Upon This World of Stone (The Paladin Trilogy Book 2) (7 page)

“The Demon take it all!” she snarled in frustration. A melding spell that joined book and table as one. No wonder Malcolm hadn’t bothered improving the lock on the door; there was nothing inside that could be carried away! She tugged once at the books on the shelves just to confirm they, too, were melded to the walls, and even the stool by the reading podium wouldn’t move when shoved. But when she glanced at the book on the podium itself, her heart skipped a beat. The book was open to a page near the end, the writing in an archaic form of elvish with which she was vaguely familiar, but there, lying forgotten between the pages, was a slender wand of wood. Hardly daring to hope, she poked it slightly and had to restrain a shout of triumph when it moved! Malcolm clearly had been researching the wand when he had been suddenly called away, probably at the entrance of Darius into the Castle, and he had forgotten to put the melding spell back on the device!

Adella picked up her new-found treasure and tried to decipher the information on the page, her skill at puzzling through languages and her strong familiarity with modern elvish giving her a considerable edge. Her eyes widened even more as the gist of the pages’ contents began to register, and her fingers scanned lightly over the paragraphs, seeking the critical lines. She found them in the middle of the second page.

She held the wand up, lightly balancing it in the middle between index finger and thumb, took a breath, focused her mind, and said clearly, “Alvadra.”

There was no response. She tried again. “Alvadra Thengus.”

Still nothing.

“Alvadra Thengus Yul.”

Suddenly the wand brightened as if hit with a beam of light, and Adella swiftly quenched it before slipping it up the sleeve of her left arm, her heart pounding. A wand of power. And the fool had left it right out in the open, lulled by the protecting force of Llan Praetor. She quickly glanced over her shoulder to see if she had been observed, and a hard grin took her lips when she saw she was still alone.

She went back to the doorway and saw Shannon and Jhan still deep in discussion over green-clad characters parading about in the forest scene, some gossip from home that took all their attention, and she went to the final set of doors. Same type of lock, same solution, with same result, and Adella found herself entering a room that was mostly empty, the feeling of disuse almost palatable.

Directly beside the door was a stone rack that held a dozen wicked-looking swords and scimitars, and Adella’s eyebrows actually rose at the sight of the weapons. Some forgotten storage room of the Wizard’s, she guessed, for the size seemed too small for the original inhabitants of the castle. Otherwise, there was only an empty stone table, a perfect match for the one of the other room. Still, Adella knew well that sometimes it was the seemingly empty room that held the greatest treasure, and she…

“We’re supposed to be looking for a way out, and I don’t think we’re going to find it in here.”

Adella glanced up to see Jhan standing in the doorway, cold suspicion in his eyes. But rather than anger, she responded with a light smile.

“Just indulging my curiosity,” she answered as Shannon came to the door behind the boy to peer in as well. Adella glanced at the weapon’s rack beside her and grabbed the hilts of one of the swords, a cutlass with a curved tip that suggested it came from the islands of the Southern Sea. As she suspected, the sword came away with only a little effort, for wizards were notoriously indifferent to weapons and put little value on them.

“Here,” she said tossing the weapon to Jhan and a second, a scimitar, to Shannon. “Arm yourselves. You’re going to need more than a bow and a few throwing daggers where we’re going.”

“That’s stealing,” Shannon said, putting the sword down.

“Stealing?” Adella repeated in real surprise. Then she shrugged. “Let’s call it borrowing.”

“Borrowing without permission is stealing,” Shannon said.

“I’d gladly ask the master’s leave if he were at home,” she replied, “but he’s not. I’ve a need for these things, girl, though I’ll be happy to return them as soon as I’ve finished. A man with so much wealth will surely not even notice they’re gone.”

“It’s still stealing,” Shannon insisted, and Jhan put his sword down as well.

Adella’s eyes narrowed slightly. “We’re off on a desperate mission to rescue the hostages of Nargost Castle, right?”

“Yes.”

“If Malcolm is for us, he’d have no objection to us taking whatever we might need to help us succeed,” the woman reasoned. “And if he is against us, then we should take everything we can carry. So we’ll hold these things as hostage against Malcolm’s future behavior.”

