Chapter 17

Reiffen looked around. Precious minutes had passed since Hubley had been taken and all he had done was rage. Shapeless specimens oozed down the workshop walls, splinters of wood and glass littered the floor. Despite the blood and bruises covering his hands, he felt no pain. His Living Stone was already healing him.

He reminded himself he had been preparing for this day for years. Smashing workrooms had never been part of the plan. He needed to curb his temper and get on with it. Still, his fear and anger were worse than anything he had ever felt before: losing a daughter was much worse than slaughtering armies. What if he failed to bring her back? For years he had hoped this day would never come, that he would be able to defeat the Wizard by other means. But he had also known there was never really any choice. There never was, with Fornoch.

His breathing eased. The mess in the workshop was unimportant. The first thing he had to do was find Hubley. Then he could confirm who had taken her, her mother or the Wizard, before deciding what to do next. Although he was certain Ferris could never have entered the castle without his knowledge, he still had to make sure. Springing his trap on the wrong target would ruin everything.

From inside his shirt he pulled out a small pouch at the end of a blumet chain. Opening it, he poured a single moonstone into his palm. In the dimly lit workroom its surface flashed red and yellow, like carp feeding in a chalky stream. Wrapping his long fingers around the orb, he held it up before his face. The spell was old, but he remembered it easily.

“Moon and stars that light this stone,

Let it now to me be known:

Under rock or under sky,

Bare my daughter to my eye.”

The charm began to glow as its hidden magic came to life. Knives of light slashed out from between his fingers. One stabbed his forehead, the other two jabbed his eyes. Dust stirred up earlier by his temper drifted in and out of the glowing shafts, but the magician didn’t move. More slowly than the jagged lights careening across the surface of the moonstone, the world rolled before his eyes, from Grangore to the Blue Mountains, past Banking’s western baronies, through the Wetting and the Waste, finally stopping in the depths of the Great Forest.

He hurled the gem to the floor. It rattled off the walls, but did not break. Even in combination with the other spells he had prepared, he would never be able to reach his daughter quickly. He had expected as much, but it was still hard to swallow his disappointment. Whoever had stolen her had planned their hiding place well. Reiffen had seldom visited the Great Forest, and had always stayed close to the river when he had. Even if he changed to bird form and flew from the river to the edge of the Bavadars, it would take more than a day to reach her. Whoever had taken Hubley undoubtedly knew that, and would move somewhere else just before the time he expected Reiffen to arrive.

But first he had to make sure that person wasn’t Ferris. If his wife was the one who had taken Hubley, she would be with the child. After thirty-one years she would never have the patience to stay away, not even to throw Reiffen off the track.

Picking up the moonstone, he brushed bits of glass and small jellied carcasses off the table and lay down. He would visit Valing by dream travel, as he had done on his first trips from Ussene years ago. Dreaming required less effort than a full conjuring, and chances were he was going to need to conserve his strength over the next few days. But he had not traveled to Valing, by any means, in some time, so it took him a moment to gather enough memory for the spell. His breathing lengthened; his heartbeat slowed. His body rested even though he was wide awake. He was magician enough now that he no longer needed to put himself to sleep in order to dream. Now he could separate wakefulness and sleep as easily as if they were his right and left hands.

He opened his eyes in the Tear. Even dream travel required real memory and, having only visited Tower Dale while dreaming, his memories of Ferris’s current home were not real. The Tear was the closest he could come. Mist buffeted the windows; the gorge drummed through the stone at his feet as he climbed the steps and passed through the heavy oak doors into the half-arch that connected his mother’s old home to the Neck. Drifts of unswept leaves huddled against the wall. Quickly he ascended to the flat spit of land that housed Valing Manor, the buildings quiet and dark beneath a star-filled sky. No need to disturb the stewards or anyone else. This was not their quarrel. Not that he had ever met Hern’s and Berrel’s successors anyway.

Reaching the edge of the cliff beyond the orchard, he stepped off into the empty air. Ghosts required firm footing even less than birds. Below him the lake lay dark as night. With the stars and moon covered by clouds he could not even see the islands. Drifting like a puff of fog himself, he sailed south. Halfway to the Narrows the western cliffs parted to form a tapering dell, the Smaller Fall tumbling in a narrow plume to the lake below.

