John Flanagan - The siege of Macindaw

Her eyes began to water with the strain of peering into the half-light outside the tower. She stepped away for a few seconds, rubbed them, blinked away the traces of tears and then set herself to watch once more.

When the moon set, she would begin her signaling.

Will was concentrating, the tip of his tongue protruding from the corner of his mouth as he encoded his message to Alyss. The dog lay under the table, and he rested his bare feet on her warm fur. From time to time, she grumbled contentedly, as dogs do. He glanced down at her, smiling.

"Nice of you to spend some time with me," he said."Where's your new friend?"

Her new friend was Trobar, the massively built, misshapen giant who was one of Malcolm's most faithful followers. The dog and Trobar had struck up an instant friendship. The giant had lavished her with all the pent-up affection of someone who had spent years with no person or creature to love. The dog seemed to sense his need and reciprocated, spending hours each day in his company. At first, Will had been slightly jealous. Then he realized how important the companionship was to Trobar and felt a little mean-spirited. The dog, he thought, was wiser and more kindly natured than he was.

He was working on Malcolm's table, and he glanced up as the healer entered the room. Malcolm looked with interest at the sheets of paper covered with letters and numbers. On one sheet, Will had written the message he wanted to send. On the second, he had translated the letters into code. He saw Malcolm's interest and, trying to seem casual, turned the original page facedown.

The Courier's code, known to the Diplomatic Service and the Ranger Corps, was a jealously guarded secret. But it was actually quite simple, and he didn't want to give Malcolm, ally though he might be, any chance to figure it out.

Malcolm smiled as he saw the gesture. As a matter of fact, he had been trying to get a glimpse. If he could see the original message, alongside the cipher version, he felt confident he could unravel the format of the code. The young man at the table was no fool, he reflected.

"Moonset in an hour or so," he said.

Will nodded. "We'll get going soon. I'm nearly finished."

"You send your message using a lamp, I take it?" Malcolm asked.

" That's right. It's only short because there's not a lot to tell her at the moment. It's just to let her know that we're watching and to set up a schedule for further messages."

The healer laid another sheet of paper on the table, along with a small, black, shiny pebble.

"Is there any way we could get this to her?" he asked. "I mean, could you tie it to an arrow and shoot it through the window? Something like that?"

Will shook his head and reached for his quiver. Malcolm had noticed that the young Ranger's weapons were always within easy reach.

" That's not a very reliable method. If you tie something to an arrow, it tends to fall off when you shoot it," he said."We do it a little differently."

He slid an unusual-looking arrow from the quiver and placed it on the table.

Instead of the usual razor-sharp broadhead at its tip, it had an extended cylinder. Malcolm examined it curiously. The cylinder was hollow. A threaded cap, surmounted by a rounded lead weight, screwed onto the end to seal it.

"You put the written message in here?" he guessed.

Will nodded again. He leaned back to ease his cramped shoulder and neck muscles. He had been hunched at the table for some time, initially writing out a chart of the code, then the message, then the code itself. As he moved, the dog stirred. Her tail thumped the floor.

" That's right. I could use the lamp message to warn Alyss to get out of the way, then fire the arrow through her window."

"Easy as that?" Malcolm smiled.

Will raised one eyebrow. "Easy as that. If you've spent five years learning to put arrows exactly where you want them."

"And the stone?" Malcolm said. "Could you put that inside as well?"

Will picked up the little black pebble and weighed it experimentally in his hand.

"I don't see why not. I'll have to reduce the lead to compensate for the extra weight and make sure the arrow remains balanced. I assume you have some scales I could use?"

"Of course. They're basic tools of a healer's trade."

"The question is," Will continued, "why am I shooting a stone through her window in the first place?"

"Aaah, yes," said the healer, placing one finger alongside his nose. "I wondered when you'd ask that. It's to help her if Keren tries to mesmerize her again."

That gained Will's interest immediately. He looked at the stone again, examining it more carefully. There seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary about it. He frowned.

"What does it do?" he asked.

Malcolm gently took the stone from his hand and held it up, admiring its deep sheen.

"It will neutralize the blue gemstone that she said Keren is using," he said."You see, mesmerism, or hypnotism, as some people call it, is a matter of mental focus. Keren has created a situation where the blue gemstone focuses Alyss's mind on his commands. But if she can hold this little pebble in her palm and concentrate on some kind of strong alternative image, she can resist that focus and remain in control of her own mind. If she's smart, Keren will never know she has broken his grip on her, and that could be useful. She might be able to tell him all sorts of misinformation."

He handed the stone back to Will, who turned it over, looking to see if there was something about it that he'd missed. Other than its glossy black surface, he couldn't see anything special.

"How does it do that?" he asked. It seemed a little like hocus-pocus to him, but Alyss had been very definite about the effect of Keren's blue gemstone, and when he had related the story to Malcolm, the old healer had grasped the significance of the blue stone at once.

Malcolm shrugged now, in reply to Will's question.

"Nobody really knows. It's stellatite, you see," he said, as if that explained everything. Then, seeing the question on Will's lips, he continued,"Star stone. It's all that remains of a falling star. I found it years ago. Stellatite is exceedingly valuable, probably because it has otherworldly properties. Anyway," he concluded, "I don't really know how it works. I just know it does." He smiled. "It's galling for a man of science to have to admit something like that, but what can I do?"

Will nodded, convinced. He looked at the sheet of paper Malcolm had placed on the table. It contained a description of the stone and outlined its use. But the sheet was too bulky for the message arrow. He reached into his pack and produced a flimsy sheet of thin message paper.

" Then I'd best start rewriting your message," he said. "While I'm doing that, perhaps you could weigh the pebble and the lead weight on the arrow?"

Malcolm picked up the arrow and the pebble.

"Consider it done," he said, turning toward his little workroom at the back of the house.

In the tower, Alyss began her nightly ritual with the lamp, holding it high in one corner of the window, then moving it progressively to the other three corners.

She did this five times, then stopped, setting the lamp on the floor and scanning the dark countryside outside the walls of the castle. She had done this for the past two nights and so far had been disappointed to see no return signal. She clung to the hope that Will would reply. But the hope was getting fainter and fainter. Perhaps he was -

A light! There it was, off to her left, moving among the trees! For a moment, she felt her excitement surge, then, just as quickly, it deflated as she realized that the light was red and that it was moving along at a fixed height from the ground, alternately fading and flashing as trees obscured it. She knew that strange lights were often reported among the trees of Grimsdell Wood. Perhaps this was all it was.