Dawn brought a cool breeze in to the cave, which was refreshing, but at the same time made Tom shiver. He awoke to the sound of Pelenes shuffling along and coughing. The old man had already rebuilt the fire and now slapped a pair of some kind of rodent down on a flat stone, producing a knife to skin them.
'Ah, you're up.' Pelenes noticed him. 'Make yourself useful and put the tea on.'
Tom did as he was told and then sat down, watching the man.
'I'm not complaining but why are you suddenly being nice to me?'
Pelenes snorted.
'Mages never care about where their power comes from, at least you've shown some promise in that regard. Plus its been a while since anybody has been around. I guess I want some company, even if it is a mage.'
'Are we really that bad?'
'Yes.' There was fire in Pelenes' eyes again for a moment. 'Mages are selfish. They take without asking and have no respect for the power, or for the world they use it on. Look outside - this used to be a fertile place, now monsters roam the blighted land.'
'Sorry.' Was all Tom could think to say.
'S'pose it's not your fault.' Pelenes relented. 'You're still young and haven't had a chance to do much meddling yet, have you?' He eyed Tom suspiciously.
'Um, no.' Tom said, thinking of how he'd ended up in the situation.
They ate in silence, then Pelenes led Tom through twisting tunnel to the cave entrance. Tom produced a map.'Could you show me where I am, please?'
Pelenes looked over the map.
'Heh, they're still going are they?'
'What? Who?' Tom was confused.
'The resistence.' Pelenes replied. 'I drew this one for them.' He looked at it closely. 'Or at least the original.'
'There was a couple in Risoli.' Tom furnished.
'Hmmm, good for them - doing something worthwhile with their lives, however short they turn out to be.'
'So, I'm...?' Tom gestured at the map, encouragingly.
'Oh yes.' Pelenes went back to looking at the map. 'You're about here.' He took a stub of charcoal out of a pocket and marked a neat little "x" towards the top of the map.
'How did I get here?' Tom puzzled. 'I teleported from the tower.'
Pelenes shrugged.
'Mind how you go with all these whispering flames around the place. Come back when you really want to know about Therina, too.'
'I will.' Tom started. 'Hang on - you know what those columns of fire are?'
'It's old magic.' Pelenes explained. 'From before mages or priests were around from what I understand. It was a way for the gods to talk to humans.'
'So what have they got to say to these monsters?' Pondered Tom.
'Beats me.' The old man said. 'But they're being long-winded about it - they've been active for a couple of weeks.'
Tom thanked Pelenes and started making his way South, back to the Magehold.
It was about a mile later that Tom found he could conjure properly again. He'd been trying surrepticiously since leaving the cave, but it was just as Pelenes had said - like being in the eye of the storm. Tom couldn't believe he'd actually seen the statue of Therina, the source of the Archmage's power. He couldn't understand why the Archmage wouldn't have it guarded or within the Magehold, though - unless it was invulnerable to tampering. After the first mile the journey went a lot quicker, as Tom teleported between hilltops. By mid-morning he was standing on the small rise outside the Magehold that had been used as an observation point. There was no sign of Kael or Amelia, so Tom sat and thought on what to do next. On the one hand, it would be easier to find and free Isabelle if there were three of them, on the other he had no idea where Kael or Amelia were. Having weighed the options, Tom decided to teleport in to the tower and muddle through on his own.
With a gesture and a mumble, Tom found himself in a room on the fourth floor. It appeared to be a sitting romo that hadn't been used for years. The windows were filthy and a small cloud of dust arose from Tom's landing. Stifling a cough, he tip-toed to the door and put his ear to it; there was only the sound of gentle snoring. Tom was about to open the door when there was a shout from the hallway.
'Oi! Wake up before the Archmage finds out and uses you for target practice.'
'I wasn't sleeping.'
'Yeah, 'cos you always guard slumped in your chair with your eyes closed mumbling about Betty the scullery maid.'
The sullen silence following the second voice walking off, was replaced by the regular footsteps of a guard patrolling. Tom swore under his breath, then waited for the footsteps to pass, before easing the door open and slipping in to the corridor. The guard was a large man, wearing armour that was too small leading to rolls of fat protruding from gaps in his uniform. Tom made a face and then quietly moved to the back stairs. As he got to the stair well, he could hear voices coming up from below. Paniking, Tom levitated up over the banister and held his breath. The guards passed by underneath him without an upwards glance and, as they neared the top of the flight, Tom let himself descend to the third floor, exhaling as he went. He carried on down the stairs, stopping briefly at each level to check that the patrol was heading away from him, until he reached the dungeons.
