Rob Scott - Lessek_s Key

She accidentally rolled onto her shoulder, and was painfully reminded that she had fallen two hundred feet onto a rock. Eventually, she slept again.

This time when she awakened, the sun was fully out and brightening the snow at the edge of the meadow. Hoyt was still awake, cooking sausages in the small pan he carried. The food smelled good; despite the fact that she had eaten only a short while earlier, she was famished. On the opposite side of the campfire, Alen was sleeping. She guessed that anyone who had lived as long as Alen would need a great deal of sleep – and the former Larion Senator was world class at it: there were few places Alen did not manage to sleep like a cadaver from dark to dawn. Hannah frequently worried that the older man had died in his sleep, and she often forced Churn or Hoyt to go back to their rooms and make certain Alen was still breathing.

She would have been surprised to know that, unlike Gilmour, Alen chose to sleep. He revelled in it, enjoying the feeling of being completely fatigued, especially in the moments right before drifting off. Gilmour slept only when he felt the need to rejuvenate his physical self.

With one arm, Hannah pushed herself into a sitting position, a definite improvement. ‘What’s for breakfast?’ she called.

‘You ate already,’ Hoyt tried to sound indignant. ‘What kind of place do you think I’m operating here?’

‘A place where I get to eat when I’m hungry, and right now, I’m good and hungry. So keep your comments to yourself, my intrepid thiefbut you had better share the bounty from that frying pan.’

‘Or else?’

‘Or else, I will beat your sorry ass one-handed – and think about it, every time your so-called friends have one too many beers, there it will be all over again: the hilarious account of the time Hoyt got thoroughly whipped by a one-armed woman.’

‘Fine, fine, just keep your one-armed whipping to yourself, all right?’ Hoyt tore another lump from the loaf he had shared with her earlier that morning.

‘Where’s Churn?’

‘Scouting the meadow,’ Hoyt said. ‘If you’re feeling better, I think it’s time to try to find a trail.’

Hannah nodded vigorously as she had chewed. ‘Yes, by all means, let’s get going. I’ve held us up here too long.’

As if overhearing them, the Pragan giant returned to camp, ducking brambly needles as he shouldered his way through the grove.

‘What news?’ Hoyt signed.

Churn shrugged, ‘Nothing new, a few tracks.’

‘Wagon tracks?’ Hoyt passed his friend a chunk of bread with hot sausages and melted cheese tucked inside.

‘No.’ Churn took a bite, fanned at his open mouth with a palm, then put down the bread and finished, ‘Dog tracks. One dog, a big one.’

‘There it is.’ Gilmour was as excited as a schoolboy starting the harvest holiday. He pointed through the scraggly branches of a roadside oak. ‘Can you see it?’

‘Which one?’ Carec asked, shielding his eyes from the morning sunlight. On the opposite hilltop, he could see a group of buildings organised around a blocky stone structure in the centre, and a taller, more majestic building on a rise to the north. Grouped in clusters, the shorter buildings appeared to have been constructed around common areas, but he was too far away to determine any reason for the peculiar layout.

‘The one at the top, with three towers, the highest in the north.’ Gilmour had not yet taken his eyes off his former home.

‘All that, Gilmour?’ Mark asked. ‘I thought you said it was smaller than Riverend. That place is gigantic.’

‘No, no, no,’ the older man corrected, ‘it’s just the one at the top. All those others below are the university buildings. The residences are there in the south, and the classrooms and laboratories are those short stone buildings. That ugly rectangular beast in the centre is the university library. Gods rut a demon, but that was a fight. I think it ruins the look of the whole place. Modern architecture, gods of the Northern Forest, look what it did to the arena. Now the fields are just little stretches of green tucked in between the residences and that great, grey-boned monster. It’s a shame it never fell in on itself.’

Rodler Varn raised an eyebrow at the older man. ‘Careful, Gilmour: your age is showing.’

‘What?’ Gilmour stammered. ‘Oh yes, well, I’ve done quite a bit of research into the Larion Senate, and as far as I can understand it, the library caused a commotion among those who appreciated more traditional architectural styles.’

‘What? Stone on stone over stone?’ the smuggler joked. ‘Or stone over mortar between stone? I can’t tell the difference, myself.’

‘I think it must be the same everywhere, when intellectuals get together to do something permanent and creative. I’d just as soon lead a brigade into war,’ Steven said.

Gilmour said, ‘It’s no matter now, anyway. That was a long time ago. It’s silly for us to spend time worrying over arguments Larion Senators had two thousand Twinmoons ago. But let’s get up there, shall we?’ He started back along the road.

Rodler interrupted, ‘We shouldn’t go up that way.’

‘Why not?’

‘The only place this road leads is up to the campus and the old palace. Both are off-limits and patrolled regularly. When we climbed out of that last village on this road, we started taking a risk – there’s no reason to be up here, so the further we travel the more suspicious we look.’

Mark realised that the road was in disrepair – it didn’t appear to have seen more than cursory traffic in years. Turning in the saddle, he asked, ‘Which way then?’

‘Down this slope and then up the opposite hillside. The villagers hunt and trap along a trail that runs just about all the way up to the palace. We can ride the horses most of the way, and then walk them the last few hundred paces to the university. Once there, we ought to tether them in the forest and go ahead on foot. I didn’t hear a patrol in the village this morning, certainly not one of any significant size, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be one up there already.’

‘Why would they be up there for any stretch of time?’ Steven asked.

‘They’re patrolling a campus that has been closed for almost a thousand Twinmoons. Not too many people stop by to raid it these days. The campus is a nice place to stay for a while, to have a smoke, maybe a few beers they carry up there. Sometimes they stay a couple of days.’

‘You know from experience?’ Mark asked.

‘I am here to help, my friends, and happy to do so, but once I get you in the palace, I am going my own way.’ Rodler sneaked a glance at Mark, but the foreign bowman was looking down the valley.

‘Rodler, you and Steven lead the way.’ Gilmour turned his horse. ‘I think I know of the path you mentioned: it’s the one my research highlighted as a popular way for intrepid students to sneak out after dark.’

‘Whatever you say, Gilmour.’ Rodler ushered Steven towards a break in the trees and a slope falling away from the road to cross a shallow gulley. ‘It should be easy going, but be careful of these slopes. Some of this loose rock can trip the horses. That would be a blazing mess.’

They rode through the morning, climbing inexorably towards the summit and the abandoned university. Steven finally got his first clear view of Sandcliff Palace, a proud edifice overseeing the sprawling school from its place just north of the campus. As they drew closer, he saw that Rodler’s description had been accurate. The old place appeared to have withstood time well – too well.

‘Do you know if there is any magic still working up there?’ he asked Gilmour quietly.