The Spell of Undoing (14 page)

Shockingly cold water hit Tab's face. She sat up, gasping and spluttering. Immediately she was aware that Torby was gone. She looked about frantically. He was nowhere to be seen.

In a fury that took even the boy-king by surprise, she leapt off the bed and attacked him. Momentarily stunned, he took a step backwards, then regained his composure and laughed, holding her off with ease.

The next second a guard grabbed her from behind and threw her back on the bunk where she crouched, snarling. Kull clicked his fingers and another guard stepped into the cell doorway, holding Torby. Tab held out her arms and Kull nodded. The guard released the boy and he hurtled across the cell and into Tab's arms, burying his face against her shoulder, his body trembling.

‘What did you do to him?’ shouted Tab.

Kull seemed amused. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Not today at least, and it can stay that way – if you cooperate.’

Tab's sharp intake of breath was the only sound in the cell. So that was why they had moved her. They hadn't gotten what they wanted by torturing her so they had tried something different.

‘Well?’ said Kull. ‘I'll ask only once. Where is the magicians’ icefire?’

Tab slumped. This was all her fault. If she hadn't been stupid enough or arrogant enough to think she could handle the Tolrushian spies, she wouldn't be here now. But then she wouldn't have found Torby either …

She sighed, and told them exactly where she had hidden the gem that she'd stolen from the magicians.

Kull smiled broadly. ‘See, how hard was that?’ He suddenly frowned and pursed his lips. ‘Tell me, riftling. Why didn't you hand over the icefire to your Navigators’ Guild?’

Tab slumped with her betrayal. ‘I was going to but as time went by I knew no one would believe my story. And even if they did, they would have blamed me for everything. I had … had intended to leave it in the Chief Navigator's office … but –’

Kull slapped his thighs with merriment. ‘Enough, you fool of a child. For a moment I thought perhaps the icefire was faulty. Instead you worried about your own safety and have caused a two-fold calamity for your city!’ He turned to go.

‘What about us?’ said Tab. ‘You've got what you wanted … ’

‘We'll see,’ said Kull. ‘Perhaps the gem is where you say it is, and perhaps it isn't.’

He turned and strode out of the cell and the guards followed him. The cell door clanged shut with an ominous sound. Tab held Torby as tightly as she could. She suspected there was almost no chance that Kull would release them, even when he had the gem. Much easier just to slit their throats and throw them overboard.

Torby raised his face and looked at her. ‘You knew.’

She smiled down at him. ‘Yes. I went back to the slaughterhouse and grabbed the icefire. Only just in time, too, because Fontagu turned up about two minutes later. I don't think he saw me. I snuck out and hid the gem where nobody could find it.’

‘Why?’

It hit her then that Torby was actually talking. She felt like laughing, as if he were her own child, or a little brother, and these were the first words he had ever spoken. The feeling caused an odd ache in her chest.

‘Because I thought that it was the most dangerous thing in the whole world. And I was right. It ripped my home, Quentaris, from out of the very ground and threw it through a rift vortex, into another universe. Later, I realised what the icefire really was: a source of fuel. But by then I'd waited too long to hand it back to the magicians. And the longer I waited, the more impossible it was. But I really was going to leave it in Stelka's office.’

Torby was silent for a while, then he said, ‘What now?’

‘I don't know, Torby. I really don't know.’

She kept hoping that Kull, once he had the icefire, would release them. But that hope was dashed that evening. Kull himself, alone, came to gloat. He even bowed low to her.

‘Truly,’ he said, ‘I am in your debt. Never have I seen such an icefire gem! My magicians tell me it will power the ire ore for at least a year, maybe more. With it we will capture and crush Quentaris, and we will extract the secret of how to get home again. So once more, apprentice, I thank you.’

He bowed a second time, smirking.

‘If you are in my debt then I ask that we be released.’

Kull stared at her for a moment then burst out laughing.

‘You can't keep us here!’ she cried. ‘And anyway – Quentaris will send somebody to rescue us.’

Kull stopped laughing and his eyes glittered with malice. ‘Are you threatening me, brat?’

Tab's eyes went wide. She looked away from his gaze. ‘No,’ she said. But then she looked up again, defiant. ‘But they will come for me.’

‘Why, because you saved them?’ asked Kull. He emitted a scornful bark of laughter. ‘A creature like you lives to serve its city, not the other way around. Do you really believe Quentaris feels any
loyalty
towards you? Know this, even now they are making speed away from us. Besides, your name there is mud, thanks to the vigorous efforts of my … agent.’

‘You're a liar,’ said Tab.

Kull's face flushed and he gripped the cell bars. Tab knew that if it had not been for those bars he would have killed her on the spot. Finally, after a long panting moment, he took a step back, smirking.

‘Tomorrow morning, you will be given a breakfast fit for royalty,’ he said. ‘Then you will provide the day's entertainment. My nobles and I, you see, are in disagreement over exactly how high above the ground we are. And my master magician has come up with a delightful way to measure our altitude.’

Tab scowled and said nothing. She pressed her hands over Torby's ears so he couldn't hear.

‘Apparently, sound travels at a fixed rate of speed. So my master magician has determined that by throwing a child overboard and timing its screams as it falls, we will be able to arrive at an exact measurement. Rather brilliant, I thought.’

And with that, Kull turned on his heels and strode out of the cell block, whistling merrily.

