At least, no one would see her until he needed her to be seen.
And Aket-ten was somewhere below. Hurt, perhaps. Kaleth said that she hadn’t been hurt, but how could he be sure? Frightened, she was surely frightened, and mourning her dragon. Praying that help would somehow come before it was too late.
I’m here! he thought, hard, wondering if she could somehow pick it up. We’ll get you out, just hold on. . . .
It was very comfortable under the folds of that cloth. The canvas was waterproof enough that his clothing was drying out. The Thet priests said that the Magi wouldn’t sense this magic, even though it was so close to them, because the thing in the Tower was so magical already. The sail would be like a lit lantern under the desert sun at noon; you wouldn’t see the flame unless you were looking for it, and even then you would have to be practically on top of it.
How scared is she? How hurt is she? Have they already done anything to her? Was she in a bare, cold cell somewhere down below, chilled, aching, maybe hungry?
What had they been doing to her? He didn’t really want to think about it. . . .
He went over his plan in his mind. Before dawn he would have to get into place, moving while there was just enough light to see by, but not so much that anyone would be around to spot him. He hoped. There was a lot of hope involved in this. An awful lot of hope.
Avatre was already asleep. He could feel her breathing; she was very comfortable under this sail. And with the rain drumming on it, it was like the old days, back when he was just beginning the new wing of dragons, with rain drumming on the canopy that kept the water out of the hot sand.
Back when Toreth was alive. Before Aket-ten became one of them.
If they’ve hurt her. . . .
His stomach knotted, and not just with anxiety over Aket-ten.
He wished he was doing something other than just waiting.
Fear crept slowly over him, chilling his heart; he tried to drive it away by throwing himself into his planning.
There wasn’t a lot of room inside the tower; he would probably not have to face more than two people, the Magus and whoever he brought to help him. A guard, probably. He would have to get rid of both of them. . . .
Be honest. I’m going to have to kill them.
This was going to be hard. He’d never killed anyone face-to-face before, and he might have to. Would have to. Almost a certainty.
Actually, he hadn’t ever killed anyone—not that he was certain of. In that last fight when the tala ran out, he and the others had mostly just tried to make the Tian dragons angry, so they’d throw their riders. Or at least, get the dragons so agitated that they’d fight their Jousters, force them to make their beasts go to ground just so the Jouster could get off before the dragon could throw them. He’d wanted people dead, but he’d never done the deed with his own hands. He felt very conscious of the long knife at his hip. He was going to have to use that knife. . . .
That, he tried not to think about. He just drilled himself in what he had to do next when dawn came, dozing off, then waking, to go over it all again. He willed himself to see every step, over and over, until, as the rain slackened just a little and the first hint of dawn lightened the sky, he shook off the last of his sleepiness and went to work.
And it felt like he had done it a hundred times before.
First, he unloaded the second pannier in front of Avatre; she wasn’t awake enough to be hungry yet, but when she was, her breakfast would be waiting right there for her and she wouldn’t have to move from under the comfortable canvas to eat it. And then, she could go right back to sleep again. She probably would.
He fastened his rope to Avatre’s saddle, pulled on it to make sure it was going to hold. Avatre opened one eye sleepily.
“Stay,” he whispered to her. “Hold.”
Not at all loath to do just that, she closed her eye again, and went back to drowsing.
He slipped over the parapet at the corner, where the rope wouldn’t dangle in front of the window, getting soaked in the process, and walked his way down the wall until he got to a window. He’d been afraid it might be a narrow squeeze, but there was plenty of room for the windows were enormous, far bigger than he had thought, and there was nothing in the way of shutters or bars on them.
Then again, why should there be shutters or bars? Who would be up here? Who would want to break into the stronghold of the Magi?
Um, that would be me.
He clambered in through the window, flipped the rope out of the way so it wouldn’t show if anyone looked out, and waited right in the opening in the darkness. He had to wait for his eyes to adjust, and he wanted to avoid betraying his presence to someone who was paying attention by dripping all over the floor and leaving patches of water there.
The room in this tower was half full of something mechanical, and it was not what he had expected. He’d thought vaguely of statues of strange gods, of a room thick with incense, of—well, now he couldn’t put a name to what he’d expected.
It stood in the middle of a “magic circle” of inlaid brass in the middle of the room. He knew it was a magic circle because he had watched the Thet priests lay out something similar when they made the canvas for Avatre—in chalk on the floor, not in permanent brass inlaid in the floor. But the construction itself looked like one of Heklatis’ little mechanical toys. Except that it wasn’t so very “little.”
The mechanism itself was also made of brass. From the look of things, it could be swiveled and pointed in just about any direction.
The heart of the thing was the biggest crystal he had ever seen. Shaped like two pyramids clapped together, an enormous, perfect octahedron, he had never seen anything like it. It was flawless, clear, and half again as tall as he was. For a long moment, all he could do was to stare at it in wonder. He hadn’t known quite what to expect, but whatever it had been, his imagination had not been able to anticipate this.
Though why it should be called an “Eye,” he couldn’t think.
He shook off his amazement, and began looking for a place to hide. He might be here a long time.
There weren’t a lot of hiding places here; he finally found a kind of storage area, a three-sided cupboard in the corner between the windows opposite the place where he had come in. When he pulled the door open, it looked as if it hadn’t been opened in years. If there had ever been shelves in there, they were gone now. There were dusty bottles and jars on the floor, some of which inexplicably made his skin crawl. He shoved them aside and squeezed himself in, watching the room through the crack in the door. And it made him wonder, what had this place been used for, before it had been made into the home for the Eye? The Tower was older than the Eye. Probably the reason that the cupboard was still here was only because it was too much trouble to pull it out.
So far, so good.
Back to the hard part.
Waiting.
TWENTY
THERE were two possibilities for what would happen next. Either the Magi would bring Aket-ten here before the rest of the wing began their attack, or they would do so because the wing had begun their attack. He thought he was ready in either case.
It turned out to be the former rather than the latter.
He heard them coming long before he saw them. The hollow tower amplified every little sound from below.
A door opening and slamming shut, then footsteps, then voices.
A harsh, angry voice. “Get her under control, curse you! OW!”