Keystone (Gatewalkers) (28 page)

Several men abruptly bolted for the main door, breaking for freedom entirely. It sparked a wild, dashing panic, with people rushing the door. The more timid or terrified cowered against the walls or froze where they stood to be knocked around or trampled.

“Prisoners escaping!” a harsh, rasping voice broke over the noise. The gargoyles adorning the top of the door arch straightened from their crouch and shook out their crumpled wings. “Prisoners escaping!” they called again, sharpened teeth showing in snout-like mouths.

“Now that’s done it,” Gwynne growled. He tossed the keys into the next cell, the prisoners scrambling for them. Gwynne slipped back toward the guard room like a fish swimming upstream. He flung himself to the wall just as the door flung open, hiding him behind it as the guards poured out into the hall.
 

A fresh round of screams began from those who had already fled through the far door. The flood began to reverse itself, and jammed in the doorway. The prisoners were pinched between two sets of guards.

“Wait!” Charlie said, but Gwynne slipped around the door into the empty guardroom and the freedom beyond, leaving the helpless prisoners behind.

***

Gwynne padded quickly and quietly, sneaking through room after room, no more noticed than when it had been only Charlie. He seemed to know the castle’s twists and turns very well.

Gwynne peered around a corner, and quickly jerked back. “There,” he whispered. “It’s in that room.”

Charlie peered around the corner herself. A pair of terradi guards in full armor and weapons stood outside one of the doors. That would be the place all right.

“Stay here,” Charlie whispered, intending to dash across and sneak behind them in the shadows. If the Keystone shard was small enough, she could carry it out herself once she found it.

Gwynne grabbed her tail as she started off, jerking her to a painful halt. “Wait,” he said, ignoring her protests at all the tail grabbing. He backtracked to a narrow window in the outside wall.

Gwynne threaded his skinny body up into one of the arrow slits, finding handholds and footholds on the outside of the ancient wall. The hollow sound of the wind outside the castle turned into a sharp, high pitched screaming, stabbing at her ears. Several floors below them, the castle joined with the mountainside and fell away into the valley below. Charlie clung to his bony shoulder for dear life, wondering how the pixies managed to stay on hers so easily.
 

Gwynne worked his way across the face of the wall and squeezed his way through another slit of a window. The room was gloomily dark after the brief outdoor sunshine. Charlie could barely make out the dark shapes of furniture: a bed, table, and chairs. A lumpy figure lay under the blankets on the bed. No sign of a piece of the Keystone, though now she wasn’t sure what to look for. A box? A pedestal? A bag? Would it be inside anything at all?

A clay chamber pot (empty) smashed at Gwynne’s feet. The boy jumped, flinging himself against the wall as if to disappear into it.

“What are you doing here?” came a surprised cry from the dimness.

A teenaged girl stood behind the door, a flimsy chair in her hands ready to fling. Her tattered clothing and dirty skin marked her as another prisoner like Gwynne. Her dark hair was pulled back in a knot and covered with a grubby kerchief, showing off her especially long elf ears.

“Is she the magic?” Charlie asked dubiously. Two guards seemed a little much for this slender wisp of a thing. Unless. “Or is she the princess?”

“Princess?” Gwynne said in surprise.

“No,” the girl said, slowly lowering the chair. She glanced to the lump on the bed. “She’s Princess Maelyn. I’m just Maddie. I’m a servant here. Keeps me from being a meal.”

“Where’s the magic, Gwynne?” Charlie said.

Gwynne pointed at the bed. “There. It’s centered around her.” He hesitated. “I think some of it might
be
her.”

“She won’t wake,” Maddie said. “Ever since she broke the Keystone. It is like her soul has already fled though her body lives.”

That was definitely problematic. Neither Gwynne nor Maddie seemed very strong, and Charlie definitely wasn’t in any condition to carry someone in a coma. “We need to try to wake her up anyway.”

Gwynne crossed to kneel on the chair at the bedside. He pulled down the thin blanket, revealing the princess’s head and shoulders. She looked almost like a porcelain doll, her eyes closed and skin pale, her black curls tumbled in a chaotic mass on the pillow.

“Maybe it’ll take a kiss to wake her up,” Charlie said. Gwynne pulled a face. “Don’t worry,” Charlie said dryly. “I doubt you’re her true love. You seem a little young for her. Start with calling her name.”

