It was clear that no-one was going to tell Josh exactly who or what was imprisoned by the Chains of Wayland, or who Silbury thought had taken the key fragments, or even if he had a suspect at all. However, Josh though he could guess what the Chains had held. Tylas the Undying had been the Dark Lord of Six Spires, and though the man himself had been killed, his power was transferrable. That meant there was always going to be something or someone to lock up.

And what did the Chains of Wayland do, exactly? How did they imprison someone? They had to be more than just physical chains. Josh had visions of some kind of magic-supressing handcuffs.

Also, and more importantly, if the key fragment was a fake, did that mean Tylas’s power had been stolen recently? Was Josh too late with his quest to find the Dreamer? Had someone else got there before him?

Once Silbury had thanked Josh for the information he provided, he and Ramina were dismissed. However, the moment they were back on the landing Josh wasn’t at all surprised when Ramina grabbed hold of his wrist, put a finger to her lips and dragged him to an adjacent room where, she said, they could overhear the rest of the conversation.

Her eavesdropping spot turned out to be a walk-in cupboard between the two rooms, and just as she was about to stride into it, Josh grabbed her by the arm.

“Wait!” he said, as she threw his arm off with offended impatience. “Wait, it’s trapped.”

She frowned.

“What do you mean?”

On the wall on either side of the door were a total of four shelves, each holding a china musician figurine. They were playing Six Spires versions of instruments—a lute, a lyre, a flute and a drum—and they emanated a very faint, very subtle buzz of magic.

Josh inched closer, and felt a haze of magic over the door. It felt like watching clouds blowing across the sky on a windy day— you could tell they were moving, but they were so slow you could barely see it happening. Josh assumed the cloud was the active area of the alarm spell, which covered the entire cupboard door and several inches around it. They wouldn’t be able to crawl under it or remove the ornaments without tripping it.

The magic emanations of the ornaments was so subdued, it was almost as if they had been muffled, but when he strained his senses outwards, they reminded Josh of two things. The first was the set of ornaments Lady Paleyne had used at Brackstone Castle, which had created an alarm spell barrier. The second was the magical lock he’d seen in the Brackstone library. He assumed what he was seeing was a more complicated version of the alarm spell.

“Is Silbury a mage?” he asked.

Ramina frowned at him.

“No. What does the trap do? I’ve been this way loads of times!”

“I think it just alerts him whenever you go into the cupboard.”

Maybe Silbury had a linked item that glowed or something. Ramina’s eyes widened admiringly.

“The sneaky old fart!”

Josh could try to disrupt the very slight, delicate chains of magic he saw looping into the ornaments, but it would take him ages to study them and work out how they connected, if that was even possible. The magic-muffling effect on the ornaments themselves meant most of the spell working was hidden.

Could he do what he’d done with Lady Paleyne’s alarm spell, and simply move the ornaments away from the door? But he would have to reach through the spell itself to do so.

What did he have with him that might help?

An enchanted quill, a tiny bottle of ink, and copies of the five druid spells. He looked around the room. It was another sitting room, this one smaller, with bookshelves and a roll-top writing desk in one corner. On investigation, he found it held several sheets of paper, a quill, an ink pot, a blotting pad, and a stick of sealing wax. It meant Josh had plenty of paper, but casting Stone on paper wasn’t going to be any help to him this time around … unless … he furrowed his brow as he thought.

He took a sheet of paper and slowly poked it into the cloud of magic by the cupboard door.

No reaction. The ornaments hadn’t been enchanted to react to paper, or the paper was too thin to register.

He cast Stone on the paper, which was just long enough to reach the ornament without his hand entering the cloud of magic, then gently attempted to slide the sheet underneath one of the ornaments. The moment the ornament got nudged, however, Josh saw tiny silvery threads of magic suddenly ripple into existence within the cloud. It stretched from this ornament the others on the opposite side.

He let out a frustrated breath. They were magically connected, and if you moved one any distance from the others it would trip the alarm.

He scratched the back of his head while he stared at the problem.

Could he move all of them at once?

“Do you have any string?” He asked Ramina.

She looked intrigued.

“Wait here.”

Several minutes later, everything was in position. Josh had looped nearly a whole ball of string around the ornaments, running it along the floor and up the other side, and then back again, before casting Stone on it. This left him with a stiffened frame of string that allowed him and Ramina to lift the ornaments away from the door in one piece.

The cloud of magic moved with it, remaining inert.

They propped the entire structure carefully against the wall, where Josh hoped it wouldn’t fall over, and then they were free to walk into the cupboard.

Ramina climbed onto a chest that had been set against the far wall, and beckoned to Josh. He climbed up beside her, and put his ear to the wall, through which he could hear the voices of Sir Ernil and Lord Silbury clearly. Surprisingly so, considering there was a wall between them. It was almost as if the cupboard had been set up as a place from which to eavesdrop.

And then guarded by an alarm spell. It suggested Lord Silbury was sneakier than he looked.

“—run her ragged,” Silbury was saying, “with all your manoeuvring around Northcrag. And while we are on the subject, I will counsel you against it. Turning him into an enemy will not advance your cause. What do you hope to gain there?”

