Castle of Deception bt-1 Read online

  Berak and Kevin exchanged conspiratorial grins.

  But even as he tried to act the role of a minstrel without a care in the world, calmly helping the others prepare for tomorrow’s show, Kevin’s hands shook. His heart pounded so fiercely he was sure the casually watching guards were going to hear it and drag him away for questioning. Berak had sent messengers off to King Amber and Master Aidan with word of what had happened, but the bardling knew he couldn’t count on them to get here in time to do anything.

  It—it’s all up to vs. To me.

  Gods, gods. he couldn’t make a move until after dark, and here it was only afternoon! How was he ever going to get through this day? And even after the night came, if it ever did, what if he couldn’t get into that bell tower? What if Count Volmar had locked it, or set a guard, or—

  Kevin battled with his growing panic. This was stupid. After all, the whole thing came down simply to this:

  Tomorrow he, Naitachal and Lydia would be heroes—

  Or they would be dead.

  Chapter XXV

  There was some mercy, Kevin thought: at least there was no moon this night. It wasn’t difficult, thanks to Naitachal’s elven night-vision, for three people to steal across the crowded courtyard to the bell tower without waking anyone—and without any merely human guard being able to spot them.

  The bardling paused at the base of the bell tower to look nervously up and up its height: a starkly black mass against the star-filled sky. The tower hadn’t seemed quite so tall from the outer bailey ...

  Don’t be silly, he scolded himself. You—were higher than that when you were up on the castle tower.

  Sure, he answered himself. And look how that turned out!

  Naitachal, who was quietly testing the cower door, drew back with a sudden hiss. “Curse the man and his suspicious mind!” It was a savage whisper. “I know bronze is expensive, but does he really think someone’s going to try stealing a heavy bell?”

  “Wh-what’s the matter?” Kevin asked.

  “He’s bolted the cursed door!”

  Lydia gave a frustrated sigh. “Can’t you cast some sort of spell—”

  “I’m a necromancer,” the Dark Elf said flatly, “not a lockpick. Besides, you know any use of magic would bring Carlotta down on our heads.”

  “Wonderful,” Lydia repeated. “Now what do we do?”

  A snicker cut the sudden silence. “Helpless creatures!”

  “Tich’ki! What—”

  “Here, help me. This thing is cursed heavy!”

  The fairy had stolen a whole coil of rope. “Tich’ki, this is great!” Lydia whispered. She craned her head back to study the tower. “Now, how are we going to get it up there?”

  Tich’ki sighed in mock exasperation. “Do I have to do everything around here?”

  She snatched up one end of the rope and started flapping her way up, struggling against its weight. Naitachal, watching closely so he wouldn’t entangle her or destroy her balance, played the rope out, coil by coil.

  “She’s at the top,” he murmured. “Ah! She has it!”

  Tich’ki came spiraling down. “That’s that—I’ve tied the thing strongly enough to hold even your weights! Now it’s up to you.”

  Lydia’s teeth flashed in the darkness. “All right, let’s go! Me first, I chink, then Kevin, then you, Naitachal in case the kid has trouble.”

  “I won’t—” the bardling started, but Naitachal cut in calmly:

  “Agreed.”

  Before Kevin could say anything more, Lydia was swarming up the rope with, he thought, disgusting ease.

  “She made it,” Naitachal whispered after a few moments. “Your turn, Kevin.”

  Just what I need: another chance to ruin my hands, this tine with rope bums. Ah well, better my hands than our lives!

  He took a firm grip on the rope, braced his feet against the side of the tower, and started to climb. To his relief, the rope was knotted, giving him something to grasp. But he’d never done anything like this. Powers, he hadn’t even climbed trees when he was a child, not once he’d started studying music and had to be concerned about his hands! He could feel the ache in his arms and thighs already, and even the familiar weight of the lute on his back was threatening to pull him over backwards.

  Cone on! Don’t be a baby! If Lydia can do it, so can you!

  Hey, he had made it! Kevin scrambled up over the rim of one of the arches and stood aside so Naitachal, who also swarmed up the rope with disgusting ease, could join them.

  “It’s about time!” Tich’ki jibed. “Watch your footing. There’s only this narrow strip of stone and the stairway down.” She fluttered in mid-air. “The whole tower’s hollow!”

  Kevin shrugged. “Of course it is. They never expected anyone to stay here for very long. The bell would deafen anyone caught up here.”

  “That is, if it wasn’t cracked so badly it couldn’t be rung,” Lydia said with a grin. “Lucky us!” She glanced around. “Naitachal, you don’t need a dear view of the courtyard, do you?”

  “No. 1 sense cast magic and shield Kevin from it wherever I stand.”

  “Fine. Then you take the left side, over here. I’ll be on the right, where I can get a dear shot at any would-be snipers. And you, of course, Kevin, get the place of honor here in the center.” She grinned. “Now all we have to do is wait.”

  Tich’ki tittered. “Nighty night, everybody! Try not to fall off the ledge in your sleep!”

