“Jeh,” Graegor said tersely, and Tabitha saw him flex his fingers as if they were cramped before he reached for the next handhold.
“Tabitha,” Arundel said then, “let him get a bit further up before you start. We should keep good spacing between us.”
Tabitha nodded but did not answer. She watched Graegor climb the wall and could not quite believe that this was happening. It was ridiculous. It was insane. Whose idea was this, to throw them all together in the pitch-black dark like prisoners in a dungeon, to find keys and locks and doors, to solve riddles and try not to kill each other? Why? What purpose could this have?
Natayl, of course, had told her almost nothing. He had called to her last night to warn her that she would be getting up early and that she should not make any plans for that day. With the king dead and many rogue magi still loose in the city, it would have been disrespectful and unwise to leave the townhouse anyway. But she had wanted to spend the time with her family. They, with all the visiting Thendal nobility, would very soon begin the voyage back to Tiaulon for Motthias’s funeral. And then the Pravelles and the Jasinthes would begin wrestling for control over Motthias’s young son.
“I will set sail for Betaul right after the coronation,” her father had told her, “and then not emerge until spring. There should be an overt winner by then.” With a grim look, he had added, “Or an overt war.” She hoped he had been exaggerating.
The only other detail Natayl had condescended to give Tabitha about today was that they would be riding out to the hills beyond the city. Of course, riding. He knew she hated it, so he would keep making her do it. She did not even own proper clothes for riding horseback out in the countryside. Fortunately, several of her friends did, and Attarine was close to her size. The green suede outfit had certainly been more comfortable than that white dress from the presentation, and she had not felt ready to slip off the saddle every time the horse moved.
But what did one wear to climb up walls? Trousers, she decided as she watched Graegor’s ascent. She had to be careful. Her boot might catch the hem of her skirt in a foothold if she did not pay close enough attention.
“Tabitha!” Ferogin shouted, and added something in Adelard that probably meant move. She did not react. Ferogin was clearly going to be his usual irritating self today, if not worse. There was no point in answering him, but she stepped forward and studied the wall in the purple light. The first gouge was at her knees, the second a bit above it and to the right. Two more gouges were about the height of her shoulders, and she grabbed hold of these before trying to find the lower gouges with the toes of her boots.
Maybe it was not much different than climbing a ladder, but Tabitha had not climbed a ladder, a completely vertical ladder, more than a few times in her life. The gouges did make workable handholds and footholds, but as she had feared, her boots kept catching the hem of her skirt. She never felt balanced or stable, since she was essentially standing on her toes instead of her feet and holding on with her fingers instead of her hands. As she got higher and higher, muscles in her back, arms, and legs that she had never noticed before began to ache from strain. Ache, and itch, as her power kept trying to rise with her anxiety.
She blamed Natayl. I hate this. I hate him. I hate this. I hate him.
“I think I see the top,” Graegor shouted, and she risked a look up. He was so far above her! Her head hurt, and she realized that she had been squinting to find the handholds in the dimness. She wanted to tell him to wait for her, but she had no breath for talking.
“Hold a moment,” Arundel shouted from far below. “It’s really dark down here and we can’t see the wall.”
“Sorry! I’ll send the light.”
The shimmering purple star floated down the wall. Tabitha could not help watching it as she clung to the rock, and she was immensely grateful when it stopped just above her head, giving her all its light.
“Is that all right?” Graegor’s voice was pitched to carry just to her and not the others. He sounded worried.
“Yes,” Tabitha said. She looked up. She could not see him in the darkness above, but he could probably see her, and she flashed a quick smile. “Thank you.”
He did not answer, and she sensed that her gratitude had startled him. Was it because she had been so irritated with him in the first cave, when he could not keep the sphere-light alive? When the daylight had first vanished behind the rock and trapped them all in here, she had reached for him instinctively, instinctively, knowing that he would protect her. Then her second mistake had been not pulling away fast enough for him to miss how much she hated the dark. She kept revealing too much of herself to him. The warm, stifling blanket of his magic was becoming a part of her, and she did not know how to stop it.
