by Kate Novak
Frefford appeared in the doorway. “What in nine hells is going on here?” he asked. “Giogi! What are you doing with Amber?”
“Frefford, stop him!” Dorath hollered.
Flattery released one hand from the baby and grabbed Dorath’s wrist. “Silver path, castle keep,” he whispered.
Before Lord Frefford’s astonished eyes, his cousin, his grandaunt and his daughter vanished.
Giogi stepped back from the parlor window of his townhouse. “I’ve got to get to Redstone fast!” he said.
“If we’re not too late already,” Drone muttered. “Thomas, notify the watch,” he ordered. “Giogi, take my hand, boy. You, too, Mistress Ruskettle.”
This may not be one of the smarter things I’ve ever done, Olive thought, taking the wizard’s left hand while Giogi grasped the right.
“Silver path, home tower,” Drone intoned.
Something buzzed in Olive’s ear, and her flesh tingled. She involuntarily blinked, and when she opened her eyes, she, the wizard, and Giogi were standing in Drone’s lab in Redstone Castle. From a room downstairs came the shriek of an anguished woman.
“Gaylyn!” Giogi cried. He rushed to the door to the outer stair and dashed down. Olive followed closely on his heels.
Three stories down, the door to the nursery stood open. Sudacar lay slumped in the doorway, unconscious. His face and chest were horribly burned, and his hair was scorched to the scalp. Julia knelt over him, pouring a healing potion very carefully down his throat. Her eyes were streaming with tears.
Inside the room, Gaylyn was seated on the rocker, sobbing hysterically. Frefford knelt beside her with his arms around her waist, but he was pale and silent, without the strength to console his wife.
Cat lay in a heap beside the baby’s cradle. Her flesh was a deathly white, and her lips and eyelashes were covered with rime. She clutched a cloth sack to her chest.
Giogi stepped over Sudacar’s body and rushed to the mage’s side. He took up her hand and shuddered at the cold. He pulled the platinum band from his forehead and held its smooth inner surface near her lips. Still cold from the nobleman’s flight, the metal dimmed with the tiniest bit of moisture.
“She’s alive!” Giogi cried excitedly.
Sudacar stirred in Julia’s arms. “Sam,” Julia whispered. “Sam, can you hear me?”
From between his cracked lips Sudacar snarled, “Fell for it. Oldest trick in the book, and I fell for it.”
Julia unstoppered another potion vial. “Drink some more,” she ordered gently, but Sudacar shook his head.
“Girl,” he gasped.
“What?” Julia asked.
“Give it to the girl. She’s worse off. He hit her hard.”
“Here,” Olive said, holding out her hand. “I’ll handle it.”
Julia looked uncertainly down at her lover’s fire-ravaged face. “It’s the last one in the house,” she argued.
Sudacar patted her hand reassuringly. Unwilling but obedient, the noblewoman handed the halfling the vial.
Olive skipped over Sudacar’s legs and hurried to Giogi’s side. The nobleman held the mage close to his body with his cape wrapped about both of them, trying to warm her.
“She could probably use a swig of this,” Olive suggested, handing Giogi the vial.
Giogi accepted it with a weak but grateful smile.
Olive peered in the baby’s cradle. There was nothing in it but a scroll. Olive unrolled it and read through it silently.
Drone appeared in the doorway. “I’ve secured the castle,” he said.
“Too late,” Olive replied.
“What happened?” the old wizard asked.
“Flattery took the baby,” Olive explained, looking up from the scroll.
“Uncle Drone!” Julia cried in surprise. “You’re alive!”
Frefford and Gaylyn looked up.
“That pile of ash wasn’t you, then?” Frefford asked.
“No, it wasn’t,” Drone replied as he knelt beside Sudacar. “How did he get in?” the wizard asked the king’s man. “What spells did he use?”
“Looked like Giogi,” Sudacar explained. “Said the baby was in danger. I led him right up here. Selune, I’m such a fool.”
“Shh, Sam,” Julia said. “Conserve your strength.”