They reminded him of Therina's cave, only they were colder and drier. Torches burned every ten yards or so, barely illuminating the place. The layout was different to the upper floors, being comprised of concentric circular hallways bisected length-ways and width-ways by two long corridors. It seemed to be wider than the tower above it too, maybe as wide as the outer wall. At the centre, like a spider in a web sat the head gaoler at his small desk, reading some documents. Tom slipped in to the shadows of the first ring of the dungeons before he was noticed.
The cells were small and dirty, but most were unoccupied. None of the prisoners he did pass looked like Isabelle or Amelia, none of them even summoned the energy to look up at him. Tom crept along the arc to the next corridor, then scuttled across the gap and continued his search. Part way around the second ring, Tom found Amelia. She was curled up in the corner of her cell and Tom almost passed by thinking she was a pile of rags.
'Amelia.' He hissed through the bars. 'I've come to rescue you.'
The pile moved and Amelia peered out at him.
'Huh. Finally.' She said. 'I can't believe you left me here.'
'I had no choice.' Tom said. 'I was trapped, I had to teleport out.'
'What took you so long to get back?'
'That's a long story. Let's get Isabelle and get out of here first.' Tom's heart was pounding with adrenalin.
'Have you found her?' Amelia asked.
'No.' Tom admitted.
'Have you got anything I can use to pick the lock?'
'Uh.' Tom patted his pockets theatrically. 'Sorry. What do you need? I can go and try to find a paperclip or something.'
Amelia sighed. 'You really are useless at this sort of thing, aren't you?' She pushed open the cell door. 'Good thing I'm a lot better.'
'What? How did you?'
'I was never locked in, I just popped in to hide while I waited for you to come back.' Amelia explained. 'No-one expects you to get in to one of these voluntarily.'
'And your clothes?' Tom enquired.
'Necessary part of the disguise.' Amelia said. 'Tore them up and rolled around on the floor for a bit. You know these dungeons are cleaner than the ones in Harrowden?'
'Thanks.' Tom deadpanned. 'Now help me look for Isabelle.'
'First things first. Guards!'
'What are you doing?'
'Shhh.' Amelia put a finger to her lips and walked back in to the cell, shutting the door behind her. 'Guards!'
The head gaoler lumbered around the corner with a bored look on his face, then he saw Tom. Tom ran, pursued by the guard, who got as far as Amelia's cell, before she opened the door in to him, laying him out cold. She dragged him in to the cell, stepped over his prone form in a ladylike manner and retrieved his keys. Then she locked him up and started unlocking the prisoner's cells.
'Wait.' Tom said, having jogged back. 'We don't know why they were locked up, they could be murderers or something.'
Amelia looked pointedly at the little old lady behind the bars.
'Ok, bad example.' Tom admitted.
'The Archmage doesn't give a damn about justice or the law. These people are all locked up for being dissenting voices.' Amelia said. 'And they might have seen Isabelle.'
'Fine.' Said Tom, huffily. 'But don't come complaining to me if you get stabbed.'
Amelia rolled her eyes and went back to the other prisoners. About twenty minutes later, Amelia found Tom looking through the documents on the head gaoler's desk.
'Find anything?' She asked.
'No. There's an entry here for a female paladin prisoner, but then she was moved.'
'Same here. One or two of the prisoners remember seeing her, but she was taken back out the same day. What now?'
Tom thought back to the previous failed search for Isabelle.
'The only other place I can think of is upstairs. There's a room that was guarded as soon as the alarm was raised last time.'
'Lead on then.'
They snuck up the stairs, keeping a close eye on the guards they passed on each floor, until they reached as high as the steps went. There were more guards on this floor, and no way of sneaking around them. Instead, They went back down one floor and slipped in to the room underneath the one Tom had seen guarded. This room was a guest bedroom, a canopied bed took up much of the floor, with an antique dresser and massive wardrobe accounting for the rest. Tom pointed at a spot in the ceiling, towards one of the corners behind the wardrobe and an inch-wide hole opened up to the floor above. Amelia climbed up and extended her mirror on a stick again.
'I can see her!' She whispered excitedly. ' She's strapped to a chair. 'Oh dear, she doesn't look to be in very good condition.'
'Right.' Tom rolled up his sleeves.
'Wait, someone's just come in.' Amelia stuck out a hand to signal him to stay put.
She put her ear close to the hole.
'He's asking her about Harrowden.' She frowned. 'Something about how big the army is.'
'Why?' Tom pondered. 'Any army led by the Archmage would crush whatever stood in front of it.'
'Shhh.' Amelia waved him quiet.
Irritated, Tom levitated up to the ceiling and pressed his own ear to it.
'...paladin regiments?' A muffled male voice filtered through to Tom.
