“When I couldn’t reach you,” said Theodora, fighting to keep her voice steady, “I telephoned Elerius. He seemed to know who I was without my having to tell him. I know you don’t trust him, Daimbert, but you’ve always said he’s the best wizard of your generation, and-” Her mouth quivered, making it impossible for her to go on.
I put an arm tight around her. “We’ll find her. Everything will be just fine.” I wished I believed it myself.
“And the mayor’s just phoned the royal wizard of Caelrhon,” she continued, trying to compose herself. “It turns out that the Princess Margareta is among the missing.”
“Poor kid,” said Paul, showing unexpected sympathy for the girl he mostly referred to in the context of not wanting to marry her. “She must be terrified. And she’s started developing a woman’s form-what will an evil magic-worker want with her?”
“Come on. We’ll find them,” I said with a desperate effort to sound assured. “Cyrus won’t be able to hide from three wizards.”
The carpet shot off into the air again and out over the city walls. I had probed for and not found any lingering trace of Cyrus’s magic by which we might have followed him. He’d covered his tracks, which meant we had to assume the children could be anywhere. There might once have been footprints, but any physical traces of their passage had been obscured by the feet of desperate parents. The fields near the city were thick with the citizens of Caelrhon, shouting their children’s’ names, thrashing their way through clumps of bushes, dragging every body of water. A few looked up and pointed as we sailed past.
It was a good thing, I thought, that the Romneys had been gone for two weeks. Otherwise the people who had already been suspected, at least by some, of setting fire to the high street and of bringing the rats to town would probably find themselves killed by hysterical parents.
“I hope the Thieves’ Guild in Xantium does not learn of this stratagem,” commented Justinia. “They could win an exceeding number of concessions from my grandfather the governor in return for the city’s children.”
“It’s all my fault, Daimbert,” said Theodora, breaking down completely. “I told her she could spend the day with Jen. I should never have let her out of my sight. Will you ever forgive me?”
“It’s not your fault,” I murmured, holding her close. “There’s nothing you could have done. The piping would have drawn her just as surely as it drew all the other children.”
We were now some two miles from the city, beyond where the parents were beating the underbrush. They probably assumed their children could not have gone far. I, on the other hand, realizing the force of a summoning spell, knew that they would have kept running, following the piper, even with their legs worn down to bloody stumps. “We’ll circle the city by air, and if we don’t see them on the first circuit we’ll go out a few more miles and try again.” My attempt to sound calm and rational was a failure in my own ears. “That many children can’t have disappeared without a trace.”
The flying carpet turned at Justinia’s command and briskly traced a wide circle around Caelrhon. All of us lay flat, our heads over the edge, desperately searching the land below with our eyes. Gwennie and Justinia, on either side of the king, kept giving each other surreptitious glances over his head, but I had no time for them.
I had never realized before how much forest covered the hilltops and river valleys of the kingdom of Caelrhon, dense stands of trees that could have hidden hordes of children and were impervious to my magic unless I probed each clump individually. In spite of a far-seeing spell my vision kept blurring-wind, I told myself.
We saw nothing on the first circuit and started on a second, larger circuit. How much time, I tried to calculate, since Cyrus’s piping had summoned the children? The sun was well down the western sky. They could be miles from home by now, or they could be concealed in some cave only a short distance from town. On this circuit we spotted the towers of the royal castle of Caelrhon-Evrard, I thought, was probably now somewhere looking for us. Well, let him and Elerius start their own hunt. I had no time to try to make contact with them. Maybe they’d have better luck than we were.
Gwennie nudged me. “Wizard,” she said in a whisper, “don’t you think it just a little suspicious that someone you say knows eastern magic should show up in Caelrhon at the same time as an eastern princess shows up in Yurt? Especially since she seemed to know Antonia was your daughter before anyone else did?”
“I don’t find it suspicious at all,” I whispered back. Justinia had done nothing I could see to make me suspect her of evil. She was just a woman in hiding from her enemies-who, assuming the undead warriors and the wolf had been aimed at me rather than her, had so far hidden successfully.
“Wizard,” said Paul briskly as the flying carpet approached our starting point again, “I know this is the most systematic way to search the whole area, but we’ll only be able to spot them if they’re out in the open. And it’s going to be dark before very long. It’s time to make a guess and go that way.”
“What do you suggest?” I asked bleakly.
“The river road heading upstream from the city. It’s a good road, so even children could travel fast on it, and it’s tree-shaded most of the way. Because it’s not a major trade route, Cyrus might hope he wouldn’t meet anyone to bring the tale to Caelrhon. If we fly low we may be able to pick up something.”
It was worth a try. We swooped down over the treetops and swung back near the city, then started following the road from just beyond where the parents were dragging the river. Justinia ordered the carpet to fly more slowly, and I probed magically as we flew, trying without success to pick up some indication that the children had come this way.
The direction we were following took us slowly and obliquely toward Yurt. After several miles the road emerged from the trees and ran a short distance in the open, among meadows where cows grazed unconcernedly. Justinia set the carpet down, and Paul and I leaped off.
The road was hard-surfaced, but the margins were damp from the proximity of the water meadows. “Lots of feet,” said Paul, “an enormous number of feet just today. And look. Most of them are very small.”
“Then you were right, sire,” I said, springing back onto the carpet, suddenly feeling enormously more hopeful. “We may still catch them by nightfall.”
The carpet moved faster now. If Cyrus kept to the road, we should be able to hear the children even if we did not see them, as long as we stayed close over the treetops. It was a good thing we had the carpet, I thought, or my own flying powers would have been exhausted hours ago.
Theodora still sat disconsolately, but Paul and I stared eagerly ahead. Gwennie, who had taken Theodora’s hand reassuringly, looked up at me. “Is there any chance Antonia has turned Cyrus into a frog?”