But he was her only ally in here. He was the only one out of all the other sorcerers who actually cared about her.
She could not think about him. She could not, not now, not hanging off a wall by her fingers and toes. She could not even think about hanging off a wall by her fingers and toes. She just had to stop thinking and get to the top.
It was easier to see the gouges in the rock now. The light stayed near her as she pulled herself up. Everything ached, everything itched.
I am a sorceress. Nothing can hurt me.
She found the next handhold, and the next. Her boot missed, missed again, and finally found the gouge. She pulled herself up.
I am a sorceress. Nothing can hurt me.
Again.
Again.
“I’m at the top!” Graegor called down. After a pause came a soft thump. “There’s a lip you have to climb over. It’s about waist high.”
Tabitha climbed. She thought only about getting good grips on the handholds and firmly placing her boots in the footholds. She moved one limb at a time. The light moved with her.
“Here.” Graegor spoke softly from almost right above her. He was leaning over the lip of rock at the top edge of the shaft, reaching for her. Tabitha ignored him, instead finding the next handhold. She did not want to touch his hand again. Why had she not worn the gloves? Attarine’s riding outfit had matching gloves, but gloves were so seldom worn on Maze Island. She would have to change that.
She climbed to the top of the lip. She looked at it, her mind dull and her muscles exhausted, wondering how she was going to climb over it without straddling it and rolling over it on her stomach. Graegor was watching her, and he extended his forearm instead of his hand. She took hold of his arm with one hand, and the lip of the shaft with the other, before shifting her feet to the next set of gouges. Then she could twist, slide her legs over together, and come down on the other side.
Her knees buckled when her boots hit the rocky floor of the new cave. Graegor caught her elbows and held her up as her legs trembled. The shimmering purple star floated above their heads. “Are you all right?” he murmured.
She did not look at him. She knew he wanted to kiss her. So many men wanted to kiss her. “I need to sit,” she said, and lowered herself to the rough ground. Graegor’s hands slipped from her arms. He stood over her for a long moment, but she refused to look at him.
It was you who touched the Flame. You are dying and you know it. The time of the sorcerers draws to an end.
The rogue magus’s words still unnerved her, like he had taken hold of her heart and shaken it. She could not forget how he had looked right at Graegor, as if Graegor had to agree with him that this was the end of them all.
Then darkness dropped over her, and she bit back a gasp. Graegor was sending the purple star down the shaft again for the others. Tabitha leaned against the cold stone wall and closed her eyes. Darkness was easier when she could pretend it was her own idea. She slowly stretched her fingers, arms, and shoulders, causing both pleasure and pain. Her legs felt too tired to move at all. A headache was spreading from the base of her skull.
“Almost there,” she heard Graegor say. Her eyes opened to see him leaning over the edge of the shaft, focused on whoever was c
limbing up now. The faint light cast the shadow of his profile on the wall.
He was not bad looking. He was kind and brave. But the sight of him did not make her heart pound like the sight of Nicolas had, and she did not think about him when she was taking a bath the way she thought about Alain. He did have Alain’s build, though, or maybe he would when he got older and taller.
He was just too young. He was a boy.
Ilene appeared at the top of the shaft, and Tabitha hoped that she herself did not look so frazzled. Her braid kept her own hair contained, at least, while Ilene’s was loose and tangled. Graegor put his arm around the Medean girl to help her over the lip, and he held her up and spoke softly to her when she staggered. Tabitha wondered what Arundel would think of that, and she found herself frowning, but she managed to smooth her expression before Ilene sat down next to her. “That was awful,” Ilene gasped, her accent thick. She pushed her hair out of her face. “I’ve never climbed like that before.”
