Fugitives of Chaos

Colin's voice broke the silence. "Jesus H. Christ! Quentin! Oh my God! You are the man!"

I started to kick and put my hands up toward the gag, but then I stopped. We might still be twenty feet up in the air. I could not yank off the blindfold until Quentin gave me permission.

Quentin shifted his grip. With an easy strength, he put me on my feet. I could feel a slanted surface under my boots. Was it safe to talk yet? I waved my hand behind me toward him, and made a mmph! noise.

Quentin plucked at the play-knot. I pushed at the gag with my tongue, but instead of falling off, it suddenly changed shape, becoming thicker, and blocked my mouth for real. The blindfold suddenly seemed snug, and more opaque.

I could feel Quentin pluck at the knot for a moment. I did not have time to start panicking, because Quentin made a slight snort of disgust, or surprise, and he tapped his staff on the ground. The gag and the blindfold relaxed. I spit out the gag and, hooking a finger through the top of my blindfold, I pulled the whole assembly, scarf, goggles, and all, down around my neck.

I said to Colin, "You did that on purpose!"

He gave me a half grin. "What? Don't I wish! I didn't talk Big Q into trussing you up like Lois Lane."

Quentin said, "It actually was part of the spell. She had to make a sacrifice to please the spirits. A little embarrassment, I suppose, is sacrifice enough."

We were standing on the roof of the Great Hall.

Vanity was standing a few feet away from Colin and Victor, holding her nose. Victor had no expression, but there was a small greenish stain trailing down his left side.

I said, "What happened to you?"

Vanity answered, "Colin gets airsick."

Colin said, "It was the worst hour of my life."

Vanity said, "It was less than two minutes, barfy boy."

"Seemed like an hour."

Vanity jerked her head suddenly to the left, pointed her finger to a spot in the sky.

Before she could say anything, Quentin spread his arms, stepped into the middle of where we stood, and swung his stick in a wide circle. He was shorter than all of us, but he was standing on the peak of the roof a little way above us. We ducked, and the stick passed over our heads.

I could not see it with my eyes, but with my higher sense I saw a circle of light traced by the path of the staff. It hung in the air, embracing all of us, and then spread slowly out, like a single ripple in a smooth pond. A hush seemed to fall across the night sky, the estate around us.

Quentin said, "The aery ones can make the air quiet when I fly; I am using the same effect now. Vanity, is there anyone listening to us?"

Vanity shook her head. She said, "It's like a pressure. It's moving East to West across the campus. I don't think they know where we are. Going that way." She pointed. "Back the way we had come."

Victor said, "Maybe there was a bug of some sort on the stick Quentin broke. They could be going that way."

I said, "Okay. Let's go in."

1.

After all the hubbub and hoopla getting here, getting in was easy. I had Vanity touch the big metal door on the roof. She gave me a thumbs-up; no one was watching or listening to it.

It was padlocked, but Victor waved his hand over it, and the padlock jumped up and fell open. I made the door light and hauled it up and over.

Vanity went first. She said, "Jump over the third stair."

"What is it?"

She just shrugged. "It is something that watches. Just skip over it."

At the bottom of the stairs, Victor said, "Microwaves. Motion detectors, I think."

I said, "None of this was here before. I think. Can you, I don't know, interfere with the signal without setting them off?"

He said, "Maybe if I had a week to figure out the math. Can't you see through walls? Trace the wires and tell me where the switch is. If it is made of metal, I'll turn it to its 'off setting."

I stood, eyes closed, with the building around me laid out like a blueprint. The wires were useful to someone, they glowed.

I also saw a webwork, like a spiderweb, of lines of moral force laid across the doorways and lintels.

I said, "There is a box all the wires lead to in an office on the first floor."

It took a while for Victor, blind, being led just by my voice, to direct a beam of magnetic force down through several floors to the control panel for the alarms. Vanity hopped back and forth, one foot to the other, giving out little yelps when we were about to trip something.

I could not see the circuitry go dead, since I cannot see electron flows, but I saw the system become useless.

I said to Quentin, "There is some sort of spell laid across all the doors. Can you break it?"

He looked a little uncertain. He said, "Get me to the door with the safe in it. Vanity, I hope you'll tell me if I am about to set off an alarm or something."

Victor said, "I will look for electronic signals. Amelia can look through the walls for traps."

Colin said, "And I'll look for an opportunity to drop my pants. Hey! Has anyone noticed that I'm the only completely useless person here?"

Vanity said, "Quiet, puke boy. We've noticed it for years."

Victor hushed them both.

We set off down the gloomy corridor. Our way was lit only by what moonlight there was leaking in through the windows.

Soon we were in front of the door to the second-floor corner office.

I told Victor where the wires were running to the door. He said, "I can see them." He pointed his finger, disarmed the alarms. With a click, the door unlocked.

I said, "The spell looks like a big red spiderweb to me. It is right over the door, and it goes through the walls and floor."

Quentin took a deep breath and said, "Okay. Let me try something."

He lightly touched his staff to the handle of the door, and spoke: " Annon edhellenf edro hi ammen!

Fennas no-gothrim, lasto beth lammen!"

Nothing happened,

Colin said, "Break the stick over your knee and throw it at the doors. It looked cool when you did that before."

Vanity squinted at Quentin. "Was that from a made-up language?"

"Better than most real languages," muttered Quentin under his breath. Then he said, "That would have worked if these had been dwarf doors. Well. Let me try something else." He knelt, took a piece of chalk from his pocket, and wrote some angular-looking Viking letters on the little strip of floor that showed between the edge of the carpet and the threshold of the door.

He stood, raised his wand, touched the tip to his chest, and spoke: "Nine nights I hung upon the wind-torn tree, my own spear through my own heart, myself a sacrifice to myself, high on the tree whose roots none know! None came to aid me, none gave me drink. I saw the runes below me. Crying out, I seized on them."

He pointed to one of the marks he'd made on the ground with his wand. "Three great runes burn in my hand. A fourth and greater one I know. If a man fastens chains and gyves to my limbs, I sing the song to set me free; locks spring apart, fetters jump open, my hands and feet know liberty."

He raised the wand and tapped the door.

The door trembled in the frame.

Vanity said, "Did it work? The door was listening to him."

I said, "No. I can still see the spiderweb across it."

Colin said, "Maybe Vanity can just wish a secret passage into being, and we can go into the room that way."

Quentin said over his shoulder, "That's not the problem. The door is not really locked; it is just going to let off an alarm or a curse if we open it unlawfully. The windows and floorboards are the same way. The act of going into the room is what is prohibited. If this had been a locked door, something keeping us prisoner, that last rune would have worked. Well. Maybe I can make the magic think magic is wicked.