Sudacar shook his head. “Drone needs to know. Dorath was here. He snatched up the baby. Dorath tried to stop him. He hit Dorath. I pulled my sword, and he fried me. The girl missiled him with magic. He froze her with a ray of cold. Kicked her twice for good measure. Dorath hit him, fought like a tiger. I passed out before he disappeared.”
“Gaylyn, Julia, and I were in the parlor. We heard Aunt Dorath shouting,” Frefford explained. “When I ran in, he was still struggling to keep Aunt Dorath from pulling Amberlee away. I thought it was Giogi, until he blinked out with Amberlee and Aunt Dorath.”
Gaylyn looked up plaintively at the wizard. “Oh, Uncle Drone. You’ll get my baby back, won’t you?” she sobbed.
“It’s out of his hands,” Olive said.
Sudacar and the Wyvernspurs turned to the bard for an explanation.
“He left a note,” she said, rattling the scroll. “It’s for Giogi. ‘The brat for the spur and my Cat,’ ” she read. “ ‘Bring no one else. Cat can lead you to my audience chamber. If you keep her or try to bring anyone else, you seal the child’s doom.’ ”
Strengthened by the healing potion, Cat stirred in Giogi’s arms. “Giogi,” she whispered, “I’m sorry. I tried to stop him. I really did. I fought him.”
“It’s all right,” Giogi whispered.
“I surprised him, too,” she added, her voice very weak. “He didn’t believe I would do it.”
Giogi looked up at Frefford, unable to say what he must.
“I understand, Giogi,” the young lord said. “No one expects you to trade one life for another.”
Giogi kissed Cat gently and untangled himself from the cloak he’d wrapped around both of them. “I’ll take him the spur,” Giogi said, rising to his feet. “He’ll give me Amberlee or … I’ll kill him.” He trembled as he realized that he wanted to do it.
Olive shook her head. He can’t go up there alone, she thought, when another idea struck her.
“Jade’s sack,” she said, pulling out the magical pouch Jade had given her to hold. “If I can fit into Jade’s sack, he won’t know I’m with you. I can sneak attack him, in case he cheats us—correction, when he cheats us. He hasn’t changed from the time he killed your father,” she pointed out to Giogi.
“Jade’s sack?” Drone asked. “The miniature bag of holding I gave her? Not even you would fit, Ruskettle. Twenty pounds is its limit. Hold on. Wasn’t there a potion of healing in it?”
Olive opened the sack and drew out a minty-smelling vial.
“Take that, Giogi,” Drone ordered. “You may need to use it.”
Olive held out the vial.
“No,” Cat said, snatching the vial. She unstoppered it and quaffed the potion in one fluid motion.
Her skin glowed with a trifle more pink, and she rose to her feet on her own, still clutching the cloth sack she’d held while unconscious. “There. I’m better now. I’m going with you,” she told Giogi.
“No, you are not,” the nobleman retorted. “I’m not letting you near that madman ever again.”
“You haven’t got a choice,” Cat snapped. “If you won’t carry me with you, I’ll fly up on my own. I won’t leave you to face him alone.”
“Mistress Cat, you can’t go,” Gaylyn said softly. “He’ll kill you. I won’t let you. Not even for my Amberlee.” Gaylyn broke down in tears.
“What makes you think I won’t kill him?” Cat snapped with steely determination.
Now she sounds like Alias, Olive thought grimly.
“Cat,” Giogi whispered, “I don’t want you to come.”
“I know. I don’t want you to go, either. Neither of us has any other choice, though, do we?”
“You
may as well give in, Master Giogioni,” Olive said. “She’ll find a way to follow you. You’re better off if you look after each other.”
Giogi turned away from Cat, struggling to hide his rage. “I’ll change in the courtyard,” he said as he left the room.
Cat picked her cape off the floor and followed behind him.
“We can watch them from the tower,” Drone suggested.
Frefford, Gaylyn, Sudacar, and Julia remained in the nursery, but Olive followed behind the old wizard with interest. The last of the daylight was fading, and the countryside reflected the deep blues of dusk.
Steele was in the tower room, looting through papers, when they got there.
“Steele Wyvernspur, haven’t I told you to keep your paws off my toys?” Drone growled.
Steele stood up sharply as if struck by lightning. “Uncle Drone. You’re not dead. How?”
