Rafiq flew high and sank again. It was no use trying to run, but the furious energy in him demanded to be spent, and it wasn’t until he’d expended it that he returned to Prince Akish in the courtyard below.
The prince threw him an impatient look when he landed. “Are you finished sulking?”
Rafiq spat a molten piece of fire and said: -Yes-
“Good. I’ll have need of you once I’m in the Keep.”
-I won’t fit-
“You’re Burdened,” said the prince. “Be a man.”
Rafiq snarled an even bigger ball of fire but there was nothing he could do. Burdened he had been, and Burdened he was to Change. His wings dwindled and disappeared into his shoulder blades, sparking the faint sense of panic that changing to human always induced in him, and the courtyard around him seemed to spring up, growing at ridiculous speed. When it was done he found himself crouched on the flagstones, chilled and small, with one stupidly delicate human hand flat against marble where it made a brown blot against the white. Somehow, whether from familiarity with Prince Akish’s physiognomy or because of his own dusky scales, Rafiq always found himself as a vaguely earth-coloured human when he changed. It made him fit in with the general Illisran population, and if he’d assumed anything so specific, Rafiq would have assumed that he would take on the lighter caramel skin tone of the Shinpoan people when Changing in Shinpo.
He climbed rather unsteadily to his feet, aware that Prince Akish was waiting by the Keep’s massive front doors with impatient black eyes, his fingers tapping an irregular tattoo on the grand marble balustrade beside him. There was a similarly large and ornate bell pull within easy reach of the prince– not that he’d bestir himself to pull it, thought Rafiq, with an unfamiliar human grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.
He managed to climb the stairs on his second attempt, precariously off-balance by the loss of his two forward legs, and set a resounding gong bellowing on the other side of the doors by a vigorous pull at the bell-chain. Beside Rafiq, the prince straightened his chain-mail and adjusted his sword to a more convenient angle: preparing for either female welcome or male attack.
Someone must have been watching for them, because the ringing tone of the gong had scarcely faded when one of the heavy double-doors groaned inward, spilling bloody light on the red marbled floor of the Keep’s grand hall. Rafiq saw bare feet first, one of them white-scarred in a line that vanished beneath a fluttering hem of light pink. It was a girl– a serving girl, if Prince Akish’s: “You there! Where is the princess?” was to be trusted.
The serving girl gave them a Shinpoan bow with her bare arms outstretched gracefully, displaying the top of her beaded head-dress for a respectful moment. She drew herself upright again in a single, liquid movement, and said in careful Illisran: “Your mightinesses are well-come and apologies are offered.”
“Never mind that,” said the Prince, in impatient and effortlessly colloquial Shinpoan: “I don’t want your apologies, I want the princess. Bring her to me.”
“Well, that’s what I was trying to apologise about,” said the serving girl. Rafiq thought she looked relieved to be speaking her native tongue. “You can’t get to the princess. You’ve passed one Circle of Challenge, but there are six more to go. In fact, as soon as you step across the threshold the second Circle will begin, so you really might like to think about it before you– oh...”
Her voice trailed away as Prince Akish said to Rafiq: “Remove her,” and Rafiq seized her by the elbows, lifting her bodily out of the way. He’d always thought his human form was ridiculously small, but it occurred to him for the first time that it was only so in relation to his dragon self. The serving girl’s head only came to his shoulder, and now that he came to think of it, Rafiq found that he could see over Prince Akish’s head without rising on the pads of his feet.
“You’ll refrain from getting in our way,” said the prince, crossing the threshold in Rafiq’s wake.
The serving girl, flicking a look from Prince Akish to Rafiq, said: “I’m sure you’re right. There’s a Door Out if you need it, your highnesses. Don’t hesitate to call if you should require me: I’ll be in the next room.”
She left them in a flutter of pink silk, the long end of her neck-scarf wafting lightly behind her. To Rafiq, it seemed as though she was decidedly cross. That was intriguing, because he’d always found female humans particularly hard to read. The moods and features of the prince and other Illisran males he had come to read tolerably well, but he hadn’t had much of an opportunity to study the female of the species.
“Leave the serving girl alone,” said Prince Akish, following Rafiq’s eyes. “We don’t need her. The princess is said to be in the highest room of this accursed tower: we’ll ascend the main stairs and find our way from there. Be alert. Take the lead.”