Shannon frowned, uncertain. Then she said, “But…but wouldn’t taking them make Malcolm the more likely to join the forces of our enemies?”

Adella grinned. “Take a potion of bat’s ear or a scroll of writing styles off a wizard, and he’ll hunt you to the death. But take a sword off him, and he’ll never notice its missing. Trust me on this.”

The two cautiously picked up the weapons, almost as if afraid to be bitten, but after a moment, they were wielding them about, testing their weight and balance, eyes widening as they began to recognize their quality. Adella left them there, going back out into the main hall and staring thoughtfully at the mirror.

She thought for a moment of pressing her own palm to the mirrored wall, but then she smiled away the thought. Aside from the potential dangers, she had no desire to reveal details of her past to her two young and innocent companions. There was, however, a simple solution to the problem.

“Shannon,” she called, and the girl emerged from the side room. “The castle seems to have taken a liking to you. Let us try your luck once more.”

She led the younger woman back to the mirror and gently pressed both her hands to the surface again, her own palms against their backs, holding them in position. Once more, the mirror broke into images, dizzying pictures from a considerable height with a gleaming white mane billowing in the foreground that told them they were riding the back of the pegasus, and Adella could feel the shiver of excitement that went through Shannon’s body. She smiled, their spirits matching exactly, but while the girl continued to watch the surface, Adella slipped her own fingers between those of Shannon’s to lightly brush the mirror surface. She did it a second time and then a third, and she watched as the images swept down from the sky and inside Llan Praetor. At first, the pictures exactly followed their path, but when it reached the central chamber from which they had launched their magical search, it continued on through the far door. Adella mentally recorded the path, but the more it twisted and stretched, the less she liked the idea of following it. Then the images burst through the main doors into this very hall. Finally, to all their surprise, the image continued on to the second of the side rooms, the one that seemed to contain nothing but the unwanted swords.

Adella looked from the mirror to the side room behind them, frowning. She released Shannon and took two steps backward, her gaze still jumping from image to reality.

“What are you looking at?” Shannon asked, rubbing her hands again to drive out the cold.

“The wall image is a reflection over time,” Adella answered. “If you look close, you’ll see even our images are slightly out of sync.”

They looked carefully and then Shannon exclaimed in startled agreement, “You’re right! It’s not a true reflection!”

“Our presence is too fleeting for the mirror to fully capture,” Adella explained. “But there is something else different. Can you spot it?”

Both Shannon and Jhan looked back and forth to check first the image and then the reality.

Finally, Jhan shrugged and said, “I can’t see anything that…”

“The table!” Shannon interrupted. “The table is different!”

“Good eye, girl!” said Adella, and Shannon beamed at the complement. “It’s been turned just a little bit, and that suggests Malcolm’s hand at work. Now keep your place and don’t move. Jhan, stay with her.”

Obediently, both of the young folk stayed in position, making it child’s play for Adella to enter the side room and slip out of sight off to the right, secretly produce the wand, and mutter the command words, this time holding the thicker end and pointing the other at the table. There was a small burst of light that could not be completely hidden, and then the table shifted, forcing Adella to jump backwards as a surprisingly large section of the floor began to open. Jhan and Shannon left their posts and ran to see what they had found, Adella slipping the wand back up her sleeve at the last moment.

Down inside the newly revealed space was a strangely shaped boat with mast shipped inside and a multi-colored sail around it.

“A farsail, by thunder!” exclaimed Adella and jumped down into the vessel. “I knew Malcolm would have some simple way out of the fortress. I knew it, and here it is!”

Shannon and Jhan exchanged confused glances, and finally Jhan said haltingly, “It’s a boat. A weird little boat out of the water.”

“This boat doesn’t float on water, boy,” Adella answered, still examining the interior of the vessel. “It floats on air! Come and take hold.”

The vessel was remarkably light despite its bulk, but it still took all three of them to lift it properly and carry it out into the main hall. Adella made a closer inspection here, and she quickly found what she sought: a small niche in the prow to accommodate a ball about the size of an ogre’s fist and a locked compartment in the bottom of the vessel.