Tabitha listened to the huffs of breath, scrapes of boots, and low murmurs, and tried to guess who had climbed up after Ilene. She finally saw Daxod emerge. His head bowed, he heaved himself over the lip of the shaft and staggered away. Graegor watched him worriedly, then looked back down the shaft. He said something, then took a quick step back as Koren reached the top. She set both hands on the edge, then lifted and slid her whole body over it with one smooth sideways motion. She landed on her feet, agile as a cat, not even breathing hard. Tabitha knew it was unfair, but she could not help hating Koren for that.
Rossin came up next, also as if the climb had been no trial. When Ferogin appeared, his face wore a snarl, but his movements were sure and steady as he swung his legs over the lip. She knew he had grown up in a city, so where had he gotten so much practice climbing? Did he scale the buildings? She had seen magi doing that here, running and leaping the rooftops like squirrels.
Arundel was next, his movements steady and sure, and then Borjhul arrived last. She had learned that he had been raised in the mountains, so naturally he passed with expert ease over the lip of the shaft. Before his boots landed on the ground with the rest of them, Tabitha stood up, ready to move away, and when Graegor started walking, she slipped past Arundel to stay within range of the light.
“Same as before, then?” Arundel suggested. “I think we can assume we’re looking for a key, a lock, and a door.”
“Jeh,” Ferogin drawled. “They wouldn’t want to strain our mental abilities by changing anything this early in the game.”
The ceiling of this cave was not too far above Tabitha’s head. The shaft they had climbed was in one corner of a roughly triangular space, which she guessed to be about twenty or thirty paces on each side. Graegor walked to the middle of the room, and she followed with the others. She tried to watch her step, since the floor was not smooth and she did not want to trip, especially after Ilene nearly did.
“Look,” Graegor said, his voice low, and pointed straight up. Tabitha looked, but did not know what she was seeing. The purple light showed solid stone, but also areas of packed earth, and even some roots. So were those leaves? Black leaves hanging from the roots? There were hundreds of them, clustered close together. What kind of plant had leaves on its roots?
“Oh, bats!” Ilene whispered as she came up beside Tabitha, her eyes wide with wonder.
“Bats?”
“I don’t think you have them in your country.” Ilene lifted her hand, then quickly lowered it. “We probably shouldn’t touch them. But they won’t hurt you.”
“What are they?”
“Black mice with wings,” Ferogin answered. “Ugly little things. The question is why they’re in here with us.”
Black mice with wings. That sounded horrible. As Tabitha peered up at them, she realized that what she had thought were leaves were actually creatures hanging upside-down, with wings of skin folded around themselves. Ferogin was right. They were ugly. She shuddered, but Ilene was still gazing at them adoringly. What was wrong with her?
“Are they covering something?” Arundel wondered. Everyone had moved into the circle of purple light, all but Rossin, who still stood near the shaft they had climbed. Was he afraid of the bats? Or was he just determined to have as little to do with the rest of them as possible?
“Let’s find out.” Ferogin cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted.
The bats burst into motion, a riot of flapping and squealing that sent Tabitha down to the floor with her arms over her head, her heart pounding and icy fear stabbing her skin. She held herself as still as possible in the chaos of screeches and shouts, pushing down the fierce itch of her power as it tried to rise, telling herself that nothing could hurt her, nothing could hurt her, especially not mice, no matter if they had wings or not.
“Tabitha, are you all right?” It was Ilene, crouched beside her. “They’re gone now. They all flew out. I’m sorry, I should have told you, it can be scary when they’re startled and they all move at once. Are you all right?”
She had to recover her poise. She had to be calm and still. She slowly moved her arms from her head, smoothing back her hair in the process, and looked past Ilene’s hovering face to the ceiling. The bats were gone, and it was darker now. The shimmering purple star had moved toward another corner of the room, and Tabitha forced herself to not scramble to her feet, to move gracefully as she stood and followed. She could hear Daxod and Arundel arguing.
“If they get out, we get out,” Daxod was saying, pointing up to the corner of the ceiling where the light did not reach. “We are not far from open air. I smell it.”
“We don’t know if they got out,” Arundel said, in a tone that meant he was repeating himself. “We don’t know where they went.”
