by Cam Banks
“I shall do my best,” Aggurat said. “One last thing, honored master.”
“Yes, Aggurat?”
“What did you do with the real Cazuvel?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Vanderjack carried the gnome up a flight of stairs.
Castle Glayward was awkwardly laid out. It had been built upon a broad, flat mesa of basalt, a much smaller cousin of the impressive towers of stone that composed the highest reaches of the Emerald Peaks. During construction, the rear half of the mesa had cracked and dropped twenty feet, prompting the inclusion of the dungeon rooms, a guard post, and a stable before the main part of the castle was added. Buttresses and support columns were later added for the mezzanine levels that helped keep the main tower level. When Castle Glayward was finally done, it was a maze of hallways, rooms, secret passages, and staircases.
Somewhere along the way, they had acquired a lantern with just enough lamp oil in it to push away the darkness for about six hours. Two of those hours were already up.
“Do you need me to take over?” asked Gredchen, stopping in front of him and looking down.
“I’m fine. Keep on going.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anybody throw up that much,” she said. “Was it the ghoul fever?”
Vanderjack paused. “Yes. Ghoul fever. I’m fine now, though. I’ve had worse.”
Gredchen climbed a few more stairs and onto a landing. She waved the lantern off to one side, revealing a simple, ironclad wood door. “Through here is the east ballroom.”
“Did gnomes build this place?” Vanderjack asked. Theo didn’t flinch in his arms, though the sellsword entertained the thought that the unconscious gnome could hear all of their talk.
“Baron Glayward comes from an eccentric family,” she replied. “It’s … complicated. His ancestor, having fled Solamnia, was thought in later life to have been afflicted by madness.”
“Nice. So where’s his daughter most likely to be locked up? She wasn’t in the dungeon.”
Gredchen coughed. “Right.”
“Oh, don’t tell me. She’s not really here as a prisoner; she’s been married off to some dragonarmy officer, and they’re living happily ever after upstairs with ghouls in the basement.”
“This is no joking matter,” the baron’s aide cautioned briskly. “Anyway, if we pass through the east ballroom and the lower residence suite, we’ll get to where we are headed, the grand stair, right beside the great hall.”
“And up the grand stair is …?”
“A gallery.”
“She’s locked up in a gallery?”
Gredchen put her ear to the door and raised a hand to quiet Vanderjack. He shut his mouth and waited. When she looked back at him, she gave the sign for all clear and opened the door.
Thankfully, the door didn’t squeak or groan. Beyond, an impressive vaulted chamber waited. A mosaic covered the floor, and seven narrow stained-glass windows lined one wall. Vanderjack followed Gredchen in and gave a low, impressed whistle that echoed throughout the ballroom. Gredchen glared at him.
“Sorry,” he whispered. He looked around for somewhere to lay Theodenes down and settled on a long bench underneath one of the windows. He took a moment to look up at the stained glass, which featured a stylized harp surrounded by stars and rays of light, all fashioned from pieces of amber, crimson, and emerald.
“Looks like you’ve found more Branchala,” said Gredchen, standing beside him. “It’s traditional in old Solamnic castles to not only represent the standard symbols-kingfisher, crown, rose, and sword-but also all of the religious iconography of the old gods.”
She indicated the other stained-glass panels. “I used to know all of them, from stories I heard as a child. The new clerics are bringing those stories to life, I suppose, with the return of true believers and so on. But of course, as I said back in Pentar, the baron wouldn’t have any of it.”
“Not the religious type?”
“No. Not for lack of missionaries trying.”
Vanderjack sat on the bench beside the rigid body of Theodenes. “How about yourself?”
Gredchen looked nervously over at the doors out of the ballroom but sat down on the other side of Theo. “It hasn’t been that long since the war,” she said.
“You said a priest of Paladine came by once. Lord Gilbert sent him off, but you weren’t tempted?”
Gredchen shrugged. “I suppose. But I have my place in the baron’s manor, and if he’s not going to join the club of the faithful, who am I to take the other option?”