“I just keep breathing—in, then out,” Drone snapped. “You’re just the person I wanted to see, for a change. Saddle up two horses and ride up to the House of the Lady. Fetch back Mother Lleddew. We need her to heal Sudacar, and if our luck goes from bad to worse, we’ll need her to bash a few heads, too.”
“Mother Lleddew?” Steele whined. “She’s an old woman. Sixty at least.”
“I’m sixty,” Drone snarled. “She’s eighty-eight. Get your prejudices straight, boy. Now scat! You’d make an ugly toad.”
Steele opened his mouth to retort, then thought better of it. He hurried from the room and down the outer staircase.
Olive opened one of the tower windows and looked at the courtyard. “They’re down there now,” she told Drone.
“Keep an eye on ’em,” Drone ordered, “while I dig out some scrolls. I’ll need more power than I usually carry.” He began rooting through the scrolls, tossing them about willy-nilly. “Gods, that girl really took the cream of the crop. If I find one good scroll, I’ll be lucky. Aha! Perfect! I’m lucky. Has Giogi transformed yet?”
“Not yet,” Olive said, putting her eye to one of the telescopes and focusing it on the nobleman and the mage.
Cat ran to catch up to Giogi as he strode out into the center of the courtyard. She touched his arm, but he wouldn’t look at her.
“I love you,” she said.
Giogi whirled around angrily. “If you loved me, you would stay here as I’ve asked you.”
“Why? So I can die of a broken heart like your mother did?”
“Don’t say that,” Giogi snapped.
“I’m not the sort of woman who can sit around and wait, Giogi, unless I’m sitting around and waiting with you. Mistress Ruskettle is right, you know. We’re better off if we look after each other. Isn’t that what Wyvernspurs are supposed to do?”
The anger in Giogi’s heart melted away, leaving only a sad feeling that, having just met and fallen in love, they might both die. “We should say good-bye here,” he said softly. “We may not get another chance.”
Cat laughed unexpectedly. “I’ve never seen you so grim. Adventurers never say good-bye. They say, ‘’Til next season.’ What we should do is kiss each other good luck.”
“We should,” he agreed, his heart lightening a little. Giogi pulled Cat close to him, and they wrapped their arms around one another.
“Has he transformed yet?” Drone asked Olive again, impatiently.
“No,” Olive said with a quiet sigh, stepping away from the telescope.
“What is he waiting for?” Drone looked out the window. “Well, can’t begrudge them that,” he muttered, tucking a scroll into his shirt.
“I don’t suppose you have a plan?” Olive asked hopefully.
“As you said, Ruskettle, it’s out of my hands.”
“Then what is that scroll for?”
“If they’re very lucky, I might have an opportunity to interfere. If they’re very unlucky …” Drone let his words trail off.
“Then what?” Olive asked.
“Then I will have no choice but to interfere.”
The halfling and the wizard looked back down on the courtyard. Cat stood alone in the center. She held the finder’s stone so that Giogi’s flight would not be made in complete darkness.
Giogi had taken wyvern shape and was already aloft. He flew in a low glide toward the mage, snatched her up gently in his talons and spiraled upward, beating his wings heavily. When he’d cleared the towers, he flew away from the castle until he reached the edge of the massive rock that hung over Redstone. He spiraled up again and was lost to view.
It’s as if we fell off the edge of the world and now we’re trying to get back on top, Giogi thought as he climbed through the cold spring evening air to reach Flattery’s fortress. He was several thousand feet above Immersea. Hundreds of miles to the west the nobleman could see the Storm Horn Mountains as dark purple silhouettes against the twilight sky. The flying rock obstructed his view to the east.
Finally he reached the top. The moon hadn’t risen yet, but the finder’s stone shone out like a beacon, illuminating the vast desert plain that lay before them. Red boulders were strewn across the red-brown sand. As they drew closer to the center of the plain, Giogi sighted other things scattered in the sand—corpses, thousands of them, arranged in orderly rows. Then the fortress wall appeared in the stone’s light and Giogi pulled up to fly above it. Mother Lleddew had not exaggerated; it was twice as high as the wall about Suzail.
