Strell cleared his throat, not seeing how a shared chimney could be credited with such importance. Useless didn’t bother to open his eyes. “The energy she so flagrantly released had enough egresses to preclude the necessity to create any of its own.”
“I don’t understand,” Strell complained.
“Even so,” he said distantly. “You’re sure Alissa said she tried to convert the ward’s potential energy to a solid state, one capable of being dissociated without triggering a cascading reaction?”
Strell looked at Useless, his face altogether blank.
“She tried to change it?” the solemn figure said.
“That’s what she said,” Strell grumbled.
“Hmm.” Useless steepled his fingers, looking just like Alissa when she explained a bit of foothills lore to him. “And she transposed it from her personal dimension of thought to the shared one of reality?”
“Absolutely,” Strell said, staring in fascination at Useless’s hands. His fingers all seemed to have an extra joint. Strell had no clue as to what Useless was going on about, but he was tired of looking like an uncouth farmhand.
Useless sighed. “I would wager a season’s worth of mirth blossoms she neglected to harmonize its density with that of her surroundings before releasing her maintenance of it. Either that, or she failed to fix it into an immutable state to begin with. Oh, well.” He shrugged lightly. “No one showed her the proper methodologies, but how did she guess such a thing was possible, much less get it nearly right?”
“Indeed,” Strell interjected wisely. It was an emotion he couldn’t truthfully claim he was feeling at the moment.
Glancing up, Useless’s eyes went to Strell’s. Immediately the Master hid his hands in his sleeves. “I assume she did this while alone. What state did you find her in?”
“Unconscious and dying.” Strell looked across the small space between them, his gaze level and untarnished, betraying his strong emotions. “I couldn’t convince her to return. Bailic brought her back.”
“Bailic!” Useless barked, beginning to rise. “If you seek to mislead me, Piper—”
“I do not!” Strell protested hotly, then quieter, with a stab of guilt, he added, “It was a costly affair.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Useless settled himself again.
“Alissa said I brought her back, but I couldn’t.” Strell morosely tugged at a lace.
“She would know better than you, Strell,” Useless said gently.
“Perhaps.” Dropping the lace, Strell cleared his throat. It wasn’t a subject he liked to dwell upon. “Bailic believes I’m the threat to his claim on her book.”
“My book again?” Useless said. “What, by my sire’s ashes, does she want with my book?” He frowned at a sudden thought he wouldn’t share, then shook his head as if in denial. “But well done in the deception.”
“I think she has begun to accept her tracings are gone and has—”
“Her loss permanent?” Surprise filled the somnolent figure’s voice as Useless snapped to full alertness. “Her burn should heal—I think. Tell me, does she sleep the day away?”
Strell straightened, feeling a quickening of hope. “If I let her. She has been very tired.”
“Drops off when the sun sets then?”
“Used to. Now she plagues me with words unless I lull her to sleep—unintentionally, of course.” He colored slightly.
Useless eyed him suspiciously. “Aye, she’s healing. She just doesn’t know it. Her slumberous disposition is a survival mechanism to prevent her from instigating a conflict until her tracings heal.”
Strell’s breath caught and his heart leapt. His sweet Alissa would mend! Soon her indifference would return to the fiery temper he loved, that is, if he could find that cursed book.
“Strell? I say, Strell!”
“What?” Strell blinked, tearing his thoughts from Alissa.
Useless raised his eyebrows. “I asked,” he said cagily, “what words?”
“Oh. Bailic thinks I can read, so now I must learn.”
“You’re a wellborn plainsman. I can tell by your outrageous accent. You should know already. Has the printed word become shunned during my momentary absence from the skies?”
“No,” Strell assured him, not wanting to seem like a complete fool. “Not that writing, this.” Casting about, he realized there was nothing he could use to demonstrate. Rolling his eyes in frustration, Strell sketched a simple figure on the floor using his finger. Hopefully Useless would make the connection.
He did.