Passing the northern cliffs, he drifted toward a solitary tower standing in the middle of the vale. Sheds and barns clustered at its base. Behind it, fields and orchards led to a small patch of woods at the back of the cleft, where the Small Fall dropped from higher crags. Lights showed in a few of the tower’s windows, but none were Ferris’s. Or Giserre’s. Floating downward, he stopped with his hands resting on his wife’s windowsill. The shutters were open; the curtains hung motionless in the still night air.

Unhampered by the stone, he drifted through the wall. Since he was not really there, and could not do anything if he were, none of the alarms Ferris had placed around her home were alerted to his presence. Gliding across the floor, he approached her bed. Someone was sleeping there, but he had to make sure it was Ferris. Enough years had passed that he no longer recognized her sleeping form.

She woke. At first she only rubbed her eyes and looked around. Unlike those times years ago, no moonlight shimmered in his clear shadow.

“Ferris,” he repeated from close beside the bed. “Do you know where our daughter is?”

Her eyes widened as she came fully awake. “Get out!” she hissed, searching the room for him. “You have no right!”

Though he had known she would, she looked the same as ever. Dark hair of a woman a third her age, skin unmarked save for a few wrinkles in the corners of her eyes. Sleek arms not yet gone to flesh. All the same, his heart beat no faster. He had trained away his sentiment years before.

“Then tell me.” Her face stopped moving as she found his shade in the darkness. In this light he was no more than a transparency, a shape of clear glass laid across her view. He saw her hatred plainly.

“Hubley is gone,” he told her. “I came to see if you were the one who took her. Obviously you did not, so it must have been Fornoch.”

“Fornoch has Hubley?” Ferris’s hand went to her mouth. Then most of her bitterness returned. “But you can’t be sure, or you wouldn’t have come here. How do you know she hasn’t run away?”

His wife sneered. “So, despite everything you’ve done, you couldn’t keep her safe after all.”

Ferris covered her nightgown with a dark robe as she left the bed. “Do you know where she is? You were able to tell that sort of thing thirty years ago. You’re probably even better at it now.”

“She’s in the Great Forest, close to the back of the Bavadars. A day’s flight from anywhere I have ever been.”

Lighting the way with a wave of her hand, she led him out of her bedroom and up the tower’s curving stair. Although this workroom was more cluttered than the one she had had at the castle, it was otherwise much the same. Wide windows looked out on the night in three directions; books and magical ingredients filled the cabinets and shelves between. Pulling a large scroll from one of the former, Ferris unrolled it across the table at the center of the room.

“There.” The spot Reiffen pointed to showed plainly inside the outline of his finger. “Have you ever been anywhere near?”

“No. Except for once with you, I’ve never been to the Great Forest at all. But some of my former apprentices go there all the time. Maybe one of them can get me close.”

“I do not expect we shall be able to rescue her quickly. Fornoch has had many years to prepare for this day. I have assembled some surprises for him in turn, but it will take me some time to ready them.”

“Defeat Fornoch, and you can have her whenever you please. This has always been about him, not us. That is as true now as it was thirty years ago. What Hubley chooses to do with her freedom, however, might be something else entirely.”

Ferris stiffened. “Once she learns what you’ve been doing to her, I’m sure she’ll come with me. Don’t think I haven’t visited Grangore the way you’re visiting me now. You may have stolen her memories, but I’ll be more than happy to fill Hubley in on everything you’ve done to her over the last thirty years.”

Reiffen did not reply. Some day, Ferris would understand. And, now that the Wizard had finally acted, that day was likely to be close at hand. Too much time had passed, however, for Reiffen to have any hope that he and Ferris might regain what they had once had. Stone, living or dead, rarely changed, but people always did.

“Use your mirror to let me know if you are close,” he said, “and I will try to help. As I will let you know when I am close as well.”

His apparition vanished. Back in Castle Grangore, he swung up and off the table. In Valing, he assumed Ferris would already be calling her apprentices to see which one could get her closest to their child. Given what Fornoch had done to Ahne, Reiffen would never trust an apprentice with that sort of responsibility, but Ferris had made her own decisions. Let her put pressure on the Wizard by going after their daughter. Reiffen would take other measures.

Returning to the mussel cave, he began his preparations. There was much to do, all of which would take time. He may have been too soft-hearted to have given his daughter a thimble, but there were other ways. From a hidden shelf he brought out a small phial filled with dark red dust. Not enough for him to travel, even when mixed with his own blood, but enough to send something much more immaterial.

