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In the ballroom of the New Palace, a thousand Wilbrims flexed their narrow swords in a thousand mirrors. A thousand Stokes bent close to show them how to hold their blades. And, at the other end of the hall, a thousand Fenners sliced the air with long, thin weapons of their own.
Willy handed Hubley his sword. “You should be doing this,” he said. “You’re the know-it-all.”
Knowing he was right, Hubley accepted the weapon and spread her skirts. But what were they thinking? Her long red dress was sure to trip her at the first lunge. Besides, her parents had never taught her how to fence, not even with magic.
Her father whispered in her ear. “Fear not, sweetheart. Nothing can harm you now.”
She looked up, but her father was nowhere in sight. At the same moment the thousand Fenners lunged at her with a thousand laughing grins. Hubley didn’t even know they’d attacked until she felt the sharp pressure of their swords’ point entering her shoulder. Dark blood welled up through her beautiful gown like juice from a bruised strawberry.
“Say,” called Stoke. “That’s not fair. She wasn’t even looking.”
“She was when I started,” said Fenner. “Only an idiot turns away in the middle of a duel.”
Hubley gasped a second time as the thousand Fenners pulled their swords out of her shoulder. Her skin crawled. Really. Wriggling and puckering, it groped its way back together from either side of the wound. The stain on her dress turned green.
Horrified, her friends backed away. Even Fenner recognized magic when he saw it. No wonder her father had told her not to be afraid. He had given her a Living Stone. But that was awful; she wasn’t supposed to have a Stone of her own until she was grown up. Every magician knew you couldn’t give Living Stones to children, not unless you wanted them to stay children forever.
She ran. A thousand other Hubleys ran beside her. Slashing out with Willy’s sword, she smashed the first mirror she came to. The other Hubleys cascaded to the floor, eyes and elbows and long brown hair winking from the shards. A stair emerged from the dark on the other side. Grabbing the railing, she began to climb.
Her father followed. But how could it be her father? He loved her. It had to be the Wizard, pretending to be someone he wasn’t. He had done it often enough before. Looking back, she saw she was right. Fornoch’s long strides ate the stairway five and six steps at a time as he closed the gap behind her. His black eyes gleamed.
Bursting with terror, Hubley rushed on. Somewhere above was the palace roof, with its potted orange trees and stars. Her mother was waiting for her there. If Hubley could just reach her in time, she’d be safe. From Wizards, and everything else.
The stair went on and on. Hubley clenched her jaw. She knew she was dreaming: there had never been mirrors in the palace ballroom. Her nightmare was doing the usual job of trying to fool her into thinking she was never going to get where she wanted, only this time it was an endless stair rather than the usual boot-eating mud, or sewing that was never done. The trick was to make the dream give way. Although she didn’t remember the exact number of floors in the New Palace, she knew it wasn’t more than five or six. She really should be at the top by now, and she would be, if she just concentrated hard enough. Perhaps if she focused very, very hard, the way she did with her magic, she would find the end around the very next turn.
Her plan worked. The top of the stair appeared. Outside, leafless orange trees showed stars instead of fruit hanging from their branches. Before the Wizard could grab her, Hubley bolted through the door.
Chill wind flicked her face and hair. With a shock, she realized the dream was over. Dream wind was never this cold, or dream stars so bright. Dream branches never creaked quite so realistically, as if they might break at any minute. In fact, she didn’t think she’d ever heard anything creak in her dreams at all. But how had she gotten from the warm cottage to a freezing orange grove high above Malmoret?
And who was holding her hand?
“Mims was right.” Letting go her fingers, the man who called himself Avender looked around. “The traveling spell has come back to you. It looks like you’ve taken us to the roof of the New Palace.”
Hubley saw at once he was right. The view was exactly as she remembered it.
“The only place worse,” he went on, “would be Castle Grangore. We have to get out of here. If your father shows up, you’ll never see your mother.”
The thought of never seeing her mother was more than enough to convince Hubley to do what the man said.
“How did we get here?” she asked as he pulled her toward the entrance to the stair.
“I already told you, you cast a traveling spell. Don’t ask me how. All Mims said is that those mussels in that cave your father took you to have a tendency to leak.”
Hubley swallowed hard, but the uneasiness creeping up her spine didn’t settle back down. “She knows about the mussels too?”
