The Adventures of Benjamin Skyhammer (8 page)

The King sprang into action. "This way!" He grabbed Skyhammer and Higgins by the arms and dragged them to the wall hangings.

"Guards! Form a defensive semi-circle around the King now!" Acidophilous commanded.

The six guards did as ordered, slates at the ready.

Attackers poured through both doors, filling the room. The guards' shield seemed to be holding.

Skyhammer froze, back against the wall, screams of pain and anger filling his ears. The guards were orderly, professional and well-trained but there were just too many attackers. He began to shake, overwhelmed by all the magic flashing around him.

Poly had raced ahead of them and ripped off the wall hanging. She pushed it into Higgins' hands. "Carpet. You'll need it at the end of the passage." Polygon did an about-turn, whipped out her slate and proceeded to cast spells so fast that her hand was a blur.

The King tapped a pattern with his fingers on a section of the wall that was darker than the rest. A door swung back to reveal a passageway. He seized Skyhammer and pushed him into it.

"What about you, sir?" Skyhammer said.

The King looked at him. "They're not going to kill their source of magic, Skyhammer. Now find that Sorcerer!" The King touched Higgins on the shoulder. She stood hip-to-hip with Polygon, furiously casting spells.

Then the semi-circled guards turned to face Skyhammer.

A soft, "Oh," of fright escaped Skyhammer's lips. He stepped backwards into the passageway.

Acidophilous caught hold of the King and wrestled him into a corner, out of the protective circle. "I'm sorry, your Majesty. He can't be allowed to live."

Desperate but determined expressions on their faces, the guards raised their slates, eyes on Skyhammer.

Chapter 8

Countdown to ceremony: 15 days

"Stop!" Polygon shrieked.

Before any of the guards could move, she pushed Higgins into the passageway. Then the King's Wizard let loose a barrage of spells. The guards stumbled back.

Skyhammer caught Higgins as she staggered into him. The door to the passageway was closing.

Through the thinning crack, they watched Polygon send another volley of spells at the guards who all returned fire simultaneously. Polygon's body flew back against the closing door with a wet smack. The door shut. The attack faded to a low murmur.

Skyhammer and Higgins paused in the dark. He listened to her breath. Ragged. Like his. She sniffed. The guards would get into the passage soon. They had to leave. He couldn't move. He inhaled deeply. Musty air. He heard Higgins move. A light blossomed in front of him. A river of tears flowed down Higgins' cheeks. She had loved Polygon, he knew.

Skyhammer patted Higgins on the shoulder. "We have to get out of here." The floating light moved a couple of feet ahead of him, illuminating the purple walls and floor farther into the passageway. He didn't know what to say to Higgins. They had to keep moving.

"-t's go," she whispered, her voice clouded by tears.

Skyhammer followed the light. It stayed a few feet ahead of him. He turned once to make sure Higgins was following, and to take the orange wall hanging from her. Her tears had started again. She wiped them away with her sleeve.

The light led them down a few flights of stairs and past a couple of other passage entrances.

"How does the light know where to go?"

In a stronger voice, Higgins said, "I spelled it so it heads north and towards the nearest source of fresh air. We do need to hurry though. The guards will knows where the passage exits and they'll be forcing the King to open the door again soon. We'll be trapped."

They picked up the pace. After about fifteen minutes, the floating light turned right and disappeared. The corner remained illuminated.

"We're close to the outside!" Skyhammer rounded the corner. The passage opened up to a ledge with a view over the Crystal Lines.

"Nasuchu-teeth," Higgins swore. "We've got company. Already!" She withdrew her slate.

Skyhammer looked up. A horde of flying carpets was descending towards them. He dropped the orange wall hanging on the ledge and stepped on. "Then let's go! This is our carpet."

Higgins took a deep breath and stepped next to him. "Sit down. This is going be a crazy ride."

Before his bum had even touched the material, they were in the air and she had put up a green shield around them.

Skyhammer shut his eyes as they shot out across the Crystal Lines. If she had created a green shield, she must be expecting the colour to change at some point. Perhaps even to red. This meant she didn't think she could last long against her attackers. "We can make it to the edge of the Circle, right? Right?"

