when you can have magickal uplift?’
‘What’s the betting the roof can only be accessed by a secret lift at the top of a secret lift at the top of a secret lift?’
‘See, that’s what I like so much about you,’ said Jay, checking and dismissing a few more doors. ‘Your relentless optimism.’
‘What can I say, years of practice… oh, here we are.’ A long corridor lay beyond one of the doors, at the end of which loomed the kind of alcove that had way up written in some indefinable way all over it. Exquisite, of course, but it had the look of an elevator shaft about it. Straight-sided, symmetrical, blank. Stone floor.
I started down it. Pup, developing one of her random fits of enthusiasm, broke into a run and barrelled on ahead of me.
And vanished in a puff of mist, halfway down the passage.
I stopped dead in shock. ‘Goodie?’ I called.
Nothing moved.
‘Where’s she gone?’ said Jay, catching up with me.
‘I… don’t know. She vanished.’ I advanced slowly upon the innocent-seeming spot on the floor that had whisked Goodie away, and stood just shy of it. I couldn’t see anything that might explain where she had gone, or how. The floor was smooth, pale starstone, like everything else.
Jay shrugged. ‘Only one way to find out.’
‘What way is that?’ I said, hoping he had some sliver of esoteric knowledge I’d missed. After all, he was our resident expert on unusual and spectacular modes of magickal travel.
‘Channel our inner Ves,’ he said. ‘And hope for the best.’ With which words, he took a step forward, and planted his feet squarely upon the mischievous stretch of floor.
‘Jay—’ I said, reaching for him.
My hand closed upon empty air.
I rolled my eyes skywards. ‘What,’ I said under my breath, ‘have I done?’ I’ve created a monster.
Or an evil twin.
Ah, well.
I took a step forward of my own, braced for impact.
There wasn’t one. I wafted away on a wisp of mist, lighter than air, and disappeared into the depths of Torvaston’s tower.
9
Whatever swept me away in Torvaston’s tower felt like a species of Waymastery, though I had never before heard of the kind that operated on an involuntary target. Or that could achieve the process so smoothly. Not to disparage Jay’s skill; he does remarkable things with the pale, faded stuff we call “magick” in our Britain. But this was something else. Even the henge complexes weren’t quite so seamless.
‘Jay,’ I began, once reality solidified around me and I’d stopped moving. ‘How do you think this works? I mean, even the complexes require some kind of token, though maybe that’s more to do with tax revenue than—’ I stopped, because I abruptly realised I was alone. Neither Jay nor Goodie were anywhere in evidence.
I steadied myself, and took a long look around. I had been dropped in the middle of a room the size of a hay barn. Oceans of space opened up around me. I couldn’t immediately decide what the chamber was for. Bookcases were in evidence, running from floor to ceiling, which suggested a library, except that there were nowhere near enough of them. One wall featured a row of high tables which reminded me of those in Orlando’s workshop, but their surfaces were bare. The far end of the room sported enormous armchairs upholstered in silk, elegant little tables, and plush rugs strewn about the plain oak-boarded floor. At the other end, great crystal cabinets rose some eight or ten feet high, their doors shut, and a complicated chandelier hung from the ceiling, its lights composed of jewels in the same shades as Torvaston’s compass.
Not a sound disturbed the dense silence. It was the same stillness we had experienced in old Farringale, the kind resulting from a profound absence of life.
Like Farringale, it showed no other signs of long abandonment. Shafts of sunlight shone through the long windows, illuminating clear, dust-free air. No cobwebs drifted
down from the ceiling. The luxurious upholstery of those grand armchairs was untouched by time, and the carpets were pristine.
Hardly surprising, I supposed. The enchantments that lingered at old Farringale must have been the work of Torvaston’s court; of course they would have brought those magicks with them.
I felt a moment’s unease, though, at all these parallels. What else did Torvaston’s tower have in common with old Farringale? Why was this place abandoned, and so-long sealed to the outside world? I thought of Alban and Emellana outside, and fervently hoped that the same fate as Farringale had not befallen this place. If the rocky promontory upon which this tower was built was infested with ortherex, they were in danger.
Probably it was lucky they had been obliged to stay outside.