“Yes. She said there’s a lot of magic stored in them, and that you probably picked some of it up when your father brought you to the cave. From what just happened, I’d say it was a traveling spell. Which must have been why Mims told me to make sure I kept hold of your hand after you fell asleep. I certainly didn’t bring us here.”
They tore around the first and second turns in the stair. “But I don’t know the traveling spell,” Hubley said. “Father told me he wouldn’t teach it to me till I was ten.”
“Well, you’re ten now. Can you remember how you did it?”
Hubley poked around in her head for some clue as to how she’d brought them to the New Palace, but found nothing.
“Uh-uh.”
“That’s too bad.” Avender frowned as they rounded another turn. “We could get out of here a lot quicker if you did. Now we’ll have to find another way.”
They met a guard on the ground floor. The man was staring up at them as they came down the last few steps, their thumping descent having given them away. Although he made no real effort to stop them, he didn’t move aside either, so Avender knocked him down. Hubley’s throat tightened at the sound of Avender cracking the man’s head with the pommel of his sword; the guard slumped to the floor.
“Why’d you do that?” she asked.
“So he can’t sound the alarm before we get away.”
Still running, he led Hubley through several hallways and down another short flight of steps. A door opened to the kitchen; they stepped carefully over the grubby boy sleeping on the floor just beyond. From a counter top along the way, Avender took the opportunity to stuff his rucksack with two leftover loaves of bread and several carrots.
Beyond the kitchen, they followed another short passage to a small courtyard separated from the street by an iron fence. Motioning for Hubley to wait, Avender tiptoed to the sentry box at the side of the gate. Peering inside, he turned and waved her forward. The gate squeaked as Avender opened it; the sleeping sentry snuffled at his post but didn’t wake. Hubley and Avender slipped outside, closing the gate behind them as softly as they could.
“What was that?”
The sentry stumbled out of his box. Avender dragged Hubley into the shadows on the other side of the street. Confused, the sentry opened the gate and looked up and down the avenue, but neither the stars nor the few lights still on in the palace revealed Hubley and Avender’s hiding place. Scratching his head, the guard shut the gate with a clang and went back to his box.
“If I called out,” Hubley whispered, “that guard would come rescue me.”
“He’d have to fight me first,” Avender replied. “Then, if I didn’t kill him, he’d take you to the king, who’d just give you back to your father. Is that what you want?”
“Wouldn’t Brizen take me to Mother if I asked? Queen Wellin would.”
“Your father’s probably here already. He wouldn’t let him.”
Still set on seeing her mother, Hubley decided to keep following Avender along the starlit road. Through crooked alleys and back lanes they wound their way toward the center of town. Only when they reached the Kingsway did she recognize where they were, the unlit bulk of the Old Palace looming against the sky on their left. But, instead of following the Kingsway out of town, Avender led them back into the narrow streets on the other side.
When they came out onto a wider avenue a second time, Hubley guessed they were at the back of the Old Palace. On one side of the street rose the palace’s tall, dark wall; on the other loomed the slightly shorter but equally dark barrier of some ancient baron’s residence. Halfway along the shorter wall a deep entranceway opened like the mouth of a gaping carp.
Roosting pigeons fluttered in fright as Avender led Hubley into the opening and up a flight of steps. Overhead, an iron clapper boomed. Reaching out, she felt the smoothness of old, worn wood beneath the tips of her fingers. Her heart’s thumping grew.
“Is Mother inside?” she asked.
“Your mother?” The man who called himself Avender sounded surprised. And, for the first time, he sounded exactly like Avender, too. Unable to see him in the dark, Hubley was no longer distracted by his odd age. With a sigh of relief, she decided he really was her old friend. But how had he gotten so old?
“Don’t you recognize the College,” he asked.
“The College? Why would I recognize that? I’ve never been there. No girl has.”
“That’s not true. Mothers come to pick up their sons all the time.”
The door opened abruptly in the middle of Avender’s second knock. The light of a single candle revealed a narrow, pinched face peering out from the darkness. Shadows like tiny caves wavered beneath the crusty ridges of eyebrow, lip, and nose.
“Come back tomorrow,” said the face crossly. The eyes flicked dismissively over Hubley, not noticing the cut and color of her gown. “New pupils are only admitted in the morning.”
Avender held the door open with his hand. “This isn’t a new student, Nouse. We’re just passing through.”
The porter lifted his candle to get a better look at the pair on his doorstep. “Here, who d’you think you are, anyway? And how do you know my name?”