He was readying the knife for the final part of the spell when he felt a pulse of heat from the moonstone. Knowing Fornoch had to move Hubley regularly to make sure neither Ferris nor Reiffen caught up with him, he brought out the gem to see where they had gone. South the moonstone took him this time, across the Bavadars, through Wayland and into Banking. He guessed Fornoch and Hubley were on their way to the Toes when the moonstone surprised him by stopping at Malmoret.

Laying his knife aside, he considered this new development. Had Hubley escaped? The Wizard could not possibly have taken her to the New Palace deliberately. Ferris and he could both get there with barely a thought. Seepage was possible in the memory spell, he knew, especially if the subject came close to the vessels, as Hubley had that evening. Had enough of the traveling spell slipped out that his daughter had cast it on her own? But, if she had, why had she gone to the New Palace rather than Grangore or Valing?

There was only one way to find out. Canceling his enchantment, Reiffen concentrated on the New Palace. The smells around him slipped from firestone and lime to lavender and roses. Arriving at his old apartment, he began infusing the moonstone with fresh magic at once, but was interrupted by a shout from the servant’s stair. Following the sound, he discovered a guard aiding an injured companion on the landing three floors below. The two soldiers looked up in surprise as he silently joined them.

“What has happened here?” Raising his hand, Reiffen added a touch of compulsion to the question.

“I don’t know sir,” answered the soldier still on his feet. “I came to relieve Del here, and found him on the floor. Looks like he got a good conkin’.”

The other soldier looked up, too dazed to have been affected by Reiffen’s spell. Knowing every second meant his daughter was getting farther away, the magician took the soldier’s hand and allowed a small part of his Stone to leak into the woozy man. The soldier’s eyes cleared.

The soldier blinked and rubbed his temple. The magic had cured his dizziness, but not his headache. “I never saw him before, but he looked like an officer. Tall and strong.”

Reiffen turned back to the first man, his suspicions confirmed. “Which is the quickest way out of the Palace from here?”

The soldier scratched his head. “Through the kitchens, I guess. There’s a gate just outside. Say, who are you, anyway?”

His question was put to Reiffen’s back. The magician, remembering the way, was off through the kitchens at once. In the courtyard beyond, he found another sentry who told him no one had passed, though the soldier did think he had heard something in the street a few minutes earlier. Reiffen rushed out through the gate, but there was no sign of which way his daughter had gone.

Several more guards, alerted by the commotion on the stair, joined the sentry. None of them interfered as Reiffen consulted the moonstone’s magic. Shouts sounded in the palace; lights came on in the lower floors. Reiffen discovered that his daughter and whoever she was with were headed toward the heart of the city. If the fool guards had been able to delay them even briefly, he would have had them before they left the palace.

Taking a deep breath to keep from losing his temper, he considered what to do next. The inner keep of the Old Palace was the highest point in Malmoret, and Hubley was headed straight toward it. From there he should be able to track her anywhere in the city. Eventually whoever had taken her would have to go to ground, at which point Reiffen would be able to rescue her whenever he wanted. Unless it was Fornoch himself who had her, in which case he would have to go back to his original plan.

Knowing that help from the palace might prove welcome, he commanded the guards to send someone after him to the Old Palace. Then, collecting his thoughts, he shifted. Not ten minutes after arriving at the New Palace, he stood at the top of the Old.

Breathing hard, he looked out across the sleeping city. Streets and alleys etched dark shadows between the buildings. A light moved slowly through Breva Market: the city watch. According to the moonstone, his daughter and her captor were hurrying through Coinside but, studying the streets themselves, he saw nothing. Still, they continued to head straight for him. He looked for them as they crossed the Kingsway, but even that broad avenue was too dark to see. Checking his charm again, he saw they had crossed into the old Baron’s Quarter and were creeping closer through the back streets. If they actually were headed for the Old Palace, that would make things much easier.

Lights flickered outside the palace he had just left. With any luck, whomever Brizen had dispatched to help him would arrive not much later than Hubley. Briefly Reiffen wondered if perhaps the Wizard was doing this deliberately, trying to trap him into an ill-considered move, or wear him out with shifting. Even so, the chance to get Hubley back so quickly was worth the risk. His other plan, after all, was something he had only intended as a last resort. If he were lucky, he would not have to use it at all.

