Mercedes Lackey: Castle of Deception

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 keep 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.