Part 16 (1/2)
”No!” whispered the delighted Queen of Galanar.
”Yes,” Anigel said. ”Of the Three of us who wear the trillium-amber, I am the least courageous. But I will do my best, and if the Lords of the Air permit, my magic will effect our escape from this captivity.”
”Never mind asking permission of the angels,” Jiri said. ”We should discuss the matter with our fellow-hostages.”
”a.s.suredly. And we must do so soon, for I think we have a unique opportunity to escape while so many of the Star Guild's force are absent from the castle.”
Jiri made up her mind in a trice. ”We'll have a conference during dinner. I'll go right now and begin pa.s.sing the word, so that all will be present.”
”Say nothing of your speech with that prisoner in the dungeon cell next to yours. Am I right in a.s.suming that the others did not know his name?”
”Quite right.” Jiri's face was both puzzled and expectant. ”They were all too occupied with their own troubles to care about him.”
”I think I know who this man might be, and why he was imprisoned. It is possible that he may be of great help to us.”
Anigel explained. Then she outlined the escape plan that seemed to have come to her in a single burst of inspiration, while Jiri listened with narrowed eyes.
”Magic,” the Queen of Galanar muttered when Anigel was done. ”And uncertain magic, at that!... Well, sweeting, I'm game to try. But we may have our work cut out for us convincing the others.”
Anigel continued to stand at the window long after Queen Jiri departed, watching until the fires began to gutter and shrink. One by one the flaming geysers winked out, and finally only a single tall blue-gold plume remained, swaying in the night wind like a spectral dancer.
By the time a servant came rapping at Queen Anigel's door to tell her that the evening meal was ready, the last geyser had also faded and died, and the region surrounding the castle's hill had become a sink of poisonous darkness.
Chapter Seventeen.
”BUT why must we make the attempt tonight?” President Hakit Botal of Okamis complained. ”Why, we're barely recovered from our stint in the dungeons! We haven't even had time to reconnoiter the castle and find the best escape route.”
”There's only one way out, Son-in-Law,” snapped Queen Jiri. ”The way we came in, through the main gate.”
Anigel added, ”And the reason we must try tonight is because now is the time our captors will least expect it: when you are newly released from your cells, and I have just awakened out of my enchanted sleep... and Orogastus and his force are lately departed to make war upon Emperor Denombo.”
The seven hostage rulers strolled in a casual manner from the dining hall where they had just eaten the evening meal. Each one carried a pewter cup and a full bottle of the strong, flinty wine they had been served at table. Following the plan Anigel had outlined to them while they ate, they pretended to drink and laugh tipsily as they made a show of examining the feathered hangings and the pieces of exotic statuary that stood in wall recesses flanked by blazing cressets. All the while, they moved along a wide corridor toward the great staircase that led to the lower reaches of the castle. Only a handful of guards lounged at their posts in a lax manner, paying no special attention to the wandering captives. Few other servants of the Star Guild were abroad. Most of the diners had remained in the hall to drink and revel.
”I don't know if I'm up to this adventure,” Ga-Bondies whispered. ”You lot may have to go on without me.” The Duumvir, who shared the highest elected office of Imlit with his a.s.sociate Prigo, looked extremely pale. He was a man in late middle age, portly and with thinning sandy hair and a querulous manner.
”Buck up, old fellow,” Prigo urged. Maintaining the pretense, he uttered a shrill laugh and affected to drink directly from his wine bottle. ”If an expectant mother like Queen Anigel can make it, so can you.”
”That wretched meal!” Ga-Bondies moaned. ”Greasy sausage, nauseating boiled greens, bread so gritty it set one's teeth on edge, suet pudding, and only this atrocious plonk to drink! At least the adop and water we were served in the dungeons was fairly easy on the digestive tract. Right now, I feel so dyspeptic that I may puke at any moment.”
”Oh, poor chap.” Old Princess Raviya's eyes twinkled mischievously as she toasted the sufferer with her empty cup. ”Perhaps you shouldn't have taken that third helping of sausage.”
Somebody snickered. Ga-Bondies pulled out a handkerchief and patted his sweat-beaded brow. ”Madam, I was starving after six days of vile incarceration. One might have thought that a sorcerer intent upon conquering the world would at least set a decent table. But no! We're fobbed off with a repast fit only for peasants.”