The Master blinked, and a tremor ran through his spare frame. “So the whippet knows how to read,” he whispered. “Curse you, Meson, I warned you, but you were always one to listen only to your own counsel. You have put your daughter in tenfold the danger. And here I am . . .” His eyes on the faultless blue of the sky, Useless smoothly rose and stood before the bars. He extended a finger until a low hum followed by a tiny pop was heard indicating the powerful ward had been engaged. “Utterly useless.” He casually examined his fingertip.
Still sitting upon the cold stone, Strell turned to face him. “Why is it bad she can read?”
Useless continued to stare into nothing. “The First Truth is written in a script she can read. I entrusted it to her father, in part because I was busy dallying—er—because I was busy, and in part because it seemed to have put an imperfect claim upon him. If Bailic secures it, he will comprehend little of its wisdom, but with Alissa’s help, willing or otherwise, he might disclose its purpose. It will give him an enormous amount of leverage to make mischief.”
“Mischief?” Strell said.
“Yes, bard. Mischief such as the earth has not witnessed in nearly four hundred years.”
An uncomfortable silence fell. It was Useless who broke it, his words giving hints as to where his thoughts lay. “He must have begun teaching her before she was five seasons.”
“She was four,” Strell volunteered.
“Aye, it stands to reason. Meson was always one to do things as he saw fit.”
Strell scraped the floor with the toe of his shoe. “His daughter is much the same.”
“Aye.”
Useless stood at the west gate as unmoving as the mountain he was trapped within, his sight fixed upon some distant point. A cloud passed before the sun, and in its certain chill, he stirred. “You must go before you are missed,” he whispered.
“Hounds, yes.” Thoughts of Alissa came rushing back, and Strell awkwardly stood, brushing at his clothes. There was that long, cramped passage he had to negotiate alone, then the humiliating chore of pleading for more time, followed by the excruciating task of telling Alissa after Bailic refused. There had to be another way.
Useless turned. “Do nothing to change Bailic’s thoughts of your true identity. Although risky for each of you, it seems the most equitable course of action. We must proceed as if nothing has changed, hoping someone skilled enough to free me still exists and hears my calls. If Bailic suspects you have found your way down here, it will force him to act with little subtlety.”
Strell shifted awkwardly. If he were going to tell Useless of his bargain and ask for help, now was the time. But as he looked up, Useless began to chuckle. Seeing Strell’s questioning scrutiny, Useless explained. “You, Strell, look like a Keeper: the cut of your clothes, your footwear, by my master’s Hounds, even your perchance for injury. No wonder Bailic has been misled. Perhaps the situation can be yet made to work for us.”
“It would be easier if you were free.” Strell grimaced.
“True,” Useless agreed mildly. “Bailic would last as long as the morning mist were I to catch him free and unfettered. If I do, I will individually sear each and every path from his neural net one—by—one.” Useless sighed in easy anticipation. “One here, another there, and he will exist watching as I methodically strip his knowledge away until he remembers not even how to sneeze. He will subsist for a very—long— time.” Useless smiled longingly. ??
?If I can keep him from ending his own wretched life prematurely.”
Unable to stop his shudder, Strell turned away. Hearing Useless’s warm, rich voice waxing so elegantly in his calm and cultured accent, speaking of the most horrendous acts, left him shaken. Once more he was fervently glad Useless was on his side. “How,” Strell asked, “did Bailic ever get you down here?”
Useless stiffened, turning a cold eye upon him. “Do you really think I will tell you?” he demanded, his eyebrows raised in challenge.
“Uh, no.” Reluctant to risk telling Useless of his bargain just yet, Strell looked into the darkness toward the unseen east gate. “If—um—Bailic wanted to free you, what would he do?”
Useless’s weary gaze went back to the sky. “He would have to modify the wards on the east gate so I might pass through. But he hasn’t the skill. When dealing with matters of this magnitude, it’s always easier to implement than to dissociate.”
Strell went to the west gate, standing well back from the drop-off as he cautiously looked down. “What about this one?”