They weren’t styled as Commands, but Rafiq felt the burden settle on him nevertheless. He crossed the hall in swift steps, his eyes darting into the bloody shadows that flanked it. It was hard to tell exactly how big the hall was, though it was clear that it was vast: the smudging of shadows far away were akin to an old oil painting. In fact, it didn’t seem as though the hall ended so much as became two dimensional. Rafiq felt his eyes slide away from the far end in discomfort and started up the stairs. His human legs were beginning to feel more able, and he took the stairs two at a time with one ear to the prince’s footfalls behind him. The curving balustrade framed the hall below, cool white against red, and rounded into a smooth bowl at the upper landing, from whence the front doors could be seen in the same kind of flat reality as the distant hall below. Rafiq grunted at that, missing the familiar heat of fire in the back of his throat, and passed ahead of the prince into the grand room that led on from the landing.
It was paved in the same red marble as the hall below. Rafiq grimaced in distaste, but the expression froze on his face as his eyes met the grand staircase at the end of the chamber– no, hall! He took several swift steps into the room and turned in a slow circle, his chin oscillating up and down in his study of the hall.
“It’s the same as the one below,” said Prince Akish. “It’s exactly the same as the hall below.”
Rafiq, who had been systematically scanning the hall, said: “It is the hall below. We’re back where we started.”
The prince said flatly: “That’s impossible.”
“Yes,” agreed Rafiq, but he saw the prince’s eyes flickering wildly around the hall.
“Confusing, isn’t it?” said the serving girl’s voice. She was in the doorway of the next room: the same one that she had entered in the hall below.
“How did you get there?” demanded Prince Akish.
Rafiq managed to restrain himself from sighing, though one of his brows rose, and when he chanced to meet the serving girl’s eyes she was looking distinctly amused.
“I was here all along,” she said. “I told you: there are another six Circles of Challenge. This is the second. It’s a circular paradigm of two rooms and a staircase from which there are no exits except the way forward and the Door Out.”
“She must have sneaked up the staircase behind us,” said Prince Akish stiffly to Rafiq.
“She didn’t,” said the serving girl. “But don’t take my word for it. Climb the stairs again. I’ll wait for you.”
“Climb the stairs again,” said Prince Akish to Rafiq.
Rafiq’s instinct was to bare his teeth in a snarl but his human face didn’t know how to make the right shapes, so he grimly ascended the stairs without speaking. Trust Akish to do anything he could do to avoid being made a fool of! This time he kept Prince Akish and the serving girl in sight as he climbed, guiding himself by the balustrade. As it curved out into the familiar bowl shape of the landing once again, Rafiq took one last look at the others and strode into the room. The serving girl and the prince stood there before him.
“Here we are again,” said the serving girl pleasantly. Rafiq gazed at her silently, then wheeled back to the stairs behind him. When he leant over the balustrade of the landing, the serving girl’s eyes were on him from her place in the hall below. She gave him an elegant half-shrug.
“Come back in,” said Prince Akish curtly, and when Rafiq crossed the landing once again, he added: “Close the doors. The other staircase is harping upon my nerves.”
Rafiq did so, glancing up at the double doors at the top of the grand stairs in this room. He couldn’t see them properly, but through the spokes of the balustrade he thought he saw wooden panelling. The top doors were now also closed.
Prince Akish turned on the serving girl. “What is this sorcery?”
“Just what I told you,” she said. “This is the second Circle. Unless you take the Door Out, these are the only two rooms you’ll see until you find the way forward.”
“Give me the room,” said Prince Akish, after a frowning moment of thought. “I need quiet.”
The serving girl looked indignant, but she didn’t resist when Rafiq took her by the elbow and ushered her into the attached room. Incongruously, it was a small library, the entrance to which was rounded and had carved into its lintel some form of text. There were four large windows on the outer facing wall, between which bookcases were built, stretching high into the ceiling and packed with books large and small. The serving girl twitched her elbow away once they were across the threshold and threw herself onto one of the low, wide settees that decorated the room.
“I thought you were a prince at first,” she said. “You’re not, are you?”
Rafiq was surprised into a small, coughing laugh that would have sent sparks flying in his dragon form. “I’m not a prince.”
