Holding the diamond fragment she raced downstairs to where the soldiers were trawling through the debris of the cabin at the bottom of the shaft. The cage walls had mostly fused with the metal chains when they had melted; on top of the ruined cage were piles of huge sections of collapsed masonry.
“Let me through!” Her voice broke with emotion. In a frenzy of desperate anxiety for her son she labored at the wreckage, burning her hands on hot metal, but not stopping for a second, until she glimpsed a bloodied hand. “Bandaal!” She pulled at the blackened debris which had, by some miracle, buried but not smothered him in molten metal.
More of the dwarves and ubariu sprang to assist her, bringing crowbars, poles and rope.
Together they managed to hack out a niche in the mix of metal and stone. Goda peered in, candle in hand.
“He is still alive!” she sobbed in utter relief. “I can see that he’s breathing!”
A loud crash came from above their heads; dust and small stones rained down. The damaged lift shaft was threatening to collapse.
“We must get out, my lady!” A ubari’s hand shook her shoulder.
But she snapped back at him not to touch her. “We must free my son first.”
“Look out, below!” called a voice. “The supports are about to give way!”
Goda looked at the diamond splinter. I have no choice. He is nearly a magus. And he is my son. She closed her eyes and chanted a spell.
As if moved by spirit hands the great lumps of broken stone levitated, revealing Bandaal’s body. Three of the dwarves pulled the badly injured famulus out of the shaft and took him to safety on a stretcher. Goda withdrew as well, before letting the spell drop.
A grinding grumbling sound above them preceded a rockfall that could not be stopped by the debris floating in the air. It all crashed down, some of the rocks rolling out of the shaft right to the feet of the dwarves.
Grayish clouds of dust shot along the corridors as the shaft walls collapsed. The soldiers and maga were covered from head to foot in a thick layer of dirty white particles.
Goda opened her hand and let the remains of the crumbled diamond drift down onto the rest of the dust. It made no difference now. Then she set off after the stretcher, not knowing which child to worry about first: Bandaal or Sanda?
Girdlegard,
The Former Queendom of Ran Ribastur,
Northwest,
Spring, 6492nd Solar Cycle
Coira cast her eyes down. “Not unless Aiphaton and the alfar have managed to deplete Lot-Ionan’s strength significantly,” she whispered. “I have prayed to the gods to let me find an undiscovered source of magic somewhere on the way! Perhaps they will have pity on us and there will be a miracle.”
Rodario unobtrusively indicated Franek, who, surrounded by dwarves, was talking to Tungdil and Ireheart. He looked intimidated and was defending himself with upraised hands against harsh rebukes. “Perhaps he is our miracle.” The two of them sat down and he told her what the exiled famulus had reported.
“It was this Droman character that I met,” she said, leaning against Rodario’s shoulder, glad to have sorted out their difficulties and misunderstandings. “He chased me with a tranquillizer spell and dragged me off to a clearing when he saw I was not on my own. But they defeated him.”
“It didn’t go well for him, as I hear.” He put his arm around her shoulders to comfort her.
Coira nodded. “That’s right.” She was enjoying his presence but her eyes were wary, watching for Mallenia, who was over with the dwarves. She had a guilty conscience because Rodario was spending time looking after her, and she was aware of her friend’s feelings. He must be told the truth and made to understand how embarrassing the situation was for the two girls. “Rodario, there’s something I’ve got to tell you,” she began, but just then Tungdil turned round and waved them over.
“Keep it for later,” said Rodario. “Our leader wants us now.” He helped her up and they walked past the fire and over to the dwarves.
Tungdil made room for them at the campfire. “Franek regrets that he forgot to tell us about the famulus who had been chasing him.”
“He regrets it so much that he wants to lead the way,” Ireheart added merrily. “Not that we thoroughly trust the little wizardling. If he takes us into a trap he will die before any of us do.” He thumped Franek on the back. “Ho! I’m right there, aren’t I?”
“Yes,” the famulus coughed out his answer. “I will do everything I can to make Lot-Ionan pay for his betrayal and his ingratitude toward me.” He looked at them all. “I know nobody here will trust my words if I swear an oath, so I shan’t bother. Suffice it to say, hatred unites us. That is stronger than anything else.”
“Hatred?” Rodario was baffled. “Was our mission…?”
“Hatred of my foster-father for letting himself become such an evil person and for inflicting such damage on my native land,” said Tungdil. “I have sworn he shall die; remember, actor. Against your will.”
Rodario hit himself on the back of the head, noting the comedy that was being played out for the benefit of the famulus. “I keep forgetting that you insist on killing him,” he announced. “You have, of course, every justification for doing so.”
Franek appeared to swallow this, or else he was keeping his suspicions to himself. “And we’ve agreed I shall be allowed to bathe in the magic source?”
“Not before Coira has used it, little wizard,” Ireheart stressed threateningly. “You will wait your turn nicely.”
“I don’t mind that. The source has enough energy for thousands of us.” Franek scratched his stubbly chin. “It will be a great feeling. After such a long time.”
“Get some sleep. We’ll be leaving first thing.” Tungdil assigned one of the Zhadar to guard duty, then moved off with Ireheart, Rodario, Barskalin, Mallenia and Coira to find a place to sit at a suitable distance from the famulus.
“Providence has sent him to us.”
Mallenia folded her hands and found a stone to sit on; the whole group settled down to talk. “You don’t think it could just be a very clever trick on the part of the magus?”
“No. He’s got no idea we’re coming,” Tungdil insisted. “If he did, he’d have sent out all his magic apprentices, not just the one.”
“Droman. That was his name?” Coira placed a hand on her back where the man’s magic had hit her. She thought she could still feel warmth on that spot. “He wasn’t a bad magus.”
“But he wasn’t good enough,” said Ireheart. “The Scholar took him apart.” He remembered that he had not actually seen how the famulus had died. Because his eyes had been dazzled.
“I talked to Franek and his story sounded credible. He was one of those young people who smuggled Lot-Ionan’s statue out of the former palace in Porista. We never met him at the time, however,” Tungdil explained. “We dealt with the other ones: Risava, Dergard and Lomostin.”
Ireheart was amazed at Tungdil’s precise memory of the names. How was it that he was able to remember such insignificant details? He knew the story, himself, of course, but though he remembered how the statue had been hunted down, and could also recall the long-legged frog-figure that had turned up to steal it back, for the life of him and for all the gold in Girdlegard he would not have been able to come up with the names of the statue’s abductors.
Tungdil stared at the tips of his fingers. “I asked him if he could give us some explanation of the change in Lot-Ionan. When he told me how the magus dresses, how he conducts himself and speaks, I was forced to think of Nod’onn.”
“Not him again! We did away with that evil. The daemon cannot have returned.” Ireheart pretended to be swinging an ax. “You took Keenfire and split the fog down the middle… you know, that cloud-creature.”