Late that afternoon I checked the message boxes and found Cyhan’s reply waiting for me. Opening the box, I saw a neatly folded piece of paper. Unfolding it I saw his distinctively bad penmanship. His handwriting was on a par with Penny’s, in fact it might even be worse.
My Lord,
Your message is received and understood. Currently it is still morning as I write this. Will make haste and should return within five days. Look for us on the morning of the fifth day hence. That will be the morning of the festival.
Your Servant,
Cyhan
“Six days!” I muttered to myself. That meant he’d be force marching the men. I considered writing another letter to try and make him slow down rather than tire them out, but in the end I decided it would be pointless. That was the sort of order he’d ignore. He always was a damn overachiever.
Instead, I simply drew a deep breath and penned a quick acknowledgement. At least they would get to enjoy the festivities. Checking the rest of the boxes, I found another message, this one from Marc.
Mort,
I hope this letter finds you well.
The journey to Agraden has been noteworthy only for its boredom. We should arrive in another day, and Marissa’s uncle assured us that he will have room for us until we can find a place of our own. Despite my true reason for moving here, I find I am somewhat looking forward to seeing new things, and the search for whatever remains of the Gaelyn family library might also prove interesting.
I will write again once I have some definite news, or at least something interesting to tell.
Marcus
I read through his short note twice and found that despite my original opposition to his move, I now felt relieved to know that he was well away from all the excitement in Lothion. I considered my reply carefully before setting pen to paper again.
Dear Marc,
I’m glad to hear that your journey is almost done. I do hope that it wasn’t a hardship for Marissa. Don’t forget that if the house costs more money than we anticipated, I will write a letter of credit for you. The bankers in Albamarl assure me that they have a stable arrangement with the moneylenders in Agraden, so that shouldn’t be a problem.
Things are busy around here, what with the festival preparations at this time of year. There always seems to be something. Perhaps if you get well settled, I can make the journey to visit next year some time. One visit and I’ll be able to set up a circle, which will make any future trips trivial.
Write soon.
Mordecai
I felt a bit dishonest for not mentioning any of my recent problems, but given the distance, the only thing my friend could have done about them would be to worry needlessly. Pushing those thoughts aside, I rose and went to find Walter. I wanted to meet with him and make sure he remembered the specifics of how to raise and control the barrier enchantment around the castle. As I walked, I decided we should include Elaine this time. She was older now, and there was always the possibility that neither he nor I would be around to activate it when needed.
Chapter 15
Walter and his daughter stood beside me in a small room not far from the great hall. The room itself had originally been designed as a small waiting room, but I had repurposed it as a central place to control the enchantments that protected Castle Cameron. The walls were unobtrusively marked with runes that effectively hid the room from magical sight, while the door would only open to the touch of a few specially designated people… both of whom were standing next to me.
This was the first time Elaine had been inside, and I had just finished adding her to the short list of people that the enchantment would allow to open the door. She looked about the room with observant eyes. “So this is the room that controls the keystone for the barrier enchantment?” she asked carefully.
I nodded.
“It’s a rather unassuming room. Somehow I always imagined it would be more impressive,” she said with a half-smile.
“Since very few people will ever see it, I felt ornamentation was unnecessary,” I responded dryly before gesturing to the stone pedestal that stood in the center of the room. “Everything is controlled from there.”
The object I was indicating was four foot in height, made of plain grey granite. The top was smooth except for a number of symbols lightly engraved in the hard stone. The wall directly in front of it was adorned with twelve pieces of flat, clear glass, each one twelve inches on a side. In fact the glass had originally been made to be window panes. Such things were expensive, even in the city, where they were most frequently used, but I had bought them with a new purpose in mind.
I pointed at the symbols across the top of the stone pedestal. “Each of these corresponds to one of the glass panes you see on the wall, and each of those panes corresponds with another pane located at various points around the castle. There are two mounted high on the outer faces of each of the four main corner towers, approximately twenty feet from the ground. Those account for the first eight panes you see there. You activate each one simply by apply a small amount of aythar, here…,” as I said that, I activated the first symbol.
The top leftmost pane of glass abruptly changed. Where before it had shown nothing but the grey stone it was mounted against, it now appeared to be letting in the afternoon sunlight from outside. An empty field could be seen beyond it, with trees a hundred or so yards in the distance. A few small buildings were visible in the field of view, buildings that had been built there against my advice. I had warned the people of Washbrook that I could not protect anything built beyond the stone walls of the town.
Walter remained silent. He had seen most of this before, but Elaine was amazed. “Is that the western side of town? Beyond the wall?” she asked in a tone of wonderment.
“Yes.”
“How? Is it some sort of illusion? Are you passing the light with the same sort of magical spell that we use for our invisibility?”
Walter coughed.
“No,” I answered. “We tried that originally, and although your father managed to make it work for short periods, of time we were unable to design an effective enchantment that could maintain the effect.”
“How else would you do it then?” she said in puzzlement.
Walter spoke up then, “Mordecai and I created a type of portal enchantment between each of the matching panes of glass. When it is active, the glass is actually serving as a real window between here and the location of the other piece of glass.”
Elaine’s eyes narrowed, “What if an enemy discovered the connection? Could they enter the keep through the portal?”
“No,” her father replied smugly, “The enchantment, the portal lies within the glass itself, so only light may pass. If anything else were to physically try to pass, it would break the glass and destroy the portal simultaneously.”
“In addition, the portal is only open when the enchantment is activated here,” I explained. Passing my hand along the top of the stone, I ‘turned on’ the rest of the windows, and soon we could see out from many vantage points. “The first eight, as you can see, look out from the tower walls, showing us the land around Washbrook. The last four look out from the towers around the outer wall of Cameron Castle; from those you can see the town itself.”
Elaine studied the stone, and I let her try her hand with the symbols. She was easily able to turn them on and off. “What are these for?” she asked, pointing to the symbols along the bottom row, “Do these activate the barrier?”