Brenna could only pick at the plate of venison, potatoes, and carrots put in front of her. She managed to eat a little bread and drink a little water, but that was all her stomach would allow. The two mages seemed no more interested in eating than she did, and even their conversation died away as the evening dragged toward midnight.
But finally Falk said, “It’s time,” and got to his feet. Anniska followed him to the door and joined him in pulling on coats and boots once more. The guard materialized behind Brenna’s chair. “Miss,” he rumbled.
Brenna wished she hadn’t eaten even the little she had. Her insides felt like water and her knees like green twigs, but she managed to stand and pull on her own coat, hat, gloves, and boots.
Mother Northwind, she prayed, I hope to the SkyMage you were telling me the truth.
If the witch hadn’t told her what Falk intended for her, how would she be feeling now, she wondered? Just as terrified by the strange silence that gripped everyone as they once more climbed into the magecarriage?
No, she thought. Worried, puzzled, but without this gut-wrenching terror, because she would never have thought that Falk meant to kill her.
And suddenly over top of the fear came a surge of anger at the witch, always manipulating, telling her what she had told her just so she wouldn’t tell Falk that Mother Northwind was not the ally-or tool-he seemed to think her.
If I live through the next hour, she vowed to herself, I will tell Falk what I know, and to the Cauldron with the consequences!
Then she winced at that common but, given the circumstances, unfortunate oath. It might not be consequences that were consigned to the Cauldron this night.
The magecarriage surged forward, up the hill, toward the lowering red clouds. Brenna gripped the hanging strap dangling by her head so tightly her knuckles popped, and held on.
They climbed, switching back and forth, up the steep slope. The clouds drew closer and closer until Brenna was convinced they would plunge into them before they finally crested the ridge, but suddenly they were over the top and switchbacking down the other side… and as the path of the magecarriage turned her window toward the north, she caught her first glimpse of the Cauldron, and thought her heart would burst through her chest as it began to race in terror.
A vast lake of molten rock stretched into the snowveiled distance, its crust of black shot through with lightninglike red cracks and, in places, wide, slow-moving rivers of bright yellow. The stench of sulfur rose from it, and already she could feel its heat, the temperature inside the carriage rapidly approaching that of a steam bath. She took off her hat, then her gloves, stuffing them into one of her coat pockets, then had to open her coat. Across from her, Anniska did the same; the guard remained stoically uniformed.
She soon wished she could shed the coat altogether, but there was no room to wriggle out of it, and so she sat and sweated and watched the red light reflect off the sheen of moisture on the faces of her companions.
Then, suddenly, they stopped. The carriage rocked as Robinton and Falk jumped down. Robinton, no longer wearing his enchanted warmcoat, came to the side of the carriage. He opened the door and lowered the folding steps. “Miss,” he said, and held out his hand to help her to the ground.
Mouth dry, and not all the sweat on her body from the heat of the Cauldron, she let him assist her. Once on the ground, she immediately took off her coat and held it out to Robinton. He took it without a word and tossed it back into the carriage as her guard and Anniska climbed down unaided.
Now, for the first time, she could hear the Cauldron as well as see and smell it, a deep rumbling vibration that shook her to her very bones.
Falk stood at the front of the carriage, watching her, also coatless, wearing his usual uniform of dark gray, silvered hair tinted a fiendish red by the Cauldron. The fiery lake’s surface now lay just fifty feet or so below the broad, flat ledge, covered with crushed black rock where the road ended. Past Falk, Brenna saw a tower, built at the very edge of the precipice, with an outthrust platform near its top. Falk turned and gazed up at it avidly. “The Cauldron Observatory,” he said, almost the first words he had spoken to her since they had begun this journey. “Our destination.”
“Why have you brought me here?” Brenna demanded, remembering she wasn’t supposed to know. “Were you so afraid I would run away again that you dared not leave me behind?”
Falk laughed. “No,” he said, but he didn’t answer her question. “Bring her,” he instead commanded the guard, who seized her right arm and half-propelled, half-dragged her toward the tower.
As they neared it, she saw it was made of the same black volcanic rock as the gravel that crunched beneath her feet, gigantic blocks of it, more massive even than the limestone blocks of the Palace. A door of dull silvery metal, tinged red like everything else by the Cauldron’s light, glistened despite the heat beneath a magic-betraying layer of frost. Falk reached out his still-gloved hand and touched it, and with a slight flash of blue, it opened. Inside, magelights sprang to life, coldly illuminating the start of a winding staircase.
Up that staircase they went, Falk leading the way, Anniska behind him, then Brenna, then her guard. Robinton remained with the coach.
Though the tower was no higher than a wing of the Palace, the climb seemed endless to Brenna, as though the top were receding even as they approached it; but then, after an eternity but still all too soon, they suddenly reached the staircase’s end. Falk opened another magically sealed door, and they stepped out onto the platform Brenna had first seen from below.
It was an alarming construction, for it had no guardrail of any sort. Brenna hung back, trying to stay close to the tower, but Falk made an impatient gesture and the guard dragged her forward to where the MageLord stood, what seemed to her dangerously close to the edge.
For a moment she entertained the fantasy of lunging at him and pushing him over the side, but the guard never released her arm, and even if he had, she knew she was just as likely to go over the edge herself; and now, looking down unwillingly, she saw that they were right over the Cauldron, at a place where one of the yellow-hot rivers of stone welled up, flowing a few dozen feet on the surface before plunging once more beneath the black crust. The heat struck her face like a blow, and she jerked back.
Falk, though, peered down avidly. He closed his eyes and spread his hands. “Ah, Brenna,” he murmured. “You don’t know what you’re missing, having no magic. The power available here is… unbelievable. When a MageLord stands here, he feels he can do anything.”
“You seem to think you can do anything no matter where you are.. . my lord,” Brenna said. “Without regard for the law or the rights of others.” Her own temerity surprised her; but after all, she thought, What have I got to lose? He already means to kill me.
Falk shot her a look, one eyebrow raised. “Without regard to the law? Brenna, I am a MageLord. The only law in this Kingdom is the will of the Twelve. We write the law, we administer the law, and if we choose, we can change the law. And as for the rights of others… sometimes the needs of the Kingdom are more important than the rights of any one individual. Here, tonight, is one of those times… and here, tonight, the needs of the Kingdom will finally be met.” He flicked a finger, and a magelink globe popped into existence, floating in space ten feet in front of them, over the Cauldron. Falk flicked his hand again, and the magelink expanded, swelling until it was as wide as Falk was tall. He laughed. “So much energy,” he said. “Enough to power the Great Barrier and the Lesser: all that energy constantly pouring into those two structures, and all the effect it has had here is to cause the Cauldron to crust over a little more than it otherwise would. Now…”
Suddenly, the magelink came to life, and Brenna gasped. She had seen magelinks used before, but they were small, and since they had been Falk’s, they had typically shown the rather homely face of Brich.