‘Stop gawking, Ves,’ I murmured, and forced my feet to move. I could worry later about my companions, and time would soon tell where Jay and Goodie had ended up. Investigation beckoned, and I’d better get on with it.
Being me, I went first to the nearest bookcase. A perfunctory perusal revealed a slew of texts, mostly hand-written. None of them in any language I could read.
‘Mauf,’ I said, retrieving him. ‘If you’d be so kind? The scholars of Mandridore don’t have nearly enough to do already.’
‘Madam, I would be delighted,’ said Mauf, as I placed him on a low shelf.
I could swear I heard him giggle.
‘Good stuff?’ I said.
‘Delicious,’ he purred.
What might rank as delicious in Mauf’s odd little world, I judged it best not to enquire into. ‘Have fun,’ I told him. ‘But if you can make it quite quick, that would be great. We are, as ever, pressed for time.’
Mauf rustled his pages in a sigh. ‘Great work cannot be rushed, Miss Vesper.’
‘Nonetheless, you always manage it somehow. Thanks, Mauf.’
He did not reply. I hoped it was because he was absorbed in the task of soaking up knowledge, not because he was offended with me.
Then I wondered how it had come about that I worried over the tender feelings of a book. And considered this normal, to boot.
‘Life doesn’t get any simpler, does it?’ I said to the empty air as I wandered off to look at the cabinets. They were locked, of course, every one, and I could see nothing of their contents through the frosted glass doors.
Nothing else of any interest beckoned, and I stopped, nonplussed. The place had the look of a workroom about it, excepting perhaps the plush luxury of the armchair nook. But if it was Torvaston’s old inventing room, standing in it wasn’t helping me much. Whatever he and his colleagues might once have worked on was long gone. Or well hidden.
I went to a window, and glanced out. I was much higher up the tower, the view told me that much. But how close I was to the tower-top rooms, I could not tell.
‘Mauf,’ I said. ‘Time to explore. How are you getting along?’
‘I will need at least an hour,’ Mauf told me coolly.
‘We don’t have an hour. Can you prioritise?’
‘Which ones would you like me to prioritise?’
‘The… most interesting ones?’
‘Please elaborate on how you are defining the word “interesting” in this context.’
‘Um. The most important? No, don’t say it. I don’t know. Carry on.’
The silence that followed was broken by the sound of approaching footsteps, and I felt a surge of relief. ‘Jay,’ I said as the door opened. ‘Where did you get to— oh!’ Halfway to the door, I stopped dead, for the person coming through it was not Jay.
Nor was he human.
‘Sorry,’ I said numbly, paralysed with shock. Two minutes ago I had been certain that the tower was deserted; the absolute lack of signs of life, together with the deep silence, had equally proclaimed it. As had Wyr’s assertion that nobody had got inside in centuries.
But here was a living person, a troll, clad in the fashions of eighty or so years ago but very much alive. Elderly, judging from his white hair and stooped posture, though his face was largely unlined. He stared back at me with a shock to mirror my own, and stammered something I could not understand.
‘Apologies,’ I said, moving forward again. ‘I would not have barged in had I known I was intruding on somebody’s home — though to be quite truthful, I did not perfectly intend to be up here at all. I’m Cordelia Vesper, a… scholar.’ I held out my hand.
He did not immediately take it, nor did he speak again. I found myself scrutinised by a pair of lively, but wary, grey eyes, with a shrewdness to his glance that made me most uncomfortable.
‘I must say,’ he said at last. ‘Treasure-hunters have changed a great deal in recent years.’ He spoke lightly accented English, with a hesitation that suggested he did not often use the language.
‘I’m not a treasure hunter,’ I said firmly, choosing not to mention that I had brought one such to his doorstep. Even if I had also turned him into a charmingly unthreatening tree.
I was awarded a handshake at last, though a tentative one. ‘And yet,’ he said, ‘you have contrived to find your way straight into the workshops.’
‘Not entirely by choice. I was on the ground floor, and then somehow whisked up here—’
‘Oh?’ he interrupted, and looked at me afresh. Was it my imagination, or had the suspicion increased? ‘And how came that about?’
‘I do not know, sir. I wish I did.’ I hesitated, on the point of telling him about Jay and Pup. Should I?
Yes. Something told me that to err on the side of honesty might be wise.