“I knew you, Nouse, when old Ulbrich first let you sweep the floors. Don’t you recognize me?”
Nouse, whom Hubley thought looked even older than Avender, squawked loudly. “I never set eyes on you in my life. And even if I had, I still wouldn’t be letting you in, not in the middle of the night. Albwin’s Chief Fellow now, not Ulbrich. Say, that isn’t a girl you got with you, is it?”
The porter’s voice rose to a high-pitched squeak as he got his first good look at Hubley.
Avender forced his way inside, dragging Hubley with him. Eyes goggling in dismay, Nouse scurried off in search of his master. Without the porter’s lamp to show them the way, Avender was obliged to stop and pull out his Dwarf lamp.
“We’ll need this where we’re going,” he said. Like a drop of morning sunlight, the jewel glowed in his palm.
Wondering why he didn’t screw the lamp into his silver headband, Hubley followed him down the hall.
They descended at the first stair. The rough stone, carved long ago by men, felt much heavier than the Dwarven work Hubley was used to in Castle Grangore. She found herself stooping, though there was plenty of room overhead, half-afraid the roof would collapse at any moment.
They passed more than a few side passages, but Avender seemed sure of the way. Soon they reached a musty storeroom. Rats squeaked as Avender cleared aside a tumbled pile of schoolboy slates from the back wall, revealing a low door. Producing a heavy key from his pocket, he unlocked the door and pushed it open with a long creak like bones breaking.
Shadows stalked behind them as they entered the next room. Raising his hand, Avender shone his lamp on a section of the far wall. A barrel of broken fencing masks glittered in the light like silver shrouds, the black tears in the fabric looming emptily.
Behind the masks, a thin line appeared in the stone.
Hubley had heard of secret Dwarf doors before, but she’d never seen one. Fascinated, she watched the pale line extend upward. When it reached a spot nearly level with Avender’s head, it turned sharply to the right. Another few feet, and it made a second turn toward the floor. Pushing the barrel out of the way, Avender exposed the wall completely. The line grew downward until the door’s outline had been traced in soft light across the stone. A moment later a small, glowing dimple appeared in the center. Avender slipped his lamp into the spot with a low click.
“Let’s hope I’m strong enough to open it by myself,” he said, putting his back to the wall. “Some of these Dwarf doors are heavy.”
The room darkened as he covered the lamp with his shoulders and began to push. Only the pale glow of the door’s outline remained. Hubley heard grunts and feet scuffing on the floor, and a slow, hollow scraping.
The thin light returned when he was done. The stone had pushed backward to reveal a black tunnel. Retrieving his lamp, Avender rolled his broad shoulders to get the cricks out of his neck.
“Come on.” He beckoned Hubley forward.
A new, brighter light suddenly flooded the cramped space from behind them.
“No farther, sir, if you please,” said a voice.
A stranger in long robes and with a snow-white beard stood in the entrance to the room, a crossbow trained on Avender. Behind him crouched Nouse with a lantern.
“Albwin?” asked Avender, still sitting on the floor.
The stranger’s eyes narrowed. “You have the advantage of me, sir. Have we met?”
Nouse peered curiously out from behind the scholar and tsked loudly.
“I’m Avender, Albwin. And this, if you haven’t figured it out already, is Hubley. The magicians’ daughter. Hubley, say hello to the Chief Fellow.”
“Hello.”
The Chief Fellow’s gaze shifted to the child. “Hello,” he answered. “May I ask what you’re doing here?”
“Trying to get to my mother.”
Albwin’s eyes darted quickly to Avender before returning to Hubley. “Your mother’s in Valing. Why would you seek her in the Underground?”
“Avender says we have to meet her somewhere Father can’t get to, otherwise he says Father won’t let me see her. Is that true?”
It had just occurred to her that the Chief Fellow might be a good person to ask if what Avender and Mims had told her about her parents was correct. As far as she knew, he wasn’t on either of her father’s side or her mother’s.
The Chief Fellow’s eyes bored straight through her. Hubley guessed he had years of practice at figuring out when boys were telling the truth or not. She hoped his experience would help with girls, too. Otherwise she had a feeling he was going to hold them there until either her father arrived or Avender decided to fight. And, even though the Chief Fellow was supposed to be a man of books rather than action, Hubley had the impression he knew how to use his crossbow.
“Yes,” he said, finally reaching a decision. “Your father has been keeping your mother from seeing you for some time. Perhaps if you explained what this is all about, I might see my way to letting you go.”
