Triplet (43 page)

Damn,
he thought, turning back into the room as fresh sweat began to form on his forehead. Even in the dead of night, Habri's motley army couldn't hang around the stairs down there forever without being discovered.
Think, Ravagin, think. Here you are, right in the middle of a castle-lord's private chambers, with all the best of Sham-sheer's magic machinery to draw on. There must be
something
you can use to take out a few trolls.

Beneath the blanket, Simrahi moved in his sleep … and Ravagin smiled tightly.

There
was
something he could use.

He half expected to find a pair of trolls standing guard outside the royal bedroom, but apparently even Simrahi's suspicions hadn't pushed him that far. The hallway outside was deserted; quickly, Ravagin moved along it, searching for the stairway up. He found it, and began climbing, and a few minutes later reached the dome at the top of the tower. The sky room, it was called … and even after sixteen years of travel in the Hidden Worlds it was like a punch in the gut to discover there was still something on Shamsheer that could take his breath away.

Through the crystal dome arching over his head the stars blazed down.

Not the stars as seen from the middle of a Shamsheer castle surrounded by villages and lights; not even the stars as seen from a lonely field somewhere out in the Tweens. These stars were incredibly brilliant, shining with an intensity that seemed unnatural … and Ravagin stared in awe at them for several heartbeats before he finally realized why.

Around the edges of the dome, the top of the castle wall could be seen, as well as the tall hilt-shape of the Giantsword within it and the rolling Harrian Hills far beyond it to the west … but each of the shapes was a black shadow, lit only by the glow from the starlight above. None of the lights that had been shining anywhere outside were visible. On sudden impulse, he took a careful scan across the sky. The scattered clouds had apparently been filtered out, too.

He licked his lips and took a deep breath. The sheer technological ability the sky room implied … and yet, for those first few seconds, he was aware only of what the room said about its creators' souls. To have built something this sophisticated with no purpose except the enjoyment of beauty … For the first time in his life, Ravagin felt a flicker of true kinship with the Builders. Perhaps, for all their incredible power, they hadn't been all that different from human beings after all.

The moment faded, and the real world crowded back into Ravagin's mind, and he lowered his eyes and thoughts from the glorious display. The sky room was sparsely furnished—some comfortable chairs, a desk, a large bed in the room's center—and it took only a minute to find the crystalline throne he was seeking. The throne, he realized now, that Simrahi had been seated on during Ravagin's brief hearing.

The castle-lord's bubble.

The chair was large, clearly designed to accommodate heftier men than Ravagin. As solid-looking as glass, it nevertheless yielded like a soft cushion as he sank gingerly down into it. There was no reaction—no audible alarm, no attempt by the chair to throw him out—and Ravagin let out the breath he'd been holding. So far, so good. Now came the tricky part. He had no idea at all how the bubble worked, or even whether someone who wasn't a castle-lord could operate it, and there was no way to find out except the hard way. Taking a deep breath, he ran through the most obvious possibilities and chose one. “Bubble: rise,” he said.

No response. “Bubble: ascend,” he tried. “Bubble: activate. Bubble: be raised. Chair: rise. Chair: ascend. Throne: rise—”

The chair rose smoothly toward the dome above, Ravagin almost falling off the thing in surprise. “Throne: stop and hover,” he managed, gripping the arms tightly.

The chair did so. Carefully, he reached out a hand, following it a minute later by the scorpion glove's whip … but both confirmed what his eyes had already told him: the bubble's spherical force-field was still off.

All right, don't panic,
Ravagin ordered himself sternly.
Let's try thinking, instead.

For starters, unlike the more proletarian sky-plane, the bubble had clearly been designed to be functionable indoors. A quick experiment showed it had none of the sky-plane's aversion to walls, either, which meant Ravagin should have no trouble getting it downstairs. But ramming doors and trolls without the force-field going wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind when he'd come up here. “Force-field on,” he said. Nothing. “Bubble on. Bubble activate. Be bubbled. Uh … shield on. Simrahi: bubble on. Damn it all—” He broke off, thinking furiously.
All right: try changing perspective. How would a castle-lord refer to the force-field? As a shield? An aura?
“Aura on.” Or might the command be keyed to the more visible aspects of the field? “Haze on. Sphere on. Golden on. Goldlight on.”

