Wizard of the Grove (49 page)

Soft golden light spilled out over the threshold.

“Anything?” he asked as Crystal and Jago dropped to their knees and even Sokoji bent to get a better line of sight.

“Nothing.” Jago said. Crystal and Sokoji nodded agreement.

“Nothing?” Raulin repeated, shrugged, pushed away from the wall, and stepped inside.

The gatehouse appeared the same size on the inside as on the outside. Based on what Crystal had told him, Raulin knew that wasn't always a given in wizard-created buildings. The soft golden light radiated down from all but one corner of the ceiling where the tiles were broken, dull, and gray. A great diagonal gouge marked one wall; the others were smooth and all four were bright red. They reminded him of raw meat. Not a particularity comforting analogy.

The floor was the same black marble as the stairs and in the center was a massive slab of ebony. It took Raulin a moment to understand why the ebony appeared to have been splashed liberally with blood and then he remembered what Sokoji had said. Rubies; stones ranging in size from tiny flecks to ovals too large to completely fit on his palm.

Their beauty as much as the wealth they represented tugged at him, drew him forward. So many and so red. Burning . . .

He caught himself in midstride, shook his head like a dog coming out of water or a man out of a dream, and put the foot back where he had lifted it from. Slowly and methodically, keeping his eyes off the gems, he searched the room for less obvious traps. At the spot beside the ebony slab where feet would have to be braced to raise it, he grunted and stopped a careful arm's length away.

“Never a rock around when you need one,” he sighed, unlacing his boot. He unwound his scarf and wrapped the boot in the center of it. Holding both ends in one hand, he swung the whole thing around like a flexible hammer and slammed it down on the pressure plate.

Sword blades immediately thrust up from the floor at random points throughout the room.

“Raulin!” Through the open door, Jago saw the flash of steel and flung himself down the stairs.

Crystal tried to follow, but Sokoji held her.

“Wait,” said the giant, “until you know he needs you.”

Jago reached the door and clutched at the frame to stop his headlong rush.

“I'm okay,” Raulin reassured him, stepping back. The razor edge had only parted the hairs of his heavy coat and not even cut the hide beneath. “Dumb luck strikes again.” He glared. “And who told you you could come down here?”

“Just seeing if you'd fallen asleep, you were taking so long.”

“You always were lousy at waiting for things.”

Both men wore expressions much gentler than their words.

Raulin rapped the boot he held against the flat of a blade. “You might as well come in, this is as secure as it gets. Call Sokoji and Crystal.”

Sokoji reacted to the call by lifting both abandoned packs. With one dangling from each hand, she turned to Crystal.

“Go,” Crystal told her. “We know it's safe for you. I'll wait until you're off the stairs.”

The giant nodded and descended.

Crystal waited, readying her power, trying to remain calm. Doubt would only rouse the goddesses and leave her less able to deal with
whatever traps Aryalan had left.
I
dealt with a living Kraydak,
she reminded herself.
This should be nothing in comparison.

Sokoji reached the bottom and Crystal started down.

And it was nothing. Nothing at all.

Standing safely in the doorway, Crystal forced herself to relax. Apparently Aryalan had set no traps for her fellow wizards on the stairs. Or the traps that had been set had faded over the years. Or the trap was too subtle to be immediately obvious. The litany tightened her stomach back into knots and she sighed.

“Hey, Crystal,” Raulin's voice came muffled around the finger he'd stuck in his mouth, “Could you do something about these?” He waved at the blades with his free hand. “They're a little in the way.”

“Are you all right?” she demanded.

“He's fine,” Jago said, grinning like an idiot. “Just clumsy.”

Raulin's grin grew just as wide. “You're the one who suddenly wanted to dance.”

“Dance?” Crystal frowned, then caught sight of the rubies. “Ah, dance.”

The blades glowed briefly green and slumped to the floor.

“The use of power may set off other traps,” Sokoji pointed out.

Crystal shrugged. “It didn't. And I don't think it matters.”

“She's right, Sokoji,” Raulin enthused, stripping off his overcoat and dropping the heavy fur to the floor by his hat and mittens and scarf. “It doesn't matter. There's more than enough treasure here. We don't have to go into the tower.
This
is as bad as it gets.”

Only Jago saw Crystal's face at that moment. It was so carefully blank he grew suspicious.

“Are we still in danger?” he asked.

“I think not,” Sokoji answered. She stretched back her arm and pushed the door shut. “As your brother said, you have no need to go into the tower.”

