“Sounds like an experience I can gladly skip,” I told him truthfully.
“And they’re more common than you think,” Koril went on. “There are three right now in the north, and that’s where we have to go.”
I sighed. “I see. But reduced to those primitive weapons, numbers mean even more—and I think you have them. If Bourget is any indication, the masses of people here really don’t give a damn who runs things.”
“As usual anywhere,” Koril agreed. “Oh, it’s certain that we could take as much as seventy percent of the north and the few settlements on Gamush without problems. Tukyan’s hardly worth worrying about it’s so primitive. I have enough powerful sores, trained and developed here, to carry the day, force the government to a few strongholds like Monttay and Cubera. But it makes no difference. As long as they hold the Castle they hold one of only two spaceports on the planet, and they hold the power really. The trade, the records—the whole economy. Holding that, they can disrupt the business of the planet. Things don’t work right, people get hungry, or angry. And while we deteriorate sitting on our seven-tenths, they wait for reinforcements either from the other three Lords or, maybe, directly from the aliens. Basically, we take the countryside without the Castle and we take nothing we can hold. Take the Castle and the rest falls automatically into line.”
“Then we must take the Castle.”
Tulio Koril laughed. “Easier said than done, my rash young assassin. Far easier said than done.”
We sat in a small briefing room, eight of us and Koril. I looked around at the faces there, but aside from two I didn’t recognize any of them. The two I knew were Darva, of course, and Zala Embuay whose presence was unexplained. It was definitely Zala we were seeing, not Kira, but we all knew that Kira was present too.
The room was darkened, and a picture appeared on the screen of a huge, black circular stone building set atop a commanding mountain. Pagodalike, there were a series of stone porches around it at regular intervals almost all the way to the not quite fiat top of the building.
“This is the Castle,” Koril told us. “It is eighty meters high from ground level, but there are an additional forty meters below ground. The building is divided into fifteen levels, and has excellent drainage. Its walls are solid stone, a meter thick, reinforced with steel plating and mesh. Beneath it, inside the mountain, is a network of tunnels leading to remote, below-ground armories. You could probably blow a nice hole in it with a laser canon, but you’d never get a second chance at it. Even so, you would have to be a genius to make that first hole, since the outer rock surface is chemically coated with a clever armorite compound developed on Cerberus. It will deflect a laser and, if you’re not careful, reflect it back at you. Because of the coating, the wa of the Castle is inert to us. It acts like a true physical barrier to the best wa sense. You can’t throw a spell to disperse anything or anybody behind it. Of course, they can’t do it to you either—but, remember, they don’t have to. They can hold on until reinforced either from other areas or from space. That topmost area is a shuttle cradle.”
I had to admit the place was most impressive, although I knew of two dozen weapons that could bring it down. Of course, none were available in the Warden Diamond—and two would also destroy the planet.
“The top level is shuttle receiving,” Koril continued, “and there is a series of lifts around the exterior for moving people and goods up and down, mostly by a clever counterweight system. The fourteenth floor is the living quarters of the Lord of the Diamond, her servants and whatever entourage she might permit. On the next eight floors below are special troopers and a defense force, living quarters for the rest of the top government and their staffs, and central records. The bottom five floors, all below ground level, include a supply level and warehouse with tunnel access, a special prison known as the dungeon, a reception level and general offices, and more defensive and trooper personnel. Additionally, on many of the upper levels there are governmental and experimental offices, labs, and the like. All in all, quite a complex.”
Koril flipped a switch, and a schematic of the building came on.
“Get to know this. You will all have copies provided, and I want you to know every passage, service corridor, twist and turn in the place. Within the next two days I’ll be putting you to the test, showing blind areas on a computer simulator. Better know your way around or you’ll get quickly lost. Speed is important, but I don’t want any of you in there to get lost in any way, shape, or form.”
The picture flipped again, showing the bottom level and the tunnel complex.
“This is the weak spot of the Castle, if it can be said to have one,” the sorcerer went on. “If you look closely, you’ll realize that this is more than a complex of tunnels and caves in a mountain. This is a maze. It is certainly possible to get into the maze more than two kilometers from the Castle itself, but once in you have even more problems. There are spells and sensors everywhere. Apparent rock walls show where there is clear space, and there are literally hundreds of rock plugs that can be—and are—shifted regularly, changing the entire maze. There is, literally, no way to know the configuration of the maze at any given time. At one time, several years ago, I did discover the key to it and sent in some of my best people. Most of them got into the Castle, but only a handful got out again—and none lived to get back to me. You understand the meaning of that. Many of them were top sores. The best. Therefore, should we manage to get in, we’re in. We either take the Castle or we die. No alternatives.”
That outlook was pretty grim, but we all could see his point. Still, somebody had a question—I couldn’t tell who.
“How will we solve the maze?” the questioner sensibly asked.
“The only advantage I have is that I know the entire area. I know what sort of things are Installed and what are not, and I can orient myself even to changed circumstances. Basically, I’m betting that I can solve the maze based on my prior knowledge. If I can’t, it’s all over.”
There was a nervous shuffling in the room at that. We were all being asked to put our necks entirely in a noose made for Koril, and were totally dependent on Koril to keep that noose from tightening.
“Now, it’s inevitable we’ll trip something, bringing troopers and defense forces,” Koril continued, “but these don’t worry me and should not worry you. None are above the level of a low-grade apt, maybe VII tops and more likely DCs. The least of you is a VII, and most of us are far higher than that. They keep the troop grade low to prevent any possible internal revolts, of course. But don’t kid yourself—also in the Castle are some incredibly powerful sores. The tops. The best we know. With luck, there’ll be no more than four or five Synod members there—they roam about much of the time. But the odds are extremely good that there will be at least that number, and we can’t discount Morah. We can only hope that he’s out—and then try and rig things a bit our way.”
“What about Mature?” somebody else asked.
“She’ll almost certainly be in. She rarely leaves, and never for any extended visits. Without her, of course, the Castle is valueless, but I feel certain the odds are with us on that much. As for Morah, well stir up a big dish of trouble in the south coast region, as far from the Castle as we can. With any luck, the fracas will bring him there. Then we enter the Castle. Finally, as a distraction, there will be a general uprising and a well-coordinated but futile attack upon the Castle itself. Our own movements will be determined both by events inside and by the shuttle schedule, which we most certainly know. It puts down at four every afternoon and remains for an hour. That means we launch our south coast diversion a day before we go hi. We go in at five the next day. Once we’re discovered, we’re committed. We must accomplish everything before that shuttle returns the next afternoon. If not, if we’re held in the lower areas through then, Aeolia need only take the shuttle up to the space station and we’re dead.” He paused a moment, then added, “Remember, you all volunteered for this.”