And abruptly the room around him was filled with orange haze.

“I have the very bad feeling,” Habri said tightly, “that your sorcerer friend has run out on us.”

“He's not my friend,” Danae said dully, keeping her eyes on Habri's feet. Habri's feet, and the feet of the two huge men sitting on the step on either side of her. There wasn't much to look at down there, but people who knew they were defeated seldom maintained eye contact with their conquerors. “He's just an acquaintance—and not even much of that, it seems,” she added, letting a touch of bitterness seep into her voice.

Habri was silent a moment. All around them, she could sense that the growing nervousness in the men sitting on the stairway was dangerously close to the breaking point. How long would it be, she wondered, until Habri decided that Ravagin had indeed failed? And when that happened, what would they do?

They would retreat, of course, hoping to postpone their revolt to a more auspicious time. Retreat, taking her with them for Habri to vent his frustration and anger on.

And whatever had happened to Ravagin—whether he was dead or a prisoner—she couldn't count on him to get her out of this one. Swallowing hard, she licked her lips and let her shoulders slump a bit more where she sat. Only by being a weak, helpless female could she have any hope of survival.

“Apparently he valued his own skin more than he did yours,” Habri said abruptly. “But I made a bargain—your help for your freedom—and if he has taken the freedom, you are still here to provide the help I want. Torlis, Carmum—bring her. Masmar, hold the men here until I give the signal.”

And before she knew what was happening, Danae found herself yanked to her feet and half led, half dragged up the stairs. “Are you crazy?” she hissed at Habri. “You'll alert the trolls—”

“That is precisely what I intend to do,” the other said grimly. He had his sword in his hand now; beside Danae, the guard he'd called Carmum had released her arm and similarly drawn his blade. “And I, not you, will do all the talking,” Habri added, waving the tip of his sword near her throat. “Is that understood? Not a word, or Carmum and Torlis will vie for the privilege of killing you.”

She managed to nod.
He's gone totally insane,
she thought desperately, heart pounding in her throat.
Good God, what do I
do?

Habri topped the stairs and headed straight across the room toward the trolls, Danae and Torlis close behind him as Carmum dropped back a pace. Habri made no attempt to be silent, and Danae saw with a sinking feeling that all four trolls had their crossbow pistols pointed before the intruders had taken their third step. “Ho, trolls of the Castle-Lord Simrahi,” Habri called across. “I bring news to the castle-lord that cannot wait until morning.” He half gestured back to Danae and Torlis. “I have uncovered a traitorous plot to usurp the castle-lord's throne, with this sorcerous woman and this guard at the head.”

Danae gasped in shock, shock that quickly turned to pain as Torlis squeezed her arm warningly. “The castle-lord is not to be disturbed until morning,” one of the trolls called back, its flat voice sending a violent shiver up Danae's spine. Flashback to the confrontation outside the Tunnel … except that this time the trolls' electromechanical reflexes wouldn't be hampered by spirit meddling. Habri would get them to open the door—would attempt to gain entry to Simrahi's chambers—and the trolls would fight back.

And they would all die.

She clenched her teeth, then forced herself to relax them. With only one option left, the agony of decision making was gone, leaving an almost morbid peace in its place.
It's now or never, girl,
she told herself.
At least this way they won't get the door open. Who knows?—if you're fast enough, the trolls might even let whatever's left of you surrender to them.
Taking a deep breath, she eyed Torlis, choosing the best spot to hit him—

And behind the trolls, the doors exploded outward in an explosion of golden light.