“What’s in there?” asked Shannon, peering over the woman’s shoulder.

Adella glanced back at her and finally answered, “The farsail itself isn’t magical, and I’m not sure it could even float on water by itself, let alone the air. It needs a magical source which is always kept with the vessel. Unfortunately, this one is kept in a secure safe.”

She tried to insert one of her picks in the lock, but as she feared, some force kept diverting the instrument from the hole, denying it access. These small magical vaults were often powered by the very item they protected, and no pick or simple opening spell had a chance of success. It required real magic.

Reluctantly, Adella produced the wand again, pointed at the lock, and muttered the necessary invocation, and a small beam of power flashed out from the tip. The ray did not touch the lid, some power holding it back, but as Adella focused and bore down with her will, the beam creped closer and closer until finally it reached the lock. An instant later, the lid sprung open, revealing what looked like a glass sphere. Shannon, however, was staring at the wand with open wonder and growing suspicion.

“Where did you get such a wondrous device?” she asked with narrowed eyes. “Is this wand another one of your ‘borrowed’ items?”

Adella looked at her calmly for a moment before saying, “No. I won it in wager with the Wizard Trexler.”

There was an odd ring of truth in the woman’s words, but Shannon frowned, still distrusting her. “What kind of wager?”

“I bet that I could bury my sword in his belly before he could fry me with his lightning,” she answered evenly. “Now if you’re quite done with your moralizing, climb on board. We’ve many leagues still ahead of us.”

Shannon blinked, first at the woman and then the boat, but she reluctantly climbed in with Jhan, relieved to find the little vessel was not as unstable as it looked. Adella carefully placed the glass sphere into its niche in the prow, and there was an instant burst of light, the entire vessel suddenly trembling with life. Adella quickly climbed aboard and seated herself at the tiller in the stern.

“Never have figured out how these blasted things work to be fair with you,” she admitted, cautiously fiddling with the tiller. “Trexler used to fly all over the Plains of Alencia on a farsail like this, but the best I’ve ever been able to do is get them to float and weave a little.”

“Then what good is this thing to us?” Shannon asked dubiously.

“Well, first, a craft such as this will have its own way out of the fortress,” replied Adella, picking up the lines that led to the small mast which was lying in the middle of the air-boat. “And second, we’re on top of a mountain. I may not be able to get it to fly properly, but I’ll bet diamonds to dung-beetles I can get it to soar down off these cliffs.”

Shannon exchanged an alarmed glance with Jhan, but Adella ignored them.

“Pick up the mast,” she directed them as she pointed to the braces where it was clearly intended to stand. “Seat it home on my command, and then get into the bottom of the boat as quick as you can and hold on. Now on the count of three. One to be ready. Two to be steady. Three, and it’s in!”

They slammed the mast into position, and then Shannon and Jhan half-fell, half-jumped into the bottom as they grabbed the gunnels, while Adella braced herself in the tiller seat.

Nothing happened.

Shannon and Jhan glanced at each other and then together looked askance back at Adella in the stern.

“Didn’t think we’d need the sail inside,” Adella said a little self-consciously as she played with the control ropes that led to the small mast. “Jhan, give the canvas a little shake, will you?”

Cautiously, Jhan reached up with one hand and tugged at the canvas sail, though with little effect. Shannon reached up from her side as well, and between them, they loosened the canvas. Adella tugged hard on the rope, and the small triangular sail rose into position. For a moment longer, nothing happened, and Jhan was clearly about to make some cutting remark when the sail seemed to fill with some unfelt breeze. The farsail responded by rising slowly off the floor.

“Hold hard!” cried Adella, curling the end of the rope around her hand for a firmer grip as the sail began to fill with a stronger wind. The vessel responded by rising towards the distant ceiling with alarming speed, its prow pointing upward only slightly. But just as Shannon began to cringe down from the impending impact, the glass sphere flashed power once again, and the ceiling of the room seemed to dissipate, almost as if were made of nothing but mist.

A moment later, they found themselves flying above the mountains, looking down on Llan Praetor from a sun that was close to the horizon.