  “Thank you, Tich’ki,” Naitachal muttered. “Thank you very much,”

  “You’re welcome!” the fairy laughed, and darted away before he could hit her.

  It might not have been the single most miserable time he’d spent; there certainly had been worse during their adventurings. But Kevin, blinking blearily in the chill light of early morning, not at all rested and not quite daring to stretch lest he lose his balance decided he had to rate this cold, hard, precarious night just past right up there with the worst.

  Naitachal was already on his feet, gaudy finery replaced some time in the night by his usual somber black, and Lydia, stripped down to her preferred warrior garb, bow and quiver within easy reach, was limbering up her muscles as best she could in that narrow space.

  I wish we had something to eat other than a flask of water and some bread and cheese, something warm, Kevin thought wistfully. Ha, he added, looking gingerly down into the depths of the tower, and I wish we had ... ah ... more refined sanitary facilities, too!

  Ah well, at least it was morning, and the sun would soon be warming things up. The morning he would win or die—No, curse it, he wasn’t even going to think about that, not yet!

  “Good morning,” he said.

  Lydia snorted. “More or less!” She leaned daringly out to study the courtyard far below. “At least we’re going to get a splendid view of the whole event. That’s got to be the count’s chair, there on that dais, under the canopy—Now, if only Carlotta will just cooperate by showing up with him ....”

  She did. Kevin tensed as the false Charina, pretty in blue silk, simpered out to take her place beside Count Volmar, who was dad in rich robes of dark red-violet.

  That’s almost royal purple! Kevin thought indignantly. They really are planning to make a move towards the throne! Well, not if I have anything to say about it!

  Then he had to laugh at his own bravado.

  Not if I’m allowed to have anything to say about it, the bardling corrected wryly.

  Lydia was right They really did have a splendid view of the whole event—And an endless event it was, too, with minstrels being replaced by acrobats being replaced by more minstrels being replaced by—Kevin fought back a yawn, astonished that he could feel bored even while he ached with tension. And had he really been cold before? Now it was hot in this tower, baking as it was directly in the sun, so hot the bardling envied Lydia her scanty garb.

  Powers, would Berak’s troupe never get to perform? Kevin took yet another small sip of water, trying to k
eep his throat moist. Were they going to be stuck up here until they starved or died of thirst? Would they never get to even try the spell that had cost them so much already and—

  “There they are.” Naitachal’s voice was right with tension. “Be ready, Kevin.”

  “I—lam.”

  Between the hopefully fine acoustics of this sound chamber and with—again, hopefully—his own Bardic Magic to provide the rest, there should be no way for Carlotta to escape the sound of his voice till the spell was cast.

  Oh please, he prayed to all the Powers, let it be so!

  In order to make the best use of the chamber’s acoustics, Kevin realized, there was only one place he could stand: squarely in front of the bell, in plain view —and bowshot—of the crowd. If Lydia or Naitachal failed to protect him ...

  No. They’d been through so much together already; he wouldn’t doubt them now.

  Berak’s troupe were performing with all their elven skill, “carrying the crowd,” as Berak would put it, taking them through rousing heroic ballads and songs so light and humorous that waves of laughter surged to Kevin’s ears.

  Come on, he begged them. You don’t have to put on quite so good a show, do you? Or so long?

  But Berak was a true showman, after all. No matter how tense the situation, he wasn’t going to leave an audience unsatisfied. By the time he finally sang the opening notes of the ballad he and Kevin had agreed upon, the ancient, tragic “Song of Ellian and Tens “ that tale of doomed young love, the bardling was almost too numb from tension to recognize it.

  Berak and his troupe sang with exquisite simplicity, barely ornamenting each line, tracing the words delicately with harp and flute, their every word filled with quiet grief and tenderness. And the noisy, restless crowd, bit by bit, fell still. The ballad came to its bittersweet ending—The lovers sank into each others’ arms, their lives slowly, peacefully ebbing away ....

  It was done. The stunned audience paid Berak’s troupe that rarest, greatest of tributes: absolute silence.

  They’ll start cheering in a moment, Kevin knew. It’s got to be now!

  Oh gods, the bardling thought in a surge of panic, he wasn’t ready, he couldn’t remember the words, his voice wasn’t going to cooperate—

  But then Kevin realized he was doing it, he was singing out his spell, the sound chamber amplifying his voice so it rang out over the courtyard.

  Yet even in that moment he knew, from the heart of his musician’s being, that what he was doing wasn’t enough. Oh, Powers, why hadn’t he realized this before? The spell needed more than bare recitation to work! It needed heart, it needed belief, it needed a Power he simply didn’t possess. The very soul of the music was missing, and without it Carlotta would still triumph—

  No, ah no! All those poor people will die!

  And all at once something seemed to tear loose within Kevin’s heart. All at once he couldn’t be afraid, not for himself. Wild with this sudden flame of hope, of pity, he sang for Eliathanis, he sang for Charina, he sang for all the good, kind, ordinary people whose lives Carlotta would destroy. And magic, true, strong Bardic Magic fully grown at last roused within him. Feeling nothing but the fire surging through him, hearing nothing but the sound of the spell-song, Kevin was hardly aware of Carlotta’s shriek of disbelieving rage or the count’s shouts to his archers. A few arrows cut the air about him, but then Lydia and Naitachal were retaliating, fending off attack.