No response.

"Higgins? Higgins!" He opened his eyes and screamed in terror. They plummeted like a hawk to its prey while hundreds of dark shapes streamed down towards them through the sky.

"No, we can't," Higgins said through gritted teeth. "I can't steer this thing and fight them off at the same time."

"What can I do to help?"

Higgins laughed, a little manically, Skyhammer thought. "Pray." Their carpet dodged and weaved through a flurry of spells.

The fissures of the Crystal Lines lay only thirty feet below them now. Skyhammer looked up. A spell exploded against the shield, which dimmed to yellow.

"Oh buzzards," Higgins muttered.

"What?"

"Once that shield turns red, we're toast. I guess it's plan B." The wall hanging continued to plummet, Higgins' fingers flying across her slate.

"Uh, there's no exit down there, Higgins!" Skyhammer yelled. Three spells flared against the shield. It turned orange. "There's only-"

"Plan B, like I said," she yelled back. She dropped them straight into a fissure of the Crystal Lines.

* * *

The fissure walls of jagged white crystal shot up around him. An eerie howling raised the hair on Skyhammer's forearms. Five feet of air protected their carpet from the walls on either side. It was a tight squeeze.

Through the orange shield, Skyhammer glimpsed three carpets following them, dark against the white background of the crystal walls. "At least three following, Higgins." Floatilla blocked the sunlight, so if a carpet flew directly above them, he couldn't see it.

She nodded, manoeuvring the carpet through the fissure's sharp twists and turns.

The carpet shook as another spell burst against the shield. One more and that deep orange shade would be red, Skyhammer thought. And they would be dead. He peered at the walls - there was something odd about them. They were moving.

"Did we lose them?" Higgins shouted.

Skyhammer turned around. "Looks like it." The space above him seemed to have become white but he found it hard to tell through the orange shield. He supposed the carpet might have gone under an overhang. "Stop the carpet, Higgins."

The carpet froze.

"Drop the shields."

"What? No way." Higgins looked back over her shoulder at him, a puzzled expression on her face.

"We need to see something."

Higgins cast a spell. The orange shield disappeared, to be replaced with a transparent one. "No way am I leaving us shield-less. Who knows what is dow--" Her mouth gaped open.

White spikes the length of Skyhammer's hand projected from the crystal walls. They swayed, like grass on the seabed. A tiny bulb at the end of each spike was lit from inside by a blue light. Skyhammer looked up and sighed. The spikes ten feet above the carpet had grown across the fissure, blocking it completely. They were spaced a little more than a fingers-width apart.

"Great. Above us, the spikes are bars. And maybe this is why people never come back." He found himself reaching out to touch one and yanked his hand back.

"What?" Higgins looked up and frowned. "We're trapped," she said glumly then attempted to smile at Skyhammer. "Our pursuers will think we're dead."

"Because we probably are!"

"We didn't have any other choice. And the bars haven't killed us. Just stopped us from going back up. We can still fly straight ahead."

He sighed. "At least the howling has stopped."

"What howling?"

He stared at her. "You didn't hear that horrible noise when we first entered?"

She shook her head.

"Okay," he said. She was probably so involved in flying and casting spells that she blocked out other sounds. He shrugged. "Well, that way is the Palace so the other direction must be the edge of the Circle. We can either go down more or continue at this height."

"We need to reach the edge of the Circle," she said. The carpet headed right. "I hear something now."

They both listened. Flutes, faint, played around them.

"There were holes," Skyhammer whispered.

"What?" Higgins swung around to look at him. "What did you say?"

"I saw holes in the spikes. I think the wind moving through them is making that music."

Higgins smiled. "It's beautiful."

Skyhammer snapped his fingers. "It also means that fresh air is blowing through here. And if there is air-"

"There must be an exit!" Higgins sang out.

"Well, Tabitha?"

Higgins rolled her eyes.

"Let's go then!"

"In a minute." Higgins' face creased in a small smile.

