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Karanissa frowned. “I don’t think that would work,” she said. “Would it? It sounds too easy.”

“Easy!” “Well, not really easy, maybe. But I know that whenever I came through that tapestry with Derry, we couldn’t turn back, no matter how quickly we tried. I couldn’t just put one foot through and step back.”

“You couldn’t?” Tobas asked, disappointed. He had hoped that his own abrupt entrance had been somehow exceptional.

“No, I couldn’t. As soon as even a finger went into the tapestry, I was all the way through.”

“Oh.” He had to admit that accorded closely with his own experience. Dismayed, he stared at the book for a moment. “Oh, well. Maybe we can try it eventually, anyway, if we can’t come up with anything better.”

“Maybe,” she agreed.

Both stood silently for a moment, Tobas staring at the book, Karanissa watching him.

“What are you going to try next?” she asked at last.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ve been working my way up; they aren’t marked, but I believe I’m working on second-or maybe even third-order spells now. I wish I knew what I was looking for, though. I’ve been here at least a couple of sixnights now, maybe more, maybe months, and I still don’t really know what I’m doing. I’m learning more magic, certainly — and I’m glad of that — but I’m no closer to finding a way out of here than I was a day or so after you let me in.”

“There’s no hurry, really,” she said.

“Oh, I’m not sure about that. The wine is running out, and the food supply deteriorating, after all. Besides, you may have eternal youth, but I don’t. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life here. Oh, it’s not you, the company couldn’t be better, but living here doing nothing isn’t what I had in mind for a career, if you see what I mean. And I’d like to get you out, too, show you the World the way it is now. You deserve better than being cooped up here forever. I don’t know what the chances of someone else finding that tapestry before it’s destroyed are, but they probably aren’t very good; for all I know the dragon’s already burned it up. If I don’t get us out, no one will. And I haven’t got the faintest idea of how to do it.”

“You’ll figure it out,” she said confidently. “I’m sure you will.”

“Not by sitting here practicing singing spells I won’t!”

“Maybe you should try some of the more advanced spells,” she suggested thoughtfully, “instead of working your way up so slowly. Derry’s eternal youth spell should be in there somewhere, shouldn’t it? You could use that on yourself, and then you wouldn’t have to worry about time at all.”

“Oh, it’s here,” Tobas replied. “But I won’t dare use it for years yet; it’s really high-order. I’d probably turn myself into an embryo or something.” He laughed derisively.

“I think you’ve been working too hard at your wizardry,” Karanissa announced. “Stop thinking about it. Why don’t we just go for a walk around the castle?”

“All right,” Tobas agreed. He picked up the candle-holder from the table.

Again, as they left the study, his arm fell naturally around her slim waist, and again she made no protest. In fact, this time she snuggled closer.

Together they strolled down the corridor, leaning against each other, admiring the now-familiar tapestries on the walls and the statuary in the niches. Tobas heard a familiar slobbering behind them and called, “Go away, Nuisance.”

Damp footsteps scampered off, and the two ambled on.

After a considerable time and only a few trivial words exchanged, they came near the room where the dysfunctional tapestry hung. “I want to take another look at it,” Tobas announced.

“All right,” Karanissa said, disengaging herself from his encircling arm.

He tried to replace his hand, but she stepped away. “I’ll wait here,” she said.

“No, come with me,” he said. “Maybe we’ll come up with an idea together that I wouldn’t have by myself.” She hesitated, but finally accepted.

Side by side, but not touching, the two entered the little room with their candle held high, and stared at the dark, empty scene the tapestry depicted. Karanissa shuddered slightly. Tobas stepped nearer, intending to comfort her, but she stepped away again.

“What is it?” he asked.

“It’s Derry,” she said. “I can’t help thinking about him when I look at that. You said you found his bones lying there in that room; I can’t bear that. I feel as if I ought to be able to see him through the tapestry, somehow, or that he can see us, that he’s watching us.”

“No, Derry, Derithon, is dead,” Tobas said. “He’s been dead for centuries. You’ve mourned him long enough, even if you didn’t know he was really dead. His spirit must be long gone by now.”

“But his bones are still there, in that room...”

Tobas looked at the tapestry. “Yes,” he agreed. “They are, right there...” He started to point to the spot where Derithon’s skull lay, but stopped, his hand raised, as a sudden realization hit him.

The scene in the tapestry had to match the scene in reality exactly, in every detail; this tapestry showed an empty room, while in reality Derithon’s skeleton lay in the corner, half in the room and half around the corner in the hallway.

That was why the tapestry wouldn’t work!

CHAPTER 24

“This is fascinating,” Tobas said as he lay back on the velvet-covered couch in one of Karanissa’s favorite, sitting rooms. “That must be why that room doesn’t have any windows; the angle of the sunlight would have to match exactly. And a rainy day might be a real problem. These tapestries aren’t as clever as I thought.”

Karanissa, on a nearby chair, shrugged. “They’re clever enough to get us stuck here.”

“The notes said something about time being tricky; that must be what he meant, the angle of the sunlight. I wonder, will a tapestry just not do anything if the light’s wrong? The note said that transit time could be affected; maybe, if you step in at the wrong time, you just aren’t anywhere until the light changes.”

The witch shuddered slightly. “If that were it, why didn’t I just vanish completely when I tried to use the tapestry? I should be in limbo somewhere, waiting for poor Derry’s skeleton to disappear, and that would leave you stranded out front, starving to death, unless you could talk the servants into opening the door, anyway.”

Tobas thought about that. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe there’s a difference between predictable, regular changes, like sunlight, and unpredictable changes, like moving the skeleton. Or maybe that scene will never exist again, the roof will fall in before the skeleton is removed, or something, so that the tapestry couldn’t work at all.”

“I don’t like that idea, either,” Karanissa said, hunching forward.

“It’s just a suggestion,” Tobas said with a shrug. He thought for another moment, then said, “I guess it couldn’t just create a new world because the room used to exist exactly the way it’s shown. Once the spell was established, going to one place, it couldn’t switch to another; it could only shut itself down.”

The witch said nothing.

“And as far as one tapestry changing transit time while another doesn’t work at all, I suppose that’s possible, too. Wizardry is funny stuff. Some little variation in the original spell, something too small to detect, could make a difference, the spell would still work pretty much the same, but would react differently to special circumstances. Roggit told me about things like that, where a spell could work just the same, but would need a different countercharm, depending on whether the wizard held his left thumb up or sideways on one gesture. With something as complicated as the tapestries, I’d guess there will just about always be a little variation, I mean, the preparatory spell takes twenty-four hours! Nobody can do exactly the same motions, down to a fraction of an inch, over an entire day and night. And the magic goes on into the weaving, too, so even the scene itself might affect the spell.”