“What?!”
“When she stayed in my chambers, she boasted she knew how to do transformations. Does she?”
I looked inquiringly at Theodora but she shook her head. “Not that I know of,” I said. “It would certainly make things easier if she did.” But even as I spoke I thought that if Cyrus knew she was my daughter, he might be especially careful around her and have counter-spells all arranged. I kept probing for his mind, but he must have his counter-spells all ready for me as well.
Justinia suddenly shivered. “I still am not accustomed to what ye of the West call summer weather. It is scarce this cold in Xantium in winter!”
She was right. Although I hadn’t been noticing, after being hot all day the air had rapidly grown cooler. Ahead of us, dark storm clouds loomed, trailing curtains of rain. “It’s going to be dark even sooner than we thought,” said Paul concernedly.
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” I replied grimly and started on weather spells. Did this mean, then, that Vlad had finally arrived? And if so, had Cyrus taken the children of Caelrhon straight to him?
The clouds began at once to lift, but in a moment they rolled together again, and lightning flashed directly in front of us.
“There’s a mind behind this weather,” I said through my teeth, “and he’s very close. Theodora, do you know any weather spells?”
She shook her head, still not speaking. But Gwennie asked her with interest, “Do you know magic too? I hadn’t realized that. Are there women wizards, then? Or are you a witch?”
All of Theodora’s and my secrets were now on display. It hardly seemed to matter.
I redoubled my spells, trying to force the storm clouds apart. But someone enormously powerful was trying just as hard to keep them together. This had better not be Vlad, I thought with the grim conviction that it was. I had overcome his weather spells twice, but the first time, in the eastern kingdoms, he had been badly wounded, and the other time, just before I met his wolf, he had still been a great many miles away.
The others huddled together in the middle of the carpet as the temperature continued to drop. The king had his arms and wide cloak around both Gwennie and Justinia, though looking only at the latter, a faint smile at the corners of his mouth.
Cold rain started falling, first a few drops, then a downpour. Rivulets of water ran down our hair and clothes and across the carpet to drip off the edge. “This was my finest silk dress,” announced Justinia, “but now it is ruined.” We flew on, slowly now, through heavy darkness as thunder rumbled around us. I wondered uneasily what a direct lightning strike would do to a flying carpet.
As near as I could tell through cloud and rain, we were approaching the headwaters of the river that flowed through the city of Caelrhon. The road veered away as the ground rose abruptly into rocky cliffs. Justinia, huddled in on herself and shivering in spite of Paul’s arm, muttered that I might as well fly the carpet myself. We circled once over the tops of the cliffs, then I directed the carpet to follow the road out across the plateau.
Theodora suddenly stirred. “Daimbert!” she cried excitedly. “I think I’ve found her! I’ve found Antonia! She’s alive!”
Paul and I let out identical triumphant whoops. I turned the carpet at once to head back toward the cliffs, where she said she had sensed our daughter’s mind.
But now she seemed confused. Probing myself, I found no hint of any humans in the vicinity. “But I know I sensed her,” Theodora said doggedly. “Unless it’s some kind of trick-”
“Wait a minute,” said the king, peering over the edge of the carpet at the nearly invisible naked rock below us. “There’s supposed to be a castle here.”
“What castle?” I cried.
“There’s always been a ruined castle right below us, on top of these cliffs,” said Paul patiently, trying unsuccessfully to wipe rainwater from his face. “Or at least I assume it hasn’t always been ruined-but it must have been since the Black Wars. We’re close to the border of the kingdom of Yurt here. This is the castle I told you about that I was exploring earlier in the summer.”
I did remember now that he mentioned it. “Well, you must be mistaken,” I said wearily, not even trying to wipe the streams of water from my face. “I know it’s hard to tell distances from the air.”
Suddenly I stopped and grinned. Maybe we had them after all.
“You’re absolutely right, sire. A ruined castle would be exactly the place to hide a large group of children. And all the easier if you’re a wizard with the powerful spells to make a whole castle invisible.” Vlad’s obsidian castle in the Eastern Kingdoms had been invisible unless he wanted someone to see it. If it weren’t for Theodora’s witch-magic breaking through his defenses for a brief moment, and for Paul’s knowledge of local geography, we would have gone right by these cliffs without a second look.
“Now I just have to find the way in,” I said fiercely. Antonia was still alive. “The castle’s stones are here though hidden, and we could rip the carpet landing on a jagged wall even if we can’t see it.” With the heavy darkness and the rain, we wouldn’t have been able to see much of the castle even without a spell of invisibility.
“Down at the bottom of the cliffs,” said Paul, “there’s a back entrance that was probably where they once brought up goods from the river.” I immediately directed the carpet slowly downward. Rain was now falling so hard it bounced from the carpet’s surface. “Do you think, Wizard,” the king added as we descended, “that they’ll know we’ve arrived?”
“They’ll have a pretty good idea,” I said shortly.
Would it just be Cyrus we had to face, I wondered as I gently landed the carpet amid jagged rocks that must have fallen from a ruined wall above, or did he have Vlad with him now? And had these two dark wizards brought a demon along?
“The rest of you had better stay outside,” I said quietly, setting my jaw determinedly. “I don’t know how long this may take. But if I’m not back by dawn, Justinia, take the carpet and-”
But none of them wanted to be left behind. Theodora cared as little about her personal safety as I cared about mine when it came to Antonia, and Paul flatly refused to wait patiently for the adventurers’ return. Justinia insisted she would freeze to death if forced to stay out in the driving rain for five more minutes, and Gwennie had no intention of being left alone on a night of magical darkness and hidden evil.
It was going to be hard enough to get myself out of this alive without worrying about all of them. I should have dumped them all off miles ago. But then I would never have located the castle. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s try to find the way in.”