“There isn’t time,” said Avender. “He’s already after us.”
“The child’s father?” Albwin’s crossbow didn’t waver.
“Yes. And maybe half the guards in the New Palace with him, for all I know. Matters set in motion years ago are finally coming to a head. I’m sure you understand.”
“You do know no one is supposed to use this way without permission from the king.”
“And you know I was the king’s right hand once. The very fact I know this way exists suggests I already have that permission.”
“True.” The Chief Fellow lowered his crossbow.
“But Your Lordship—”
His master cut Nouse off with a look. Hubley heard the porter mutter something about tavern girls and laundresses before Albwin raised his bushy eyebrows a second time.
The Chief Fellow’s permission secured, Avender wasted no more time. Screwing his lamp back into the socket on his headband, he led Hubley into the narrow tunnel, put his shoulder to the door, and shoved it closed.
“Now no one can follow us unless they have a lamp too,” he said. “As I recall, your father never carries one, preferring to use magic when he wants light. By the time he finds one, hopefully we’ll be well on our way.”
They started off down the emptiest tunnel Hubley had ever seen. She had been to Issinlough often, and had even gone with Nolo and Findle on trips into wild cave, but no part of the Stoneways she had ever visited before had been as desolate as this. Always there had been the trickle of water in the distance, or bats squeaking, or, in the Dwarven cities, the clank of machinery and the rumble of voices along the walls. Here there was nothing but the sound of hers and Avender’s footsteps. And, after a time, their panting.
“A secret way has to be just that,” Avender explained when she asked why the stair was so empty. “So hidden, not even an ant can find its way in.”
The passage turned quickly to a long flight of stairs. Like everything built by Dwarves, there was little accommodation for humans. Avender had to be careful not to bump his head on the low ceiling, and there was never any place to stop, no widening of the steps or niches carved out of the walls, just a steady descent, one step after the other in an endless, winding spiral. Whenever they rested, Hubley and Avender were forced to sit at the edge of the long drop, staring at the twenty or so steps they could see in front of them before the light from Avender’s lamp faded into the stronger darkness.
It was a long journey. Hubley’s thighs began to ache after the first hour, but she didn’t complain. Her parents and Avender had gone through much worse when they were only a little older than she was now. Determined to prove she was at least as strong and courageous as they had been, she didn’t complain at all, but kept up with Avender step for step. Luckily, he wasn’t descending too quickly, or she would never have managed it. Only when she finally stumbled wearily, catching herself on Avender’s shoulder as she pitched forward, did he understand how tired she was.
“Here now, we can’t have this.” He pulled a water bottle from his pack.
Hubley accepted it gratefully, her mouth as dry as the cave. “I’m all right,” she said, tucking her hair back behind her ears.
“No you’re not.” Avender studied her closely. She blinked at the glare of the lamp so close to her face. “I should have realized you’re not up for this sort of thing. Picnicking on Aloslocin isn’t the same as marching through the Stoneways. And you haven’t done any picnicking in a while, either. Here. I’ll carry you.”
“You can’t do that. You already have the pack.”
“That’s not a problem.”
Avender swung his knapsack around so that it hung across his chest. “Plenty of room for you on my back now. I’ll be balanced.”
Hubley shook her head doubtfully. “I’m too heavy.”
“No you aren’t. Come on. I don’t want you knocking me over the next time you fall. We’d tumble all the way to the Lamp if that happened.”
They’d gone perhaps a hundred steps when Hubley, who knew even Avender couldn’t carry her all the way to the Abyss, or wherever it was the stair ended, had a bright idea. “Put me down for a second,” she said, already sliding down his back.
“What for?”
“You’ll see.”
Grumbling, he turned around. “If you’re going to cast a spell—”
“It’ll help.”
Still frowning, Avender descended a few more steps to give her room.
“As soon as I have said these words,
Make me lighter than the birds.”
Laughing, Hubley leapt forward as soon as she finished. Panic surging in his eyes, Avender braced himself to catch her. Instead she brushed against him as lightly as a cloud.
“I could have carried you,” he said, hoisting her higher onto his back. “You didn’t have to cast a spell.”
Not bothering to tell him he was wrong, she soon fell asleep. Avender’s strides rocked her as gently as a cradle.