After a moment, there was a slap and a the sound of something heavy hitting the floor. Amelia switched back to her mirror.
'She's on the floor, bleeding.' She said in horror.
Tom felt the rage boiling up inside him, he couldn't resist its call. Before he knew it, Tom was standing in the interrogation room. There was a neatly burned hole in the floor and Isabelle was at his feet, looking scared. Tom untied her and helped her up, looking around for the interrogator.
'Are you ok? Where is he?' Tom asked.
'He was standing there.' Isabelle pointed at the hole, in shock. 'You just burned up through him.'
'Well it couldn't have happened to a nicer chap.' Tom said. 'Come on, let's get you out of here.'
Isabelle wrapped her arms around him and he levitated them back down through the hole. It was only when he landed on the floorboards that he noticed she was crying.
'Oh Tom, I thought I was going to die in there.' She said. 'But now you're here and there's a chance. Thank you.' She kissed him on the cheek.
'Ok.' Tom was speechless, he'd never seen Isabelle like this. 'It's ok, let's go.'
Amelia made sure the coast was clear, then took them back towards the stairs. As she approached, she stopped and held up a hand, then urgently waved them off, coming back and darting in to another room with them.
'There's about ten of them coming up the stairs.' She said.
Tom was more interested in the room they were in - it was like a laboratory. There were beakers, flasks and distillation tubes of all shapes and sizes arranged around the place. On a workbench sat a familiar-looking red crystal, next to a glass sphere, which was approximately six inches across.
'A focusing crystal.' Tom said. 'Why would the Archmage need one of them?'
'You got me.' Amelia said. 'Can we concentrate on escaping for the moment, though.'
'Just a second, let me take a look - it might be important.'
Tom picked up the focusing crystal, it was just like the one in the temple, but had some scorch marks on its faces and was mounted on a metal star-shaped base. Next he picked up the glass ball, and found himself looking at the ground from a hundred feet up, through a fish-eye lens and a wall of flame.
'Bugger me!' Tom exclaimed dropping the sphere.
They all watched in horror as it smashed on the floor. The door handle turned, but Amelia had already locked the door.
'You idiot.' She told Tom, as the hammering started.
'He's asking her about Harrowden.' She frowned. 'Something about how big the army is.'
'Why?' Tom pondered. 'Any army led by the Archmage would crush whatever stood in front of it.'
'Shhh.' Amelia waved him quiet.
Irritated, Tom levitated up to the ceiling and pressed his own ear to it.
'...paladin regiments?' A muffled male voice filtered through to Tom.
After a moment, there was a slap and a the sound of something heavy hitting the floor. Amelia switched back to her mirror.
'She's on the floor, bleeding.' She said in horror.
Tom felt the rage boiling up inside him, he couldn't resist its call. Before he knew it, Tom was standing in the interrogation room. There was a neatly burned hole in the floor and Isabelle was at his feet, looking scared. Tom untied her and helped her up, looking around for the interrogator.
'Are you ok? Where is he?' Tom asked.
'He was standing there.' Isabelle pointed at the hole, in shock. 'You just burned up through him.'
'Well it couldn't have happened to a nicer chap.' Tom said. 'Come on, let's get you out of here.'
Isabelle wrapped her arms around him and he levitated them back down through the hole. It was only when he landed on the floorboards that he noticed she was crying.
'Oh Tom, I thought I was going to die in there.' She said. 'But now you're here and there's a chance. Thank you.' She kissed him on the cheek.
'Ok.' Tom was speechless, he'd never seen Isabelle like this. 'It's ok, let's go.'
Amelia made sure the coast was clear, then took them back towards the stairs. As she approached, she stopped and held up a hand, then urgently waved them off, coming back and darting in to another room with them.
'There's about ten of them coming up the stairs.' She said.
Tom was more interested in the room they were in - it was like a laboratory. There were beakers, flasks and distillation tubes of all shapes and sizes arranged around the place. On a workbench sat a familiar-looking red crystal, next to a glass sphere, which was approximately six inches across.
'A focusing crystal.' Tom said. 'Why would the Archmage need one of them?'
'You got me.' Amelia said. 'Can we concentrate on escaping for the moment, though.'
'Just a second, let me take a look - it might be important.'
Tom picked up the focusing crystal, it was just like the one in the temple, but had some scorch marks on its faces and was mounted on a metal star-shaped base. Next he picked up the glass ball, and found himself looking at the ground from a hundred feet up, through a fish-eye lens and a wall of flame.
'Bugger me!' Tom exclaimed dropping the sphere.
They all watched in horror as it smashed on the floor. The door handle turned, but Amelia had already locked the door.
'You idiot.' She told Tom, as the hammering started.
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