The meeting was tense at first, but Theus soon came back with cowled robes, and Redford and Amory walked in with hoods up and identities disguised, then were quickly led to an isolated corner tower, where Krabel joined them.
“How did you get here, and who is this?” the elderly nobleman asked Redford bluntly. “The whole city knows you’re captive in the palace.”
The trio had agreed during their walk that there should be no mention of white magic.
“Theus brought disguises that helped us sneak out of the palace, and we’ve been working our way through the mountains off the road to seek refuge,” Redford explained.
“I can hide you for a night or three,” Krabel offered. “But you know they’ll send soldiers here looking for you. They did come to see me right after the conquest, when they were looking for the prince and princess. They’ll be back,” he said with surety. “You need to go further east, up into the mountains. Many who fled the invasion have taken refuge in the district of Eastcrag.”
“If you’ll give us provisions, we’ll leave first thing in the morning to head that way,” Redford agreed.
“And if you can have some dinner sent to us here, we’ll stay quiet and out of sight tonight,” he added.
“My grand-daughter will bring a tray to you shortly. It’s good to know you’re free, your highness,” Krabel spoke to Amory directly. “And thank you for your help in setting him free,” he said to Theus. He left the room, and the three escapees were alone.
“Do you trust him?” Theus asked Redford.
“I trust him. I don’t know his staff. He must think there’s one or more he can’t trust, because he’s sending his own flesh and blood to carry out the tricky work of delivering our food,” the guard answered.
They received a tray of hot food and ale from a young woman who kept her eyes averted when she arrived silently several minutes later. She departed immediately without any conversation.
“If we have to flee in the middle of the night, can you carry us away?” Redford asked Theus as they sat and ate their meal.
“I’ll need some more rest to recover,” Theus explained. “By midnight I’ll be able to take you someplace else.”
“We’ll take turns keeping watch during the night,” Redford directed, “And you can go last Theus, so you can rest, in case we need you again.”
Theus nodded gratefully. He soon went to bed and slept soundly, until shaken awake by Amory during the dark hours of the early morning. Theus sat by the door and watched, but nothing happened until shortly after the first rays of daylight began to creep over the horizon.
Theus sat drowsily near the door, when he heard a thumping on the door, and then it opened.
“We’ve brought food, my lord,” a serving man explained, and two other servants placed large canvas sacks on the floor next to Theus’s feet.
“Give them a tip to keep them quiet,” the Voice weakly advised.
“Hold a second,” Theus told the men. He fumbled in his purse, and pulled coins out. “This is for you. Please don’t mention being here or seeing anyone here,” he said as he distributed the money.
“We’ll stay mum, your grace,” one of the men said sincerely, as they all bobbed their heads and shuffled out of the room, clutching the coins.
“It’s good to hear you, Voice,” Theus whispered.
“The power of the evil of Ind’Petro is not as strongly established in the countryside of Steep Rise yet. I can still penetrate. I would advise that you carry your two friends out of the castle your way, so that they are not seen, nor can be followed.”
“It takes a great deal to carry them,” Theus pointed out.
“It does, and it will delay you. But it will make them and you and your host safer,” the Voice pointed out.
“Alright,” Theus agreed, as he bent and opened the first bag of goods. There were hard-baked breads, sausages, and cheeses in the canvas sack. He went and awoke the other two, then explained.
“Let’s leave now,” Theus suggested. “I’ll use my magic to carry you to the east.”
“That’s sound thinking,” Redford agreed. “No one will know we’re here, hardly, and Lord Krabel will be safer,” he immediately understood the reasoning.
They heard boots climbing the stairs.
“I say we go now,” Redford said, as he lifted both the sacks of food. Theus spread his arms wide and took a deep breath. A part of him wanted to hesitate, to protest about the pain he was about to suffer, but his two companions came into his arms, and he closed the hug.
The door latch began to lift.
Theus grasped his energy, then stepped forward, and he saw the door start to shiver open, just before he saw and stood upon a mountain trail, covered in long shadows from trees to the east.
“Well done, lad,” Redford said, holding on to Theus, who was in danger of collapsing from the strain.
“Have a seat over here,” the guard advised. He and Amory helped Theus to a fallen tree, and all three sat down in the cool mountain air.
“Who was that coming into the room?” Amory asked.
“We’ll never know,” Redford said. “Not until you’re on the throne and we can visit the earl again.
“When will you be able to travel?” he asked Theus. “We’ve got a long day’s trip ahead of us, not that I want to hurry you, after what you’ve just done for us.”
“You can go on without me. You don’t need to wait,” Theus decided. “I’m not going east. I still need to go south, to find Amelia.”
“You’re going down to Southsand?” Amory asked. “It’s a deadly place!”
“You forget that I was a slave down there for a while. I know my way around, a little bit,” he countered. “And your sister is the reason I came in the first place.” He thought of Great Forks, and Coriae. He had sacrificed a great deal to rescue Amelia, a very great deal, he thought sadly. He had to finish the mission to make it all worthwhile.
“You go on,” he urged. “I’ll just rest until I can go my own way,” he assured them.