”While the cook's away, the scullions play,' ” Queen Jiri quoted. ”I'll wager the whole place has gone slack since Oro and the army went off. Did you notice that the only two Star Men at supper were very young?”
”Apprentices left to hold the fort with the senior servants,” Raviya judged, ”and barely three dozen warriors. The hall could have held ten times as many people.”
Jiri said, ”Anigel and I saw around that number leaving the castle.”
”I wonder how the wizard expects to conquer, using such a small force?” said Widd.
”He's going up against a mob of superst.i.tious barbarians,” Prigo retorted darkly. ”The odds may be just about right.”
”The army probably took the best food along with them,” Duumvir Ga-Bondies muttered bitterly, his mind still on his disordered innards. ”Keep the morale of the fighters high and d.a.m.n the stay-behinds.”
”I suspect that old Oro has the very devil of a time keeping this establishment in victuals,” Prince Widd observed shrewdly. ”You can't force superior provisioners to make daily deliveries through a miasmic inferno, you know.”
”Doubtless the sorcerer obtains his supplies by black magic,” President Hakit Botal said, ”in the same way that he s.n.a.t.c.hed us away from our homelands.”
”When Ga-Bondies and I were kidnapped,” Prigo remarked, ”we and our captors came out of the enchanted portal in the midst of a dense forest. Men-at-arms from a camp immediately adjacent were waiting to conduct us to the castle. It took us a day and a night to reach here, and nowhere along the way did I see a village nor even so much as a trapper's hut. The trail we followed was narrow and much overgrown, as though it were seldom used. Certainly no regular supply trains came along that way.”
The others, excepting Anigel, related similar experiences. In spite of the differing venues of abduction, it was apparent that they had all emerged at the same location, from thence being taken to Castle Conflagrant. None save Anigel knew anything of the viaduct's working, nor did the others seem aware that more than one might exist.
”There is a crucially important matter that we neglected to discuss at dinner,” Hakit said. He had paused, feigning interest in a tapestry depicting a beautiful seaside villa of the Zinoran style favored by wealthy Sobranians, all golden rooftiles and s.h.i.+ning white walls. ”Supposing that we do manage to escape the castle and cross the basin of flaming geysers. Where then shall we go?”
”To Brandoba, the Sobranian capital,” Anigel said. ”We will ask sanctuary from our fellow-sovereign, Emperor Denombo- or, failing that, convince some s.h.i.+p's captain to give us safe pa.s.sage to Galanar, where Queen Jiri's warriors will defend us.”
”But how shall we find the way through this unknown territory?” Hakit Botal persisted. ”By following Orogastus?”
Anigel nodded. ”My trillium-amber's magic will also guide us-and we may perhaps have help from another source as well.”
”We do not even know how far away the Sobranian capital is!”
”It is approximately four hundred leagues,” Queen Jiri said, ”if my talkative prison guards told me the truth in exchange for my jewelry.”
President Hakit's mouth dropped open. ”Four hundred?”
”Oh, dear,” Princess Raviya quavered. ”So far?”
Prince Widd said, ”Is there no place of refuge nearer?”
”None where we would be truly safe,” said Jiri. ”Apparently, the Star Guild has the local chieftains thoroughly intimidated.”
Duumvir Prigo did not disguise his dismay. ”But that's appalling! Why were we not told this before, as we were discussing the plan at table? I a.s.sumed-”
”It will take over a month to ride that distance,” Ga-Bondies broke in. ”I can't possibly do it. I am not a well man.”
Hakit glared at Anigel. ”Queen, you have been less than straightforward with us. None of us has experience in wilderness travel. It is madness to think we could reach Emperor Denombo's court if it is so far away. Pursuers from the castle would certainly recapture us.”
”Not if my magic a.s.sists us, as I pray it will,” Anigel bestowed a kindly glance upon the ashen-faced Ga-Bondies. ”Nor will you have to endure an arduous journey, Duumvir. A few days at most.”
”Surely you cannot think to reenter the infernal magic hole that brought us here!” Hakit exclaimed.
”No,” Anigel said. ”That viaduct might still be guarded, and we have no way of knowing where it would take us. I have been told that adept persons are able to change the destination of certain viaducts. The one used to abduct us is obviously one of the changeable sort. Not being sorcerers ourselves, we cannot hope to command it.”