The couch backed away, tight against the parapet. It lifted one back leg up into the nearest crenelation, hoisting itself and the overlord up at an awkward angle. The soldiers started forward.
“Calm down!” Kilisha called, raising one hand-but her other hand was fumbling with her pouch. She needed the bat wing and the envelope of powdered spider and about thirty or forty seconds to work the Spell of Stupefaction, and she doubted she would have the forty seconds, but at the very least she could have the bat wing and powdered spider ready.
The soldiers and the couch stopped.
“Couch,” Kilisha called, “you’re a spell gone wrong. We just want to put it right. Half of you is an ordinary couch, and the other half is a piece of my master, the wizard Ithanalin. Do you remember any of that?”
The couch turned back and forth, clearly signaling a negative- it didn’t remember anything of the sort.
“It’s true, I promise,” Kilisha said. “I swear it by all the gods.” The powdered spider was eluding her fingers. She had found the vial of strength potion, though, and closed her hand around it. She had an idea of how she might use that, and it wouldn’t require time she didn’t have. “We just want to put everything back where it belongs-put the couch back in the parlor, and put Ithanalin’s soul back in his body. Won’t you let us do that?”
The back-and-forth was far more emphatic this time.
“But don’t you understand, it’ll be putting everything right?”
The couch did not bother with a mere shake this time; instead it gathered itself and sprang up onto the parapet, only just barely catching itself before it went over the edge. Several people gasped as it balanced there on two legs, one front and one rear, its other front leg hanging over the battlements, its other rear leg over that fearsome hundred-foot drop to the rocks.
The overlord, who had been moving about trying to get more comfortable, froze in terror.
Kilisha knew that any chance of stupefying the couch had just vanished; if she tried it now it might fall the wrong way. She forgot about the bat wing and spider.
“Let me past,” a soldier said in Kilisha’s ear as he tried to move behind her to get at the parapet.
“Don’t go near it!” Kilisha shouted. “Don’t you sec? It’s saying it would rather die than let us catch it-and it’s ready to take the overlord with it!”
The soldier stopped, “Oh,” he said.
“Everyone stay right where you are,” Kilisha said, taking another step toward the couch. “Let me talk to it. I’m sure we can come to some sort of agreement.”
“I hope so,” the overlord said, so quietly that Kilisha doubted any of the soldiers heard him. He was looking over his shoulder at the ocean far below.
Kilisha hoped so, too-though she had no intention of keeping any agreement that might get made. Once the overlord and the couch were safe and separated, she intended to take the couch home with her, no matter what it might mean. She would gladly break oaths, disobey her master, anything that would get this all settled safely and restore Ithanalin to himself!
She was trying to plan out what she could do, and had a few ideas, but it was so hard to think clearly in a situation like this!
She needed to get the couch down off the parapet, and get the overlord off the couch, and it didn’t matter which order she did it in, so long as she kept them both from falling. If she got the overlord to safety first, it would be easier to deal with the couch.
“My lord,” Kilisha called, “how is your ankle?”
“It hurts,” Wulran replied. “So does my head, for that matter.”
“Let me give you something for the pain, then.” She pulled the vial of strength potion from her pouch and held it up with the label turned away-she had no idea how the couch could sec, or whether it knew how to read, and preferred to take as few chances as necessary.
If Wulran drank the potion he would be strong enough to pry the arm off his ankle-or at least, she certainly hoped so! Once he was loose, she could worry about the couch.
Wulran squinted at her. “What is that?”
“Just a potion to relieve pain,” she lied.
“You know, apprentice, I’m not at all sure I can trust you. I don’t know you; all I have to convince me of your identity and honesty is Nuvielle’s word, and you might have enchanted her.”
“My lord,” Kilisha said desperately, “I am just an apprentice- do you think I would dare put a spell on the Lady Treasurer? You know the Wizards’ Guild forbids us to interfere in politics. This potion is harmless, I assure you-you can read the label for yourself.”
