Salamander (20 page)

"We may not have a lot of time. What was Iolen up to with you, and how did you get away?"

"I don't know Iolen's purpose; he claimed to be coming from the Prince, but I doubt it. He wanted me to tell him how to do the Cascade. I refused. He had me gagged so I couldn't speak any spells, tied my feet to the chair, but left my hands free under guard by two of his men. I was to write what he wanted, and my guards were instructed to stop me if I tried to destroy anything I wrote.

"I think he planned to run the Cascade inside the containment sphere, using whatever he had gleaned from the mages who helped last time. The mage at the focus was to cast a loyalty spell on me while the Cascade was draining my power into his. I would be unable to resist, and with that much power behind it, the spell should hold for a considerable time. I knew what he wanted. Once made loyal to him I would do it.

"I waited long enough so the guards would think the spell had been cast, then used paper and pen to perform a spell of my own, using glyphs instead of words. I got one of the guards to take a look at it. He drew the other one over, then both of them untied me. I didn’t know when or if Iolen's mages would manage to accomplish the Cascade. I was trying to get to the outside of the sphere before they did so, when you met me."

Dur nodded approvingly. "Very sensible, and reasonably accurate. Iolen first had one of his mages cast a loyalty spell on the focus—Ellen's friend Fieras. The plan was to have the focus start the Cascade, use the power to cast a loyalty spell on you, then dissolve the Cascade and let you tell them how to do it better next time. Just in case something went wrong and Fieras managed to get control and break through the sphere as Maridon had, Iolen had crossbow men stationed on the other side with orders to watch for a hole in the barrier to open and, if it did, shoot the mage on the other side of it. A well thought out scheme, if a little on the elaborate side. I had my own plan for stopping him, but my clever daughter came up with a better one." He turned to Ellen, waited.

"All I did was to open a hole in the barrier, about where Maridon did, just before Fieras finished starting the Cascade. The later done, the more likely that Iolen would assume Fieras was responsible."

"And? Did Fieras finish the Cascade and start casting spells?"

Dur shook his head. "Not with two crossbow bolts in him he didn't. The third hit their fire mage; I don't know if he survived or not. I told you she was being clever. What we don't know is whether we fooled Iolen, or what he plans to do next. He met with several of his people at the inn not long ago, but he has strong privacy spells and I haven't yet gotten through them."

Coelus interrupted. "Do you know what he is doing, what the point of all of this is?"

Dur nodded, turned to his daughter. "Thanks to Mari, you know the politics better than I. During the six months that King Thoma was dying I was busy dealing with an infant fire mage; good thing your mother is a healer."

Ellen gave him a rueful smile, spoke to Coelus. "Don't believe him; I started early, but not that early. I think he's been saving that line up for the past seventeen years, waiting for someone to tell it to."

"Nonetheless, I paid little attention to kingdom politics back when the old king was dying; babies take up a lot of time and attention even if they aren't setting everything in sight ablaze. Tell Coelus what Mari said."

"The old king, Thoma, never got along with his eldest son; there were rumors, but nobody seems to really know why. On his deathbed he tried to get the great lords of the realm to support his second son for the succession. His third son, Prince Kieron, supported the eldest brother; they had always been close. Near the end Kieron hid Prince Petrus from their father's people until the old king died, then helped him put down their brother and his supporters.

"By the time it was over and Petrus was crowned, Josep, the second son, was dead. Josep's son Iolen inherited his lands and his surviving supporters. He has, of course, sworn allegiance to His Majesty but hates the Prince and does what he can to oppose him in court.

"So Iolen claiming to be acting on behalf of Prince Kieron was surely a lie. I couldn’t get word to you safely then. He had to be here about the Cascade, meaning you’d be the first they went after; I thought our best chance was to get word to the Prince. I asked Jon to take a message to Mari for His Highness. Then I fetched Father and we slipped back into the College, skipping the front gate, to see what we could do about stopping Iolen and getting you out."

She fell silent. Dur continued. "Clearly, Iolen found out about the Cascade and decided to stake all on getting it to work under his control, then using it to eliminate his uncles and seize the throne. The question now is how he will attempt to cover his tracks. All the possibilities that occur to me involve a lot of blood, some of it yours. If all else fails, he might run for the border and hope the Forstings have some use for a royal pretender…. What's that?"

A voice below, and a hammering on a door. Dur pointed at the ladder; Coelus caught Ellen’s eyes.

"I'll be all right. Go."

He fled up the ladder, Dur down the stairs. Ellen slid the ladder under the bed, then followed her father.

The hammering at Master Dur's closed front door proved to be his neighbor, the manager of the cookshop, with four other men, three of them armed, one a mage. Dur opened the door and stood back to let them come in. His neighbor turned to one of the armed men.

"This is Master Dur, the jeweler who lives here." He noticed the girl coming through from the back room. "Your granddaughter?"

Dur put his arm around her, gave her a hug. "My own flesh and blood. Her mother lives a few days east of here, but she's visiting. What's the problem?"

One of the armed men came forward. "We're looking for one of the magisters from the college, a man named Coelus; do you know him?"

Dur nodded. "Younger than the rest? I think I've sold things to him from time to time. What do you need him for?"

"Apparently he was trying out some spell or other and something went wrong. He's nowhere to be found and his colleagues are afraid he may be wandering around with his memory gone, or thinking he's a squirrel, or whatever happens to mages when they make a mistake. He might be with a student of his, a girl, maybe five or six years older than your granddaughter."

Dur shook his head. "Wherever he is, he isn't inside this house. And, aside from my little sweetheart here, I haven't seen any girls around this evening. I'll keep an eye out. If I see something I think you ought to know about, where do I send word?"