Shrugging out of his coat, Jago allowed himself to be convinced. Crystal could have any number of reasons for hiding what she thought, any number.

“Sokoji,” Raulin sat down to pull his boot on and prodded one of the now flaccid swords, “why didn't you set off this trap? Didn't you try to lift the slab?”

“I saw the plate—I think it is meant to be seen—and leaned over from the other side. A position only one of my kind would be both tall and strong enough to use.” She paused, remembering. “I loosed something else.”

All eyes turned to the gouged wall and the dark corner of ceiling, then back to the giant.

“I won,” she said, and fell silent.

Then the silence lengthened.

Raulin rose to his knees and pulled his dagger. “Well, come on,” he waved the point at Jago, “our future isn't going to pop out of that door unaided.”

“Are you sure it's safe?” Jago asked, tossing his braids back behind his shoulders as he knelt beside his brothers.

“The gems will not be trapped.”

All three, Raulin, Jago, and Crystal, turned to look at Sokoji, who paused in pulling the teapot from a pocket to return their multiple stare.

“To you this is a fortune,” she explained. “To Aryalan it was merely a decoration. Wizards have no use for wealth.”

Raulin nodded, accepting the statement at face value. He slipped his dagger point beneath a small rectangular jewel and began to pry it loose.

Jago watched Crystal's face for a moment, wishing their link was stronger. He'd heard a double meaning in Sokoji's words and didn't understand what it was. Crystal knew, he'd bet his share of these “decorations” on it. Then it hit him. Wizards
have
no use for wealth. Not had. Have.

“Crystal.”

When she turned to face him, he knew the answer.

“You're going into the tower, aren't you?”

“Yes.”

Metal rang on ebony as Raulin's blade fell from his hand.

“W
e're going with you and that's that.”

“No, you aren't.” Crystal thrust both hands up through her hair and paced the length of the room. At the far end she turned, marshaled her arguments for what seemed like the thousandth time, took a deep breath, and sighed. “What can I say to convince you two to stay here?” she asked plaintively, leaning against the bright red wall and sliding down it to the floor.

Raulin came over and sat beside her, wrapping one arm around her shoulders. “If you go down there, so do we.”

She twisted to face him. “I
have
to go down there. The tower is too dangerous to just leave. If even a small fraction of Aryalan's power remains . . . You know the sorts of weapons a wizard wields.”

“We know.”

“I'm the only one who can destroy the threat and I've got to do it now, before someone else stumbles on it, learns to use it, and tries to start the madness all over again.”

“We understand that.”

“If you go with me, I'll be too busy taking care of you to look out for myself. You'll be putting me in danger.”

Raulin caught Crystal's flailing hand and held it. “And what if you need taking care of? Who's there for you?”

Crystal looked across to where the giant sat by the door. “Sokoji?” she pleaded.

“He is right,” Sokoji said placidly. “If you are not like the ancient
wizards, prove it now. In their pride, they denied friendship and thought only they were capable. They refused to admit others could stand beside them; saw no strengths but their own.”

Crystal winced, but Raulin flashed a triumphant grin at his brother.

“Crystal,” Jago dropped to one knee before her. “Could you watch a friend you loved go into danger while you stayed safely behind?”

“No,” she murmured, and then louder, “no.”

“Then don't ask it of us. Please.”

She rubbed her cheek against Raulin's arm where it rested on her shoulder. “You two are crazy. You know that, don't you?”

Recognizing capitulation, Raulin smiled in agreement and Jago laid his hands on both of theirs. “We know,” he said softly.

Later that night, Sokoji watched the two mortals and the wizard sleep, a tangle of arms and legs, and gold and silver hair. One of Jago's braids had come undone and his hair and Crystal's had wound in and about each other until they were so completely entwined only power would be able to get them apart. She looked from them to the ebony door, now plucked clean of its rubies. The tower did need to be dealt with and the last living wizard was the only one who could do it; the giants had long since come to that conclusion.

That the last living wizard was also the only one who could fully use the mysteries of Aryalan's tower, the giants were well aware. Nor had they, like Doan, dismissed the centaurs' fears out of hand. If they had not felt there was some basis for those fears, they would not have offered to watch; the wizard was at the time an unknown and unknowns should be investigated.

It hadn't taken much watching for Sokoji to decide that the centaurs had no real knowledge of the child they'd raised and the wizard they'd trained. If Crystal broke, it would be duty that struck the blow, not license. Duty the centaurs had taught her. In Sokoji's opinion, Crystal's greatest fault was her self-doubt, her fear that a very normal and healthy self-interest would lead her down the paths of the ancient wizards.