“Oh, fine-I would like this headache to go away, and my ankle is starting to throb splendidly, and I can’t feel my toes. Bring it here.” He held out a hand.
Kilisha started to step forward.
The couch backed up a fraction of an inch, moving ever so slightly closer to plummeting from the fortress ramparts to the rocks.
Kilisha froze.
“I’ll toss it,” she said. “Catch, my lord!” She threw the vial underhand, hoping the overlord was reasonably coordinated; she did have one more vial of strength potion, but only one.
Fortunately, Wulran caught it easily. He glanced at the label, then at Kilisha; she nodded toward his pinned ankle.
“Pain reliever,” he said. “Thank you.” He pulled the cork and lifted the bottle.
“Just half, my lord!” Kilisha called, as he began to drink.
As she spoke she was thinking quickly. The real danger here was falling. If she tried to work any sort of spell-not just the Spell of Stupefaction, but anything-the couch would see it, and probably think it was an attack. She did still have her other potions-would she be able to use those without sending the couch over the edge?
She wondered what weird portion of Ithanalin’s mind had wound up in the couch to drive it to this sort of behavior. All his fears and irrational whims, perhaps? Whatever the reason, the couch was clearly insane, perhaps suicidal.
She groped in her pouch for the other potions. Both of them were levitation spells, and since the big threat was a fall there ought to be some way to use those here...
The overlord recorked the vial and tucked it into his belt.
“Thank you,” he said. “I feel better already.” He started to roach tor his ankle.
The couch leaned dangerously seaward. Soldiers started forward, then froze.
“My lord!” Kilisha called. “Wait a moment, please!”
“Urk,” Wulran said, as he felt the couch shift. He cast an uneasy glance over his shoulder at the watery western horizon again, and straightened up.
“I have another potion,” she called. She pulled out more vials and glanced at the labels.
“If you think it would help,” Wulran said.
V’S LEV. and T’S lev., she read. She hadn’t really thought out whether Tracel’s or Varen’s would be more appropriate, but these were what she had. She quickly tossed one to the overlord.
He caught it, glanced at the label, and looked puzzled. “Tra-cel’s what?” he said.
“Just drink it,” Kilisha said desperately. “About a fourth of it.” She reached down and uncorked her own vial.
The overlord shrugged, pulled the cork, and lifted the potion to his lips. Kilisha took a step forward.
And at that, the couch teetered one last time, then plunged over the edge.
Chapter Thirty
Kilisha did not hesitate for an instant; she dashed forward and dove through the crenelation after the couch. As she dove she screamed, “Drink it now!”
Behind her she heard several shouts and screams, but she ignored them.
She jammed her own vial of potion between her teeth as she pushed off from the parapet, before she really even began falling; then she reached up to brush the hair from her eyes.
She was falling through empty air, the rocks and breaking waves rushing up at her at hideous speed, and there was the couch, and the overlord, falling just ahead of her, and the ove
rlord was drinking the potion. She grabbed for the couch, felt her hand close on it; she tipped her head back and swallowed.
And she was suddenly weightless. She stopped falling so suddenly that her head snapped back, dazing her, and her gorge rose. The couch jerked at her arm, and she felt as if her shoulder was coming apart. For an instant everything vanished in a burst of pain; then she opened her eyes.
She was hanging in midair a few feet out from the wall of the Fortress, several stories below the parapet but a few feet above where the gray stone wall rested on the cliff. The couch was hanging from her right hand, which was closed tight around one of its legs. The overlord was still on the couch, still pinned under one arm-but his upper body was floating at an odd angle.
“You drank the potion, my lord?” she said.
The couch squirmed in her grasp as Wulran nodded. She tightened her grip, pleasantly aware of her own superhuman strength.
“Then get your foot loose,” she said. “You won’t fall.”
Wulran stared down at the rocks. “You’re sure of that?”