“No, you’re some type of human construct.” The serving girl crossed her legs, planted her elbows on her knees, and gazed at him with her chin in her palms. “Not Fae, so that’s a relief. What are you?”
Rafiq stared back at her impassively, his arms folded.
She narrowed her eyes, but said: “All right, then. Something easier. What’s your name?”
“Rafiq,” he said.
“I’m Kako. I’m the princess’ maid. Are you the prince’s squire? And are you always so obedient?”
There was an expectant silence which Rafiq declined to break. It was none of this pert little serving girl’s business what he was to the prince or anyone else, and his own servitude he absolutely refused to discuss.
“You don’t have to answer that,” said Kako, when Rafiq had made it very obvious that he wasn’t going to answer. “It was a trick question anyway. I can see the link from you to him: he has you in Thrall.”
Rafiq broke his silence to say: “You’re a very pert maid.”
“Yes,” said Kako, with the air of one acknowledging a universal truth. She thought about it for a moment and added: “It’s not polite to notice.”
“Doesn’t the princess beat you?”
“No,” Kako told him. “But she’s not your average sort of princess. What’s your prince doing out there?”
“Thinking,” said Rafiq. “He’s trying to figure out all of this.”
“Different from the usual type of prince, then,” said Kako thoughtfully. “Does he usually oust everyone at his pleasure? No, don’t strain yourself, of course he does.”
A step at the door saved Rafiq from having to respond. Prince Akish, striding into the room, said: “Rafiq, climb out the window.”
“Which window?” Rafiq asked wearily.
Kako said: “It won’t do you any good.”
To Rafiq’s surprise, this time the prince appeared to listen to her. “Why not?”
Kako’s eyes flicked toward Rafiq: he saw mischief there. “Oh well,” she said: “It’s easier to show you than to tell you, after all. Climb out the window, Rafiq!”
Rafiq sent her a smouldering look but since Akish didn’t repeal his order, he had no other choice than to try the window. The one he chose opened easily, but upon climbing out he was somehow not at all surprised to find himself climbing back into the library via another window with no sensation of missed time. Prince Akish looked sourly crestfallen: Kako, if Rafiq read her aright, was trying not to laugh.
“You,” said the prince suddenly, pointing at Kako. Her face sobered immediately: she looked distinctly cautious. “What function do you perform here?”
“Personal maid to the princess,” said Kako immediately. “Your highness.”
“Do you wander at will?”
“That depends, your highness. If there are no challengers in the Keep, yes. If the Circles are begun, no.”
“But you know the ways through the challenges.”
“Only the princess and the dragon know the way through the Circles,” said Kako. “At least, they know the way through the first six Circles: no one but the Enchanted Keep itself knows the way through the Seventh Circle. I know where they are and what they look like.”
“Does not the princess wander at will through the Keep?”
Kako gave that little half-shrug again. “She’s under enchanted sleep most of the time, actually. When the dragon is out and about she’s asleep all the time.”
“To prevent her escape,” nodded Prince Akish.
“How did you guess, your highness?”
“It’s a clever ruse,” said Akish, his chest expanding slightly. Obviously, thought Rafiq, he hadn’t noticed the sarcasm in Kako’s congratulatory tones. “But fairly obvious when one thinks about it.”
“Oh yes,” murmured Kako. “Very obvious!”
“The Keep, it’s sentient?”
Kako hesitated. “No one really knows. We think it may be sentient, but it’s only responded to three of the experiments we’ve performed over the years. We still don’t know if it’s playing with us or if the magic that made it is simply so good that it presents as sentient.”
“But it’s familiar with you? It recognises you?”
“As much as a building can recognise anything, your highness: yes.”
The prince nodded. “Very well. We’ll take you with us.”
“That’s very kind of you,” said Kako, with a light frosting of sarcasm. And yet, Rafiq was almost certain that the prince’s declaration had pleased her.
“Bivouac for the night,” said Prince Akish. “We shall proceed in the morning.”