“Try it,” Daxod insisted. “Break the roof here and see.” He looked at Graegor. “Use the earth magic. Maybe we get out.”
“Do you think they’d make it that easy?” Ferogin scoffed. “Why trap us in here at all if Graegor could just make the walls crumble?”
“And we aren’t supposed to do that,” Ilene said, moving forward to stand with Arundel. “We’re supposed to figure out the puzzles.”
“I don’t care,” Daxod snapped, his accent thick. “I don’t want to be here. If the bats get out, then maybe we get out the same way, the same direction.”
“Do you know what’s above us?” Arundel pressed. “Can you tell if there’s open air or just more rock? I don’t want to test our immortality by trying to survive a cave-in.”
Daxod grit his teeth. “I smell open air,” he said again. “Up that way. The bats went there. Make the way bigger and we get out.”
Ferogin sighed dramatically. “The bats are gone,” he said, as if talking to children. “As I recall, we wanted to see if they were covering something. Shall we go back and look?”
“Wait a moment. Let’s settle this.” Arundel turned to Graegor. “Can you break through the rock overhead without pulling the entire hill down on us?”
Graegor studied the corner of the ceiling where the light did not reach, where Tabitha assumed the bats had flown. The soft warmth that was his presence in her mind grew larger, but thinner, like a cloak of silk instead of velvet. It had done that in the first cave too, when he had been looking for the key.
When he had found they key, and had used the earth magic to move it, Tabitha had felt his magic as if he was stretching it to the edge of the world and the bottom of the sea. It had been frightening. She did not want him to do it again. But she also wanted to get out of here at least as badly as Daxod did.
“I can’t sense any big cracks or seams,” Graegor said finally.
Daxod looked frustrated, and Ilene asked, “What does that mean?”
“It means it will be difficult for him to isolate the effects of whatever he does,” Ferogin answered before Graegor could. “And to anticipate your next question, yes, that’s bad. I believe we’ve discussed the damage he’s already caused.”
The Eternal Flame.
But no, Ferogin did not mean that. He meant the dam or bridge or whatever it was that Graegor had destroyed.
Tabitha pushed back her anxiety with a surge of anger. Why should he be so powerful? Why could she not command earth magic as he did? What was Natayl keeping from her? Ferogin had accused her of not paying attention to what Natayl was teaching her, but he could not be more wrong, because Natayl was not teaching her anything.
“We can’t risk it,” Arundel said firmly.
Daxod seemed ready to protest, but then he shook his head and folded his arms.
“Great!” Ferogin said with false cheer. “Come along, then. Let’s see if the bats were hiding anything.”
Graegor was glaring at Ferogin. He did not move, but the shimmering purple star floated away from him, back toward the center of the cave where the bats had been hanging. Tabitha and the others followed it, and she saw the silvery gleam on the ceiling just as Borjhul said something and pointed up at it.
“A key!” Ilene exclaimed.
Tabitha felt the sharp scrape of Borjhul’s power, and the silver shape on the ceiling jerked away with a snap and flew into his hand. He could do more than move little pebbles on a table. But that should not surprise her, because it seemed that everyone could do more than she could.
He held up the key to the light and peered at it. Then he turned and looked directly at Tabitha. “Yours,” he said, and held out the key to her.
Tabitha did not move. It was a trick of some kind. He wanted her within arm’s reach. He still wanted to force a bond with her.
Ferogin unwittingly rescued her by taking the key out of Borjhul’s hand so that he could inspect it himself. Borjhul frowned at Ferogin but said nothing, and Tabitha stepped slightly to one side to put Ferogin between them. “He’s right,” Ferogin said a moment later, and tossed the key toward her.
She did not try to catch it. Such scrambling was beneath her dignity. The key made a musical sound as it landed on the ground to her right, but she did not look for it either. A man rude enough to throw something at a lady should be the one crawling on the floor to retrieve it. Ferogin had not been raised well enough to know that, though, because he looked at her as if she was an idiot. “What is wrong with you?” he demanded.
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