“Maelyn?” Gwynne said. He hesitantly reached to clasp her shoulder and shook it, releasing her as if the touch was poisoned.
 

Something shimmery fell from behind her ear to lay tangled in her hair, looking like a small shard of glass. Gwynne noticed just as Charlie did. He picked it up with two fingers.
 

It flashed with blinding light in every conceivable color. He dropped it with a small cry. “What was
that?
”

“The Keystone,” Maddie whispered. Her expression was torn between awe and dismay.

The Keystone. The pale blue shard lay quiescent against Maelyn’s black hair, as if it hadn’t just startled them half to death.
This
would be the thing to take her home?

Gwynne stared at it with a fresh fascination. He poked it, but it did not repeat the flash. He picked it up. “It feels… it almost feels
alive
.” He clenched the stone in his fist, features settling into determination. He leaned over and shook the princess’s shoulders again. “Maelyn! Princess Maelyn, wake up!”

***

“Maelyn!”

Maelyn stirred faintly in her ethereal chains, her head too heavy to lift.

“Maelyn!” The voice echoed faintly in her mind, tinged with the swirling colors of the Keystone.

Useless
, she wanted to tell him. She could no longer sort memory from dream. Could no longer sort the dream from what was real. There was no use in trying.
 

Maelyn
. A different voice threaded into her thoughts, masculine, warm against her cold soul.
Mae, it’s time for you to fight.

Fight? How could she fight? She was no warrior. She could not save her own brother. She could not save herself.
 

Ethereal arms slipped around her. She felt phantom warmth against her back.
Mae. You are stronger than you know. Lift up your head.
She felt a light pressure under her chin.

Maelyn struggled to obey. To raise up her face. To breathe air that the Mara’s bonds did not poison. The muscles of her neck strained, pulling. Gradually the bones of her neck and spine straightened, bearing the impossible weight of her skull.

Stand,
the voice inside her head demanded.

“I cannot.” She gasped, sucking in air and trembling from her exertions.

“Maelyn,” the other, outside voice called again. It drew her, pulling her tight against her bonds. “Wake up!”

Stand. Fight!
An arm shifted to wrap around her waist. Maelyn pulled herself up, kneeling on both knees. She drew a leg under her, resting her weight on it. Pushing upward, she strained against the chains of the mind that ensnared her torso. She gasped in pain as they dug into her “flesh,” splashing visions of horror before her eyes. The steady warmth at her back never left, never faded, an anchor against the tide of illusions. The arms did not let go.

She felt a tug on the chains, pulling, loosening. For the first time, a tiny burst of hope dared to flare in her chest.

Fight, Mae! Who are you?

Maelyn set her jaw, gritting her teeth.
I am the daughter of High King Aneirin
, she reminded herself. She pulled up her other leg, planting her foot beneath her.
Sister of High King Edouard and… and Crown Prince William, may his soul rest at peace. Descendant of High King Gwalchmai, whose blood seals the Gate of Ard Ri.
Maelyn pushed to stand, biting back a scream as the chains twisted around her. She dug her nails into the palms of her hands.

She could not breathe. She could not think. All she could feel was the tightening bonds.
 

A chain shattered, flying into a thousand slivers of glass. In that moment, that tiny shard of time before the chains could tighten again, she felt something – someone – slip between herself and the bonds. Felt hands shove her down, the chains slipping free of her.

He had taken her place.

Maelyn scrambled forward, but before she could turn, the bright rippling surface of a Gate swallowed her up.

***

Princess Maelyn gasped, her spine arcing with the force of the air drawn into her lungs. Her eyes flung wide, catching the light like faceted emeralds. The gasp escaped as a moan that she quickly bit down on.

All of Charlie’s envy of her looks disappeared at the sight of the girl’s anguished expression and the glittering flood of tears that suddenly streamed from the corners of her eyes.
 

“Princess?” Gwynne said.

Maelyn’s head snapped around. She scrambled to the opposite side of the bed, pressing against the wall. Confusion swirled in her eyes as they darted between Gwynne, Charlie, and Maddie. Her hair fell in a riot of tangles to her hips.

“Is this real?” Maelyn’s voice emerged as a hoarse whisper. Her breath came in uneven shudders. “Or is this some new vision sent to torment me?”

