Every block, line, and beam in the assemblage creaked and groaned as though on the verge of giving way. The cage hovered a handspan above the ground as the beasts of burden rallied themselves for another effort. The men in the chamber were silent, speaking only in harsh whispers when absolutely necessary. Even though the creature had remained asleep after all the manhandling it had been subjected to, they were terrified of waking it.
Ysabeau had to remind herself to breathe as the oxen pulled again, jerking the cage up to head level. It swung gently from side to side. With each swing, she cringed, waiting for one of the beams to be tugged from true, to snap. What magic kept the beast in slumber? It had to be incredibly powerful, like the torrent of energy that swirled around the temple, invisible to all but her and Hangdog. The Fount was relentless in its efforts to force its way in. It was like having someone banging constantly on your front door, shouting and raging and demanding entry—there was no way to ignore it. She wondered if Hangdog felt it too.
She would be glad to be out of this place. As she grew ever more fatigued, the Fount’s energy became increasingly imposing. If she hit her breaking point, she was dead. She had seen some of the Order’s initiates burn themselves out, in the early days of magical experimentation, and had no desire to experience it firsthand.
She wondered if she was a fool to try and capture this dragon. It was the type of overreach she’d always been careful to avoid. No matter how smoothly things went, she couldn’t shake the sense of impending doom. The creature looked so huge and powerful; the iron bars containing it looked like twigs. If it woke, it could burst out and slaughter them all in an instant. Added to that was the difficulty of continuing to maintain the cave illusion, which had given her a ferocious headache and the sensation that every muscle in her body had been gently broiled for an hour or two. Still, the rewards of a coup like this, she thought.
The cage jerked up again. In the distance, she could hear the drover’s voice, cussing and goading the oxen forward. If the draft animals saw what they were hauling out of the hole, she reckoned they’d be on the far side of the county before they could be herded up again. Fear was such a wonderful motivator.
She watched a moment longer, then decided there was little to be gained by standing there. If things went wrong, there would be enough noise to alert her to the fact. She wandered back down to the main chamber and had one last look around; since she controlled it, the illusion did not impede her vision. The temple truly was a magnificent place, and she wondered what discoveries the academics would make over the coming weeks as they dug into the material they’d gathered.
Unbeknownst to them, Ysabeau had been giving them gentle top-ups of energy to keep them going, but she didn’t have enough left in her to keep that up now. They were going to come down hard when it wore off, but by then, they’d be back in Mirabay and the scholars would be someone else’s problem.
She wondered what else might lie hidden in the temple, waiting to be discovered. They’d found several additional passageways, but all stopped after only a few paces, blocked by stone walls that looked no different from the rest of the temple’s construction. Still, they hinted that there might be other chambers, patiently waiting to reveal their secrets.
Focussing her mind, Ysabeau tried to view the outline of the Fount to see if she could spot any voids behind it—the Fount usually lined surfaces, a handy fact that had allowed her to discover more than one hidden room over the years. All she could see was the raging swirl of blue energy, and she had to instantly close her mind to it before it overwhelmed her. Holding it back was becoming almost impossible. It was time to go.
She walked around the edge of the room, giving the magnificent art a final viewing. Even if there was no great and important message being passed down through the mists of time, the aesthetic value of them was beyond measure. To think they must have been created so long ago, perhaps even before the Empire had left the shores of Vellin-Ilora, was astonishing.
Something glittered on the ground, catching her eye. She walked over and saw it was a gold coin. Her first thought was that it must have been as ancient as the temple, perhaps bearing the visage of some long-forgotten king. Picking it up, she was disappointed to see none other than the present king’s father, making the coin only a few decades old at most. One of the villagers must have dropped it when they were working on the cage. She popped the coin into her purse. Their loss. My gain.
She returned to the entrance chamber, hopeful that the most nerve-wracking part of the job was complete.
Amaury felt like a child in a sweetshop. Anything he put his mind to, he could do. The power was at once both exhilarating and terrifying. He had all Kayte dal Drezony’s portents of doom bouncing around in his head: he could burn himself out; too much power, too quickly. All that sort of nonsense. The only problem was, it no longer felt like nonsense. He could feel the power.
To him, the Fount was no longer a trickling stream but a deluge. After he had drunk from the Cup, it had been hours before the world had lost its blue, coruscating glow. There was a time when it had taken every ounce of concentration he had to see it. Now it took effort to ignore.
The magic he’d cast on Gill had taken a lot out of him. His magical grapple with Solène, more still. That was the only thing that had allowed her to get away. When she had released her grip on him, Amaury had been more exhausted than he’d ever felt before. He’d collapsed, lying unconscious for a time. That had been deeply troubling. Dal Drezony’s lectures on magical burnout echoed in his mind. Even now, he could feel the aftereffects. His body ached and he had no energy or motivation to do anything. Still, it had been an incredible application of force, and all things considered, he was none the worse for it.
He was sure these were things he could overcome with time, practice, and experience. Like anything else, he was sure, it needed training to develop, but he found himself longing for a guiding hand. It was a shame dal Drezony had become too great a problem to be allowed to live. She had made herself an expert in magical safety and had known more about the dangers of burnout, and the countless other side effects of excessive magic use, than anyone else alive. That was a safety net he would have been very glad of at that moment, but he was an intelligent man. A prudent and careful one, too, if a little impatient at times. He was confident he could work out what his limits were and avoid putting himself in any real danger. Fatigue, plus aches and pains, he could deal with. The reward was more than worth it.
As much as he would have liked to devote every moment to exploring the power this new Cup seemed to have permanently granted him, he still had a kingdom to run and a population to calm. There were reports coming in of a dragon sighting over the city, but they were so few that he wrote them off as hysteria. With so much talk of dragons these days, every misshapen cloud would appear to be the subject of their nightmares for some.
What was more irritating was that Gill and his friends had escaped with the king. Amaury couldn’t be sure how big a problem that might be, couldn’t determine if it would actually work in his favour. That the king had taken seriously ill would be obvious to everyone who saw him. There could be no accusations that Amaury had deposed and imprisoned a healthy man. It was evidence, if he needed it, that his regency was entirely legal.