She grinned. Vanderjack had to admit that, despite the heavy brow, the big nose, and the lopsided cheekbones, she had a smile you could warm up to. “Your turn,” Gredchen said, pointing at him.
“Oh no. Not a chance. I think the closest I’ve ever come to following a god is when one of my commanders told me to go to the Abyss.”
“Not even Shinare? I hear she’s a popular mercenary goddess in the south.”
“Most of the Shinarites I’ve met have been moneylenders hoping to score a few more steel coins by quoting scripture. And their scripture was probably made up first thing in the morning before breakfast.” Vanderjack shrugged. “I’m not swayed by religious talk. I have my sword, and-” He reached for his belt again, remembering he didn’t have his sword anymore and feeling suddenly vulnerable.
“I think it’s time we pushed on, don’t you?” The sellsword took a breath, steeled himself, and stood up wobbly. “The baron’s daughter is surely sick and tired of being locked up in her makeshift prison.”
Gredchen cleared her throat and nodded. She waited for Vanderjack to pick up the gnome, then followed him across the ballroom and through the doors.
The residential suite Gredchen had spoken of was really nothing more than a handful of rooms leading off a central curving corridor, ending with a sitting room. More windows, set with latticework, allowed the light from outside to illuminate the passage. Vanderjack put his face close to the glass to try and see outside, but it was milky-white with age.
“I have no idea what time of day it is,” he said, stepping back from the windows. “This could be daylight, but then again, Solinari’s in High Sanction at the moment, and it could just as well be moonlight.”
“Once we pass through these doors we’ll be near the balcony overlooking the entrance hall,” whispered Gredchen. “There’s a really large rose window, and you can see the Emerald Peaks through them if the weather’s cooperating.”
“Lovely,” Vanderjack said. “But I’d bet that balcony’s guarded.” He felt the absence of the Hunter, who would ordinarily be coming back to him at such a time to tell him all about the armed forces in the castle-where they were, what they looked like.
“Of course. Hand Theodenes to me, and you take a first look.” Gredchen held out her arms.
Vanderjack handed the gnome over as if he were a bundle of hearth logs and crept to the doors. He threw the latch and opened one door a crack.
Through the narrow gap, he could see the wide curve of the balcony sweeping around an open space. A flight of marble stairs led upward from a landing in the middle of the curve, and Vanderjack caught movement just out of sight: something large, silver, and dressed in red.
“Ackal’s Teeth,” he muttered.
“What is it?” asked Gredchen.
“Sivaks.”
“We can’t take on sivaks,” hissed Gredchen.
Vanderjack looked at Theo then at Gredchen, silently agreeing with her. “But I think I have an interesting idea,” he whispered, grinning.
“Not Theo!” she said, aghast, reading his mind.
“Why not? He’ll be useful. He likes being useful.”
“Absolutely not!”
Vanderjack looked at the door then back at her. “Well, if you’d prefer charging on out there and taking our chances with the sivaks …”
Lord Gilbert’s aide exhaled. “All right. What’s your plan?”
A few minutes later,
after some poking around in the bedrooms in the residence suite, Vanderjack and Gredchen had gathered together an old footlocker, a child’s wagon with four wheels and a handle, several linen sheets, a length of thick silk cord from the curtains around a bed, and a three-pronged candelabra. The two of them carefully stood the gnome up on the footlocker, set it atop the wagon, threw a sheet over his head, and tied the candelabra in place on top of everything with the cord.
“This is never going to work,” said Gredchen, looking over the gnome.
“Sivaks, even the ones from the Red Watch, aren’t that smart,” said Vanderjack. “They may be tactical geniuses, masters at deception and infiltration, but drop something on them they weren’t expecting and most of the time, you’ve got the advantage.”
On the count of three, Gredchen pulled the door open all the way. Vanderjack gave the wagon-footlocker-gnome a mighty shove and it raced out across the balcony, banged twice on the railings, and slammed into the sivak standing on the central landing.