“He could do the same, but it would be harder.” Useless turned with a dangerous look. “He’d have to get past me first.”
Strell swallowed hard. “The bars aren’t driven into the stone here as they are on the east gate,” he said, eyeing the eight massive hinges embedded into the floor. Each one was as long as his arm. “What holds this gate in place?”
“Oh, an outside lock or latch I suppose,” Useless sighed. “I can’t see from my viewpoint, and I wasn’t privy to its construction. The gates were created far before my time.” He turned from Strell’s scrutiny of the cold metal. “It doesn’t matter, Strell. My arms won’t pass between the bars as yours . . . will.”
Golden eyes rose to stare at Strell in disbelief.
“Quick,” Useless said urgently, striding to him. “How far did the warning on the east gate cramp your fingers?”
Strell took an alarmed step back. “Nearly to my elbow.” “As far as that?” Useless said in surprise, then his eyes cleared. “Hurry. I’ll lift you up and through.”
“Up and through!” Strell cried, backing into the shadow.
“Yes,” Useless drawled, pantomiming his proposed actions. “I will lift, and you will go through the bars.”
“But I’ll fall! Maybe I could just climb out around the edge?” Strell hedged, wanting nothing to do with the idea.
Useless fixed him with a hard look. “There are no handholds on either side of the gate, but there’s a ledge above it.”
Looking for his proposed handholds, Strell reluctantly agreed. The stone had been purposely smoothed. He would have to try for Useless’s ledge. “Are you sure it’s there?”
“Yes. The sparrows land on it incessantly. You’re not much bigger than they.”
Strell pulled his eyes from the drop-off. “Let me be sure I know what you want,” he said, eyeing the agitated man up and down. “You’re going to lift me up—all the way up there—and hold me steady until I pull myself out?”
“If you let me.”
Swallowing nervously, Strell peered down through the gate. Below was the mottled blue-white of snow and ice. At his shoulder was Useless looking down as well. “I don’t know,” Strell mumbled, backing away as his gut tightened. “It’s dreadfully far down.”
“Yes, it is,” Useless asserted patiently, “and if you think it beyond your capabilities . . .” He let the challenge hang.
Anything for Alissa, Strell thought, that’s what he had said. But this? This looked like suicide. Alissa, his thoughts whispered, and wiping the sudden sweat from his neck, he took a deep breath and nodded.
Useless brought his hands together with a clap that echoed in the unseen cavern behind him. “Yessss,” he hissed, striding quickly to the left of the large opening. “Up you go then,” and he made a cup of his hands.
Strell stepped back to estimate the height of the window again. It would be close. He might not even be able to reach the top. Pushing his anxiety aside, Strell put himself in Useless’s oddly shaped hands and found himself lightly boosted up. Laying a hand on the wall beside the bars, he glanced down. Shuddering, he forced his eyes back to the wall. He steadied himself against it and made the shift to Useless’s shoulders. As he had thought, he couldn’t touch even the top of the opening, much less the ledge higher up out of sight beyond the bars.
“My hands,” rumbled Useless. “Stand upon my hands.”
“What!”
“I have been here forever, Strell. Stand on my hands; I won’t let you fall.”
His head against the rock face, Strell looked down at Useless’s upheld hands. In the manner of a street performer, Useless wanted him to stand over his head. “Are you sure?” he asked, not sure how strong the man could be after years of imprisonment.
“Yes.”
Gulping, Strell stepped onto one, then the other of Useless’s hands. Long fingers curled over his feet, encasing them firmly. Now he was high enough, and with many whispered pleas to the heavens and unchanging stars, Strell walked his hands along the rock above the window until he was before the first gap between the bars. Useless shifted smoothly beneath him, and they moved as one. Before he could even hazard an exploratory feel for the unseen ledge, a flash of fire raced through him. Together he and Useless yelped in pain.
“My apologies,” Useless’s voice echoed up. “I got too close.”
Strell felt a wash of foreboding. “You mean if you touch the bars, we both feel it?”
