By the morning of the appointed day, we had made it to the place where we knew we’d be entering the caves. It was a good spot, really. Nearby, through a small grove of trees, was a sheer cliff and we were able to look out on the valley below. From any point we could see the top of the Castle, which looked even more fearsome in person than it did in any pictures.
We settled down to wait for the late afternoon, when the real work would begin. Standing short watches, we tried to get as much sleep as we could. With some interest I noticed that, somehow, Zala hadn’t been included in the watch schedule.
I slept in short stretches, but couldn’t really relax. I was simply too keyed up, although I knew that was an amateur’s problem and wasn’t supposed to happen to me. Early in the afternoon, before the start of one of Charon’s interminable rains, I wandered down through the grove of trees to the cliffside and looked out, perhaps for the last tune, on the landscape below.
And, finally, I saw a tabarwind.
The view across the valley was fifteen, maybe twenty kilometers at worst, although it was obscured by ram. The cloud cover remained above the line of hills on both sides, though, allowing fair visibility with no real resolution of fine detail on the ground. Still, there was no mistaking what I was seeing—I watched it form.
First a small area far off to the east seemed to Sash on and off with upper-level lightning. But instead of the intermittent and irregular illumination within the clouds it grew quite regular and very strong, so strong that it was almost as if a bright light was shining in the center of the cloud mass. Still nothing had emerged from the cloud. Then, suddenly, the immediate area began to swirl around. I had seen something of the pattern before, although not with the central globe of increasingly steady light Tornado, it was called, or sometimes cyclone.
From that bright center in the clouds long fingers of electricity shot down to the ground, and seconds later, reported their arrival to me with a series of loud booms that echoed back and forth across the valley. I couldn’t make out much of what was under those bolts, but I felt relieved that it wasn’t me.
Now, out of that bright, shining center a funnel shape seemed to emerge, not like a tornado but almost mathematically regular. A conical shape of charged—what?—moving down, surrounded by a maniacal dance of lightning all around. The yellowish cone began to change, darken, take on colors as it reached for and then touched the ground. Reds and oranges and purples swirled within but did not mix.
I could see where the ignorant might ascribe a supernatural power to such a thing. It was a swirl of color and forces, and as I watched, it flattened into an almost cylindrical shape and began to move.
Others, bearing the thunder, came and joined me at my watching place. The storm, although far off, was awesome, and everyone seemed magnetically attracted to its grim, erratic march across the valley. Everyone but Koril.
“I think it’s time we went in,” he said calmly.
A couple of us turned and looked in surprise at him. “But it’s not nearly five yet,” I noted.
He nodded. “They won’t risk a shuttle landing with tabarwind conditions in the area. The automatic systems will close down completely for the duration so as not to attract the storm. That means no electricity or automatic watchdogs, no landings, nothing. And right now any laser charges are being hauled down the long tunnel away from the Castle. That means we’ll be between the charges and the people who can use them, and that’s fine with me. The storm’s a godsend! Let’s move!”
The tabarwind’s almost hypnotic effect was hard to leave, but we all understood his urgency. We slipped on our packs and headed for ah undistinguished grove of trees some sixty meters from our camp.
The watch has retreated,” Koril said, almost gloating.
“That’ll make it easy. If we can get past the ulterior guard-post without being seen we’ll be in without a trace.”
The roar of the tabarwind sounded very close, and the wind picked up to almost gale force. “Hadn’t we better ditch out laser pistols?” Kimil asked nervously.
“I think not,” the chief sorcerer replied. “I’m willing to take the risk. With the luck we’re having, it just might mean we have ’em and nobody else will”
The spell in the grove was a good one, tightly woven and nearly impossible to detect Few knew that the Castle had any back entrances and exits in the first place, although nobody builds a fortress without both an escape system and a hidden route of supply. This was one of four such, and the second closest to the Castle itself—but the most direct. The closest in, and most used, of these back doors actually led away from the Castle to the underground storerooms in natural caverns in the mountain Though it would be the easiest to uncover and enter, an enemy force might never find the Castle from there.
Koril and two of our other sorcerers worked quickly on the spell, with a skill and ease I found fascinating and enviable. I might have their potential, but I was a long way from having their skill.
Two of the trees seemed to shrivel, wither before our eyes, then they bent backward to reveal a solid metal door. Medusan metal, I knew—and totally inert to us. Both door and lock were beyond our powers, but not the rock in which the lock was imbedded. I watched as our advance team of sores sent then* combined energies into and around the rock, and saw the wa of the rock respond as if it was some living thing, compressing back from die locking mechanism. In a matter of minutes a hole appeared on one side of the door large enough for an arm to go through. Koril nodded to himself, walked forward, reached in almost to his elbow, and slid the door back. We could all see that the locking mechanism also slid back, still in place. No alarms had been tripped because the lock had not been tampered with.
Quickly we were inside the tunnel entrance, then waited there as the door returned to its original position and our wizards replicated the spells they had broken on the way in, moving the trees and the rock back into place. A Class 1 sore could detect the tampering if he was in any way suspicious, but I sure couldn’t.
With the door shut, we were suddenly encased in total darkness, but we were neither blind nor helpless. Ku scampered up the wall and stuck firmly to the top of the cave. He would travel with us that way and be our surprise insurance policy. As for us, we could see each other’s distinctive wa—Zala’s twin mind was particularly visible—thus providing us with our own outlines as well as the wa in the rock of the cave itself. The sight, uncomplicated by anything visual, was eerie, and useful—but not only to us. Anyone else could see us, too.
Ku in the lead proceeded slowly about five meters ahead of us. As silently as possible, in this configuration, we began our walk down that long, dark tunnel, most attention focused on Ku. Koril took the lead in our group, Darva remained the last, her attention less on Ku than on Zala, as agreed. This was, in fact, one of Koril’s little master strokes. The weakest in power, Darva’s wa was linked immutably to mine. If she saw anything unusual, she could signal me with a prearranged pinch code. If anybody tried anything on her, I’d know it immediately, too. Koril, I now understood, had good reasons for everything he did, including bringing both Darva and me along.
We rounded a turn in the runnel and suddenly had some sight—a flickering torch not in the cave itself but coming from a small room just off it Ku was a nervy bastard, I had to give him that much. He scampered on the cave roof right up to that door, which didn’t reach his position, and peered cautiously in from his upside-down angle. Then, cautiously, he made his way back to Koril.