He felt confused. "I thought we just agreed--"

"We haven't even tried to perform magic on the bars. Maybe the people who were trapped here before just didn't have enough magic power to get past the bars."

"Oh. It's worth a try, I suppose." Skyhammer sat back and opened his arms wide. "Be my guest."

Higgins sketched a few lines on her slate. A fireball burst against the bars a few feet above and ahead of them. Skyhammer shielded his eyes.

"No effect at all?" Higgins muttered. "I guess I'll try a stronger one."

Skyhammer didn't shield his eyes the second time. Again, there was no effect. "Try freezing them."

Higgins shrugged and sent a cloud of cold air up to surround the bars. Icicles formed on the bars, then dissipated. "That's-"

"Impossible?" Skyhammer asked. "These things are as impervious to magic as Relics. Maybe it is one big Relic." He slapped his backpack and gave her a smug smile. "Which gives me an idea."

Higgins looked at him.

"Fly this carpet to the edge of the Circle."

"You think it goes that far?"

"I think it does."

Higgins cast a spell. A silver light coalesced five feet in front of the carpet, hovering at eye level. "When that light disappears, we've reached the edge of the Circle."

Higgins set a dizzying pace. Skyhammer had to close his eyes.

After about ten minutes, the carpet stopped. "Are we there?" He opened his eyes and looked over the edge of the carpet. "Oh my."

At first, all he could see were exposed tree roots. The fissure's walls had opened up into a large cavern, not very deep, but quite wide. Roots covered the floor of the cavern but inverted, like the base of a tree felled by a storm. And instead of growing in dirt, the roots were growing in transparent crystal.

Higgins flew the carpet down until they were only two feet above the floor.

In some spots, there were serpentine gaps of a pond and feeder stream. Through these gaps, sky, clouds and animals were visible.

"Do you see what I see?" he asked. There was no forest for hundreds of miles near the Crystal Lines as far as he knew. Maybe the crystal went right through the center of the world and they were looking at the other side of the planet.

"An upside-down forest?" She was shaking her head.

"Yep." Birds and butterflies zoomed over the water; a frog paddled below him. He stared at the frog's belly. "Is it real?"

"I've seen a lot of weird things in my time with you but this is, well," she frowned, "extremely disconcerting."

"How can we get out of here?" Skyhammer dragged his gaze away from the cavern floor and looked up again.

"We keep following the bars." Higgins pointed to the opposite end of the cavern, in the direction they were headed. The fissure resumed.

With a last glance at the inverted forest, Higgins flew the carpet back up to the bars and continued flying just below, the silver beacon bouncing along in front of them.

* * *

Skyhammer's body was shaking. An earthquake, he thought blearily, opening his eyes. No, just Higgins rousing him. "Wha-?" He must have fallen asleep.

"We're here." She gave him a final shake. "My light died."

He sat up at once.

Three feet in front of them was a wall of darkness. To their left and right, the blue-tipped spikes stuck out of the crystal walls, still swaying, eerily lighting the space around them. Above, spikes barred their path up and out. In the light cast from their side, Skyhammer could see spikes of a similar size protruding from the crystal walls and a track of bars heading off into the darkness. As though an enormous shadow covered the fissure ahead of them, the shadow being the absence of the Royal Circle of magic. "So the spikes react to magic," he murmured. "Fascinating."

"Now what, genius?" Higgins crossed her arms and looked at him. "We're trapped over there too."

"We've tried your way. The magic way. And failed. Now we try it my way." He stood up and drew his sword from its scabbard. Gripping the hilt double-fisted, he swung at the bars above him with all his strength.

Higgins yelped and fell to her knees as the sword rebounded off the bars with a clang.

Skyhammer halted the rebounding blade a foot to the left of her. "Oops. Should've faced the other way, I guess." He smothered a smile.

She glared at him. "So much for your way. Don't you think the explorers that got trapped here before would've tried that?" She stood up.

"No, I don't," he said calmly. "They weren't explorers. They were magic-wielding humans. Those types of people depend on magic all the time. They wouldn't have brought a sword or probably even known how to use one. They would've been confident that magic could get them out of any trouble they got into as long as they were within the Royal Circle."