“You’ve been a blessing lad, a real blessing,” Redford said appreciatively.
“When I’m the king, I’ll name you as an earl, or a baron,” Amory said loyally.
“When you’re the king, maybe I can come live in the palace with you and Amelia, and be her personal bodyguard,” Theus grinned at the boy. He was glad to hear Amory voicing the belief that he would be king someday, would overcome all the adversity he faced.
Redford lifted the bags of food. “Do you want some of this for your own journey?” he asked.
Theus selected some of the hard bread and a sausage. “It won’t take me long to reach Southsand,” he explained why he took so little.
“Here,” he suddenly realized that they were both weaponless. He gave Redford his knife, and the man thanked him again.
They wished one another good luck again, and then the two escapees lifted their bags of supplies onto their backs, and they began to walk east on the trail, out into the mountains that hemmed Steep Rise up against the harbor, out in search of safety among the refugees and followers they hoped to lead.
Theus sat alone, resting, and listening to the birds sing, and the sounds of small animals rustling among the leaves on the ground. He would have to start soon. He could begin to walk back towards the west, or he could simply sit and rest.
He closed his eyes and leaned forward, resting his chin on his hand as his body recovered from holding down the third shift of the overnight watch, followed by the strain of the white magic escape from the castle.
When his chin slid off his hand he jerked awake, over an hour later. The sun was higher in the sky, and he sat alone on the trail. He felt better, refreshed but not yet fresh. He needed more time to restore his energy. For the first time, for just a moment, he had an inkling of why the black magicians resorted to stealing energy from other people. It removed the limitations that constrained their abilities.
He shook his head, ruefully knowing
that it was a horrible thing to think. But there had to be some way to overcome the limits of the amount of energy a person could produce and use, he felt sure.
Theus stood up. He felt too restless to sit still. The path beckoned him. He would walk some distance, just to make some progress, primarily to help the time pass until he felt ready to take one of the great magical steps to the south to resume his journey towards Amelia.
He thought about Amelia, the sweet little girl who he had known. They had spent days together walking to safety, and he had gotten to know her fairly well. She was in the process of growing up, sometimes shy, sometimes bossy, sometimes free and open, while at other times conscious of her dignity and station. He felt personal pain as he imagined her suffering from the attacks by Donal.
When he had walked long enough and far enough, he decided he had regained enough energy to engage his magical powers. He prepared himself and then stepped towards the south. He found himself on a different mountain, one that was steeper, and rockier, less clad in green. He fell down onto all fours, and bowed his head as the bright sun poured down upon his back, its powerful rays warming him as he gasped for breath.
Two trips. He’d already taken two trips with the white magic that day, and the sun was not yet even to high noon. He was going to drive himself to travel a third time, he knew. He’d wasted one trip going east. The trip had not been wasted, he told himself, and he knew it was true. He’d helped to save two lives.
What would it be like to return to Southsand, he wondered. And how would he approach it?
Could he risk appearing in the palace kitchen, to ask for help?
Some would help him. But some would be too fearful to. And anyone who was caught helping him would suffer terribly, he had no doubt.
He wouldn’t put any of his friends at risk if he could avoid it. Better to keep them safe from harm. And he was still a good distance away from them, in any event.
When he finally felt his strength had returned, he rose to his feet and started to walk in a southerly direction. He found a path, one that happened to lead him south. Even better, it happened to have a long downhill incline, and he was happy and able to follow it as it twisted and slanted and turned. It always followed a general direction south, even though it sometimes twisted east or west as the topography of the mountainside directed.
By midafternoon, he had reached the bottom of a valley, and the path turned to the west, following a watercourse between the mountains. Theus stayed on the path, pleased to walk in the cool shade that enveloped the valley. He stopped to drink the water, and ate plants he recognized along the way, while snacking on slices of the sausage and bread that Redford had given him from the travel food they carried.
He thought he felt ready to try to carry out his third white magic travel step of the day. Once he accomplished it he would be wrecked for the rest of the day – without the energy to find shelter or protect himself in the event of need, and so he hesitated to commit himself to the next stage of travel for a long stretch of time.
Finally, as Theus thought of Amelia being touched and tortured by Donal, he concluded that he had to push himself. Without giving himself time to reconsider, he hastily grasped his energy, faced south, and took a step.
He landed on a stony shoreline, in a desolate place where waves crashed against the base of rocky cliffs and sea birds circled overhead, crying raucously under a cloudy sky.
Theus was so exhausted he collapsed flat on the shingles of stone that paved the beach. The waves were rising along the shoreline to within twenty feet of his position as he lay drained by his journey; he didn’t move as the tide slowly came in and the waves stretched higher and higher, until they started to splash their salty foam into his face. Then he struggled to rise to a crawling position, and moved himself up the beach to the base of the cliff, several yards away. He sat with his back against the face of the stones, atop a pile of rubble, and watched the tide continue to rise for another hour.
The foaming water began to recede before it reached him, and once he saw that – despite his wet and weary state – he fell asleep with the setting sun shining in his face.