“I’m sure,” Kilisha said. “It’s Tracel’s Levitation, the same thing that’s keeping me from falling. You’ll stay at this height until you say the release word.”
Wulran glanced up at her, then back down at the sea. “Young woman, I trust you realize that if I die today, you’ll be in an absolutely amazing amount of trouble.”
Kilisha managed to laugh. “Oh, believe me, my lord, I’m very well aware of that!”
“All right, then.” He bent down.
The couch thrashed wildly.
Suddenly nervous, Kilisha called, “Do you have the rest of the potion?”
“Yes,” Wulran said warily, holding up the vial. “Why do you ask?”
Kilisha laughed again. “Well, I’m only an apprentice. I think you’ll levitate right where you are, but if I’m wrong, you’ll have a couple of seconds to drink the rest of that before you hit.”
“Oh, you are so comforting!” Wulran glanced up past her, then bent down again and pried at the wooden arm encircling his ankle.
The couch struggled, and Kilisha had to devote her entire attention to keeping her grip on it. She could hear wood creak as the overlord fought to free his foot.
“Hurry, please,” she said. “This strength spell only has a few more minutes left.”
“Now you tell me!”
Wood cracked suddenly, and the overlord’s leg jerked up-but his boot, still caught, pulled off and fell.
Both of them watched silently as the empty boot spiraled down and splashed into the surf-but now the overlord was hanging alone in midair, a few inches of space separating him from the couch. He looked around, taking in his situation, then reached out and pushed himself away from the couch so that it could not grab him again, extending that few inches to almost a yard.
And the couch seemed suddenly heavier in Kilisha’s grasp. She realized she really did only have a few minutes before the Spell of Optimum Strength wore off, and when that happened she wouldn’t be able to hold the couch. She would be safe, and the overlord as well, but the couch would fall, and probably be smashed on the rocks or swept out to sea.
After all this, she did not want to let Ithanalin down.
With her left hand she reached across and pawed at her belt pouch, and managed to find another vial. She turned it in her fingers and read the label.
V’S lev.
She lifted it to her mouth, pulled the cork with her teeth, then spat the cork out. It fell and vanished.
Varen’s Levitation took two forms, and she knew which one she wanted-but would the potion do that?
When the spell was cast directly it could be placed on either the wizard casting it, which would allow him or her to walk on air, or it could be cast on an object, which could then be placed at any height and would stay there. Could a potion cast a spell on an object? It ought to be possible, and she had certainly thought it was when she prepared the potion, but she realized now that she wasn’t sure how to determine which form the spell took from a potion. She couldn’t place the lantern on the chosen object when she had no lantern.
She hoped she could choose simply by willing it. If so, then she could suspend the couch here and come back for it at leisure.
If not, though...
She decided not to risk it after all. She would walk up, carrying the couch and hoping that the Spell of Optimum Strength lasted until she got it safely back in the Fortress.
And there was also the question of whether she could use Varen’s Levitation at all while Tracel’s Levitation was still in effect.
She wouldn’t try it. Spells could interact in dangerous ways. She would break Tracel’s Levitation, then use Varen’s.
“My lord,” she said, “I’m going to say a word, and then I’m going to fall, and then I hope I’ll catch myself and levitate myself and the couch back up away from here. I’m afraid that will leave you hanging here, drifting-but I’m sure someone will come for you soon.”
“Wait a minute,” Wulran began, but Kilisha ignored him. She had no time to spare.
She tilted the vial, and as the first drop of potion touched her lips she spoke the single word that negated Tracel’s Levitation.
She and the couch dropped instantly, plummeting past the overlord as she quickly gulped the potion.
They were falling down the cliff, the rocks zooming toward them, the pounding of the surf increasing from a quiet whooshing to a roar, and then she took a step and caught herself on air.
As before, the couch’s weight jerked hard at her shoulder as she came to a stop, but again she held on.