The draconian, as Vanderjack predicted, reacted with startlement. Leaping backward, the creature spread its wings outward to steady its balance and prevent it from falling down the staircase. The gnome ricocheted off the sivak and careened against the railing, sending it speeding off around the other side of the balcony area.
Vanderjack raced in while the draconian had his back to him. The horseshoe-shaped balcony allowed him to use the railing to gain altitude and leap toward the Sivak. Unfortunately he didn’t have a sword. All he had were his wiry, outstretched arms and what he hoped was a fearsome look on his face.
Gredchen, following hurriedly, watched as the sell-sword tackled the sivak around the neck, pinning the draconian’s enormous silver wings against his body. Already unbalanced, the sivak dropped immediately to the top three or four stairs of the grand stair.
Vanderjack hoped that surprising the bigger and stronger draconian would keep it from simply flexing its muscles and throwing him off. And it worked. The sivak flailed uselessly. Tightening the grip around the sivak’s neck, Vanderjack gave a mighty heave and felt the draconian’s neck snap.
Gredchen skirted the melee and ran to recover Theodenes, who was lying facedown under the sheet and candelabra on the far side of the balcony. She turned him over, dusted him off, and picked him up.
Vanderjack watched, amazed, as the body of the sivak shrank and shifted. Silver scales blended, darkened, and retreated in places. Where moments before had been a sivak draconian there lay a perfect copy of Vanderjack.
“Ackal’s Teeth,” the real Vanderjack said. “I never will get used to that.”
“Will it stay that way forever?” asked Gredchen, coming back around with Theo’s immobile body. “Cute. It looks just like you.”
He gave her a pained look. “After a long while, it’ll burn up and turn into ash. Meantime,” Vanderjack added, arranging the position of his doppelganger on the stairs, “the sight of my dead body should slow down anything that comes up from down there.” He pointed down the stairs to the entrance hall below, a marble and granite chamber dominated by the wide staircase and, as Gredchen had said, an enormous rose-shaped stained-glass window. “Come on. We’d better get moving.”
Gredchen handed Theodenes back to Vanderjack. The gnome twitched, once, and Vanderjack saw the bushy white eyebrows moving just a little, as if Theo were trying to form an angry expression and only his eyebrows would cooperate.
“The paralysis is starting to wear off,” he said, hefting the gnome over one shoulder and taking the stairs two at a time.
The stairs rose up into a small semicircular area, an anteroom or waiting room of some kind, at the far end of which was a pair of huge, ironbound wooden doors. To the left of them was a spiral staircase that continued upward. Suits of Solamnic plate armor stood on either side of the doors, bearing halberds. The armor looked purely decorative, but the halberds seemed very real.
“I sure need one of those,” Vanderjack said, indicating a halberd. “But how much do you want to bet that those suits of armor are ensorcelled? Odds are we’ll walk by them and they’ll animate and attack us viciously with polearms.”
Gredchen stared at him but couldn’t tell if he was kidding. “Impossible.”
Theodenes jerked again, and his eyelids closed and opened. Vanderjack suspected the gnome would go limp soon, then start to experience feeling in his limbs and extremities. The sellsword hadn’t been paralyzed by ghouls before, but he’d seen it often enough in the service of the dragonarmies.
“So up the stairs again, one more time,” he said.
Vanderjack shifted his hold on Theo so he could fit on the spiral staircase and went up. Gredchen took the rear, watching the ironbound doors as they ascended, but nothing burst forth or even so much as whispered from them.
At the top of the spiral stairs, the entrance hall and stained-glass windows were left behind. All that Vanderjack could see was a long hallway lined with rugs and animal skins, and bare white walls with unlit torches at regular intervals. At the far end, in total darkness, a single large, rectangular shape was dimly visible.
“There it is,” said Gredchen, fatigue and perspiration showing on her face.
“There’s what? I can’t see a thing. This gallery has no pictures in it at all.”
“They’re all in the baron’s manor now,” she replied. “All except one.” She crossed over to a large silk bellpull hanging from the ceiling. “Here, look.”
