[32]

 

 They met no resistance as they rode up to the tower's base, which puzzled Breaker; he had thought the Wizard Lord would be making one last desperate attempt to get them to turn back, or perhaps even seriously trying to kill them. Instead the snow and rain, already thinned to little more than a heavy mist, stopped completely.

The wagon rolled up toward the crest of the hill, then stopped; the terrain was too steep and rocky for the last hundred yards. They would need to go the rest of the way on foot.

   It was astonishing, really, that the wagon had made it this far. Only the fact that so many people had come and gone here over the past few years, clearing a path on their way to see the Wizard Lord, had made that possible.

   "I'm staying in the wagon," the Seer said.

   "And what about the rest of us?" the Archer asked, looking at the Leader. "What's the plan?"

The Leader climbed down from the wagon and stood on the gravel, looking up at the looming black tower.

"Who's still ready to go in and finish this?" he asked.

   Breaker exchanged glances with the Scholar as they climbed out of the wagon. "All of us," he said. "Except the Seer."

"Then come on."

   "Boss, shouldn't we have a plan?" the Scholar asked, as he hit the ground. "We want to use our magic effectively, don't we? If we just walk in, the Wizard Lord . . . "

   "The Wizard Lord knows he's beaten simply by our presence," the Leader replied. "Once he sees us he'll surrender, I'm sure."

That was not what Breaker wanted to hear.
The group had discussed how they might deal with the Wizard Lord once they reached his keep, but they had
made no definite plans; the Leader had always insisted that they would need to see just what the keep was like,
what the situation was, before making any plans.

Well, here they were, there was the keep, and the Leader still had no plan—he appeared quite certain, despite months of the Wizard Lord insisting otherwise, that their foe would simply surrender.

I'm not sure," Breaker said. "I expect I'll have to kill him."

"If I don't get him first," the Archer retorted.

   "You don't need to sound so bloodthirsty about it," the Beauty said, as she clambered down from the bench. Her scarf had slipped, exposing most of her face, but that had happened several times over the course of the long journey, and Breaker no longer stared at her every time. The first few glimpses had been staggering, but apparently the old adage was true—one could become accustomed to anything eventually. Oh, she was still incredibly beautiful, not merely in appearance but in sound and smell, and living in close proximity to her for so long had meant many, many hours of frustration for Breaker and the other males, but right now there were more urgent matters at hand. The Speaker paused on the bench, listening, before she climbed down.

"The ler are not happy here," she said. "This is a sick place, a wrong place, as bad as any I've ever heard."

   "That's hardly news," the Archer said. Breaker did not bother to say so, but he agreed with Bow; anyone could feel the wrongness here, it didn't take the Speaker or a priest.

   "I can't look at it," the Seer said from the wagon. "You go on. He's inside. He's on the stairs right now."

"You won't change your mind?" Breaker asked.

"I can't go in there. I can't" the Seer said. "I've done my part—if I went in with you I'd just get someone hurt."

"Don't worry about her," the Leader called. "Come on, let's get this over with!"

   Reluctantly, Breaker turned away and followed the Leader, as did the other four. Together, the six of them began the climb up the steep, rocky hillside. The ground was utterly barren, bare stone and mud, without any trace of greenery, and felt almost as dead as the guest compound in Seven Sides.

   "The ler here are prisoners," the Speaker said. "They're bound, all of them—he's held them in bondage for years now, never letting them act upon their nature. He feared the Council of Immortals would turn them against him." The Archer had his bow strung and ready, a full quiver on his back; Breaker's own hand fell to the hilt of his sword, but he did not draw it.

Then he heard the snap of a bowstring; he started to turn, to ask the Archer what he was doing, but then he realized that the sound had been much farther away, and that even with his supernatural speed and accuracy the Archer had not had time to nock and loose an arrow since last Breaker had looked in his direction.

Then he heard the whir of feathers passing, and the Speaker screamed. Breaker whirled.

An arrow protruded from the Speaker's right thigh, a few inches above the knee, and she was crumpling to the ground.

   "There!" the Leader shouted. Breaker heard the Archer curse, and then draw, nock, and loose a shaft of his own, but he was too busy trying to catch the Speaker and ease her to the ground to turn and look.

Then the Speaker was laid out on the stones, the Scholar and the Beauty leaning over her, the Beauty with a hand to her forehead, the Scholar probing the area around the arrow, and the Archer said, "Missed! I don't believe it!"