There was silence from Sir Ernil.

“Very well,” Silbury said equably. “Keep your secrets. But you should step carefully. Northcrag does too many favours for the King for his star to be easily eclipsed. He has thus far been famously neutral, but set him against you, and your dreams of retaking Celespire will turn to ashes.”

It sounded like Sir Ernil had managed to keep a lid on the news about the huldra, otherwise Silbury’s warning would have been different. Josh wondered how the conspirators had achieved that, given all the courier packages that went through the Cathedral at regular intervals. How had Northcrag not yet noticed?

“Of course, my lord, I understand,” Sir Ernil replied.

“But let us return to matter at hand,” Silbury went on. “It is a delicate time for court negotiations, and I need Sir Owain’s support on a number of issues. If I accuse him of holding onto a fake key fragment, he will take that as a challenge by me over areas of operational security he considers to be solely his provenance.”

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Sir Owain again—the Hero who had founded the Order of the Unyielding. The Order must be the ones safeguarding the second key fragment. Josh wondered who would have the third.

“I know what he’s like,” Sir Ernil said, grimly. “You don’t have to explain to me.”

“Precisely. I need this operation carried out swiftly and discreetly, and with a maximum of deniability.” A pause. “I need a mage, but I cannot use my own.”

“You want Liosa to do it,” Sir Ernil said flatly.

Josh wondered who Liosa was, before remembering that was Lady Paleyne’s first name.

“Pull her off Northcrag’s tail, get her to do this for me—speed and subtly are her specialities after all—and I will speak to the King about an exploratory mission to the south, to test the defences of the scourge.”

There was silence. Eventually Silbury filled it.

“I would have thought you would have jumped at the chance to have the King’s ear in this,” he mused. “What am I missing?”

The Azure Cathedral, Josh thought. Silbury didn’t know about it yet.

Sir Ernil said, at last, “If Liosa was discovered infiltrating the Order of the Unyielding, my lord, that would spell disaster for our cause. Convenient for you, no doubt.”

“Sir Ernil, you wound me!”

“Apologies, my lord. I must think of these things. But I have a suggestion. A thief who is already connected to a key fragment was here, in your house, not five minutes ago.”

“De Haven? If I were to use an agent of whom I know very little, I would do so via a middleman, to prevent myself from being identified. But it is too late for that, he knows of my involvement already. Also, suppose I do deputise him, and he turns out to be less capable than he was in Brackstone … if he was caught, he could sing like a canary.”

“Oh no,” Sir Ernil said, with heavy satisfaction. “I have leverage against him. I could persuade him to keep his mouth shut.” He paused, then added, “That’s if you wanted him to survive captivity.”

“My dear sir, I must deplore such ruthlessness!” Silbury sounded irritable. “I don’t make a habit of treating my agents as disposable!”

“Sorry, my lord, I spoke out of turn.”

Silbury heaved a sigh.

“Last of all, as you pointed out earlier, I don’t know if I can trust him. I don’t know his angle yet.”

“Isn’t that what you usually do, my lord?” Sir Ernil sounded sardonic. “Give people enough rope to hang themselves with?”

“Yes, but not usually over such high stakes. This is not some internal political scuffle. This is the survival of the world as we know it.”

“You could set your girl to watch over him, my lord, make sure he does it properly.”

“Ramina? Subterfuge is not her strong point. But … that is a thought…” Silbury’s voice trailed away. There was a short silence, followed by a surprised Hmm!

“My lord, what is wrong?”

“Ramina isn’t listening in! How curious! She would normally have her ear glued to the wall by now.”

“How can you tell?” Sir Ernil sounded startled and put out.

“I have my little ways.”

“Forgive me, my lord, but why do you let her run around spying on all your conversations?”

“Oh, she doesn’t spy on all of them. Only the ones I need her to.”

Josh sneaked a glance at Ramina, whose brows were drawn down over her nose in a scowl.

“I don’t know how you can trust a creature like that from—” Sir Ernil began heatedly, before he stopped. “I beg your pardon, my lord. It is not my place.”

“It is not,” Silbury said pleasantly. “Never forget, I have reasons for everything I do.” He added, “I will consider your proposal.”

“Of course, my lord.”

Sir Ernil left shortly after that. Josh and Ramina glanced at each other, then left the cupboard and put the alarm system back.

“They really need to nail the ornaments down,” Josh said in a low voice to Ramina, as he carefully slid the stiffened sheets of paper out from underneath them. “Or glue them or something. Then people couldn’t move them.”

“Most people don’t notice they’re there,” Ramina said. “And they can’t tell they’re magic. They don’t feel like anythin’ to me, and normally I can tell a little bit.”

“They’ve got a magic muffling spell on them.”

“Well, let’s go and wait on the landin’.”

“I should go home,” Josh said.

Ramina grinned at him.

“Wait five minutes. Trust me.”

Josh wasn’t inclined to trust Ramina at all. Only a few minutes later, however, she was proved right. A maid went bustling past into the sitting room where Lord Silbury sat, and then came hurrying out a moment later.

