Par-Salian nibbled on his thumb a bit before nodding. “Very well. We can’t escape until dark as it is. That gives us some time to prepare. Tythonnia, study your spells. Ladonna, the spell you used to open the gold door, will it work on the steel doors?”
“No,” she said. “I’m afraid we’ll have to open it by hand. But how do we get down?”
“Feather fall,” Par-Salian said. “I have the very spell. It’ll carry our weight, but not the distance. We’ll have to jump twice: from one level to the next and then down again.”
Ladonna and Tythonnia exchanged glances. If the plan sounded a bit dubious, Par-Salian’s worried expression robbed them of their remaining courage. But for now they said nothing. Instead, they retreated into the strangle-point chamber behind them, pulled out their spellbooks, and began studying the necessary incantations.
The studying was done in a few hours, while there was still sun to stretch light across the four horizons. Par-Salian was the first to fall asleep, leaving an anxious Tythonnia and introspective Ladonna to sit there, brooding while their compatriot snored.
Tythonnia’s nerves played with her patience and imagination. Was the pass beyond filled with knights waiting for them to emerge? Why were the renegade hunters after them? And were there more of them? She glanced at Ladonna, who also looked preoccupied by her own thoughts.
“What did you mean by ‘once a thief’?” she asked Ladonna.
Ladonna looked at her and smiled at some faint memory. “I’ve had a colorful past,” she admitted playfully. “There is no secret in that, even if I keep the details to myself. But my mistress, Arianna, she once told me to start thinking like a wizard. But once you live as a thief, it’s hard not to keep thinking like one.”
“I know the sentiment,” Tythonnia said. “My spells kind of reflect my upbringing, as a farm girl.”
“And your desire to misdirect … hide in plain sight, hmm?” Ladonna said.
Tythonnia decided not to argue a point that was likely truer than she wanted to admit. She was tired of her rivalry with Ladonna. “Maybe,” she admitted.
“Par-Salian’s more the straight arrow type,” Ladonna said with a quiet chuckle. She nodded toward the white wizard and whispered, “Funny that he’s attracted to me.”
A smirk graced Tythonnia’s lips and she nodded. “I’ve noticed. You two should marry, a Black and White Robe together … have some nice gray-robed babies.”
Ladonna laughed aloud and rushed her hand over her mouth, but Par-Salian remained fast asleep. “I envy your ability with them,” Ladonna whispered in a gentler tone than Tythonnia had heard from her, “with illusions. Arianna was never good at them, so I never learned them with any real skill. When we have more time, maybe you can teach me?”
“A Black Robe learning from a Red Robe?”
“One wizard of High Sorcery to another,” Ladonna amended.
Tythonnia nodded. “I’d be happy to.”
Ladonna smiled. “Now hush and get some sleep. We’ve got a hard night ahead of us.”
Tythonnia felt calmer, more ready to face the evening. She lay on her back, her arm tucked behind her head, waiting for sleep to overcome her. And just when she thought she’d never fall asleep, she finally did.
It began quietly, in the darkness of the evening, with no light save the glitter of stars and the stare of the red moon. They understood their role, each of them, and the only words spoken were the kind that electrified the skin, words of power that unlocked the hidden mechanisms of the world, words of magic.
“Pfeatherfall.”
Both Ladonna and Tythonnia gasped as they stepped from the edge of the shaft. There was a difference between an absolute faith in the arcane and the unspoken laws that ruled mind, body, and nature. Their hearts felt as though they dropped faster than the rest of them, but Par-Salian calmly held the hands of both of them during their long, lazy drop to the level below. Their feet touched the floor, and Par-Salian cast the second spell before either of them lost their nerve.
“Pfeatherfall.”
Again they meandered downward to the wood platform of the ground. Tythonnia was unsteady on her feet, her knees wobbly and unable to take her weight. Ladonna, on the other hand, was laughing nervously, heady excitement and fear mixed together.
After needing a moment to recover, Tythonnia did her part.
“Tak’kelihatan.”
She turned Ladonna invisible with a touch, while Par-Salian mumbled the words to render himself unseen.
“Tak’kelihatan.” Tythonnia repeated the spell and turned invisible as well. She strode down the north ramp and into the courtyard between the battlements and the tower. She walked up to the steel gates, up to the counterweight pull ring. No guards could be seen, either on the grounds or on the battlements. Likelier, she thought, the knights would be outside, or perhaps they thought they’d already escaped. Regardless, it was a small force of knights, not enough to maintain watch everywhere.
Tythonnia waited until she heard Ladonna and Par-Salian arrive next to her.
“Ready?” Par-Salian whispered.
They replied in the affirmative and put their combined weight into tugging on the pull ring. All they needed was a foot or two, enough to slip through. The gate, however, was heavy and required every bit of weight they could muster to budge it an inch. It creaked open, loud enough to sound like thunder. Another jump dragged the large iron ring down, and the double steel gates spread open a little wider.
“It’s enough,” Par-Salian said. “Go, go.”
They ran for the gate and peered through. They could see the mountain pass rising up on either side and the two knights staring nervously up the ramp. Tythonnia tried to slip through, as it was agreed that she would be the first, and was almost stuck in the pinch of the door. She tried not to grunt as someone pushed her through; her flesh stung, but she was grateful for the escape. She could hear the rustle of cloth as Par-Salian or Ladonna came through next.
Thankfully, the two knights were just far enough away to hear nothing. Instead, they eyed the double gate warily until the brown-haired, walrus-mustached Solamnic said, “Summon the captain and them hunters. I’ll stay ’ere and make sure nothin’ gets through.”
The other knight nodded and ran to the keep just as a couple more knights were running up to the ramp.
“Hurry,” Par-Salian said with a hiss of a whisper.
Carefully, quickly, Tythonnia moved down the ramp on an arc away from the knight who was pointing his sword at the door. She held Ladonna’s hand lightly, enough to guide them along and stay in contact.
“Come on then, Mr. Door,” the knight said nervously. “No need to be opening like that on yer own. Just ain’t natural. How about ya close yerself up again and we can go on then, nice and peaceful, eh? No fuss.”
Down the ramp and onto the soft, lush green of the plains, Tythonnia was grateful to put the tower behind her. That side of the pass was empty of caravans and camps, though the grass was flattened in places. Since the knights were behind them, Tythonnia moved faster. After another moment, they were along the mountain walls of the Westgate Pass and behind a fold in the skirt of the cliff. They were out of sight of the keep and in near darkness.
Three times, Tythonnia grasped a tuft of horse hair, her hands moving into interlocking gestures and mouthing the words, “Stahaliun emersa.”
Three times, the script of rune vanished from her thoughts, like a word almost remembered and out of tongue’s reach. Three times, the air shimmered dimly as a brown horse fifteen hands high with golden eyes and a mane the color of the darkness between stars seemed to emerge from somewhere unseen. The horses were equipped with bit and bridle, their bodies lean and made for the run. Par-Salian, Tythonnia, and Ladonna quickly mounted their steeds.