   "Look at the range, man!" the Leader replied. "Of course you missed! Even the world's greatest archer couldn't hit him at this distance."

   "I am the world's greatest archer," the Archer replied angrily, "and he hit her."

   "He had surprise on his side, he was shooting down, and she was out in the open—and for all we know, he was aiming at someone else," the Leader retorted. "You were shooting up at a man ducking behind a parapet—there's no way anyone could have hit him."

   "Still think he'll just surrender?" Breaker asked bitterly, as the Scholar began to cut around the Speaker's wound with his pocketknife to free the barbs.

   "It didn't cut the artery," the Scholar said. "We're lucky— she should live."

   "Take her back to the wagon, you and Beauty," the Leader ordered. "Bow, Sword, and I will take care of Laquar kellin Hario." He gestured. "Come on, you two!"

"What, just the three of us?" Breaker said.

"Yes! Now, come on!" With that, the Leader broke into a trot, up the slope.

"Come on," the Archer said, following.

Unhappily, Breaker followed, as well.

This wasn't how it was supposed to go; they were supposed to be a team of eight, slipping into the Dark Lord's fortress unseen, protected by magic, following a carefully worked-out plan—not three men charging across open ground in broad daylight with ordinary weapons. This was nothing like the old stories; this wasn't heroism, this was madness.

But what choice did they have? The Thief had not come, the Seer had lost her nerve, the Speaker was wounded, the Beauty and the Scholar were tending to her—that left the three of them.

At least none of them had died yet—but he didn't want to think about that, lest the thought become fact. So far they had relied on the Wizard Lord's unwillingness to give up any of his magic, but surely, that only went so far— and that arrow might well have killed someone! If it had pierced the Speaker's femoral artery she would be bleeding to death even now, and Breaker doubted anyone could have saved her.

And why wasn't the Wizard Lord's archer, whoever it was, shooting more arrows? He peered up at the top of the tower, at the jagged parapet; he hadn't seen the archer, but the Leader had said he was behind that barrier.

And what if there were several archers?

Of course, all the reports said that this Wizard Lord kept less staff than any other in history—where the Dark Lord of the Midlands had kept a hundred guards at his keep, and the Dark Lord of Goln Vleys had dozens of spies and assassins, the Dark Lord of the Galbek Hills wasn't known to employ anyone but a handful of maids from Split Reed who did his cooking and cleaning, and presumably provided other services as well.

   Was one of them a trained archer?

   Looking up at the tower, and glancing back at the Speaker being helped back to the wagon, Breaker realized just how phenomenal that bowshot had been. It had been either fantastically bad luck that that arrow had hit anyone—or magic.

   Breaker would have bet his money on magic. Which might mean that the arrow had hit exactly who and where it was intended to hit, and that it had been intended to do exactly what it had done—to split the party of invaders without killing any of them.

He really didn't like that idea. He picked up the pace.
A moment later the three men were at the keep door— which was closed, of course. It wasn't the massive barrier
Breaker had been expecting, though; it was simply a rough wooden panel set in an ordinary doorframe in the rough
black wall.

"This is where the Thief would have earned her way," the Archer muttered, as the Leader tugged at the latch— and then, to everyone's surprise, something clicked and the door swung open.

   I don't understand," Breaker said.

   "It's a trap," the Archer replied.

   "Do you think so?"

   "It must be!"

   "Then what should we do?"

   "We go in anyway," the Leader said. "Really, what choice do we have? We've come this far, we can hardly stop now because the door opened! Perhaps one of the maids unbarred it to help us—surely, they must know their master is mad, and isn't everyone in Barokan supposed to help the Chosen in their mission?"

   "Or it might be a trap," the Archer said.

   "Or it might be a trap," the Leader admitted. "But we'll just have to risk that possibility." With that he pushed the door wide and stepped in.

Whatever else Breaker might think of the Leader, he had to admit the man had courage, to simply walk through that door like that. Breaker drew his sword and followed, with the Archer bringing up the rear, and the three found themselves in a short, narrow, unlit corridor.

There was no choice of route; they moved cautiously forward, then paused as the gloom thickened.

   "Wait a moment," the Archer said; then he took an arrow from the quiver on his shoulder and wedged it under the door to hold it open—not so much to preserve their escape route as to allow some daylight into the shadowed interior.

