Protector of the Small Quartet

by Tamora Pierce

  Vinson, on the other hand, was definitely someone to look at, and Joren’s room was on the same hall. Kel trotted upstairs to the squires’ rooms, on the floor above the pages.

  Kel rapped hard on Vinson’s door, once, then twice. She heard nothing when she put her ear to the wood, and saw nothing when she peered through the keyhole. She tried Garvey’s room next, then Joren’s. No one answered either knock. The hall itself was as silent as if all the squires were on the road with their knight-masters. She knew that wasn’t the case; almost everyone had stayed to attend the congress.

  Next she tried the pages’ and the squires’ armories, the storerooms where supplies were kept for their part of the palace, and the catacombs far beneath the palace. There was no sign of Lalasa anywhere. Sweating, covered with smutches from the dusty catacombs, Kel made her way up to the ground floor again. She emerged in a quiet area between two wings of the palace and sat on a bench out of the wind to catch her breath. Next she would try the area of unused sheds where Lord Wyldon had schooled them in city fighting. Those empty buildings made perfect hiding places.

  And if she’s not there, where will you look? demanded her shrill and frightened self. Garrets? Storage barns? Stable lofts? The palace is huge. Better to go to the examinations now, and save yourself a year or two!

  I’ll look wherever I must, thought Kel stubbornly. She had to find Lalasa. The kidnappers might decide to remove a witness to their crime, and kill her.

  She heard a fountain splashing nearby. It might be a good idea to cool off before she resumed her search. The brisk wind turned the water cold on her face, but it helped to clear her head. She was drying her hands on the underside of her tunic when the sparrows arrived, flapping around her head as they screeched.

  “You found her?” Kel asked them, trembling. “You know where she is?”

  Crown hovered in midair, something in her beak. When Kel stretched out her open hand, the sparrow lit on it and dropped several long black hairs on Kel’s palm. Freckle came next. His gift to Kel was a small clump of short, fine white hairs.

  “Both of them? Lalasa and Jump? Where?” Kel asked. “Show me where.”

  The sparrows lit briefly on the fountain’s rim, getting a quick drink. When they took to the air again, they flew ahead of Kel, swooping and bobbing on the gusty wind, leading her through a courtyard and across a small garden. When a long shadow fell over Kel, she looked up, and stopped in her tracks. They had brought her to the building that formed the base of Balor’s Needle. Now they flew straight up, dancing in flight around the fragile-looking iron stair that twined around the tower.

  fourteen

  NEEDLE

  Kel’s vision went gray. A bubble of panic rose in her throat. Why am I surprised? she wondered. Whoever did this wanted to be sure I would fail.

  I don’t have to, though, she thought. I can tell someone and they’ll get her and Jump. I won’t have to climb those stairs. I could look around instead and see if I can find out who did this.

  “I knew you would come,” Lalasa had told her.

  Wasn’t finding where she was enough?

  It wasn’t. She knew it wasn’t. How could she face Lalasa—or Neal, or Owen—knowing she had turned her back? How could she face herself?

  Kel bit trembling lips and forced herself to smile at the birds who had perched on the outer stair railing. “Your opinion of my courage is higher than it should be,” she told them. “I’d as soon have my fingernails pulled out than go that way.” She laid her hands on the doorknob and twisted. The great wooden panel swung open. Air scented with old incense and candles poured over Kel as she stepped inside the Needle.

  The big chandelier was unlit. A lamp burned on a table just inside the door; beside the table was a box full of torches. “I guess they don’t light the chandelier for just anyone,” Kel murmured, picking up a torch. She held it over the lamp. As soon as the end started to burn, she uttered a quick prayer for courage and began to climb.

  Oddly, the job was easier in the near-dark: there were no windows in the Needle. The torch could illuminate only so much. The great open gap at the tower’s heart and the gaps in the ironwork steps were just shadows, ones Kel could ignore. She stayed close to the wall and climbed.

  At last she reached the top. She set the torch in a holder beside the door, took a deep breath, and raised the latch. Opening the door was a struggle. The wind fought her, pressing against the wood. Kel braced her shoulder against the door and shoved. Slowly the door inched open.