Gredchen gave the bellpull a tug. There was a faint hissing sound, and instantly the torches lining the walls flared into life, shedding a brilliant light. The light extended even into the corners of the room, and especially the darkness at the back.
The single painting hanging on the wall at the rear of the gallery was of a young woman, barely in her twenties, breathtakingly attractive, with long honey-brown hair and features so perfect that Vanderjack simply marveled at the skill and talent of the artist.
“Lord Gilbert Glayward’s beautiful daughter,” said Gredchen.
“She’s beautiful all right, but where’s the real one? She’s not in here, that’s for sure.”
Gredchen looked at him, nodding her head. “Yes, she is.”
“What are you saying?”
Gredchen looked away. “I’m saying the object of your mission, the baron’s beautiful daughter, is this painting.”
“You mean….”
“Yes,” she said. “Now all we have to do is get it back to the baron’s manor.”
Theo dropped to the rug from Vanderjack’s arms, suddenly forgotten.
“Ackal’s bloody Teeth,” swore the sellsword.
Highmaster Rivven Cairn alighted from the back of her red dragon and removed her horned great helm.
She let the winds up on the tower roof of Castle Glayward buffet her hair, then strode over to the opening in the roof that led to the stairs down. A sivak officer of the Red Watch was waiting alongside the opening for her.
Stopping long enough to look back at Cear, who had flown her directly from Wulfgar, she waved a hand, which told the dragon, “I have no immediate use for you,” and also, “Go burn something for a while.”
“Your Excellency,” said the sivak.
“Lieutenant,” Rivven said, correctly deducing the draconian’s rank from his insignia. “Walk with me.”
“How was your flight?” he asked, stepping aside to let her start down the staircase. He followed immediately after, matching steps with her despite his much greater stride. Rivven noticed he was extremely well trained … for a draconian.
“Always a pleasure,” she said formally. “How are matters being taken care of here? What is the status of our prisoners?”
“They have escaped, Excellency.”
Rivven almost choked. She stopped and looked up at the sivak, who remained expressionless. “Escaped?”
“Yes, Excellency. Master Cazuvel said for us not to be concerned, that he has matters under control.”
“Under control
? How in the Abyss did they escape?”
The sivak said nothing.
“What does he intend to do? There’s just you and your fellow sivaks, Captain Aggurat, and whatever staff he held onto for the kitchens. Blast him. Where is Cazuvel at present?”
The sivak led the highmaster down a narrow flight of stairs, along two hallways, across an outside balcony that overlooked the jungle, then back inside to a sitting room. On the other side of a door was the grand hall. “He’s through there,” the sivak said and stood aside.
Rivven Cairn pushed through the door and watched Cazuvel pacing back and forth alongside a large cage containing some kind of scaly, winged tiger. When he saw her, the albino pulled himself up to his full height and walked briskly over. “Your Excellency.”
Another human, missing an arm, stood off to one end of the room. Rivven recognized the man as somebody Aggurat had killed several days before, although that man had possessed two arms. Rivven knew how sivaks worked, and she knew Aggurat. If the reports were correct, the missing arm was Vanderjack’s doing; she’d heard that Aggurat had lost his arm to Vanderjack’s blade.
“One of Aggurat’s draconians just told me that the prisoners have escaped, Cazuvel!” Rivven said. “I don’t believe that was on my list of instructions.”
“Ah, no, it was not, Your Excellency,” Cazuvel said, bowing his head. “Forgive me-I fear the sivaks are given to panic. But there is no real reason to be concerned at this point.”
“So you know where they are, then.”
“Quite so, Your Excellency. Might I offer you a drink?”
Rivven just stared at him, trying to figure out what he was up to. Cazuvel seemed to take that with grace and indicated the chair he’d been sitting in earlier. “Perhaps a seat?”
The highmaster sat down and propped up her chin on one balled fist, waving at the mage with the other hand. “Carry on. I’m sure we have scant moments before we hear the front gates close behind the escapees.”
