As soon as we crossed the threshold I felt the chill sensation of the dampening spell. It didn't render me physically cold, but it stripped away from me all connection with the natural energy lines, something I'd come to associate with heat. As Aahz had trained me to, I had filled up my inner reservoir with as much power as I could hold, though it would do me no good in here.
The false escape had thrown the building into chaos. Half-dressed guards with veins showing in their protuberant brown eyes and their hair still mussed from sleep yanked on uniform tunics as they ran up and down the halls. No one seemed to know what he or she was doing. Following Tananda's lead, we flitted from shadow to shadow, ducking out of the sight of the hurrying guards. We made our way back to the cells.
Where I heard banging and yelling I knew I would not find our Kobold. I tiptoed to the first quiet door I could find and leaned close to the crack at the bottom.
"Zol?" I whispered.
"Who is that?" a voice bellowed from across the hall. The banging ceased for a moment. "Who's out there?"
I should have realized how keen Pervects' hearing was. "Zol, are you in there?" I repeated.
No answer. I heard a hiss, and looked up. Tananda was clinging to the keystone arch above the cell door. Bunny was perched on a rafter over her head. Tananda offered me a hand and helped me swing up just in time to avoid a patrol of three Scammies striding in, carrying lit torches.
"Prisoner check!" announced the lead guard, though he looked as though he'd rather face wild spider-bears buck naked. They started to insert the key in the first lock. A thundering blow from the other side shook the door so much the key almost hopped out.
"You let me out of here at once!" It was the eldest female. "You boys are going to be sorry you mistreated an old lady! When I tell your mothers what you've been up to ... !" She left the threat unfinished, but it had its desired effect. The guards trembled and moved back. The sergeant, sweating, pulled the key out.
"That one's secure," he told them. They moved nervously along to the next cell.
By this time the other Pervects had heard the footsteps in the hallway. They were all clamoring to get out, threatening the guards with dire physical harm. I paid attention to the cells that the guards didn't visit. Either those were empty, or they contained non-Pervect prisoners.
Boom! Crash! Screech! The noise was the ideal cover as we went from one quiet cell to another. Once the guards had gone we were able to split up. In a few moments we met in a doorway.
"I don't hear him," Tananda whispered. "I don't think he's here."
"Where would they be keeping him?" Bunny asked.
We were interrupted by a bright Prring! like a doorbell being rung. Sudden silence descended. We all looked at one another. Wide-eyed with alarm, Bunny clapped one hand over her mouth, and the other over Bytina, in the pouch at her waist. The PDA had made that noise.
I didn't have time to chide Bunny for not telling the little computer to be quiet. Suddenly, the entire building burst into life. The Pervects started pounding on their cell doors again. Shouting erupted all around us. We may not have had access to magik, but we flew out of the cell block and headed toward the exit.
Luckily the confusion prevented anyone from paying close attention to us. Scammies ran up and back with torches, stopping one another at sword's point, and diving in and out of doorways. Whenever a section of hallway emptied, we traversed it, hiding in pools of shadow. The entrance, whose threshold I never thought I would have to cross again in my life, loomed up ahead of us. Beyond it, the sky was lightening. Morning had broken. An apron of light was just beginning to spread down the hall. Would we reach it?
As we were scurrying along the last few yards, a huge shadow loomed up in front of us. I froze. There was nowhere to hide. We'd been discovered. Any moment now, the guard would shout out the alarm, and this time we would all be locked in a cell next to the Pervects.
"Scootie!" Tananda squealed, throwing herself into the guard's arms.
"Tananda," the guard replied, torn between pleasure and embarrassment.
"Where have you been?" she asked, gesturing behind her back for us to keep moving. "I've been looking for you."
"Uh, I can't now," Scootie said, nervously. "We had an escape. Uh... I'm not supposed to say anything about that."
"Oh, I wouldn't tell," Tananda promised him, cuddling close. "You're so brave, chasing prisoners. I bet they were armed and dangerous!"
"Uh, not exactly ..." We tiptoed behind the Scammie, whose entire attention was being commanded by Tananda.
"Scootari!"
"Uh, I gotta go," Scootie pleaded, extricating himself with some difficulty.
"Oh, must you?" Tananda cooed. By this time we were outside, plastered against the wall just beyond the door. I threw an illusion on myself and Bunny to make us look like the missing sentries. Tananda came sauntering out.
"Let's go," she chirped, straightening her belt and tidying her hair. "He couldn't stay." I gave Tananda a Scammie face to wear, too, and added the flower-smell illusion that had initially kept us from discovery. The three of us found a quiet corner table in a local cafe to get some breakfast. I sat with my back to the wall, keeping an eye on the interplay in the room. The whole town was frantic about the purported escape of prisoners from the jail.
"I heard a wizard vanished out of the building, right in front of the judge," a female said, pouring opaque, pale blue liquid into her morning cup. She spooned yellow crystals in, and stirred the resulting green soup with a narrow metal stick, the local equivalent of a spoon that would fit into the small round mouths.
"I heard it was three of them, all green and scaly!" a big male exclaimed.
'That makes four," calculated the table server, a slender male in his early years. "That's almost an army."
"An army escaped?" asked an old female, coming in the door. "Preserve us! An army of demons!" She backed out of the door and scurried away as fast as her feeble legs would carry her.
I shook my head over my plate. These people really would believe anything. I was partly to blame for the mass hysteria brewing. I meant to undo as much of the damage as I could, but first we had to find Zol.
Bunny arranged herself with her back to the rest of the room, and opened up Bytina. She tilted the little magik mirror so the two of us could see it, too: there was one handsome parchment envelope visible on the desktop. In a twinkling Bunny tapped both forefingers onto the hand-shaped button.
"I shall be delayed quite a bit, dear Bunny," the message read. "I don't know if you are cross-dimensionally en- abled, so you may not get this immediately. I hope you will not be too worried about me. As soon as I can get free I will rejoin you." The ornate signature was already familiar to me from the flyleaf of Zol's book.
"He's still got his notebook." Bunny breathed a sigh of relief.
"But where is he being held?" I asked.
"I don't know. How can we find him?"
Tananda aimed a fingernail at Bytina. "Does it... or, should I say, she ... have any ideas?"
"Do you, sweetie?" Bunny asked, stroking the little device with her fingertip.
Apparently she did. A blank correspondence card appeared in the center of the mirror. A long, fluffy quill dropped into view, dipped itself into an inkwell, and wrote upon the creamy whiteness, "Where are you?" The pen and ink vanished, and the card slid into an envelope marked 'To Zol Icty." The sealed letter dropped out of sight, leaving the mirror blank. The PDA hummed as though it was proud of itself. Bunny petted it some more.
"Isn't she clever?" my assistant beamed. I rolled my eyes.
We were in the middle of a second round of doughnuts and hot drinks when the ringing sound came that we had learned to associate with engraved messages being delivered to Bytina. Bunny opened the little compact. We all crowded around the tiny mirror to see what it had received.