Raulin muttered in his sleep and tugged at the cover. Jago snorted and hung on. Neither woke.

Sokoji wondered if the brothers suspected how much they had remolded the shattered bits of Crystal between them.

*   *   *

“Are you ready?”

Raulin and Jago clutched at their daggers, Crystal wrapped her power about her, all three nodded.

Planting her feet firmly, Sokoji leaned across the width of the trapdoor, slipped two fingers beneath the ebony bar, and lifted.

Smoothly and quietly, the door rose.

Another black marble staircase, broad and wide enough for the giant to descend, spiraled down into Aryalan's tower. The walls were a familiar red. The air drifting up into the gatehouse smelled strongly of roses. The soft, golden wizard-light continued down the stairs, although they saw no visible source.

“Okay,” Raulin transferred his dagger to his left hand and wiped the palm of his right on his pants. Like Jago, he wore his jacket but left the fur overcoat behind with the packs. Besides the dagger, he carried a waterskin and the belt pouch that held the rubies. He didn't know why he brought the rubies. He supposed the answer he'd given Jago,
If I'm going to die, I might as well die rich,
was as good a reason as any. “Okay,” he said again. “I go first, then Crystal, then Jago. Keep one step apart, no more, and sing out if anything seems the slightest bit suspicious.”

He put his right foot down on the first step and slowly shifted his weight onto it. Nothing. Then the next step . . . then the next. . . . When his head dipped below the level of the trapdoor, he suddenly felt as if his ears had been stuffed with lamb's wool. Slowly, he reached up and touched Crystal's leg. Rubbing his fingers against the rough cloth of her pants made no sound.

“Crystal?” He felt her hand wrap around his. As far as he could tell, that was his only answer. Holding on to her tightly, he backed up until his head was once more in the gatehouse. The ambient noise seemed very loud.

“Did you hear me call?” he asked.

Crystal shook her head and looked worried. “No.”

Raulin chewed on one end of his mustache. “I think it's just soundproofing. Crystal, keep hold of my hand, and Jago, take her other one. Don't follow her down until she tugs twice. If we can't talk to each other down there . . .” He shrugged. “Well, only one way to find out.”

He backed down the stairs, not taking his eyes off Crystal's face. Her expression told him when she hit the effect. “Can you hear me?” he asked.

She smiled in relief, her hair lifting out a little from her ears. “Perfectly.”

“We'd better test it.” He kissed her fingers. The kisses made no noise, but the words were clear. “You're the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“You haven't met my mother.” She flicked a fingertip against the end of his nose. “We'd better let Jago know everything is all right.”

“I suppose so.” Raulin sighed dramatically—and, he was pleased to note, audibly.

Crystal grinned and drew his hand up to her lips. She kissed his palm and closed the fingers over it. “For later,” she pledged.

He laid the hand against his heart and waggled his brows in his best lecherous manner. Then he turned and started carefully down the rest of the stairs.

Jago, upon entering the soundproofing, merely murmured, “Interesting,” and continued to place his feet precisely where Raulin and Crystal had stepped. He wished he had the comforting bulk of Sokoji at his back, but the giant had remained in the gatehouse. No one had asked her why, and Jago suspected it was because they hadn't wanted to hear the reason.

Crystal kept both arms tight to her sides so they wouldn't brush against the walls accidentally. Perhaps Kraydak had been unique in mortaring his tower with the trapped souls of the dead. Perhaps not. She didn't want to find out.

Why not? If they're there; they'll call their Lord, and he'll have to come.
Avreen's voice slid like silk through her mind.

Crystal gritted mental teeth but made no answer and Avreen's mocking laughter accompanied her down the next few steps.

Raulin squinted but couldn't see into the gloom that hid the bottom of the stairs. Although their immediate area remained brightly lit, the wizard-light staying with them as they descended, he'd have preferred a little less light where they were and a little more where they were going. He weighed the danger of Crystal sending light ahead against the probable consequences of her depleting her power and decided the gloom would lift eventually on its own. But Chaos, he hated not knowing what he was walking into.

*   *   *

Sokoji watched Jago's golden head disappear around the first turn in the spiral staircase. She could've gone with them to the stair's end but didn't see the point as she could go no farther whether she wished to or not. Nor, she admitted to herself, did she want to take a chance that what had waited for her at the bottom waited there still. It was no danger to the others, but she didn't think she could defeat it again.

She smiled as she heard a faint sound outside the gatehouse door.