  Air buffeted her as she slid through the gap onto the platform. When she let go, the door slammed shut again.

  Hysterical barking met her ears. There was Lalasa, bound, gagged, blindfolded, and tucked against the waist-high railing, protected from the wind. Three feet from her, tied to the railing by a rope so short he couldn’t turn to chew it, was Jump. The dog howled to see Kel. He leaped into the air, only to be yanked down by his leash. Kel took a step toward them and met the wind’s full blast.

  Well, no one can see me but Jump. He won’t think less of me if I crawl, thought Kel. She got down on all fours, below the railing that circled the platform. Now she was out of the wind and able to crawl to Lalasa.

  “It’s me,” Kel shouted over the wind as she drew her knife. The older girl’s flesh was red and swollen around her bonds. “Hold still. I’ll have you loose in a wink!”

  First she cut away the blindfold and gag, then the ropes. The moment she was free, Lalasa threw herself at Kel, clutching her weakly. She sobbed, her face already puffed and dirty from crying.

  “Yes, it’s all right. Let me get Jump,” Kel said in her ear.

  Lalasa nodded and let her go, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. Kel crawled over to Jump, who kept trying to lick her face as she cut his leash. There was a raw red circle all around his thick neck where he had pulled against the rope. He’d been hurt—he could barely rest his weight on one hind foot — but his spirits were as boisterous as ever. Kel hugged him quickly, then said, “Come help with Lalasa.”

  They crawled back to the maid, who was trying to move her wrists. Like Jump, she showed signs of a long fight against coarse rope in the bleeding welts around her wrists and ankles. Kel chafed one wrist while Jump briskly licked one of Lalasa’s ankles. “How long have you been out here?” Kel asked. “Can you stand?” She already saw Lalasa couldn’t make her hands close.

  “I think they brought us up here near dawn,” was the sobbed reply. “I’m so cold!”

  There was a burlap bag on the platform. Kel wrapped it around Lalasa’s shoulders and returned to chafing the maid’s wrists. Jump switched ankles. “What happened?” Kel wanted to know. She had to lean close to Lalasa to hear the answer over the wind.

  “It was those two men we saw. They came back, and they said they had a message for you. When I opened the door, they grabbed me. They said they’d kill me if I screamed. Jump tried to stop them—he was so brave! But they threw a blanket on him. They would have killed him—they were kicking him—but I said he belongs to the Wildmage. If anything happened to him, Daine would hunt them with every animal in the world. They believed me. They wrapped him in the blanket—later they put him in this bag.” Lalasa clenched her teeth, shuddering.

  “What’s wrong?” Kel asked.

  “Cramps,” she replied, trying to move her legs.

  Kel began to massage them, feeling the muscles hard under her hands. Tied in that position since dawn, of course they’d knot, she thought, remembering they still had a stair to descend. “Flex your arms before they seize up,” she ordered. “What happened then? Getting you out of my rooms without being seen must have been a job and a half.”

  Lalasa shook her head. “They gagged me and changed into palace uniforms, and then they fetched one of the large baskets we use to take sheets to the laundry. They had everything, Lady Kel—it was so well planned!” Lalasa opened one arm, and let Jump tuck himself against her side, then wrapped the sack around both of them. The pain of cram
ping muscles made tears roll down her face, but she spoke not a word of complaint. “They put us in the basket and carried us somewhere. That place was private—they didn’t care if Jump barked. They put the blindfold on and let me use the chamber pot—that’s when they stuffed Jump in the bag. They took us one other place and kept us there forever, it seemed. Then they brought us here. They said if I wiggled I’d drop out through a hole in the floor. I could hear Jump, so I knew he was all right. He marked them, my lady. He marked them well. We can have the watch on them quick as lightning with all those bites to show.” She wiped her face on her apron. “Are the big examinations over?”

  “I’ve no idea,” Kel told her. “Try to straighten your legs.”

  Lalasa tried, but her legs were still too knotted. She shook her head. “Needles and pins, miss. I’ll manage.”

