“I know, we’ll never find him in time hunting blind,” admits James.
“Can’t you do that bubble thing to find him?” he asks.
Shaking his head, James replies, “No, I don’t know him at all so it wouldn’t work. If I had something of his, maybe, but I don’t.”
Before they head up the stairs, they check the other door first, just in case while Miko watches the stairs. Opening the door a couple inches, they discover a darkened corridor extending away from the room. James looks to Jiron and says, “Not this way, let’s go up the stairs. He isn’t down here.”
Closing the door, they move back over to where Miko is keeping an eye on the stairs. “Anything?” James asks him.
“No,” he replies. “Haven’t heard anything.”
Jiron takes the lead as they move up the stairs. It runs fairly straight up and after fourteen steps comes out on a wide hallway running to the right and left.
Candles spaced every twenty feet or so give off a soft light. To the right, the hallway extends for a hundred feet before turning to the left. The other way, it extends further until finally disappearing into the distance.
Jiron glances to James who just shrugs. Stepping into the hallway, Jiron begins moving to the right, the others following close behind.
They pass three doors before the hallway turns to the left. Glancing around the corner, he sees it extending further into the distance. “It’s clear,” he says as he goes around the corner and continues following the hallway.
All the doors they pass are closed and a quick check fails to hear anything within. Suddenly, further down the corridor, a door opens and a woman walks out into the hallway. A servant by her dress, she glances their way and her eyes open wide.
Jiron sprints toward her as a scream escapes her lips. A second later, Jiron grabs her and clamps his hand over her mouth, silencing her. She struggles to free herself but is no match for him.
Placing a knife against her throat causes her to cease her struggling and to become quiet. He walks her back to where James and Miko stand, all the while expecting other doors to open in response to her scream. But either there’s no one else down here or a woman screaming in this area is common, for no other door opens.
“Do you understand me?” James asks her when Jiron has brought her close.
She nods her head and they all breathe a sigh of relief.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
“Elspa,” she replies.
“Elspa, do you know where they’re keeping the captured general?” he asks.
“I think in the north tower,” she says, a fearful quaver in her voice.
“Where’s that?” Miko asks.
Elspa looks to him and says, “It’s on the other side of the Keep.”
“Of course,” mumbles James. Couldn’t be just above us, oh no, it has to be all the way on the other side!
“You’re going to take us there,” James tells her. “And if you give us away, or trick us, my friend here will make sure you’re the first to die.”
He sees her eyes open wide as they flick momentarily to Jiron. “Do you understand?” he asks her.
Nodding her head, she quietly says, “Yes, I do.”
“Now, what’s the best way to get there?” he asks. Then he adds, “Without being discovered.”
“There’s no direct way to get there,” she tells him. “And the whole tower is full of guards, you’ll never make it to where they’re keeping him.”
“You let us worry about that,” he says. “Now, I understand that servants often have a way of moving about to avoid being underfoot. I want you to take us along those ways as best you can.”
She nods her head. “It’s this way,” she tells him, pointing down to where she had just entered the corridor.
James nods to Jiron who takes her by the arm and holds her close as she begins to lead them down the hallway. As they reach the door that she’d exited from, she pauses a moment before opening the door.
They move through into a narrow hallway. “This leads to the lower kitchens,” she says as she continues along. “Another of these passages leads from the kitchens to the main banquet room which should be relatively empty at this time of night.”
“What about the kitchens,” Jiron says. “Will there be anyone there?”
Sighing, she replies, “There’s always someone there but any other way and you risk being spotted even more.”
“Alright,” James says.
They continue down the hallway until they begin to smell the yeast of many loaves of bread rising as they’re being prepared for the morning meal. Slowing down, Jiron hands the girl to James as he moves forward to check the kitchen.
The kitchen is a large room with many tables and ovens. Ten tables are lined with loaves of bread dough, and beneath one of them is a boy sleeping. The boy appears to be the only one currently in the room.
He goes back to the others and tells them what he’d seen. “That’s Kibby”, she tells them. “He’s the baker’s apprentice and is there to make sure the bread is ready for baking in the morning.” She looks to them and asks, “You’re not going to hurt him are you?”
“If we can get through without waking him,” James assures her, “then I see no reason to harm him.”
She nods her head and they move closer to where the hallway opens up into the kitchen. She points off to the right where another small hallway leads away from the kitchen, “That’s the one you want.”
James indicates with a nod of his head for her to precede them. She moves out, stepping cautiously, trying to remain as quietly as she can as she moves around the table where Kibby is sleeping.
As they move through the kitchen, Miko snags some bread sitting on a counter that was left over from the night before and begins munching on it. When James looks at him, he just gives him a smile as he continues chewing. James grabs one as well.
They reach the hallway and James glances back at the still sleeping Kibby beneath the table. Then he turns back and follows Elspa as she continues to lead them through the Keep.
From up ahead, they hear someone coming toward them. They duck down another side passage and hold still and quiet as the person approaches.
Jiron holds a knife to Elspa’s throat to prevent her from crying out. Then a man walks by their hiding spot and continues down the passage. Once the man’s footsteps can no longer be heard, they return to the passage.
“That was Olyth, the baker,” she tells them once Jiron has removed his knife from her throat.
“Let’s go, we’re running out of time,” urges James.
She begins leading them again down the passage. They go for several hundred feet when she again comes to a stop. Indicating further down the passage ahead of them, she says, “Up ahead, it opens into the banquet room.”
Jiron moves forward and then pauses at the end of the passage. He returns quickly and says, “She’s correct, it’s the main hall alright. It looks empty.”
They move to the end of the passage and James asks, “Where now?”
She points over to another, wider passage across the hall and says, “We’ll have to take that one, there’s no servant’s way on that side of the keep.”
“Where does it lead?” James asks her.
“To the north tower,” she tells him. “There’ll be guards, you’ll have no chance to sneak in there.”
“We’ll see,” he says. Moving to the edge, he glances around the room and then they move quickly across to the other hallway.
It’s much wider than the one they’d been in and has more candles keeping it well lit. Moving down the passage, they pass many doors made of finer quality than the ones they’d seen earlier.
Suddenly from up ahead, three guards suddenly move into the passage heading in their direction. James opens the door they’re closest to and they all rush into the room before the guards spot them.
Once the door is closed, Jiron keeps his ear to the door as James looks around the room. It looks to be a sitting room, where ladies could visit and entertain guests. A doorway leads to another room and James moves toward it to see if there’s anyone there.