Chapter 7
When Theus awoke, the waves on the western sea were reflecting the sunlight from the rising sun in the east, causing flashes of light to appear briefly across most of his field of vision. He sat and sleepily stared at the lights until the sun rose to a higher angle and the reflections no longer splashed their prismatic colors.
It was time for him to move on, he knew. He would do best to make his first step of the day as early as possible, so that he would have time to recover. He opened his small pack of supplies, nearly empty, and drew out the sausage again, then took bites directly from the piece of meat, not trying to preserve any of it for a later meal. He was hungry, extremely hungry, a result of making so many magical steps and draining so much of his body’s energy away. His stomach looked small, and when he ran a hand along his torso he felt his ribs beneath his skin.
Theus remembered his upbringing on the farm in the Jewel Hills. There had been many days when he’d only had a few bites of potatoes for a meal, and even a few days when he’d had two meals instead of three. Times had often been lean on the farm. He thought of his family, and hoped he’d be able to get back to visit them again. Maybe after Amelia was rescued, he told himself. He no longer could imagine himself going back to Great Forks; that future was gone.
At last he stood up and stepped out onto the beach. He turned and faced southeast, hoping he was pointed in the right direction, then engaged his powers, and took a step.
He found himself on another beach, one where fisherman’s boats were pulled up on a sandy beach.
“Where’d you come from?” a fisherman was sitting in the prow of a beached boat, mending his nets. Theus had emerged onto the beach scene little more than ten feet from the man.
“I was up north,” Theus answered vaguely, between gasps, as he doubled over in fatigue from the strain of the magical exercise. After a second of recovery, he slowly unbent himself.
“Are you feeling okay?” the man asked, concerned by Theus’s posture.
“I’m going to be okay,” Theus took a deep breath. “I just need to keep walking,” he spoke as he prepared to continue. “Which way is it to Southsand, and how far?”
“I don’t know if you can walk,” the fisherman told him, “but if you can, you’ll need an hour to get to the fishing docks that way.”
“I’ll make it,” Theus grunted. “Thanks,” he began as he started a stiff-legged gait past the boat and along the dunes of the sandy beach.
The trip took him an hour and a half, but he arrived back on the fringes of the city that had planted so much pain and terror in his soul. He walked past the fishermen’s docks to the city wall, and passed through a gate without being questioned as he entered the city proper.
He was near the commercial docks, and he found his way to the fish market that he had visited on several occasions with Molly and Torella and Kurfa. From there he knew he could meander through the city to the vicinity of the palace in a matter of several minutes. And once he was there, his fears and nightmares would await him on the other side of the palace wall, daring him to enter and face Donal.
He bought a serving of hot fried fish and potatoes from a vendor at the market, then sat on a half wall and watched people walking by while he ate the sustenance and continued to rest his body, so that he might regenerate all the energy he would need to carry out his scheme to find Amelia in the lair of the deadly magician.
He finished his meal, wiped his hands on his pants, then began walking towards the palace. He crossed over the Kipping Bridge, and passed the blue housing square where Gance the doghandler and Losa his wife lived, in the apartment where Theus had treated Losa’s deadly goiter.
He entered the market there, and saw a vendor selling staves. He quickly bought one with little haggling. He didn’t care about the price, but the feel of having the staff as a weapo
n in his hands gave him great comfort, and he walked on towards the palace with slightly more confidence.
When he reached the vicinity of the imposing gate through the palace walls, he stepped into the shadows of an alleyway and stood, staring at the place that he feared would become a death trap for him. Not until his final hours there had he realized how completely evil and dangerous Donal had been, a feral being that spread pain and death and destruction and evil. He dreaded the need to go inside the palace, yet it was the place he was destined to enter.
He looked around to ensure that no one was watching him, then he turned within himself and brought his energy out to allow him to grow invisible. It would get him through the gate; it would get him into the palace. But would it fool the powerful black magician? Theus had no illusions that he would be able to fool Donal; the evil man undoubtedly knew every trick and deceit that had ever been practiced.
He lifted his staff over his head, to avoid knocking it against any of the other people walking in the plaza or through the gate, and he started walking carefully towards the gate, swerving and turning and slowing as needed to avoid collisions with people who did not see or react to his approach.
He darted into the center of the gateway opening, the guards and the other travelers at the gate oblivious to his passage, and then ten steps later, he was inside the palace walls.
His fear made him stop and listen, to see if any alarm went off. If the powers of the magicians were such that they could track and punish runaway slaves via the enchanted collars such as Theus had been made to wear, he suspected and feared that some magical sentry would detect his entrance. He stepped forward to avoid a wagon pulling out of the palace, and waited longer, but no evidence of detection arrived. At last, he concluded he was safe to move on.
Theus turned to the left, and began to follow his usual path along the outside ring road that circled the palace. He walked slowly as he pondered taking a risky chance. He could feel the use of the invisibility spell slowly seeping his stored energy away, faster than his body was replenishing his supply.
Unpredictable Fortunes (The Memory Stone Series Book 3) Page 6