  “You can’t manage if you can’t stand.” Kel returned to massaging Lalasa’s thighs and calves. She concentrated on her work grimly. If she thought about what those men had put Lalasa and Jump through, she would go racing off to find and kill them. That was not a good idea. These two had to be taken off the Needle first, to see healers and the palace watch.

  At last Lalasa was able to crawl. Keeping her own body between her maid and the opening where the outer stair touched the platform, Kel led the way to the door. She reached up, grasped the latch, and pulled. The door didn’t move. Kel sat up on her knees, grabbed the handle with both hands, and tugged hard. The door refused to open. She yanked on it with all her strength; the door would not give so much as a hair.

  Gods curse you, she thought to her unknown enemy. Curse you and all that you do with fire, and sword, and—and a plague of horseflies.

  “It’s locked,” said Lalasa, her voice shaking. Jump whined and sniffed around the door. “Who locked it?”

  Kel rested her forehead against the rough wood. “Someone who thinks I won’t do what has to be done.”

  “Lady?” asked the maid.

  Kel looked at the opening in the floor just three feet away. From this angle it offered a view only of empty air and a distant roof. “We have to take the outer stair, I’m afraid.” Her voice sounded distant and tinny in her ears. At least it didn’t sound like she was terrified witless.

  “Lady Keladry, I can’t do that.” Lalasa shook her head, her mouth tight, her eyes wide. She seemed to have used up the last of her courage. “You go. I’ll wait here.”

  Kel gripped her maid’s shoulders. “You’re not thinking,” she said, setting her thoughts in order before she spoke them. “What’s to stop them from coming back for you when they see me on the stair? They’re watching us”—she waved at the door—“we know that.”

  “Then let’s all three wait!” cried the older girl. “Someone will come—”

  “We’re witnesses,” Kel told her. “We can point them out. Kidnapping is a crime.” Lalasa turned away, hiding her face in her hands. Jump licked her fingers. “If it isn’t them, how long until someone comes? How often do people make this idiotic climb?”

  The gods have run mad, she thought as Lalasa shook her head. They’ve put me in a spot where I’m begging to go down that dreadful stair.

  “Jump can’t do it,” Lalasa said, reaching down to rub one of her calves. Her mouth was set in a stubborn line. “You can see for yourself he can’t manage that hind leg. We can’t leave him here.”

  “I’ll make a sling out of that sack and I’ll carry him,” replied Kel. “All you’ll have to do is walk down yourself. Come on,” she pleaded, tugging Lalasa’s arm. “Just try.”

  First they made a sling out of the coarse sack, checking and double-checking the knot before they risked fitting the dog into it. Jump let them do it, tucking himself into the cloth with only a small whimper for his sore hind leg. They arranged the sling on Kel’s back so she could see where she put her feet.

  “Don’t start wiggling,” Kel ordered. For the first time she was grateful for three years of the harness—she barely noticed the dog’s weight on her back. “Lalasa, come on.”

  They got as far as the opening before Lalasa shook her head and rolled away, pressing her face to the platform. For a moment Kel, dizzy from that look at open air, wanted to slap her, and was promptly ashamed of herself. Lalasa had shown her courage in the hands of two kidnapping strangers; she had saved Jump’s life.

  “You can do this,” Kel said. “You survived your brother and the raiders and the road to the palace. What’s a stair against all that?”

  Lalasa met Kel’s eyes. “We really have to do this?”

  Kel nodded. “I don’t want to be here if they decide they don’t need witnesses.”

  “All right,” the older girl whispered.

  I have to go first, Kel realized with a gulp. I have to lead. “Watch how I do this,” she ordered. Lalasa nodded.

  Getting on her hands and knees, turning her head until she saw the opening at the edge of her vision, Kel backed up until both feet touched empty air. I can do this, she told herself firmly. I did it dozens of times climbing cliffs this last summer. “Jump, stay very still,” she warned the dog on her back. She groped with one foot until she touched the first metal step. She tested it, making sure she could rest her weight on it, before she set her other foot down. Carefully she straightened her legs. Once again she backed up several inches until there was enough of her in the opening to try for the second step. Now she reached with a foot, groped, and found it. She tested it first, then stepped down. The platform opening was now around her waist, and strong winds plucked at her hose.