He swooped downward once they cleared the fortress wall. Bodies lay within the inner ward, but these were not neatly stacked. They lay in untidy piles. Even in the cold night air, they smelled strongly of decomposition. Giogi found a clear spot of sand, swooped low, and released Cat. He skidded to a stop several yards away.
The enchantress caught up to him by the time he’d shrunk back to his human shape. She handed back the finder’s stone.
“Why are all these bodies here?” Giogi whispered, holding the crystal high overhead to get a better view of the inner ward.
“These are food for the ghasts and ghouls,” Cat explained.
“And the bodies outside?”
“Held in reserve to be changed to zombies as needed.”
Giogi shuddered.
“I wonder where all the undead are,” Cat mused. “He can’t have used all of them to attack you at Selune’s temple. Not all of them will go out in daylight.”
“I’d rather not find either kind,” Giogi said. “Which way to Flattery?”
“To the keep” Cat said.
Giogi followed the mage as she threaded her way through the piles of carrion. The keep was a second fortress within the first. A turret rose from each corner, and the roof was lined with crenellated parapets. Giogi estimated the main building to be four stories high, but it was hard to tell exactly, because the keep had no windows. A pair of iron doors at ground level stood wide open. Cat reached for his hand, and they entered together.
They stood at one end of a long, wide corridor, bare of any ornamentation. Sconces holding torches lined the walls, but the torches had burned down to stumps. Giogi held the finder’s stone above his head again. It sent a beam of light down the full length of the empty corridor. The light struck a second pair of iron doors.
“Dismal place,” Giogi muttered as he and Cat walked toward the white doors. “No wall hangings. No furniture.”
“Only Flattery and the undead dwell here,” Cat explained. “The undead have no joy in decoration.”
“What about Flattery?”
“Flattery only delights in power.”
“Did you live here?”
Cat nodded.
“How could you stand it?”
“Until yesterday, being in your home, I had no notion of living any better,” Cat said. She pushed at one of the doors before them.
The door opened into a great chamber whose ceiling rose to the full height of the keep. At the far end, a pair of braziers flickered red near the base of a dais. Aunt Dorath sat beside one of the braziers. She was not restrained by chain or rope. Sh
e looked very frightened, and her hair had gone completely gray.
Atop the dais, on a throne made of human bones, sat the wizard Flattery, a faint reddish glow surrounded his body. Amberlee lay on a pillow at his feet, inside a shimmering globe two feet across. On either side of the dais, in the shadows, disfigured shapes milled about and darker shadows flickered with excitement.
Giogi dropped Cat’s hand and strode into the room. Flattery laid a threatening finger on the globe holding Amberlee. “Hold,” he commanded. Giogi halted.
“Giogioni Wyvernspur, you were wise to come,” the wizard said. “You, Catling, will pay for your treachery. As you can see, Giogioni, your kin are alive. My minions—” He motioned to the flickering shadows on either side of the dais—“hate them. Especially the brat. You will note I’ve taken special precautions to protect her from their life-draining touch. Unfortunately, your aunt got out of control and I had no choice but to let one of my ghosts deal with her. You can hardly object to her damaged condition, considering all the use you’ve had of my wife. Come here, Catling,” he ordered.
“The lady is not part of the deal, Flattery,” Giogi retorted hotly. “She’s returning with me. You free Amberlee, Aunt Dorath, and Cat, and I will give you the spur.”
Flattery laughed. “You’re a fool, Giogioni. Get over here, witch!” he shouted at the mage. “You’ve got three seconds before I make this infant wraith food. Don’t leave that sack behind. Bring it with you.”
Cat picked up the sack of magic she’d tried to leave behind Giogi. “You’re better off without me,” she said to Giogi as she passed him by, hurrying to Flattery’s side. Giogi could see her eyes brimmed with tears.
“No,” Giogi whispered.
“Don’t waste your breath,” Flattery said. “I’m the only one who can give her what she wants. Isn’t that right, Catling?” the wizard asked, yanking on the mage’s hair.
“Yes,” Cat whispered, keeping her eyes down.
Flattery pulled at the sack Cat carried. “A little present for me, Cat? Something by way of an apology, you witch? Looted from Drone’s lab, I take it.”