Useless grunted, not sounding a bit apologetic. “Apparently. Now, Strell,” he warned, “don’t look down, you might—lose your concentration.”
“Don’t worry,” he wheezed as a gust of cold air hit him. Stretching, he reached through the bars for the ledge. The hum of the ward was almost a physical sensation, angry and fierce at Useless’s nearness to it. “This is so foolish,” he whispered, then louder, “It’s too far.” He leaned awkwardly out between the bars to reach higher, gasping as Useless shifted, seeming to nearly drop him. But then the Master’s hands gripped him even more strongly, and he found himself lifted a great deal higher. Scrambling frantically for a new, unseen handhold, his questing fingers found the ledge.
“This isn’t a ledge,” he muttered, “it’s a crack in the wall!” But it would suffice, and he levered himself out onto the bare face of the mountain, struggling until his feet found a toehold. He clung to the rock, breathing hard. The bitter wind tugged at him, trying to loosen his grip. His face pressed against the rough stone, Strell looked to his left. “I see it,” he shouted, beginning to shiver. “There’s a latch holding the gate to the rock. If I can shift it, I think the gate will fall. It’s rusted. Wait a moment!” Carefully choosing his holds, he shifted until his feet were on either side of the monstrous slab of metal. A gust of wind rose and buffed him. Strell pressed himself to the frigid rock, willing the assault to end. When it passed, he carefully adjusted his fingers in a crack and stomped firmly upon the catch of the latch. It didn’t budge, feeling as solid as the rock he clung to.
Squinting in the frigid wind, he peered down. “It’s stuck!” he shouted. “Can you get me Alissa’s staff? I’ll try to knock it loose.”
He waited, wondering if Useless had even heard him. Soon the end of the staff appeared at his feet. Twisting awkwardly, he bent sideways to retrieve it, as only the tip protruded.
“Useless?” he called as he stooped down. “We’ll never make it to the east side. It’s too cold. Even if I get the gate open, we’re stranded here.”
“I assure you, Strell, we will make it,” floated up Useless’s voice, tight with anticipation. “I can arrange an—ah— alternate form of conveyance.”
“Alternate form of conveyance?” Strell said, and with an extravagant sigh, he stood, staff in hand. His fingers were going numb, and he couldn’t feel his toes jammed into the frozen rock anymore. Regardless of what Useless planned, he knew there was no other way to escape than to climb. Perhaps Useless wo
uld make it. The man was surprisingly strong and a master of skills Strell wasn’t privy to.
Jamming his fingers back into the crack, Strell struck at the latch at his feet. Heavy wood met metal in a dull thunk. Large red flakes of rust detached themselves to be whipped away in the stiff wind. The metal underneath was shiny and unblemished.
Harder, he struck. Clang. More rust followed the first, but no other change.
Again Strell awkwardly raised the staff and brought it down to no avail.
Trembling, he paused to gather what little strength he had left. The brutal wind was quickly robbing him of his strength. It made needles of the bits of snow and ice that it carried, and they stung where his flesh had yet to lose its feeling. His fingers and toes were long gone, and the cold had seeped into his arms and legs, making them heavy and unresponsive. Soon they wouldn’t feel the frigid wind at all. Lifting his eyes to the distant summit, Strell realized he would have to shift the lever soon, or . . .
“Or what?” he sighed, pressing his face against the jagged stone. Eyes closed, he thought of Alissa up in the warm kitchen, contentedly fussing over their next meal. Her hair was down today the way he liked it, and it was probably getting in her way. Just the thought of her bustling happily about in their kitchen filled him with a pang of longing to simply be with her. All he had to do was shift the latch, climb to the other side of the mountain, and keep from freezing to death in the interim—and everything would be fine.
Strell’s face twisted in pain as he lifted Alissa’s staff. Muscles protesting, he slammed it down. Who, he thought as it fell, who will give you your badly needed luck charm, lying abandoned on the sill?
Clang!
“Who,” he breathed roughly, “will sing you to sleep when your rest is troubled?”
Clang!