Sunlight was streaming through the windows when Rafiq awoke the next morning. He rose, stretching, and prowled closer to the golden warmth of it, a purr beginning deep in his chest but unable to roll properly in his human throat. Kako was curled up on a settee in the skewed square of light from one window, a twist of pink silk against the dark green of her chosen bed. A faint marking of lines on the marble floor showed where she’d dragged the couch in order to catch the light. Rafiq frowned down at her, his thoughts troubling him. There was still something so familiar about her. Yet, as far as it went, there was no reason why she should be familiar. A human, a female, a Shinpoan; he had certainly never met her before. He would have remembered her, he was sure, for in the bright sunlight he could see what he hadn’t seen yesterday: Kako was covered in myriad mismatching scars and scrapes. There was quite a large one along her right arm that showed soft, newly stretchy skin almost an inch wide at its widest. It made a long, tapering ‘v’ from her rounded shoulder to the inside of her elbow. There were a multitude of tiny cross-hatched scars across her knuckles and fingers, and the one scar that Rafiq had noticed yesterday was not the simple thing that it seemed. It ran across one foot, and with Kako curled as she was on the settee he could see the pad of her foot, where it made a darkened divot in the skin. Had someone tortured the girl?
Rafiq’s eyes went to her face, and saw that even Kako’s slightly lop-sided smile was due to a small scar that pulled at her upper lip. He thought he saw the pinkening of new scar toward the edge of Kako’s neck scarf and reached out curiously to pull the scarf away.
“Marred little thing, isn’t she?” said Prince Akish’s voice. “Careful! Take her scarf and you’ll find yourself wedded to the chit: Shinpoans are very traditional when it comes to the neck-scarf.”
Rafiq’s hand dropped. “Wedded?”
“Only a bridegroom can uncover his bride’s neck,” said the prince. “Shinpoan ladies are only permitted to cease wearing the scarf after they’re married.”
To Rafiq, this seemed nonsensical: he could see the girl’s navel, after all! Her bodice, such as it was, covered what Illisrans would consider only to be the bare essentials, and no Illisran woman would wander her house or grounds with her midriff bare. Nor would they be seen in a pair of trousers, no matter how light and graceful they were. Dragons, now: things were much simpler with dragons. No fuss about scarves or midriffs or lengthy wedding settlements. No even lengthier schism settlements. There was a drake and his she-dragon, and they wedded for life.
Rafiq settled back onto his rug cross-legged, where he could see both the sleeping Kako and Prince Akish, who had gone into the hall to begin his morning stretches. Akish always looked distinctly peeled of a morning: stripped of his chainmail and leg armour, his bulk was considerably lessened. This morning he was stretching in preparation for his sword drill, his shadow rippling smoothly over the blood-red floor. Before long the prince would be lunging and setting, practising his strokes: a routine as familiar as it was unvarying.
Rafiq turned his attention back to the sleeping Kako. Here was an uneasiness that was tugging uncomfortably at the back of his mind– what was it about her that was so instinctively familiar? Human women were even harder to read than human men, perhaps because he saw so few of them. What was it about Kako that made her so easy to read? He was still frowningly observing Kako when her eyes opened and met his, sleepy and then sharp. She looked cautious and a little bit speculative.
Rafiq said: “You sleep very late for a serving maid.”
“You’re a strange little construct,” she said, yawning and stretching. “It’s not polite to watch people while they sleep: didn’t your prince tell you that? It borders on disturbing, actually.”
Rafiq was goaded into retorting: “My usual form isn’t this little.”
“Speaking of your usual form, what is it? More importantly, why do you have fire running through the magic around you–” Kako’s mouth remained open, but her words died away. She leaped from her settee and crouched in front of Rafiq, who submitted without blinking to a wide-eyed and animated scrutiny that lasted for many minutes. When at last she was done, Kako looked at him with slightly dazed eyes and said: “Rafiq, where did your dragon go?”
Rafiq crossed his arms.
“That dragon, the one who killed the Keep’s dragon. Where is it?”
“It went away.” It didn’t sound convincing even to his own ears.
“You’re the dragon!”
“I’m a man,” said Rafiq. His voice sounded even less convincing.
Kako, her eyes shining, said: “You’re the dragon! You’re a dragon-human construct! How are you doing that?”
“He told me to be man,” said Rafiq, with bitterness in his soul. “I became man.”
“Yes, you’re under Thrall: I understand that. But even a dragon in Thrall can’t change into a man at will.”