He was surprised, then, when Hubley and her escort turned aside at the base of the Old Palace wall and entered the College. Why would they want to go there? Girls and women were never allowed inside; the College was a terrible place for them to hide.

Only after he had shifted back down to the Great Hall did he realize they were making for the Malmoret Way. Like the back of the Great Forest, or the College, for that matter, Reiffen had never been in that part of the Stoneways. He was not going to be able to trap Fornoch at all. The wild goose chase the Wizard was leading him on was just going to continue until he was exhausted.

But he was still too close to give up, even if he had no idea where in the College the Bryddin had hidden the entrance to the way. Guards challenged him as he raced toward the Old Palace gate; a wave of his hand had them opening the wicket without his having to break stride.

Outside, he ran straight into a mounted troop. Hooves clattered on the cobblestones as the riders wheeled their horses to a stop. Light from a hand lantern flashed across his face.

Reiffen considered sending the entire troop tumbling with a word, then decided he might want their help at the College.

The lantern drew back. Reiffen counted nine men facing him on horseback, the soldiers muttering nervously among themselves. The leader looked vaguely familiar.

“What are you doing running about my father’s palace in the middle of the night?” the leader asked.

“Yes. She has been taken to the College. They are headed for the Malmoret Way.”

“The Way?” The leader looked astonished. “The entrance to the Way is one of the most closely guarded secrets in Banking.”

“Since you are so certain, I suppose we should see if you are right. Trooper, dismount so that Prince Reiffen may ride your horse. You can follow on foot.”

It had been years since Reiffen had ridden, but he climbed into the saddle quickly for all his awkwardness.

“It is a pleasure to finally meet you, cousin.” The man who had questioned him bowed slightly, his blond hair catching the lamplight. “You match your portrait in my father’s hall exactly.”

“And you look a great deal like your mother, Prince Merannon.” Spurring his mount as hard as he could with the house slippers he had not thought to change before he left Castle Grangore, Reiffen led the troop down the Kingsway and around the palace wall to the College.

“May I ask who has taken her?” inquired the prince as they dismounted outside the front door.

The door, though locked, gave Reiffen little trouble. Inside, Merannon led the way through several passages to a stone stair. The Chief Fellow and the porter were just emerging.

“You are too late, Your Highness.” The Chief Fellow bowed before the prince; the porter went down on one knee.

“Of course not,” scoffed Reiffen. “Otherwise these two would be dead. You cannot fight Fornoch with weapons.”

“Fornoch?” Albwin looked confused. “There was no Wizard here. Just Avender and your daughter.”

“Avender?” Reiffen found himself bewildered in turn. “That’s impossible. Avender vanished years ago.”

Albwin shrugged. “I have no idea if the man was lying or not, of course, but that is what he told us. He did look like Avender. Older, but otherwise the same. Tall and strong.”

Though the injured guard at the New Palace had described Hubley’s captor the same way, Reiffen knew it could not be true. He and Mindrell had dealt with Avender years before. “Some servant of Fornoch’s tricked up to look like Avender perhaps, but not Avender.”

The Chief Fellow raised a hand as Reiffen made to hurry on. “Have you brought a Dwarf Lamp with you?” he asked.

The Chief Fellow began shuffling down the hall. Nouse slid through the crowd to lead the way with his lantern. Reiffen chafed at the slow pace, but there was nothing he could do. Albwin was an old man, as old as Reiffen himself, though without the benefit of a Living Stone, and could go no faster. So he was almost grateful when Merannon, sensing his impatience, offered to lead them on ahead to fetch the lamps.

“You will find them in a pouch in my desk,” the Chief Fellow directed. “In the bottom left drawer. Or maybe the right. I have not used them in a while. Go with them, Nouse, and help them look.”

The porter, not much younger than his master, could not keep up as the prince and the magician bolted ahead. By the time he joined them, Albwin’s desk was already a shambles.

“See here, sir!” he cried when he saw Reiffen shaking a vase. “Put that down!”

“Easy, Nouse,” soothed the prince. “When a man’s child is endangered, a broken vase is a small thing. Come and help us search.”

Nouse was pulling at his hair by the time the Chief Fellow arrived, but Albwin did not seem at all put out by the mess.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, after stroking his beard for a moment in the doorway. “Now I remember. Young Wilstoke was playing with them during his last detention. I believe he hid them under the cushions on the window seat when he thought I was not looking.”