That done, the trio proceeded down the passage into a larger chamber, equally unlit, though enough daylight seeped in here and there for Breaker to see a central spiral stair and several doors. The stair went in both directions.

"Which way?" Breaker whispered.

"Well, he'll expect us to go up," the Leader said, "since we saw him up on the roof—and I'll wager that he's actually run down into the dungeons while we were climbing the hill, and is lurking downstairs, ready to cut us off once we ascend."
"Then we go down?" the Archer asked.

"We go down," the Leader agreed.

   "Or we get the Seer," Breaker suggested. "She doesn't need to come inside—we could work out a few signals easily enough."

   "We can't take the time," the Leader replied. "Besides, remember how badly she lost her nerve—she refused to come in here even before the Speaker was shot, and I doubt she'll be willing to come any closer than she is now. No, we'll have to rely on instinct, and my instinct says that he's down in the cellars, waiting to trap us above him when we climb the tower."

   Breaker was not entirely satisfied with this, but they did need to go somewhere, and the Archer was already at the stair, starting down the spiral.

   "I see a light!" he said. "Off that way." He pointed down at an angle.

   "A light?"

   "A lamp, I think, or a candle."

'That must be him, then! Hurry!" the Leader said. "You, too, Sword! A bow isn't the best weapon in a confined space like this."

   Before Breaker could respond the Archer was galloping down the stairs, pulling an arrow from his quiver; after a moment's hesitation, Breaker followed, blade ready.

   At the bottom of the stair he paused. He was in a large room, some fifteen feet below entry level, with half a dozen passages opening off it in various directions; the light was too dim to make out any details. The Archer was nowhere to be seen—but his footsteps were plainly audible, and Breaker glimpsed a faint flicker of light down one passage. Reluctantly, he moved toward it, sword raised.

   This wasn't right, he thought. Rushing headlong down here—this could easily be the trap they had been worried about. This was not right. The Leader shouldn't have allowed this. He shouldn't be here.

   But he couldn't let the Archer run off by himself.

   "Bow?" he called.

"Over here, Sword!" came the reply. "It's someone with a candle, someone in a robe—this way!"

Cautiously, Breaker advanced into the corridor, past the first pair of doors—and then a woman's voice shouted from somewhere behind him, "Now!"

Breaker whirled instantly, his every instinct screaming "Trap!" A pair of heavy doors was swinging shut behind him; reacting without conscious thought, he thrust the blade of his sword between them, preventing them from closing completely. The doors had been shaped to overlap, and the sword prevented that; a tiny crack remained, his blade trapped in it. That same female voice, muffled by the doors, squealed in surprise.

   Behind him, farther down the corridor, Breaker heard other doors slam shut, and the rattle of locks and bars dropping into place. The distant candlelight vanished, plunging him into near-total darkness; the only thing still visible was the thin line of light above and below his sword.

   Suddenly furious, Breaker raised one booted foot and kicked hard; the doors burst open, and he found himself staring at two young women. They stood in the corridor, staring back at him—and at the long, sharp sword in his hand, its tip mere inches from the nearer woman's throat. One of them held a lit lamp, but otherwise their raised hands were empty; a wooden bar thumped to the floor, obviously just dropped.

Two of the Wizard Lord's maids, obviously. They were thin, dark-haired, attractive enough, wearing kneelength white dresses—and clearly terrified.

"What's going on?" Breaker demanded, stepping forward and kicking the bar away.

One woman—little more than a girl, really—whimpered. The other, the one with the lamp, said, "Don't kill us!"

"I'm not planning to," Breaker replied angrily. "What's happening?"

"We were . . . we were supposed to close and bar the door, that's all," the whimperer said. "To trap you," the other added. "We weren't going to hurt you."

   "That's right. The Wizard Lord said that if we killed you, he'd beat us to death with his own hands."

And with that, understanding burst upon Breaker. It all made sense now. The Wizard Lord had made no serious attempt to kill them, had not fled from his keep, had not done any of a dozen things that might have delayed them longer, and of course had not agreed to resign, because this was what he had wanted all along, ever since he realized they could not be dissuaded. The Wizard Lord didn't want the Chosen dead, because that would destroy his own magic, but taking them prisoner—that would suit him very well indeed. They would be unable to harm him, unable to pass their magic along to anyone else.