‘I came here with an associate,’ I said. ‘And a… dog.’ Curse it, if he found out that the dog in question was a treasure-sniffing nose-for-gold, he would never believe that I wasn’t a thief. ‘I do not know whereabouts they have ended up.’
‘Outside, most likely,’ he said, with a trace of amusement. ‘That is where intruders are usually sent.’
Oh. Then I was on my own in here.
‘The question remains,’ he said, looking keenly at me. ‘How is it that you were not? And indeed, how came you to pass the wards at all?’
If by “wards” he meant the spectacular illusions which disguised the tower as an impregnable mountain, I was dying to ask him all about that.
But courtesies first.
‘Regarding the second question,’ I said, ‘I have this.’ I showed him the compass. ‘I have three other associates outside. We took down the wards between us. Though we did not expect to encounter… occupants.’
Why hadn’t they? Because the enclave had been founded hundreds of years ago. Because according to Wyr, the door hadn’t opened in living memory; no one had got in, and presumably no one had been known to come out either. Because I was used to the echoing decay of lost civilisations, in particular Farringale, and to imagine that someone might still be living in this one had seemed unthinkable.
My unexpected interlocutor had gone very quiet. He held out his hand for Torvaston’s compass, and with only a slight hesitation, I gave it over to him. It lay in his palm, untouched, and he gazed at it as though he beheld a miracle.
Slowly, carefully, he stroked a thumb over its surface.
‘Well, now,’ he said softly. ‘And I never thought to see its like again.’
It struck me that my possession of the compass might prove to be the answer to both of his questions. If the henge complexes operated based on something in the traveller’s possession, might not the tower’s Waymastered enchantments also respond to something I held? If I hadn’t had the compass with me, I might well have ended up booted outside.
Which led my thoughts back to the topic of Jay. He’d had the snuff box with him. So, then. Was he outside, or somewhere else in the tower?
My new troll friend (hopefully) looked up. ‘I think you had better tell me how you came by this,’ he said, and a hint of steel had crept into his tone. ‘Was this stolen?’
Tricky question. ‘It— well— no, although also yes. It’s
complicated—’
His eyes narrowed, and I stopped gabbling and held up my hands.
‘I work for the Troll Court at Mandridore, on the sixth Britain,’ I said hastily. ‘We’re here at their instigation. We took that— object— from old Farringale-that-was, with Their Majesties’ permission, so in that sense it isn’t stolen. And somewhere in the valley out there is Prince Alban, next heir to the troll throne.’
All of this came out in a rush, and was met with silence.
Then: ‘And what is your aim, in infiltrating this tower?’
I swallowed. ‘We— perhaps ought to have a longer conversation about all this.’
I expected more of the inquisition, perhaps greater hostility. To my surprise, instead, he gave a mournful sigh, his fingers closing slightly around the compass. ‘We knew it would come,’ he said, so quietly I wondered whether he was talking to me at all. ‘Well, and it has come.’
‘May I… ask what you mean?’ I said.
‘His Majesty’s kin,’ he said. ‘We hoped you would not find us. And at such a distance of years, it seemed unlikely that any of you now would.’
‘But… why?’
‘Because you would doubtless come looking for his work, and… it was not his wish that you should ever find it.’
10
So much for my brilliant theory. Torvaston came here to perfect his magick-regulating device, I’d thought, so that he could someday go home and repair the damage he had helped to cause at Farringale. True, I had come up with no ideas as to why he never had gone back — except that the device, perhaps, never worked.
To hear that he had actively chosen not to go back, and indeed to hide the thing from everyone who might come looking for him… well, that changed things.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said.
The elderly troll straightened. ‘If I tell you that your purpose in coming here cannot be fulfilled, and Torvaston’s work will never be released to you. Do you, then, still wish to ask questions of me?’
‘Of course,’ I said, frowning.
He nodded once, and held out his hand, Torvaston’s compass still tucked into his palm. As I took it, he tightened his fingers briefly around mine, before releasing me. I hoped it was a gesture of goodwill. His scrutiny of me appeared, now, more curious than suspicious. ‘The sixth Britain,’ he mused. ‘But Torvaston always said that magick would decline there, and you— do not appear to bear out that theory.’
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