It occurred to her, as she began working her way down through the levels of the tower, that Kylia might not be quite the milk-and-honey princess that Elena had thought her. She had, after all, armed herself with that poker, yes, and she had been perfectly ready to attack anything coming in the balcony door with it! Well, good; good for her. That boded well for Julian, too....
Get your mind back on what you're doing, she scolded herself. The most difficult task is yet to come. And she worked her way down through the empty tower levels until, at last, she found a door that was locked.
She paused, her ear pressed to the keyhole, listening with all of her attention. Was there a guard out there? Was there some other sort of creature? She couldn't hear anything, nor could she sense any sort of magic. All she could hear were the distant echoes of the fighting. Either Alexander had not yet challenged the Sorcerer, or he had, but the fighting at the gate was continuing anyway.
That might change at any moment. It was time to take yet another chance, and hope that luck was with them all.
Chapter 20
Elena knelt beside the door, touched her wand to it, and teased another fragment of magic into the door-lock.
"Open locks, whoever knocks," she whispered to it, and tapped, gently, on the wood of the door beside the lock.
With a click, the lock tripped, and she pushed the door open — gently.
She peered around the door, to see that she was in a hallway. There should have been lamps illuminating the whole area, but this hall showed signs of a struggle. Only about half of the lamps were lit; the rest lay on the floor, broken, and the little tables that had once held vases or statues were overturned, their burdens shattered.
Evidently Kylia had not gone to her imprisonment quietly. Once again, Elena found the Princess rising in her estimation. So, she fought, did she? Well done to her.
At least the hallway was clear. If I were the throne room, where would I be? she wondered. Or did she, in fact, actually want the throne room? Sergei had guessed that this was where the Sorcerer's heart would be, but he had not actually known. So who — or what — would?
Well, there was dark magic everywhere, the sort that only evil mages could use without being tainted, for it carried the overburden of death, or of being wrenched away from someone who was afraid and unwilling. That was the bad part; she couldn't use it. It hung in the air in clouds, dark and glowing with a sullen red, as if the place was on fire.
The good part was that with so much magic hanging about, a little more wouldn't be noticed. So she eased out a tiny trace, a thread of the stuff, spun it out from her wand, and concentrated on it.
"Clever, cunning, silent, wary;
Come to me and do not tarry.
Anyone who's wise
knows that Nothing will escape a cat's eyes."
The thread of magic formed into a tiny sphere and shot off at floor-level. She closed the door most of the way, sat back on her heels, and waited.
She did not have to wait long, fortunately for her patience. Within a few minutes, a long, slender, black shape oozed through the crack she had left open, and stood looking expectantly up at her.
"Godmother," she said.
Elena was not surprised that the cat identified her immediately. Cats, even the commonest barn and kitchen cats, had an affinity for magic.
"Daughter of Bast," she replied, with a little bow. Cats liked to be reminded that they had once been worshiped. They pretended that they didn't, that they were above flattery, but of course, that only meant that they were all the more susceptible to it. "I am looking for something. It will be strange. It is very precious to the Bad Pack Leader of the Bad Pack that has taken over this castle, and he will have hidden it." She used the word "pack leader," not because cats had a hierarchy anything like a pack, but because they very well understood how dogs operated, and tended to think of humans and other two-legged creatures in those terms.
"Strange...." the cat pondered this. "There is hard shiny no-scent stuff, but it is precious to all of them, and like the hard shiny stuff that was here already. Will it be — " and here the cat used a word that didn't translate into human terms. This was because it was the complicated, multilayered feline term, incorporating scent, sound, sight, magic-sight, and a sense that only cats seemed to have that somehow involved magic at a level completely alien to humans. It meant "something that is physical but is also extremely magical" with a modifier specifying "bad magic."
"Yes, it will!" Elena whispered, grateful beyond measure that she had somehow managed to attract one of the castle matriarchs, and not a kitchen-cat, a kitten, or a pampered lady's cat.
"Hmm, the size of a six-week kitten ? Hard shiny stuff on the outside, but alive inside?" the cat persisted.
Now that could only be the heart, as Sergei had described it! He'll probably encase it in diamond or something, and put the diamond in a box and you'll have to figure out how to get it out...
"That's it exactly, wisest of the wise!" she exclaimed. "Can you take me to it?"
"Can you walk-through-walls?" the cat asked.
Now, Elena had never been entirely certain what that meant. Cats used the term all the time. Sometimes, it seemed to mean only that the cat could ooze through small cracks and holes that seemed too small for it. Sometimes it seemed to mean merely that it could find a way wherever it wanted to go. But sometimes it seemed to mean just that, literally — as if there were cats who could, indeed, walk through walls.
Mind, knowing cats, she didn't entirely doubt it, though that didn't help her at the moment.
"No," she said with regret. "I am not so clever."
"Clever," in feline, meant a number of things that included being powerful, intelligent, cunning, and very, very magical.
"Can you walk unseen?" the cat persisted. "We must pass many dogs of the Bad Pack. They are roused by the Good Pack at the gate and the two Pack Leaders fighting, but there are still some along the way who are not distracted."
Elena felt her throat tighten; so Alexander was in combat! She had to move, and move quickly, for he could not battle so powerful a magician for very long....
"I can," she said, electing to spend a great deal of her magic to make herself invisible. She hadn't planned on doing so — it would leave her very little to work with —
But now it was a matter of time, and they had none to waste.