   The Thief might have been a problem to hold, with her magical skill with doors and locks, but she had not come— had the Wizard Lord arranged that somehow? Perhaps he had. And splitting the party with that arrow in Babble's thigh had almost certainly been carefully planned; it would obviously be easier to trap three people, rather than six or seven.

   Everything suddenly made far more sense, and the Wizard Lord seemed far more sensible, than Breaker had thought just moments before.

   But even so, the Wizard Lord had misjudged, had put too much faith in his maids and his own cunning, and Breaker was still free. What about the others?

"Bow!" Breaker bellowed, without taking his eyes off the women. "Are you there? Are you all right?"

   No one replied.

   "He probably can't hear you," one of the maids said. "The doors are very thick. And I'm pretty sure he didn't stop anyone from barring them."

   "Damn," Breaker said. He hesitated.

   He could go down the corridor to see whether he could free the Archer, but if he did these women would almost certainly lock him in, as they had originally intended—and even if he took them with him, there might well be more lurking out of sight, in whatever hiding place this pair had used. The stories said the Wizard Lord had half a dozen maids, which left four or so unaccounted for.

   He could ask these two to help him get the Archer out, but he couldn't really trust them . . .

   And where was the Leader? He suddenly realized he hadn't heard or seen anything of him since descending. He looked past the maids, back to the central chamber and the spiral stair, and saw no one else.

"Boss?" he called.

The maids glanced at each other, but said nothing. "Boss?"

No one answered.

"Where is he?" Breaker demanded, lifting his sword to one woman's chin.

"I don't know!" the maid said, terrified. "I swear by all the ler, I don't know!"

"Damn," Breaker said again. Then he gestured behind himself. "Get in there," he said.

"What?"

"Get back in there!" He stepped to one side to let the two women pass. "And leave the lamp."

Reluctantly, watching him every step of the way, the first woman set the lamp on the floor, and then both sidled past him, into the dark, empty corridor.

Never taking his eyes off them, never lowering his sword, he closed the two doors. Heavy iron brackets were mounted on both of them, at exactly the height his sword had originally been caught between them; he found the dropped bar and set it in those brackets.

   "It's so dark!" a muffled voice called. Breaker ignored that; he scooped up the lamp and looked around.

There was a niche in the wall on either side, designed so that a person could stand in it with the door in front of him, and the door would fit in as if the niche was an ordinary doorframe leading into a room, so that someone walking down the passage would not realize the corridor could be closed off. This whole arrangement had clearly been designed as a trap, not improvised—how long had the Wizard Lord been planning this? Had he intended this when he first built the tower, eight or nine years ago?

   Breaker began to wonder just what was really happening. Had the Chosen been gathered together and lured here deliberately? Had Seer and Lore been sent to Stoneslope on purpose?

   But no, that was ridiculous. The Wizard Lord had done everything he could to keep the massacre secret. This was just his backup plan, his way of dealing with the Chosen if it could not be avoided.

   But how elaborate was it? The Archer was undoubtedly trapped somewhere deep in the corridors, safe for the moment—but where was the Leader?

   Breaker struggled to remember everything he had seen and heard since entering the tower, and concluded that he had never heard the Leader's footsteps on the stairs, had never seen the Leader's shadow blocking the light from above.

He had never come down here at all.
That was baffling; why hadn't he been right on Breaker's heels? Had the Wizard Lord somehow trapped him before he even got that far?

By the time he had thought this through he was on the stairs, climbing.

On the entry level he paused, and glanced around.

There were four doors and one open passage opening off the central chamber; all four doors were closed, and as far as he could see by lamplight did not appear to have been disturbed in some time—two were adorned with cobwebs that would have been broken had the doors been opened. The Wizard Lord and his maids clearly did not use those doors often.

The passage led back to the entrance, still held open by the Archer's wedged arrow.

The Leader might have gone back out to gather reinforcements, but would he have left the arrow? And . . . Breaker could hear voices. Faint, too faint to make out words, but definitely voices, and they were coming from above.

They were strangely familiar. They were very much like the voices he had heard now and then when he awoke in the middle of the night on the journey from Winterhome to this tower, the voices he had dismissed as dreams or audible ler—those same voices were speaking, somewhere higher up in the tower.

And one of them might have been the Leader's.

   And every time he had heard those voices in the night, he now realized, one of them could have been the Leader's.

   Sword in one hand, lamp in the other, Breaker headed up the spiral.