  Suddenly the spell-song was done. Kevin sagged, drained and gasping for breath, only Naitachal’s firm grip on his arm keeping him from falling as he stared, as they all stared ....

  The silence that followed was the worse thing Kevin had ever heard—because nothing at all happened to Carlotta.

  It failed after all. The spell failed.

  All at once Kevin was too weary to care. He stood passively waiting to die, either from sorcery or the spell’s own backlash. Dimly, he heard Carlotta’s scornful laugh ....

  But then that laugh went wrong, too shrill, too high in pitch! Kevin came back to himself with a jolt, shouting, “Look! Dear Powers, look!”

  Despite all her frantically shrieked-out spells, Carlotta was shrinking. Within moments, though she still struggled to ding to Charina’s form, she had shrunk to the size and shape of a fairy.

  Stunned silence fell, through which Count Volmar’s voice cut like a whip. “Guards’” Pointing up at the bell tower, he shouted, “Those foul sorcerers have attacked my niece! Stop them!”

  “Have to admire his presence of mind,” Naitachal muttered.

  But Berak and his troupe were ready. As the guards rushed forward, the White Elves swung tent poles like quarterstaffs across unprotected shins. The first rush of men went hurtling to the ground, and the next wave fell over them.

  “Come on!” Lydia yelled. “Let’s get out of here while we can!”

  The three of them scrambled down the rope, Kevin not even stopping to worry about his hands, and set off across the crowded courtyard at a dead run, people squealing and scrabbling away from the “foul sorcerers.”

  We’re going to make it, we’re really going to—

  “Oh hell,” Lydia murmured. “Well, we gave it our best”

  A long line of the count’s men had broken through the crowd, standing between the three and safety, eyes cold, pikes at the ready. Count Volmar strode forward, pushing his men aside, face so florid with rage a comer of Kevin’s mind wondered if he meant to kill his foes himself.

  —Logic would have insisted there was no way out. Kevin, still caught in the power of his own music, wasn’t ready to listen to logic. Instead, he did the only thing he could do:

  He sang. He sang with all the force of his newly born magic of an innocent girl most foully slain, of a sweet young life that was the price of a man’s ambition—of Charina murdered by her uncle, by the count himself!

  The long, gleaming line of pikes swayed as the men murmured uneasily among themselves.

  “Don’t listen to him!” Count Volmar blustered. “He’s a—a sorcerer trying to trick you!”

  But then one of the guards cried out in shock, “Look! Look!”

  The ghost of Charina, a pale glimmer in the daylight, was slowly forming, as if called by the song. But this time there was nothing soft or weak about the specter.

  “Behold the murderer!” Her voice rang out, fierce as a hawk’s cry, echoing in the suddenly still air. “Behold my uncle who slew me so he might steal a throne! My curse upon you, Uncle! I have come for you—and I shall have my revenge!”

  She thrust out her hand as though casting a spear. Count Volmar gasped, clutching his chest, eyes wild with sudden agony. For one long moment he stood helplessly convulsed in pain, trying without breath to cry out for aid. But before any could move, he crumpled to the cobblestones and lay still.

  “I am avenged}” the specter shrilled in savage joy, and vanished in a dazzling flash of light.

  By the time Kevin’s sight had cleared, one of the guards was kneeling by Count Volmar’s side.

  “He—he’s dead,” the man gasped. “Count Volmar is dead.”

  Kevin and Lydia stared at Naitachal. The Dark Elf shrugged. “Wasn’t my doing. I told you Charina came from warrior stock!”

  “Well now, would you look at this?” Lydia murmured.

  The guards were all staggering back like men waking from a foul dream.

  “I was right,” Kevin said, “Carlotta really did have them all under her control. Her spell must have Just about worn off.” He stiffened in sudden alarm. “Yes, but where is she? If she got away—”

  “Ha, don’t worry about her!” Tich’ki suddenly tittered in his ear.

  “But—but she escaped!”

  “For what good that’ll do her!”

  “What—”

  Tich’ki pinched his cheek. “Kevin, lad, I may not be on the best of terms with my fairy kin, but they will, still heed my messages. I sent out a spell-call to them, to all of them. Every hill, every dun, eve
ry fairy cairn is closed to Carlotta. No one will shelter her, none give her aid. She is powerless, bound in fairy shape forever—and forever shall be in exile!”

  “Uh, that’s all well and good,” one of the guards said hesitantly. “And we’re not exactly sorry to see the end of Count Volmar, either, the murdering traitor. We’re loyal to King Amber, we are!”

  “We know that,” Kevin said reassuringly.

  “But ... well ... what do we do now? I mean, who’s in charge and—”He seemed to notice Lydia’s warrior garb for the first time. “Lady, you’re the closest thing we’ve got to a commander right now. Will you accept our surrender?’’