  Kel took the next step down. “Let’s go,” she ordered.

  Lalasa slid across the platform on her behind, not caring that the wood pulled threads from her skirt. Her lips were pressed so tightly together that a white rim showed around them, but she still obeyed Kel. Together they maneuvered until Lalasa’s feet were on the second step and Kel was on the fourth.

  Gods help me, I have to turn, Kel realized. I have to see where I’m going. “Wait,” she told Lalasa.

  Kel flexed her hands. Time to stop dancing and just do this, she decided. The sweat that poured down her front was instantly chilled and snatched away by the wind, making her shiver. At least her back was warm—carrying Jump was like carrying a small oven.

  The sooner I get it started, the sooner it’s done. Putting it off just makes the whole job take longer.

  Kel shut her eyes, gripped the platform’s edge with one hand, and groped until she could feel the railing with the other. She grabbed it with both hands, turned into the wind, and opened her eyes. Below her the palace swayed; the edges of her vision went dark.

  Cliffs are so solid, she thought giddily. I never realized it before.

  She bit the inside of her cheek hard, until it bled. Her faintness evaporated. She looked at the stairs before her. Like those inside, they had been worked in the shape of flowers, with openings in every step.

  When I reach the Realms of the Dead, she vowed grimly, I’m going to find the genius who designed this tower and I’m going to kill him a second time. Horribly.

  “Hold the rails with both hands,” she shouted. “We’ll do this carefully. Test the step before you put all of your weight on it. If we’re slow, if we’re steady, we’ll be fine.”

  I am such a liar, she thought weakly, watching over one shoulder as Lalasa turned. The older girl faced front and took hold of the railings.

  Kel gripped the rails so hard that she expected to find the imprint of the iron vines on her palms for the rest of her life. At each step she waited for Lalasa to come down behind her. Of course her treacherous knees were quivering; they always did when she rose higher than three feet and looked down. Her leg muscles felt watery.

  The wind was the worst. It shoved and tugged, yanking the girls’ clothes, slamming them into one rail or the other. It thrust at Kel’s shaky knees, until she was sure she would fall. Lalasa was no more than one step behind, so close that she often jostled Kel and Jump.

  A
t first Kel ignored her fear by naming the members of her family, from Great-Aunt Bridala all the way down to her nieces and nephews. When the wind hit the stair with a blast that rattled the whole thing, Kel turned to imagining the tortures she would inflict on the architect who had built the Needle, starting with the evil fingers that had drawn the plans for it.

  She was so occupied with this that she didn’t see the reddish brown stain on a step a third of the way down. As she rested her left foot on it, the foot slammed through, dropping into empty air. Broken iron gouged deep through her hose and into both sides of Kel’s left leg.

  Lalasa screamed and lurched forward, bumping into Jump and Kel’s back. Kel gritted her teeth and hung on to the railings with all of her strength, supporting Lalasa’s weight as well as Jump’s and her own for a horrible moment.

  “Sorry,” cried Lalasa, shifting herself back until her weight rested on her own feet. “Sorry, sorry!”

  Kel remained where she was, locked in place, not daring to move. Her leg throbbed; it bled heavily. She looked down just once to see her blood drip onto roof tiles sixty feet below. Closing her eyes, she ordered herself not to look down again.

  “My lady, you’re bleeding!” cried Lalasa.

  “I know,” Kel replied. “Will you do me a favor? Just—sit, right where you are. Sit, and—and—let me think.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Lalasa said. She sniffled. “Forgive me.” Kel felt the stair bounce slightly as Lalasa sat. “May I take Jump?”

  Kel nodded. “That would help.”

  She felt Lalasa fumble with the sling on her back. Jump didn’t wriggle, but let the maid ease him out of the cloth. Kel felt better without his weight putting her off-balance.

  Once Lalasa had the dog, Kel made herself look at the step that had given way. Carefully she drew her leg out of the hole, trying not to catch it on jagged metal. When she was free, she sat on the step behind her, her back against Lalasa’s shins. Then she rested her face in her hands.