“We’re here to rescue you,” Charlie added quickly.
Obi-Wan Kenobi brought us.
Only Rhys no longer felt like the wise old man archetype of the party, and besides, Obi-Wan didn’t survive Princess Lea’s rescue. Charlie felt a pang of worry.

Maelyn’s eyes snapped to Charlie, telling her that Maelyn was one of those who could understand her in squirrel form.
 

Maelyn’s eyes flashed to Gwynne. “Are you the one who took my bonds?”

Gwynne’s confusion matched hers. “I called your name.”

Maelyn’s eyes dismissed him and assessed Maddie and Charlie. Apparently neither of them passed muster, for a shutter fell over the princess’s face, replacing the confusion with a distant dignity. She dashed a hand across her cheeks, chasing away the moisture there, and knelt on the bed instead of plastering against the wall. “A boy, a squirrel, and…” Maelyn’s gaze rested on Maddie.

The servant dipped a quick curtsey. “Maddie, your highness.” The girl looked almost as dismayed as the princess.

“Was there anything more to your rescue plan?” Maelyn said. “Such as a method of escape?”

"We get out the same way we got in." Gwynne moved to the arrow slit and measured it with his hands. He nodded in satisfaction. "It may be a little tight, er, princess. But you'll fit."

Maelyn's face went blank. "Out, through the window?"

Gwynne nodded, confident. "There's plenty of hand and footholds. It'll be easy as climbing a tree."

"Princesses," Charlie whispered in his ear, "don't usually climb trees.”

Gwynne started in surprise. "Honest?"

Charlie nodded. "Princesses wear fancy dresses that they can't tear or get dirty."

Gwynne rubbed the side of his filthy nose thoughtfully. "All the same. Just follow my lead and you'll be fine. Just shorten up that skirt of yours so you don't get tangled around your feet."

"Show her legs?" Maddie sounded horrified. "In front of men, and all the world?"

"You too, Maddie, if you're coming," Gwynne said.
 

Maddie shook her head vehemently. "Oh, no. I couldn't."

"What do you think they'll do when they see the princess is missing?" Charlie said dryly. Gwynne relayed her comment.

Maddie's face was torn between horror and fear.

Maelyn sat down on the edge of the bed, stripped off her stockings, and after only a moment's hesitation, started tying knots in her skirt at just above mid calf.

"No, no," Gwynne said. "It needs to be at the knee so you can move.” Without asking permission (and probably without thinking), Gwynne knelt and took the skirt from Maelyn's hands, tying it further up. Alarm flashed across her face, but she quickly replaced it with a blank indifference.

Work finished, Gwynne bade her to stand so he could inspect his handiwork. Barefoot, with her skirt ripped unevenly around her knees, Maelyn looked less like the perfect princess and more like simply a young woman in trouble.

"Lead on," Maelyn said. "I do not wish to delay."

Gwynne popped out the window, Charlie still riding his shoulder. "Put your feet out first," he said. "So you can find a good footing."

A pale, slender foot emerged from the arrow slit and felt along the outside wall for a ledge. Gwynne gripped her ankle and guided it to a hold. She carefully rested her weight on it and slid herself to the edge of the slit. Maelyn squinted out at the sunlight.

"Don't look down, and don't worry about what's out there," Gwynne said. "Just look at the wall and where you're going to put your hands and feet." He guided her outstretched hand to a hold on the edge of the arrow slit.

Maelyn squeezed herself out through the arrow slit, her eyes planted on the top corner stone. She rotated slightly, pulling her other leg out, and tried to rest it on the same foothold. She quickly learned that it was too small to fit both of her feet. A small gasp escaped her lips, and her foot flailed for a new hold.

"You're ok," Gwynne said, putting a steadying hand on the small of her back. "Just set your foot in a crack."

Maelyn's searching toes found a rest. She clung to the outside wall, eyes closed, her breath coming in short gusts.

"You're doing fine," Charlie said.

Gwynne guided her out a few more steps, and the inevitable happened. In looking for a new foothold, Maelyn's eyes fell to the drop below them. Her pale face went completely white, and she flattened herself against the wall, pressing her face into the stone.

"You're still fine," Gwynne said. "It's not the fall to be afraid of. Keep your head. That's what'll get you. Don't think."