Habri smiled slyly. "After all that talk of demons between you? No, my good traveler Danae, I think your reputation is firmly established. Which brings me to the really important question: Why are you here?"
Ravagin opened his mouth... and closed it again as an icy shiver went up his back. A random, almost forgotten fact had clicked... "At the hearing," he said slowly, "you went out of your way to downplay the suggestion that we were messengers to plotters. Which means... there really is something going on here. Isn't there?"
"There are rumors—nothing more," Habri shrugged. But the intensity of his expression belied the casualness of the words.
Danae twisted her head to frown up at him. "But you said a revolt would be suicide."
"Yes, I did," Ravagin nodded, keeping his eyes on Habri. There was something else there... "And since Guard Master Habri here was eavesdropping on us he doesn't need me to repeat the reasons why it's suicide. Not to mention any extra reasons he knows that we don't. So why all the fuss?"
"You answer my question first," Habri said coldly. "Why are you here?"
"We're passing through; nothing more," Ravagin sighed. "We were being chased by agents of another power—the demons your people heard us speak of—and thought that a good way to put them off our trail would be to detour through the nearest Dark Tower. So we did. The sky-plane we hitched a ride on came here—" he shrugged—"and its little sortie into the dining room you already know about."
"So you do admit, then, that you have certain unknown powers over magic? At least to the ability to reach into Dark Towers?"
Ravagin stared at him... and the last piece fell into place. "You're one of them, aren't you. One of those plotting to overthrow the castle-lord."
Habri's face had turned to stone. "You are indeed perceptive, Ravagin. Perhaps too much so."
Danae's hand gripped Ravagin's arm. "You wouldn't dare kill us," she stated firmly. Her tone startled Ravagin: it was as good an imitation of forceful contempt as he'd ever heard. "You wouldn't be here at all," she continued, "unless you wanted something from us, and wanted it badly. What?"
Habri took a step toward them, his eyes flashing fire at her as his right hand dipped beneath his cloak to grip a knife hilt there. "I need take no insolence from either of you, woman," he bit out. "Not from your protector, and certainly not from you."
"I wouldn't be quite so hasty if I were you," Ravagin spoke up, matching his own tone to Danae's cue. "Remember that you don't yet know which of us has whatever it is you need."
The other froze in place, his eyes darting back and forth between Danae and Ravagin. His lips parted once, closed; then, clenching his jaw, he dropped his hand from his weapon and moved back a pace.
He took a deep breath, and inclined his head fractionally. "Your point," he acknowledged with passable aplomb. "My mistake, and my apologies. It is clear that neither of you is what you seem."
"Apology accepted," Danae said coolly. "For now, at any rate. So. Let us hear your request."
Habri's eyes settled on her. "I want you to get me into the castle-lord's chambers, past the trolls guarding the door," he said bluntly. "Tonight."
The cell's tiny window had been showing the blackness of full night for several hours by the time Habri returned for them. "You have my weapons?" Ravagin whispered as the other eased open the door.
"Outside," Habri hissed back, gesturing impatiently as he stood in the doorway. "Quickly—the guards have been diverted, but they will be back soon."
Which meant Habri's rebellion wasn't nearly as widespread as he'd tried to imply that afternoon. For a second Ravagin toyed with the idea of flattening the traitor as he left the cell, decided against it. A
good thing too; as he stepped past Habri and on into the corridor, he saw the other had brought three heavily armed men with him.
The guards fell into step behind him and Danae as Habri took the lead. Ravagin could feel the tension in Danae's hand as they walked, and he glanced over once to give her a reassuring smile.
Whatever the deficiencies of Habri's organization, it was surely good enough to at least spring a couple of prisoners from the castle-lord's cells.
And it was. A minute later they emerged through a thick door into a hallway of the main manor house. A few turns later they reached what appeared to be the kitchen area; another heavy door took them into one of the four entrance hallways that led to the outside from the relatively narrow base of the manor house. A minute after that, they were out in the night air.
"Don't relax yet," Ravagin murmured as Danae gave a quiet sigh of relief. "We're still inside the castle walls, you know, and there are a lot of guards and trolls between us and the rest of Shamsheer."
"So let's use that fact," she whispered back. "Call the trolls down on us, expose Habri as a traitor—"
"His word against ours?"
"—and... oh. But—"
She broke off, and Ravagin looked around to see Habri step up to them. There was a glint in the other's eye that Ravagin didn't at all care for. "Well, sorcerer," Habri said, proffering Ravagin his scorpion glove. "The time is now. My men are prepared; all that is lacking is a path into the castlelord's chambers. So. Are you ready to open that path?"
"More or less," Ravagin nodded, taking the glove and slipping it on. The familiar tingle told him the weapon was ready... and for the first time in hours he felt somewhat less than naked. With a weapon again in his hand—
I could get both of us killed, he reminded himself sternly, forcing down the adrenaline rush. The only way they were going to get out of this was to play out the scheme he'd come up with in the hours since accepting Habri's offer. "I'll need some other devices first," he told the other. "A watchblade, prayer stick, firefly, and the sky-plane we arrived on."
Habri raised his eyebrows slightly. "You made no mention of any of this earlier," he pointed out.
"I didn't know earlier that I'd be needing it," Ravagin said tartly. "You want into Simrahi's chambers, or you want to stand here and argue?"
Habri pursed his lips, then nodded. "Wait here," he instructed, and turned away.
Ravagin took a step backward, letting his eyes drift casually around the area. The windows in the lower parts of the manor house still showed some lights, indicating that despite the late hour the day still hadn't ended for many of the castle-lord's servants. Above the overhang, where the slender tower of Simrahi's private section rose from the flat roof of the lower manor house like the stem from an inverted mushroom, all was dark. "What in the world do you want with that sky-plane?" Danae murmured at his side.
"I don't care about the sky-plane," he answered back. "What I want is the spirit inhabiting it."
A moment of silence. "I thought you said the spirit left it while we were flying around the dining room."
"I was wrong. I was concentrating so hard on the fact that the sky-plane had started avoiding walls again that I completely missed the fact that it was even flying at all."
"Aren't sky-planes supposed to work inside buildings—?" She broke off with a snort. "No, of course they're not. Damn—I missed it too."
"There wasn't all that much time for analytic thought," he reminded her. "You see the implication, though, don't you? If the spirit didn't leave the sky-plane at that point, maybe it wasn't able to leave at all."
He sensed Danae shake her head. "That doesn't necessarily follow," she said. "Besides, it clearly got in somehow. Shouldn't it be able to get out the same way?"