She blinked and unsteadily took another step upward, then began climbing an invisible staircase of air, as she had a few days before, gaining confidence with every step. This time, instead of an axe with a rope dangling from it, she held a struggling couch.
As she climbed she looked around, and saw that she had stopped no more than ten feet from the first jagged black edge of broken stone. For the first time she let herself realize that she had deliberately dived off a hundred-foot cliff toward the rocks, magically caught herself in midair, and then more or less done it again. Well, magic was dangerous, and she was a wizard. She swallowed, and trudged on, walking upward. She turned her steps, making her ascent a spiral, and looked up.
The overlord was still hanging where she had left him, watching her. Above them, the battlements were lined with faces and waving arms as soldiers and others leaned out to sec what had happened. A rope was being lowered-to the overlord, as was only fitting.
She walked on, dragging the squirming, thrashing couch.
“Oh, stop it,” she snapped, as it gave a particularly vigorous twist. “I’m taking you home, and you don’t have any choice in the matter.”
A moment later she reached the overlord’s level. He had noticed the rope, but for the moment he was ignoring it and watching her. “Are you all right?” he called.
“I’m fine,” she replied, not stopping. “As long as I get back to the top before any of the magic wears off, everything will be just fine.”
He glanced up at the distance she still had to go. “Are you sure you’ll make it?”
“I’ll just have to,” she said.
“There are other ropes coming,” he said, pointing.
There were, indeed, more ropes being lowered, she saw. “Well, they’ll be there if I need them,” she said. “But I’d rather do it myself” A thought struck her. “My lord?”
“Yes?”
“Once you’re securely tied on, and there’s no danger of falling, you’ll need to break the spell,” she said. “I don’t think you can go down or up while it’s on you.”
“Not even with the rope pulling me?”
“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “But just in case-don’t say this now, but the word to break the spell...”
She stopped in midsentence. It was only human nature to repeat a word you wanted to learn, even if you had been tol
d not to.
He had not yet caught the rope, and she was already above him, too far away to catch him if he fell.
“I’ll tell you later,” she said. “If you need it.”
He frowned, then turned his attention to the rope.
She waved farewell with her free hand and kept climbing.
By the time she neared the top her right arm was almost numb, and she could feel herself weakening. As she rose above the parapet she called, “I need some help here!”
The ramparts and courtyard were swarming with soldiers and courtiers, and although most of them were focused on pulling the overlord up to safety, a dozen rushed to her aid.
“Bring ropes,” she said. “Tie the couch down! Don’t let it escape! It’s stronger than it looks.”
Strong, eager arms reached out as she kept climbing. She turned her steps eastward and strode up above the parapet, across the ramparts-and finally she stopped, with the couch dangling a few feet above the stones.
Soldiers grabbed it from every side; ropes were thrown hastily around it.
“Have you got it?” she called feebly. The Spell of Optimum Strength was gone; she was just a tired teenaged girl holding a heavy couch by one leg, trying desperately not to drop it. Her arm was trembling, her fingers red and straining.
“We have it,” a familiar voice said, and she looked down at Kelder’s broad face. She knew it was not a particularly handsome face by most people’s standards, but right now she thought it was beautiful.
“Good,” she said, releasing her hold.
Then she paused, and instead of setting her right foot above the left on her next step she carefully placed it below, beginning her descent.
Varen’s Levitation needed no magic words to dispel it; with or without the lantern, the instant her foot touched anything solid the spell would break. She walked wearily down the air until at last her sandal touched the stone pavement of the courtyard.
And then all her magic was done, at least for the moment, and she collapsed onto the pavement, exhausted.
She sat there for a long moment, eyes closed, trying to catch her breath; then she heard her name.
She opened her eyes to find Kelder and Opir on either side, watching her with concern on their faces; she smiled up at Kelder, so focused on his worried eyes that she hardly noticed her brother.
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