Part 35 (1/2)
”Please work,” he heard her breathe. She took something from a bag at her feet.
Dewar smiled still, and weighed his next move. He could help her. He could not help her. On the whole it would be more amusing to help her. Her industry and determination in making her way here were admirable; it was the sort of thing that his acquaintance Lady Miranda of Valgalant would do. Dewar whispered the sibilant words which put aside the air and darkness around him; the woman turned and lifted a c.o.c.ked crossbow, pointing anxiously at nothing, resigned fear in her face.
”Don't shoot!” Dewar hissed as he became visible and the bow swung to aim at him.
Her finger tightened on, but did not close, the trigger. ”You,” she said, not moving the bow.
”I think we have a common goal, to open that door. Am I right?”
”You're the Emperor's man.”
”I certainly am not. I'm freelancing. I have personal business with the fellow in there.”
She swallowed, nodded, lowered the bow. ”You have a key?”
He sprang lightly up the stairs. ”No. I work other ways. Let me see the lock.”
She moved aside. ”Hurry. The sentries go round and they'll raise an alarm as soon as they find the guard missing,” she whispered.
Dewar made no answer to this, but knelt at the door as she had. She had been trying to force the lock with a small knife. As he lifted his hand to the lock, something cold touched his throat: a line of steel.
”I know you're one of them. Any tricks, you're, you're dead,” she whispered.
302.
t&zaBetfi Wittey The crossbow was b.u.t.ting against his back.
It was best not to argue. ”Understood.”
”Open it.”
He did. He took the broken-bladed knife from the lock and put a square iron nail from his bag into it. Lighting a match at the nail's flat head, which protruded from the lock, he chanted the low, singsong rhyme for copying the key which had last been in the lock: the lock was utterly unprotected from sorcery. These people were fools, he thought, and fell the iron move and flow in his gloved fingers. It was hot, but he turned it in the lock and the lock gripped it and tumbled.
”Ohhh,” she breathed at his neck.
”May I stand.”
”Yes. Slowly.”
”Your servant,” Dewar whispered.
Her knife left his throat; the crossbow stayed in the small of his back. He pushed the door open and got up in one movement. The woman had picked up her saddlebag and was on his heels as the first shout came up the stairs.
”h.e.l.l's bells!” she said, and the crossbow left his spine.
”Get in!” Dewar grabbed her and pulled her in, turning; he closed the door, taking his magical key from the lock and letting it latch again. The room was not-lit by a faint greenish line of light in a circle on the floor. The place was freezing cold.
”Prospero!” she called softly.
No answer.
”Make a light!” she hissed.
”Should have grabbed the torch.”
”Prospero! It's me!”
No answer.
Dewar felt nothing alive in the room. He said, ”No, stay here, don't move, it might be a trap,” and the woman, who had been stepping forward, stopped and returned to his side. Murmuring the Summoning under the shouts and clangor outside (”Send for the Captain! Get Captain Van-del!”), he invoked an ignis fatuus, which popped rosily into sight and hovered in midair.
R Sorcerer and a QentCeman 303.
The circular room it showed was empty. A bizarrely boiled-looking opening was seethed through the meter-thick stone wall, melted as if the stone had become taffy and run.
Dewar tsked softly. Elemental work.
The circle of foxfire on the floor was broken by similarly boiled stone. Inside was nothing but a wooden plate and a bucket.
”He's gone!” the woman cried. ”Prospero!” She ran to the opening in the wall; Dewar followed her. It let on the sheer side of the tower which rose over the less-regular but equally straight cliff. ”Prospero!” she shouted out.
”It appears he has rescued himself,” Dewar said.
The guards were battering at the door. Dewar crossed to it, to close it more permanently.
”We're caught!” she said, turning and staring at the door, and added, ”At least, you are.” Leaning from the opening, she put her fingers in her mouth and whistled.
Dewar was fusing the door to the wall, sealing it with an affinity-spell only axework or fire could defeat. It would do for now. Someone was trying a key in the lock.
He looked round at the woman, who was still whistling. ”What are you about? Calling a wind?”
The lock rattled and stopped. The door bounced, held; a crack appeared at its top. Dewar glanced at it. It wouldn't endure long. He'd have to make a Way, fast-but there was nothing to burn.
Something vast and dark occluded the stars beyond the hole in the wall, then pa.s.sed again, then returned and blocked it completely. Dewar saw a huge hooked beak, feathers, claws; there were scrabbling noises from the stone outside. The young woman climbed into the opening and looked back at him. ”Good luck, sorcerer,” she said, and put a leg out.
”Don't jump!” he cried.
”I'm flying.” She slipped out, sideways, and the opening was cleared. He heard shouting from the battlements below.
An axe-blow split the door from top to bottom; Dewar glanced around and realized he was in a bad spot. It was a $Q4 -:> 'Elizabeth 'Wittey single-panel door, not cross-grained; the next strike took out a plank of wood, sending it bouncing into the room. He ran to the hole over the cliff to see if he could scale it, as Prospero must have done, and the dark shape returned, hovering in the tower's shadow.
”Stuck?” she called.
”Yes!” he screamed.
”Are you sorry?”
”For anything! Yes!”
”Jump, and we'll catch you!”