“Come in, Doan,” she called.

The door swung open and the dwarf stood on the threshold, his sword drawn and a crescent shaped slice of black marble lying at his feet. “Damned step tried to fold up on me,” he explained when he saw the direction of Sokoji's gaze. He kicked the piece of stone out of his way and stepped into the room, his brows rising at the limp blades scattered about on the floor. “Had a bit of trouble?”

She shrugged. “Not really.”

Doan shoved the door closed and slammed his sword back into its sheath. “When did you know I was following you?” he demanded.

“I never thought you wouldn't. Taking another's word for something is not your way.”

He jerked his chin at the hole in the floor. “They gone down?”

“Yes.”

“All three of them?”

“Yes.”

“And I should stay right where I am?”

“This is her chance to prove herself to herself. Don't ruin it by upsetting the balance she had achieved.”

“Pah!” He thrust his hands behind his belt and snarled, “So what do we do now?”

Sokoji's expression saddened. “We wait.”

Doan snorted. He hated waiting. “And we think, no doubt,” he added sarcastically.

“No. We try not to.”

*   *   *

They reached the bottom of the stairs without incident Crystal couldn't understand why. Surely Aryalan would've trapped the only entrance to her tower. Raulin paused on the last step and Crystal watched anxiously as he lowered one foot carefully to the floor. And then the other. He walked three paces away and then it was her turn. Nothing.

The room they stood in had been done in the same combination of red and black.

Enough is enough,
sighed a voice Crystal thought was Sholah's and she had to agree with the sentiment. The vibrant colors only added to the tension.

She heard Jago step off the stairs behind her, then she heard Raulin gasp.

“What . . .” she began to ask, then fell silent.

Out of the shadows that hid the corners of the room, stepped a woman. Strands of gold wove through the thick chestnut of her hair, flecks of gold brightened the soft brown of her eyes, and a sprinkle of gold danced across the cream of her cheeks. She stood almost as tall as the wizard and almost as slender. Her smile, although touched with sadness, brought such beauty to her face that beauty seemed a word completely inadequate to describe it.

“Mother?”

Tayer, the Queen of Ardhan, held out her hands. “Have you no welcome for me, Crystal? I traveled far to speak with you.”

“Mother?” Crystal cursed the break in her voice and reached out with power. This had to be of Aryalan's making. But it felt like the memory she held of her mother. “You can't be here.”

The sadness on Tayer's face deepened. “The dead can be anywhere,” she said softly.

“Dead?” Crystal's mouth went dry. “You can't be dead. I'd know.” She turned her probe into a spear and drove it into the heart of whatever it was that stood before her. Nothing blocked the blow. Not a woman with a life of her own. Not a creature created by wizardry.

“Your power can't affect the dead.” Tayer shook her head and sighed. “I've never lied to you, child, why should I start now?”

“But I'd know,” Crystal repeated, suddenly unsure if she would. “If you were dead, I'd know.”

“Perhaps not. We've grown apart lately, you and I. I blame myself for that.”

“No, Mother. I . . .” With a shock, Crystal realized this—this something—had more than half convinced her it—she—spoke the truth.

“You were a miracle, Crystal, and I was never sure of how to treat you. I suppose if I'd treated you like my daughter, and that alone, things would have been better between us.” Tayer gazed sadly into emerald eyes. “But that's behind us now. I've come for another reason. Your father needs you. I'm afraid for him.”

“Father needs . . .” The words wrapped around her and made it difficult to think. Something was wrong. Something was missing.

“Mother . . .”
No!
she told herself.
This is not my mother.
“How did you die?”

A blush stained Tayer's perfect cheek, the expression making her appear absurdly young. “I thought it was only a cold; that it would go away . . .”

“Oh, mother.” Crystal took a step forward, turned away, then turned back. Tayer had always argued with the Royal Physicians, insisting she was perfectly healthy long before they thought she should be up. This was exactly the sort of thing Crystal had always been afraid would happen one day. Her heart caught in her throat. “Mother?”

Tayer nodded. “Yes, my darling. I'm sorry.”

Crystal reached out a trembling hand. It passed through Tayer's shoulder. Not even a wizard could touch the dead.

“Crystal, you must go to your father. Now.”

“I, I can't.”

“I never asked you for anything when I was alive, my child.”

“But I can't!” Crystal wailed. “I can't.”

“Is it because . . . because he isn't your father by blood?”

“No!” Forgetting she couldn't touch, Crystal reached out in shock. “I never . . .”

“He always loved you as if you were his own.”