Her dreams, however, weren’t so peaceful. Instead her mind played over and over again the scene of her father in the cave at the bottom of the castle. The mussels, rather than lying still against the rocks, wriggled like stubby eels. The current rippled cold as ice and clear as air. Her father wanted her to touch one, pushing her face down till it almost brushed the water. The mussels opened their dark mouths; bits of floating silt disappeared inside.
“No!” she cried. “No!”
Jerking back, she woke to find herself seated on the narrow stone steps. Avender stood in front of her, worry deepening his face. His hands gripped her shoulders to keep her from falling forward.
“It’s all right,” he said. “Everything’s all right. You were just having another dream.”
Hubley snuffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve.
Avender dropped his hands. “You didn’t sleep very long. Do you want me to keep carrying you? The spell hasn’t worn off yet, so I can.”
Shaking her head, Hubley said, “I think I want to walk now. My legs aren’t so sore any more.”
“Can you walk when you’re so light?”
She narrowed her eyes in concentration. Swaying at the sudden return of weight, she steadied herself on Avender’s arm. “I can now. I just ended the spell.”
“You’re sure you’re all right?” he asked one last time.
She was, for a while. She spent the rest of that long descent alternating between Avender carrying her and walking on her own. With no day or night or scenery to change around them, time didn’t seem to move forward at all. Nothing changed except the color of the stone in the walls. Otherwise each step was the same as every other; the shape and size of the tunnel never varied. Sometimes minerals in the rock flashed as they caught the light from Avender’s lamp, but even that blurred into sameness eventually. Avender himself seemed as changeless as the stone, slogging downward. Long before they were done Hubley had memorized every bulge in the back of his knapsack and every strand of gray in his hair.
The only time they rested was when he picked her up or put her back down. When Hubley asked him how he could walk so long without getting tired, he replied he was used to it.
“I used to spend a lot of time in the Stoneways,” he said. “And don’t forget, your parents and I grew up in the mountains. Climbing in the Bavadars isn’t much different from hiking through Bryddlough. Both have a lot of up and down.”
“I’m glad this is just down.” Hubley sighed. “I’m too tired for any up.”
It was Avender who recognized when they neared the end. For the first time in hours, his pace quickened. Hubley, who had been riding heavily on his back for a while, too tired even to cast her lightening spell, looked up wearily. As far as she could see, there was nothing different about the passage at all.
“Can’t you hear it?” he asked. “There’s open tunnel ahead. Our footsteps don’t echo as loudly as they did before.”
Hubley listened, but couldn’t tell the difference. All the same, she insisted on walking the rest of the way herself. Soon the stairs ended and they passed through a short passage that led to a larger room, where a wide Dwarven well took up most of the floor. A solitary bat flew out through the opening as they approached. Neither Hubley nor Avender came too close to the edge, but even from a few feet back they could see the well ended about six feet below the level of the floor. Beyond that the blackness of the Abyss swallowed Avender’s lamplight as thoroughly as the sea swallows a raindrop.
Hubley looked around. “Where do we go from here?”
Avender pointed to the far side. A thin blumet ladder descended from the lip of the well down the stone. Lamplight skipped around the walls of the cavern as he turned his head.
“Down there? What if we fall?”
“We won’t fall,” he assured her. “The Malmoret Lamp is right below, but we can’t see it because it’s focused out toward the Abyss and not up here.”
Hubley found herself unable to come any closer to the opening. The thought of falling through the hole overwhelmed her, regardless of what Avender said. And then there would be nothing but falling, forever and ever, until she finally died of hunger and thirst. Much worse than the time she had fallen off the Magicians’ Tower and broken her wrist. That had been terrifying enough, but had only lasted a few seconds. Here the terror would go on and on.
“Come on, Hubley.” Avender smiled patiently. “You’ll be fine. It’s just a ladder.”
“But what’s beyond the ladder?” she whimpered. “Are we going to crawl along the bottom of the world like flies?”
“No, there’s something better than that. A small airship—”
He stopped before finishing his sentence. Hubley had heard it, too. An echo of voices from the long stair above.
“Come on.” This time Avender’s voice had real urgency. “Whoever’s following us has almost caught up. We have to go.”
Hubley looked back the way they’d come. Footsteps echoed distantly. The hole in the floor in front of her was just as dark, but somehow it looked a lot more inviting than it had moments before.
“I’ll go first.” Avender sat on the edge of the well beside the ladder. “That way, if you slip, I’ll catch you. But you won’t slip. Your mother’s been down ladders like these a hundred times.”