The night deepened. Tab dozed fitfully and woke to the sound of a distant bell tolling midnight. And with the final peal, the first threads of a plan began to knit in her mind. She woke Torby …

______________________

^***
Read how Torby became a prisoner of the Tolrushians at
www.quentaris.com

Tab cleared her mind, and tried to recall what it felt like to be a rat, to be so small and scared, and always so hungry. She pictured the twitching whiskers on the snout, the feel of a tail stretching out behind, and she let her mind float outwards … and almost at once she was there, inside the rat, peering out from its eyes. It was reaching up a wall as though curious. Smells and sounds leapt at her. She forced the rat to look around and suddenly she gasped. She could see herself – only that wasn't what she looked like. To the rat, she was a tall, thin blob with a pale face and sharp horrible eyes. She was also black and white; the rat, like all rats, could not see in true colours.

She sent the rat hurrying back the way it had come, stopping directly above the key rail. Tab had to give the rat an extra push to do her will. It was hesitant and for good reason. The jump was risky and the rail narrow.

The rat half leapt and half slithered down the wall. Tab held her breath, but the rat was good at its job. It landed awkwardly, started to slip back, then dug in its claws and pulled itself to safety.

Inside the rat's mind, Tab directed it to grab the keys and slide them off the peg. This was the dangerous part. She didn't know how far away the guardroom was and the sound of the keys hitting the stone floor might bring someone. But as she overheard Verris say once, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

She urged the rat to push the keys off the peg with its snout. They hit the floor with a loud rattle. Tab waited, and she could feel both her own heart, and the rat's, beating hard. After what seemed an eternity, she relaxed. No one had come.

Tab had the rat leap to the floor and, very slowly, and as quietly as possible, drag the keys to her cell. >>>There
>> You're free to go

The rat scurried away. Tab reached through the bars and grabbed the keys. There were only three. The sodden clunk of tumblers told her when she had found the right one. Her heart leapt. With Torby held tight against her, they crept silently from the cell.

‘Torby,’ whispered Tab, ‘I need you to be as quiet as a mouse. Can you do that for me?’

Torby nodded, wide-eyed. She could tell he was scared but he was also excited. Good for him, she thought. They stole past the guardroom, hearing heavy, reassuring snores. Then they came to some steps. They climbed them, halting at a locked door. Tab fumbled for the key ring and mentally crossed her fingers.

But as she inserted the key, the door started to open. Someone was coming in.

In utter despair, she grabbed Torby and whirled to flee back down the stairs, but before she had even taken one step she heard a remarkable thing. Her name.

‘Tab!’

She looked back, and gaped. Philmon and Amelia stood in the doorway. It was almost too much. She felt herself sagging but hands were grabbing her, keeping her steady. She heard Torby whimper and instinctively put an arm around him.

Her head cleared. Philmon's grin was in her face. She threw her other arm around him and hugged him hard.

‘What in the name of all the odd gods are you two
doing
here?’

‘Oh, we were just in the neighbourhood and thought –’

Amelia elbowed Philmon in the ribs. ‘Shut up.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Honestly, if he cracks one more joke, I swear I'll throttle him.’

‘Hey, that's not fair,’ said Philmon. ‘At least I'm not all doom and gloom.’

Tab looked from one to the other. ‘But –?’

Amelia quickly filled her in. Exhausted, she had gone to bed early, then wakened to find a small blinking seed-gem on Tab's bedside table. She had known at once what it was: an alarm, the kind that was only triggered if something hidden was stolen, or a locked door was opened. The city had been searched at Verris’ request. But no sign or clue of Tab had been found.

Then Florian had started spreading rumours. About how Tab had sold out Quentaris, how she had been working with Tolrush all along and that the first attack had been designed to make her look good so that she would win favour.

‘The seed-gem is designed to take you to the place or object being protected, and that's just what it did,’ said Amelia. ‘I should have thought of it before.’

‘Bit of a shock, though,’ said Philmon wryly, ‘to stumble on a bunch of Tolrushians, I can tell you!’

‘But how did you get here?’ asked Tab.

‘Flew,’ said Philmon.

‘I enchanted an old rowboat – levitated it, to be precise,’ said Amelia proudly. She looked at Torby. ‘I think we should get moving. But who's this?’

‘His name's Torby. They – tortured him. We have to get him to safety,’ said Tab.

Philmon and Amelia heard the appeal in her voice, and both nodded. They couldn't imagine even for themselves what it would be like to be trapped in a Tolrushian dungeon, let alone for a young child. Amelia put her palm to Torby's cheek. It was a measure of his newfound security with Tab that he didn't quite flinch. ‘We're going to get you both out of here, Torby, don't you worry,’ she said. ‘The rowboat's on a tower not far from here. Let's go.’

As they ran, darting from one shadow to another, Amelia filled Tab in on the rest of the story. They had followed the Tolrushians, who already had the gem – Amelia and Philmon had seen them later admiring it – to their flying ship. From what they could overhear, the group had been led by a Quentaran spy or traitor, someone who knew his way around, and who kept mentioning his ‘prodigious reward’.

Tab started at the words. They reminded her of someone, but just then she couldn't think who.

Amelia continued. ‘We didn't know exactly what was going on, but it was pretty clear that if you were still alive, then you had to be on Tolrush, and this bunch knew where. So I enchanted the boat and we tracked them. The rest you pretty much know.’