Reiffen flicked a finger. Nouse flinched. The cushions flew across the room, revealing a small leather bag. Merannon scooped it up at once.

This time Albwin remained behind as the rest of them hurried downstairs. Arriving in the storeroom at the back of the cellar, Merannon held a lamp to the wall. Slowly the outline of a door formed in the stone.

“Open it, sergeant,” ordered the prince as he fit the lamp into the keyhole in the center.

The sergeant and another soldier put their shoulders to the slab. Reiffen consulted his moonstone. Slowly the secret door slid backward to reveal a black tunnel on the other side, but Reiffen had learned that Hubley and her captor were already far down the stair. Had he brought a bat charm with him, it would have been an easy matter to fly on ahead and trap whoever had taken her. Without that advantage, however, it would be hours before he caught them on foot. Already he had wasted too much time following them through Malmoret and, if anything, was farther away from rescuing his daughter than he had been when he arrived. No doubt that was the Wizard’s plan. Even if he got close again, Fornoch would merely travel somewhere else. Sooner or later Reiffen would exhaust himself if he kept insisting on following them, which was probably what the Wizard hoped. Better if he returned to Grangore and resumed his casting.

Stepping to the door, Merannon removed the Dwarf Lamp and screwed it into the circlet he wore round his head. Lamplight shone a few steps down the dark path, but the rest remained as dark as ever.

“You are not coming with us?” he asked in surprise as Reiffen made no move to follow.

“No. I have other means of rescuing my daughter. But it would be helpful to me if you continued on. Should you find that Fornoch has taken her, do not fight him. You will only get in the way.”

Alarms were sounding as Reiffen returned to Castle Grangore. Cursing, he realized his suspicions were correct. Fornoch had deliberately lured him away. The ringing alarms proved Hubley’s flight to Malmoret had been designed solely to draw him out of the castle. He should have known she could not have remembered the traveling spell so quickly, that it was all a ruse. Misdirection was the Gray Wizard’s favorite ploy. With Reiffen out of the castle, Fornoch would have easy access to everything he had prepared. Everything Reiffen had been working on for all these years might already lie in ruins. Fornoch had depended on him to be rash where his daughter was concerned and, as was so often the case, Reiffen had done just what the Gray Wizard expected.

Angrily he raced downstairs. Mindrell was waiting for him in the courtyard, sword drawn. The front gate stood wide open.

“She’s gone!” cried the bard. “I went to her room as soon as the alarm went off, but there was no sign of her. Where were you?”

“Already gone? How? And why would the Wizard come back if he already had her?”

Reiffen explained what had happened as they searched the castle. How Fornoch had somehow gotten in without setting off the alarms and had stolen Hubley, then sent someone who looked like Avender to Malmoret with her to lead Reiffen on a wild-goose chase. Then, while Reiffen was gone, the Wizard had doubled back to the castle.

“But that doesn’t make sense.” Mindrell shook his head, trying to figure it out. “Why lure you away if he already knows how to get in without setting off the alarms? Why not do everything he needed before taking the child?”

Reiffen checked his temper. He so wished he had the luxury to lash out at something. “There is no other explanation. I found Ferris in bed in Valing, and no other mage has sufficient power for this sort of magic. The key is how Fornoch managed to get in here in the first place.”

They found no sign of the Wizard anywhere in the castle. Nothing had been disturbed, not even the mussels in the workshop downstairs. Nor was anything changed in the last cave they checked, where no one had visited in more than thirty years. Reiffen had expected that, but still, after what Albwin had said, he had to make sure.

“You think the Wizard might be here?” Mindrell eyed the shovel still lying beside Avender’s grave.

“No. But some in Malmoret believe they saw Avender with my daughter, so I thought we should check.”

Kneeling, Reiffen placed his hand on the bare dirt. Avender was still there. His Living Stone sensed the other quite clearly. And the other stone still pulsed, though very slowly, to prove Avender was there as well.

Traveling back to the mussel cave, he told Mindrell to go upstairs. “Not unless Hubley or Fornoch show up am I to be disturbed. Not even if Ferris tries to reach me on the mirrors.”

The door closed. The phial of Hubley’s dried blood lay where Reiffen had left it, but the spell itself had to be completely recast.

Hours later, the small, pinkish-gray cloud he had created gathered itself like a cat and disappeared. Wherever Hubley was, it would find her. Not immediately, perhaps, but soon. A day or two at most.