Hubley sat beside him. Below was not the emptiness she had expected, but a maze of girders. Beyond the unneret they formed, the Abyss looked a lighter shade of gray. Hubley guessed that was from the Lamp. Halfway between the gray bottom and her feet, an airship hung moored bow and stern to the side of the metal frame.
Clasping the blumet firmly in his hands, Avender lowered himself to the ladder. Hubley took a deep breath and followed. With her eyes focused tightly on the stone wall in front of her, she pretended she was climbing down from the hayloft in the castle stables. But that didn’t work once she had descended below the lip of the world. Shutting her eyes even more tightly than she gripped the blumet bars, she kept going. At every step she expected the ladder to come to an end, her feet waving frantically in the air. Or maybe the ladder would break off from the stone to send her and Avender plunging into the darkness.
The awful descent stopped sooner than she expected. “Here we are.” Avender’s voice sounded from somewhere close beside her. “You first. I’ll help get you aboard.”
Forcing her eyes open, Hubley found herself staring at a patch of light brown canvas. An airship floated in the air in front of her, much smaller than any ship she’d ever flown on before. From stem to stern it wasn’t much longer than the table in Castle Grangore’s great hall, which seated fifteen people comfortably on a side. It wasn’t very tall, either, maybe half again Avender’s height. It hovered beside the ladder, rope rigging looped across the fabric.
“You there!” A loud voice called from the well above. “In the name of the king and Prince Merannon, stop!”
Avender’s head jerked upward at the prince’s name. Hubley wondered who he was. Looking up, she saw only a single Dwarf lamp shining out of the rock like a solitary star.
Avender’s attention snapped back to the matter at hand. “No time to waste,” he said. “Get on aboard.”
With her friend pushing on her shoulders and then her back and legs, Hubley heaved herself up the ropes. The airship quivered. She banged her hand and elbow on something thin and hard as she rolled into the cockpit, then fell again and bumped her knee as Avender tumbled in behind her, tangling them both in the heavy ropes coiled on the deck.
The airship began to fall. Not quickly, but fast enough so that the metal unneret they had just clambered down was clearly moving past them.
“Stop!” cried the voice from above.
Avender drew his sword. With a pair of slashing cuts that reminded Hubley of Fenner in her dream, he severed the cables tying the airship to the upside-down tower.
The ship fell a little faster.
Looking up again, Hubley finally made out several figures clambering down the ladder. Already they were half way to the ship. And they were gaining, too, as they climbed faster than the craft fell.
From under the airship’s canvas hull, Avender produced a long pole. Placing one end on the nearest blumet girder, he began to push. He strained, muscles bunching in his neck, but for a moment nothing happened. Then the ship began to drift out as well as down. Not very quickly, but fast enough that the side of the unneret was soon two or three feet away. Avender kept pushing until he reached the end of the pole, then brought it back inside.
It was going to be a close thing, whether the airship would drift far enough away from the tower before any of the men climbing down were close enough to leap across the gap.
Avender looked down. “Careful,” he said. “Make sure you close your eyes if we fall below the light.”
The first of their pursuers reached a level just above the falling ship, but the gap between it and the tower had grown too wide for a safe jump. Hubley saw him measuring the distance with his eyes, trying to gauge whether the attempt was worth the risk.
A second man appeared, the one wearing the lamp. Without hesitating, he wrapped the end of the rope that had moored the ship around his right arm and leg and, taking a few steps backward along one of the girders, raced forward and launched himself across the narrow gulf. Hubley’s heart popped into her mouth as the man reached out with one hand to grasp the airship’s rigging. Like Avender, he had a face she thought she recognized, though he didn’t look like Avender at all. For one thing, his hair was blond.
Avender raised his sword.
“Prince Merannon! Look out!” cried the man on the tower.
Looking up, the blond man let go the rigging just in time. Avender didn’t even have to swing his sword, though the prince might still have lost his hand if he had. As it was, Merannon swung heavily back against the unneret, which rang like a sour gong as he struck it. The first man, and several more besides, grabbed the prince quickly to make sure he didn’t fall.
With their help, Merannon climbed back onto the tower, but Hubley and Avender had drifted too far away now for a second attempt.
“We will come after you, you know!” the blond man called. “A ship from Issinlough is already on the way!”
Turning his back on the prince, Avender snapped a pair of tinted goggles over his head, climbed onto the seat of the airship’s engine, and began to pedal furiously. Slowly the propeller at the stern began to spin.