The thunderous clamor as the heavy wood slammed the trolls to the floor almost but not quite drowned out Habri's startled expletive. But the traitor recovered fast. Danae's mind had barely had time to register the fact that the orange explosion was actually a chair and human figure encased in a glowing sphere when Habri gave a loud shout and charged toward the stairway now laid wide open before him. The grip on Danae's arm tightened as Torlis broke into a run behind his leader, forcing her to do likewise. Behind her, Carmum came past them on her other side, while a quick glance showed the rest of Habri's army streaming up into the room with swords drawn. Ahead, the orange sphere was slowing from its high-speed impact; the trolls were still struggling to get out from under the rubble of the shattered doors—

And planting one foot, Danae pulled sharply on her arm, yanking Torlis off balance, and drove her free fist hard into his armpit.

The other bellowed, letting go of her arm as if he'd been scalded. He spun around, his expression a mixture of pain and utter astonishment.
That's right, you scum,
Danae thought toward him with grim satisfaction.
The weak, helpless female is gone. As a matter of fact, she was never really here.

His astonishment lasted only a second before he bellowed again and swung his sword in a vicious horizontal arc … but that one second was all she needed. Even as the sword slashed toward her side, she dropped to her left forearm and hip and kicked out with both feet directly at his knees.

The double
crack
was audible even over the war cries from behind and the troll alarms from ahead. Torlis toppled over backwards, screaming in agony, and Danae was free. Tucking her legs back under her, she rolled back to her feet—

Just in time to duck as a second sword whistled past her nose. Carmum, come back to help his comrade.

He'd caught her off guard, but the sword was already past her, and until he could stop its motion and bring it back around she would have the advantage. Giving a gut-tightening shriek, as Hart and her combat instructors had long ago taught her to do, she swung her empty hand up as if to throw something in Carmum's eyes. Empty or not, the other's blink reflex still cut in, and for a split second he was blind. Leaping toward him, Danae lowered one hand to block any backswing of the sword and swung the edge of the other toward his throat—

And dropped to the floor as, out of nowhere, the orange sphere rammed full into her opponent.

“Damn,” she breathed, scrambling to her feet. The sphere came tightly around and abruptly the orange glow vanished. She took a long step, leaped upward to grab Ravagin's outstretched hand, and a second later was wedged beside him in the crystalline throne.

“Goldlight on” he snapped. The orange sphere reappeared, and suddenly his arms were around her, holding her tightly to him.

She hugged back with equal strength, feeling her arms beginning to tremble with reaction. “You okay?” he asked anxiously into her ear.

“I'm fine,” she gasped back. “I was afraid you'd been captured. Where did you get this—my God, is this a
bubble
?”

“Sure is.” Ravagin twisted partly away from her, freeing one hand while leaving the other still around her. “Throne: follow my mark;
mark.
”

Danae turned her head to find they were moving toward the doorway Ravagin had just shattered. Beyond the golden glow, she could see some of Habri's men were already on the stairs and heading up. “Ravagin! Habri's past the trolls—”

“I know,” he said grimly. “Throne: more speed; continual mark. Goldlight off.”

And before she realized just what he was doing, the chair abruptly darted forward to follow his pointing hand through the doorway and up the stairs.

She inhaled sharply, stomach twisting with the sudden upward movement even as a spasm of claustrophobia tried to tie knots into it. “Ravagin!—the bubble—”

“Not enough room in here to use it,” he barked. He was right on that count; between walls, ceiling, and running people, there wasn't a hell of a lot of room in the stairway. “I don't want to run anybody down.”

“You don't want to run down
traitors
?”

“Nope—I want to save them for Simrahi.”

They shot past the last of the climbers—Habri himself—reached the top of the stairs—

“Goldlight, on; throne, stop,” Ravagin snapped; and with a hard deceleration that nearly threw Danae off the chair the orange glow reappeared and the throne came to a dead halt.

Neatly blocking the stairs.

Ravagin took a shuddering breath. “I'll be damned,” he said, something midway between awe and disbelief in his voice. “It actually worked. Well … Throne: rotate one-half turn.” Smoothly, the chair turned to face back down the stairs.

“You
carhrat!
” Habri spat at them, waving his sword impotently at the golden haze. “You spineless, lying bastard of a
carhrat!
I offered you your freedom and you repay me with treachery—”