Rafiq, who knew of several ancient draconian lines whose descendants could and did change to man (or woman) at will, shrugged. When it came to consciousness, humans and dragons were not so far apart. That fact more than magical talent made the change between species possible.
Kako drew in a deep breath, questions blossoming in her eyes, but before she could speak even one of them Prince Akish strode into the room in all his sweat and said: “Up, lizard! The day has well begun. We shall seek food, and then the way forward.”
“There is no food,” said Kako, accepting Rafiq’s offered hand to rise from the rug. “It’s not part of the paradigm. Unless you’d like to eat books, of course.”
Of course, thought Rafiq sourly, Prince Akish still had his rations pack: a small, half-empty skin of water and two days’ worth of marching rations. Those rations, he was well aware, wouldn’t be offered to him. He could go for longer than Akish without food—or water, if it came to that—but it wouldn’t be pleasant.
“Water, then? How will I wash?”
“You won’t. Your highness. Water isn’t part of the paradigm either.”
“Rafiq, seize the serving maid. Menace her with your dagger or some such thing.”
Rafiq obeyed with murder in his thoughts. Kako squeaked when he folded one arm around her swiftly, pinning her arms to her sides and her back to his chest, but though she was startled she didn’t seem to be frightened. She didn’t even wriggle when Rafiq’s dagger caught in the folds of her neck scarf.
He said, through his teeth: “I object to menacing females.”
“Your objection is heard and disregarded,” said Akish. “Now, maiden: inform the Keep that if it doesn’t co-operate, I will slaughter you where you stand.”
“You can tell it yourself, if you like,” said Kako, but she nevertheless called out: “The prince says he’ll kill me if you don’t co-operate.”
There was the kind of awkward silence that suggested everybody knew somebody had been made a fool of, but nobody quite liked to say so. Prince Akish clicked his tongue impatiently. “Ho there! Open the third Circle to us or your serving maid dies!”
Rafiq felt Kako sigh slightly. “It’s not a person, your highness. It doesn’t understand death. The Circles can’t be cheated: threatening me will only waste time we could be using to find the way ourselves.”
“Let her feel the point of the dagger,” said Akish softly.
Rafiq didn’t try to resist the order: his hands were less controlled when he was resisting, and he would much rather prick Kako’s neck on purpose than cut her throat by accident. He heard a small, sudden intake of breath from Kako, then something liquid and hot burned his thumb and forefinger. Rafiq stiffened and looked down to find that the blade of his knife was gone. No, not gone: melted, the steel of it dripping on his fingers and burning the flesh. He took in a silent breath through his teeth and quickly wiped the burning liquid away on the shoulder of Kako’s bodice, prompting the scent of scorched silk to rise faintly in the air. Her head turned as he looked down, and her eyes met his, faintly challenging.
Fortunately, Prince Akish hadn’t noticed the melted blade. He was glaring around the room as if expecting attackers to leap from behind the curtains and under the books, and by the time his gaze fell on Rafiq and Kako again, Rafiq had angled the handle of the dagger so that the prince wouldn’t have been able to see the blade if it was there.
“There’s no one to save me,” Kako said. Once again, her words had the ring of universally known truth. Was that, Rafiq wondered privately, because she really had no one to look after her, or because she didn’t need anyone to look after her?
“Enough of this foolery,” said Prince Akish impatiently, interrupting his thoughts. “Let the wench go, Rafiq. We’ve wasted enough time on this trial.”
Rafiq released Kako in relief. It was bad enough that he’d killed a she-dragon. To kill a human female as well would have been a hard thing to live with, as impossible as it would have been for him to do anything about it. Kako adjusted her neck scarf with a great dignity that was only slightly ruined by the tiny, still-smoking holes Rafiq’s melted blade made in the light fabric and the smell of burnt silk that still permeated the air.
“What are your instructions?” Rafiq asked the prince. In general he made it a rule not to ask for Commands: he far preferred misinterpreting those orders given him and dodging the ones that he could conveniently not hear. In this case, however, it seemed safer to direct Prince Akish’s thoughts toward anything but threatening the female servants of the Keep.
“We shall search for secret passages,” said Prince Akish. “A keep as big as this one must surely be bristling with hidden nooks and crannies. I’ll search in the main hall: you can have the library. Don’t leave any corner of the room unsearched.”