"Captain Geffron is in charge of the search; he's at the inn." The officer turned to look at the mage behind him. The mage nodded; the group of men left the shop. Dur closed the door, bolted it, turned back to Ellen.

"Before we fetch your young man down from the roof you might want to restore a few years. No need to confuse him—or give him ideas."

She nodded: "And you might want to take a few years back off."

Lord Iolen looked around the inn room. Two of his own people—Rikard for the mages and Ivert, commander of his guards—and Captain Geffron. A second mage was standing in the doorway; he nodded to his lord, left the room. Iolen waited a moment to be sure he had the attention of the others before he spoke.

"We are as secure as magic can make us, so it is time to sum up our present situation and tell you my plans. We have no further need for the assistance of Captain Geffron, so he may take his men back to their garrison under strict orders of confidentiality, to await his call to the capital to confirm my report to His Majesty on this matter.

"Magister Coelus and the missing student have eluded us. Coelus, we must assume, is the Prince's creature and has gone to his master. When I report to His Majesty, I shall argue that His Highness has tried, treasonously, to obtain the secret of Coelus' work for himself, without informing His Majesty."

He stopped a moment, looked at the other two, continued.

"My coming here myself without informing His Majesty was of course justified by the need for my actions not to reach the ears of certain of His Highness's friends at court, since His Highness was then in a position to implement the spell with Coelus before he could be stopped.

"You are free to pass on as much of this to our people as you think prudent, save only that nothing should be said concerning the nature of the spell we were seeking. Make it clear that, in case of difficulties, I will continue to protect them. Are there any questions?"

Ivert got up. "None, my lord. With your leave I will make the arrangements for our departure in the morning."

Rikard waited until the guard commander had left before speaking.

"My lord. What if the Prince hears what we have been up to and attempts to seize power for himself immediately by implementing the spell? Should we not forestall him by doing so ourselves? There is some risk to whatever mage serves as the focus, but since Your lordship and I are now the only members of our party who have read the complete report on the previous attempt … ."

He fell silent; Iolen responded with a cold smile. "If we do, and it works, how are you proposing that the spell should be used?"

"His Highness depends for protection chiefly on his own mages. The mage at the focus will have an enormous amount of magery at his command—including the power of the mages protecting His Highness and of His Highness himself. That should make it possible to breach any protections His Highness may have established, determine if he is in fact engaged in treason, and if so take suitable actions against him."

Iolen's face did not change.

"I presume that would require skill as well as power?"

"It would, my lord. I propose that we attempt the Cascade once, here, using Albin as the focus. I will first cast a loyalty spell on him; your lordship will instruct him to terminate the Cascade as soon as it is clearly established. If that succeeds, I propose that for the second attempt, somewhere closer to his Highness, I should be the focus."

There was a long silence before Iolen spoke.

"Yes. Write out the instructions for Albin; the other four should still have their copies. As before, each only needs to know his own part."

* * *

Dur lifted his hand from the lid of the small furnace, exposing the fire rune inlaid into its center, turned to his daughter, spoke softly.

"Your young man is asleep?"

"Magister Coelus was asleep a minute ago. Did you get through them?"

Dur nodded. "If you two ever create an adequate privacy shield, Iolen should be your first customer. They're going to try again tomorrow morning—outside the College. In the inn, in fact; the main dining room is big enough."

"How do we stop them from doing it?"

He shook his head. "We don't stop them from doing it, we stop it from working. You haven’t figured out yet how to push the Cascade’s efficiency below its critical value, so we need to try something simpler. Can you weave your mother's shadow cloak?"

An hour later, Ellen was moving furtively through the village, stepping off the path into a dark passage between the inn and a neighboring house as a handful of travelers passed out through the inn’s brightly lit door.
Once through the doorway herself she moved quickly into a corner where nobody was likely to run into her, stood still watching the stairway and the area at its foot.

Her first attempt got only as far as the landing. A man appeared at the head of the stairs heading down; she considered briefly the size of the landing, chose the more prudent alternative. The second attempt succeeded, bringing her to the top of the empty stairway, from there to the corner farthest from the doors to the second floor rooms.

Two men emerged from the upstairs dining room. One went down the stairs, the other, the mage who had tried to capture her outside her own window three days before, turned right and went into one of the bedrooms. He put the papers
he was carrying down on the small table between the beds, one already occupied, turned, closed the door.

Ellen waited as the inn gradually grew quiet, with guests straggling out the front door, the thud of doors closing on rooms. The upper hallway, lit faintly by the light of a lamp at each end, was empty. Closing her eyes, Ellen let her mind pass through the door in front of her. Inside both men slept. The guards at the hall’s far end were awake, absorbed in a game of dice; a fourth guard stood at the front door of the inn, now shut. Iolen and one of his mages occupied a second bedroom, on the other side of the large upstairs room where Mari had entertained her friends. The lord seemed to be asleep; the mage riffled studiously through a stack of papers.

The lamp at her end of the hall
went out. Ellen waited a few moments to be sure no inn servant was coming to relight it, then moved to the door of the room and eased it open. Its occupants were still asleep, one with his face towards the wall, the other on his back, snoring peacefully. She moved to put her body between him and the papers on the table before calling a tiny flame from her fingertip to read by its light the top sheet of paper.

The writing was in a clear hand, a set of instructions interspersed with single words written in the true speech, once a whole phrase. In some places words, in one a whole line, had been crossed out and replaced. From the wallet at her side she drew out a quill, a tightly stoppered bottle of ink.