She didn't really understand what he was talking about, though she had an inkling. She worked steadily, ignoring the wetting and removed a wheel. Then she turned it around and reattached it.
The wheel bore symbols on each of the paddles set along its rims. There were also symbols painted on its side.
Each wheel seemed to have the same symbols but in a different sequence.
When their work was done, Smhee said, 'I don't know what their reversal will do. But I'll wager that it won't be for Kemren's good. We must hurry now. If he's sensitive to the inflow-outflow of his magic, .he'll know something's wrong.'
She thought that it would be better not to have aroused the mage. However, Smhee was the master; she, the apprentice.
Smhee started to turn away from the wheels but stopped.
'Look!'
His finger pointed at the wheels.
'Well?'
'Don't you see something strange?'
It was a moment before she saw what had made her uneasy without realizing why. No water was spilling from the paddles down to the pool. The water just seemed to disappear after striking them. She looked wonderingly from them to him. 'I see what you mean.'
He spread out his hands. 'I don't know what's happening. I'm not a mage or a sorcerer. But... that water has to be going some place.'
They put their boots back on, and he unshot the bar of the door. It led to another flight of steps, ending in another door. They went down a corridor the walls of which were bare stone. But there were also lit torches set in brackets on them.
At the end of the corridor they came to a round room. Light came down from torches; the room was actually a tall shaft. Looking up from the bottom, they could see a black square outlined narrowly by bright light at its top.
13
Voices came from above.
'It has to be a lift,' Smhee whispered. He said something in his native tongue that sounded like a curse.
'We're stuck here until the lift comes down.'
He'd no sooner spoken than they heard a squeal as of metal, and the square began descending slowly.
'We're in luck!' Smhee said. 'Unless they're sending down men to see what's happened to the wheels.'
They retreated through the door at the other end. Here they waited with their blades ready. Smhee kept the door open a crack.
'There are only two. Both are carrying bags and one has a haunch of meat. They're going to feed the bears and the spiders!'
Masha wondered how the men intended to get past the bears to the arachnids. But maybe the bears attacked only strangers.
'One man has a torch,' he said.
The door swung open, and a Raggah wearing a red-and-black striped robe stepped through. Smhee drove his dagger into the man's throat. Masha came out from behind the door and thrust her sword through the other man's neck.
After dragging the bodies into the room, they took off the robes and put them on.
'It's too big for me,' she said. 'I look ridiculous.'
'Cut off the bottom,' he said, but she had already started doing that.
'What about the blood on the robes?'
'We could wash it out, but then we'd look strange with dripping robes. We'll just have to take a chance.'
They left the bodies lying on the floor and went back to the lift. This was an open-sided cage built of light (and expensive) imported bamboo. The top was closed, but it had a" trap door. A rope descended through it.
They looked up but could see no one looking down.
Smhee pulled on the rope, and a bell clanged. No one was summoned by it, though.
'Whoever pulls this up is gone. No doubt he, or they, are not expecting the two to return so early. Well, we must climb up the pull-ropes. I hope you're up to it.'
'Better than you, fat one,' Masha said.
He smiled. 'We'll see.'
Masha, however, pulled herself up faster than he. She had to climb up onto the beam to which the wheel was attached and then crawl along it and swing herself down into the entrance. Smhee caught her as she landed on the edge, though she didn't need his help. They were in a hallway the walls of which were hung with costly rugs and along which was expensive furniture. Oil lamps gave an adequate illumination.
'Now comes the hard part,' he said between deep breaths. 'There is a staircase at each end of this hall. Which leads to the mage?'
'I'd take that one,' she said, pointing.
'Why?'
'I don't exactly know why. I just feel that it's the right one.' He smiled, saying, 'That's as good a reason as any for me. Let's go.' Their hands against each other inside their voluminous sleeves, but holding daggers, the hoods pulled out to shadow their faces, they walked up the stairs. These curved to end in another hall, even more luxuriously furnished. There were closed doors along it, but Smhee wouldn't open them.
'You can wager that the mage will have a guard or guards outside his apartment.'
They went up another flight of steps in time to see the back of a Raggah going down the hall. At the corner, Masha looked around it. No one in sight. She stepped out, and just then a Raggah came around the corner at the right-hand end of the hall. She slowed, imperceptibly, she hoped, then resumed her stride. She heard Smhee behind her saying, 'When you get close, within ten feet of her, move quickly to one side.' She did so just as the Raggah, a woman, noticed the blood on the front of her robe. The woman opened her mouth, and Smhee's thrown knife plunged into her belly. She fell forwards with a thump. The fat man withdrew his knife, wiped it on the robe, and they dragged her through a doorway. The room was unlit. They dropped her near the door and went out, closing it behind them.
They went down to the end of the hall from which the woman had come and looked around the corner. There was a very wide and high-ceilinged corridor there, and from a great doorway halfway down it came much light, many voices, and the odour of cooking. Masha hadn't realized until then how hungry she was; saliva ran in her mouth.
'The other way,' Smhee said, and he trotted towards the staircase. At its top, Masha looked around the corner. Halfway down the length of this hall a man holding a spear stood before a door. By his side crouched a huge black wolfish dog on a leash.
She told Smhee what she'd seen.
As excited as she'd ever seen him, he said, 'He must be guarding the mage's rooms!'
Then, in a calmer tone, 'He isn't aware of what we've done. He must be with a woman or a man. Sexual intercourse, you know, drains more out of a person than just physical energy. Kemren won't be sensitive to the wheels just now.'
Masha didn't see any reason to comment on that. She said, 'The dog didn't notice me, but we can't get close before he alerts the guard.'
Masha looked behind her. The hall was still empty. But what if the mage had ordered a meal to be delivered soon?
She told Smhee what she'd just thought. After a brief consultation, they went back down the stairs to the hall. There they got an exquisitely silver-chased tray and put some small painted dishes and gold pitchers on it. These they covered with a golden cloth, the worth of which was a thousand times more than Masha could make if she worked as dentist and midwife until she was a hundred years old.
With this assemblage, which they hoped would look like a late supper tray, they went to the hall. Masha had said that if the mage was with a sexual partner, it would look more authentic if they carried two trays. But even before Smhee voiced his objections, she had thought that he had to have his hands free. Besides, one tray clattering on the floor was bad enough, though its impact would be softened by the thick rug.
The guard seemed half-asleep, but the dog, rising to its feet and growling, fully awakened him. He turned towards them, though not without a glance at the other end of the hall first. Masha, in front of Smhee, walked as if she had a right to be there. The guard held the spear pointing at them in one hand and said something in his harsh back-of-the-throat speech.