As far as it went, thought Rafiq as the prince removed himself to the hall; the command was both comfortable and easy to follow. He very precisely searched the corners of the room first, while Kako watched with narrowed eyes, then investigated the corners where book-cases met walls for good measure. That did away with his Burden and left him to search in comfort and with just as much vigour as he chose to exert.
He was carelessly tipping books on their spines with the rather nebulous idea that any secret passage in the Keep would likely be activated by a bookish lever when it occurred to him to ask: “Why a library?”
“Why not?” said Kako, with her elegant half-shrug.
“I’m a dragon.”
“Yes, we established that.”
“Libraries don’t adjoin grand halls. Or foyers.”
“I see. You’re saying that on your authority as a dragon.” Her voice was so reasonable. Rafiq was certain she was laughing at him.
By way of explanation, he said: “If even a dragon knows it, everybody must. Why a library?”
“Well, the foyer out there isn’t always the foyer, if you know what I mean. Sometimes the Keep likes to put another hall or foyer there instead.”
“Mm,” murmured Rafiq, to give himself time to think. She was only telling half of the truth. “What’s written on the lintel?”
“That? It’s Shinpoan. Books are the door, but Knowledge is the key. It’s an old saying that means a well-informed mind will learn more from a book than an ignorant one.”
“Mm.”
Kako’s almond eyes flicked over to him and away again. “You’re unusually talkative today.”
Rafiq only grunted at her this time. He wasn’t exactly talkative at the best of times, but he distinctly disliked being lied to, and he was certain that Kako’s entire conversation with him had consisted of half-truths and misdirection. As little as Prince Akish liked being made a fool of did Rafiq like it.
Prince Akish called for a halt when the natural light faded. Neither he nor Rafiq had found a single secret passage or hidden door: just the same grand flight of stairs and the same two rooms, hall and library. Rafiq, supposedly searching the library with Kako, heard the enraged stomping of feet on the stairs as Akish’s temper got the best of him and he sought determinedly to climb through as many iterations of the hall and stairs as it took for the scenery to change. It hadn’t changed, of course, and the prince had eventually tired himself out enough to declare an end to the day’s struggles. None of them were in a particularly good mood by then: Akish was tired and hungry, Rafiq was hungry and puzzled, and Kako’s pinched face said that she was hungry too. It was rather a relief when they each turned to their own favoured sleeping spots and ignored the others in favour of sleep.
Rafiq woke in the sable dark, unsure of what it was that had roused him. He could hear the prince’s heavy breathing, and to his left was the soft in and out of Kako’s breath. There was nothing irregular or threatening about it. The rest of the room was silent: a heavy silence from the book-lined walls and five cold points of empty silence where the windows and connecting door made a hole in the books. Then, while Kako’s breath remained soft and steady, Rafiq heard the slither as she uncurled from her settee and set her bare feet silently on the marble floor. Not asleep, then. Rafiq cracked his eyelids open just enough to see a blurred slit of the room as Kako looked, listened, and stole away softly across the swiftly cooling tiles. Where was she going? It came to his mind that she had slept late yesterday morning: had she been wandering last night as well? And if so, where? Two rooms and a staircase didn’t leave a lot of leeway.
He briefly considered following her, but by the time he sat up Kako’s almost indiscernible footsteps had died away altogether and Rafiq had the distinct impression that she was no longer in the two-room paradigm with himself and Akish. Besides, if he knew where she’d gone and Prince Akish asked about it later, Rafiq would have to tell him. Rafiq preferred to tell the prince as little as possible, and if he didn’t know anything he couldn’t tell anything.
By the time Kako returned, waking him, the pre-dawn cool was already seeping across the marble floor, causing Rafiq to burrow deeper into his rug in an attempt to escape its lingering touch. Through his eyelashes he could see that Kako was weary but well content, a glow of satisfaction about her. She fell asleep almost immediately and this time Rafiq could hear the difference in her breathing. She must have stayed awake for hours waiting for himself and Akish to fall asleep.
What exactly did she want with himself and Akish? She certainly had no need to stay with them. And when Prince Akish had declared his intention of taking her with them yesterday, Rafiq was certain that Kako had been pleased. Was she a part of the Keep’s enchantments? Was she only there to obfuscate the path and hamper them in the Circles of Challenge?
