S Farrell - A Magic of Nightfall

Varina placed her right eye to the keyhole, peering through. She shook her head, then hunkered next to the doorframe. She spoke a single spell-word, gesturing with her hands at the same time: wood shivered into sawdust around the keyhole, the work of a thousand wood-ants performed in an instant, and the metal mechanism slipped down in the ragged, new hole with a dull plonk. Varina caught the bolt and wriggled it slowly and carefully loose, then pulled on the door once more. This time it gave way reluctantly but silently, and they slipped through and onto damp, well-used pavestones, poorly illuminated by torches set in ring sconces at long intervals along the walls-at least a third of them having already guttered out, streaks of black soot staining the low ceilings above them. The corridor reeked of oil and smoke and urine.

Karl pulled the door closed again behind them and studied it quickly. A casual passerby might not notice the spell-bored gouge in the dimness; it would have to do. Silently, he pointed to their right and they began padding quickly along the corridor.

All the passages will lead off to the left. Count two, and take the third. That’s what Sergei had told him; now he watched carefully as they hurried. One opening, down which they could hear the sound of someone screaming: a long, thin, and plaintive mewling that didn’t sound human-Karl felt Varina shudder alongside him. Two: a brightly-lit passageway, and the sound of distant, rough voices laughing at some private joke and calling out.

Three. Down a short corridor, worn stone steps spiraled upward, and they could hear low voices and the sounds of inhabitation. The tower…

Varina’s hand grasped his arm; she leaned close to him, her warmth welcome against his side. “We should wait. Mika…”

“For all we know, he’s already done his part. Or he’s been caught himself. Either way…”

Her hand loosened on his arm. She nodded. He and Varina slipped down the corridor and began to ascend, as quietly as possible. The stairs, Sergei had told them, wound once around the perimeter of the tower for each floor, with a short landing at each, with a door leading to the cells for that floor. There would be gardai assigned to each floor, changing at Third Call. Already, Karl could glimpse the landing for the ground floor. He could hear two people talking-whether two gardai, or perhaps a garda and one of the prisoners, he didn’t know. He started up the stair, hugging the stone wall…

… which was when they felt the tower shake once, accompanied by a low growl and a brief flash of white light that splashed on the damp surface of the stones. Karl and Varina pressed their backs to the wall as voices called out in alarm. They heard the door to the tower open, felt the touch of night air and smelled the rain. “What in the six pits is going on?” a voice called out into the night. “Was that lightning?”

The response was unintelligible and long. They heard the door close, followed by the grating of a key in a lock mechanism. “What’s the ruckus, Dorcas?” someone else called.

“Someone just tried to get in through the main gate-bastard used the Ilmodo. Took down both the doors. They think it might be a Numetodo. The commandant’s locked us down; I’m to tell the others. No one in, no one out while cu’Falla investigates and gets some teni here from the temple. Got it?”

A grunt answered, and Karl heard footsteps on the stairs, fading quickly.

Karl nodded to Varina. They moved.

A triangle of yellow flickered on the stones of the landing; he could see a shadow moving in the pool of light. Karl closed his eyes momentarily, feeling the spells he’d prepared earlier coiling in his head. He stepped out: his hands already moving, the release word already on his lips as Varina slipped past him and darted up the steps toward the next landing. “Hey, what-” the garda said, but Karl had already spoken the word, and lightning flared from Karl’s hand to slam the garda into the wall behind him. The man went down, unconscious, and Karl hurried forward. He started to follow Varina, but voices called to him from the trio of cells there. “Vajiki! What about us! The keys, man, the keys…” Hands reached out from barred windows in stout oaken doors.

He hesitated, and the calls continued, more insistent. “Let us out, Vajiki! You can’t leave us here!”

Karl shook his head. Having the prisoners loose would only complicate things, make the situation more chaotic than it already was and possibly more dangerous: not all the prisoners in the Bastida were political, and not all were innocent.

He followed Varina up the stairs to curses and shouts.

Varina had already repeated the process on the second floor. “I’m about exhausted,” she told him, visibly sagging against the wall. “I’ve only one spell left in me; I’ve been calling the spells up on the fly like a teni.”

He nodded; he felt the same exhaustion, and there was little power left in him. “I’ll take the next one. We need to have enough left when we get to the Regent.” Together, they moved on to the third level, hurrying as quickly as they could. Sergei’s cell, they knew, was on the fourth level, though as they approached the third level, they heard voices talking. “The commandant says that we’re to bring you to him,” someone-the one called Dorcas-was saying.

“He said he would come himself,” Karl heard Sergei’s voice protesting; the man’s voice sounded alarmed.

“The commandant’s rather busy at the moment.”

“Give me my hands, at least. This stair…”

“Nah. The commandant said you were to be manacled…”

Karl saw a booted foot appear on the curving stair at nearly head level. He felt the roiling of the last remnants of the Scath Cumhacht in his head, and spoke the release word even as he stepped out from the wall; just behind him, he heard Varina do the same. Twin lightnings shot out, and the gardai holding ca’Rudka dropped. Sergei stumbled and went down, falling on the stair and nearly knocking over Karl. The second gardai-Dorcas, Karl assumed-remained standing, however; his sword hissed from the sheath, and he thrust at Varina, who clutched her arm and fell back. Sergei kicked at the man’s knee; he howled and started to fall; Sergei kicked again, and Dorcas tumbled down the stairs headfirst. He didn’t move again, his head bent at a terrible angle.

“I didn’t think you were coming,” Sergei said.

“I keep my promises,” Karl told him. “Now, let’s get out of here. .. Varina?”

She shook her head. Karl could see blood welling between the fingers she clutched to her arm, and he tore at his own clothing for a bandage. “I’ll slow you down,” she said. “Get going. I’ll follow as fast as I can.”

“I’m not leaving you here.” He bound the wound with strips of cloth, tying them off tightly. Her face was pale, and there was more blood than Karl would have liked soaking her tashta. “I’ve nothing left of the Scath Cumhacht. You?”

She shook her head. As he knotted the bandages tighter, she grimaced.

Sergei was crouching alongside the garda. Karl heard the rattle of steel against steel and the jingle of keys, and Sergei pulled the manacles from his hand and tossed them on the stair. He took a rapier from one of the gardai.

“Take the one from the other garda,” Varina said to Karl. “We might need it.”

Karl shook his head. “Let’s move,” he said. They hurried down the stair, Karl helping Varina. He could feel her sagging, growing heavier in his arms and slower with each flight. The prisoners screamed and shouted as they passed, shaking the bars of their cells, but Karl ignored them. They reached the ground floor, and-more slowly-started down the long curve to the lower level. Karl began to think that they would make it. They were nearly there. Varina shuffling behind him, Sergei ahead, they hurried down the short passage to the main corridor. Two intersections, another turn and a short corridor, and they would be at the door that would lead them to the ancient, unused tunnel and their waiting boat.