It wasn’t until quite late in the day that Prince Akish sent a bellow of triumph echoing through the two-room paradigm. Rafiq, who had been prowling the great hall—ostensibly in search of a way forward but actually in search of some form of food—betook himself to the next room slowly enough to please himself while not being slow enough to force Akish to call him in.
Kako was already there, reclining on a settee with a book and not looking very interested. Akish was standing in front of one of the emptier bookcases, his face alight with triumph, and when he drew nearer Rafiq understood why. It was curious that he and Kako hadn’t seen it: those two stacks of books supporting the old shelving made a doorway.
“The writing,” he said, nodding.
Prince Akish’s eyes flamed. “Books are the door!”
“And knowledge is the key,” agreed Kako. “It’s a Shinpoan saying.”
“It’s a sign,” Akish said impatiently. “You wouldn’t understand. Those piles of books are the doorway to the next Circle.”
Kako’s eyes became particularly flat. “How interesting. How does that work?”
“I suppose one simply walks through it.”
“I see. You don’t seem to be getting very far.”
Prince Akish, who had tried to walk through one rather sturdy wall, pounded his fist on the blocks that showed between book stacks. “Why isn’t it working?”
“Maybe the door’s shut,” said Kako helpfully.
“There must be a key phrase to unlock it.” Prince Akish crossed his arms tightly across his chest, scowling. “Knowledge is the key! Books are the door!”
“It’s not working,” Rafiq said, when it was obvious that it wasn’t.
“It must work!” Prince Akish said furiously. “The words are a sign! My conclusions are correct!” He made a violent gesture at the wall, spewing potent magic from his fingers, and both piles of books exploded in a fluttering of leaves and covers, knocking several other books from the shelves and starting a domino effect of several massive tomes that had been leaning against the back of one of the settees. The last of these, a monstrously large and improbably thin atlas with biscuit-coloured borders that was nearly as tall as Kako, tilted ponderously and slapped against the marble floor with a soft, dusty paf!
All three of them stared at it speechlessly, aware of Prince Akish’s magic reacting with something distinctly magical in the book before it fizzled away.
“It’s certainly big enough,” Kako said.
Prince Akish, recovering both his temper and his breath, ordered: “Open the book, lizard.”
This time it was obvious that they’d chosen the right way. When Rafiq propped the atlas back up against a bookshelf and opened it, the internal magics lit the dusty twilight of the room. He opened it to the page that it most naturally opened at, and instead of a map they found themselves looking at a highly detailed rendering of what seemed to be another room in the Keep. It was about the size of a large ballroom, the marble tiles on the floor of myriad colours, and was rather incongruously dotted with a series of articles that looked distinctly out of place. Even to Rafiq the profusion of chairs, desks, random ottomans, and chaise lounges seemed unusual. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was also the odd wardrobe or two about the room, and that was certainly a massively canopied bed over in one corner.
Prince Akish gazed at the room in mingled triumph and dissatisfaction. “Why are there articles of furniture strewn through your ballroom?”
“It’s only one ballroom of many,” Kako said. “I suppose it needed to keep the spare furniture somewhere.”
Rafiq, certain that Kako was again only telling half of the truth and rather annoyed with her in consequence, said abruptly: “Who goes first?”
“The serving girl,” said Akish at once, as Rafiq had been certain he would. “I will follow her and you will immediately follow me. Do you understand?”
“I hear and obey.”
“Very well. Lead the way, wench.”
Kako’s one-shouldered shrug as she turned away from the prince was as eloquent as an eye roll. In turning, she slipped sideways and into the room in one unconsciously familiar movement that had Rafiq wondering just how well she knew the magic of the Keep.
The prince waited only until a rather flat representation of Kako appeared on the page before he followed her through without a ripple of the sorcerous page, leaving Rafiq to bring up the rear with the rather grim question of what the third Circle would present in the way of challenge.
***
The book glowed briefly as the last of the challengers stepped through, and when the glow faded a certain swirling of unformed words remained. Slowly, slowly, word by word, two lines formed in soft sepia on the creamy page.
Herein is entry to the Perilous Room
Seek the Changeable Path or find here your Doom.
The Second Circle is ended