She curtseyed to Ramina and Josh.

“Milord to see you and the young gentleman now, Miss.”

Ramina flashed Josh a triumphant glance. Josh trailed after her reluctantly. He had an idea of exactly what was coming.

Sure enough, Silbury had a proposition for him.

It surprised Josh how honest Silbury was. He laid out everything, just as he had to Sir Ernil—his unwillingness to challenge Sir Owain, the need for discretion and speed, the potential consequences if Josh was caught. In that eventuality Silbury could not afford to be openly involved, but he would offer indirect help to the best of his ability.

At last, he came to the reward.

“So, tell me,” Silbury said, his eyes twinkling. “What would convince you to undertake this assignment for me?”

“Just to be clear,” Josh said, “What you want me to do is get into the Order of the Unyielding’s secret vault, or wherever it is they hold their key fragment, and check if it’s real or not?”

“Merely open whatever safeguards it, and we will be able to scry its location immediately.”

Josh stared at Silbury.

“It’s not an easy task,” Silbury said, returning his gaze. “But this is not just some political game I am playing for my own benefit. There must be something you want.”

Josh couldn’t help remembering Rob the Hedge Knight’s warning about anyone who was discovered to be a mage. They get sucked up into the fooking system, mate, working for the fooking nobs. He wasn’t even quite sure how he had got from being penniless and completely unknown traveller to working for someone who sounded like King Rupern’s premier spymaster.

Silbury had said he would try to help indirectly if Josh was caught, but that wasn’t the main issue. The Order of the Unyielding, according to be Rob, was to be avoided at all costs, because they killed outlanders permanently.

Josh might have been identified as a mage, but at least they didn’t know he was an outlander.

Even if they did catch him, they wouldn’t be able to tell he had a player core. Not unless they killed him and his body disappeared, and then he’d be in serious trouble, because he would be waking up in a shrine somewhere with nothing but the items he’d been carrying when he died, still level 9, with no experience, and with the Order of the Unyielding after him.

On the other hand, Silbury sounded like the kind of person who would have access to libraries. And information about the Dreamer. And mages who might be willing to give Josh lessons.

And if power of the Dreamer had been stolen, Josh needed to find the person who had, and the way to do that was to insert himself into the investigation.

He was going to find a way to contact Earth or die trying.

“Books?” Silbury said, a little blankly, when Josh made his requests known. “And mage training?”

Ramina snorted.

“What?” Josh asked defensively. He hadn’t made any mention of the Dreamer. He wanted to keep that goal to himself for as long as possible.

“Well,” she said, “Most people ask for money.”

Oops.

“And money,” Josh said quickly.

Silbury gave Ramina a severe look, but when he turned his gaze back to Josh his eyes were twinkling.

“It goes without saying that you will be well compensated,” he said. “Two hundred florins for successful confirmation.”

Florins were the silver coins. Josh could live very comfortably on a florin per day. Silbury was offering him more than half a year’s salary.

Silbury continued, “You may also have free reign of my own library, which includes a number of rare and magical books, and I will arrange for training sessions with my own personal mage.”

Yes!

Now all Josh had to do was break into a vault belonging to an organisation that sounded like it was stuffed with fanatically righteous paladins. Which was weird, considering he’d ended up playing a paladin in the game.

Silbury specified that he wanted the information within a week, but if Josh felt it would take longer, he was to let Ramina know. Josh promised to be in touch, and then they were standing outside the servants’ entrance.

“Now can we go over the rooftops?” Ramina demanded. She had followed him out for some reason.

“Now we can,” Josh replied solemnly.

A little while later they were perched on top of a steeply pitched roof overlooking the bay, the water in front of them a shimmering glitter of reflected moonlight. A fresh breeze was coming off the lake, and it rifled through Josh’s hair, as if blowing all his cares away.

“So where are you from?” he asked Ramina casually.

“I,” she said importantly, swinging round to face him, “am a pirate.”

Of course she wasn’t going to tell him about Earth yet.

“The Seamount?” he guessed.

“That’s the one.”

“What’s it like?” It was one of the places he’d never got round to visiting in the Spiralia Online. All he knew was that it was across the sea to the south-west, and that it was a haven for pirates.

It was obvious that, wherever she had originally come from, the Seamount was now her home. Her eyes lit up with enthusiasm as she described the treacherous reefs that ships had to navigate to reach it, the sea kicking up against the rocks in a constant spray of plume, the tumbling vines on its steep slopes, and the great city inside it, where all privateers and freebooters came to sell their wares and spend their coin. It was a cavernous echoing space, with buildings constructed from the remains of ships, criss-crossed with walkways and stepladders in a chaotic jumble.

Was that where she had arrived when she came from Earth?

“Have you always lived there?” he asked.

“Not always,” she said, and changed the subject.

He didn’t press.

As soon as he got home, he checked his character sheet in the privacy of his bedroom, which was his first clue that he might have made a mistake by agreeing to help Silbury.

> QUESTS

>

> The Stolen Fragment. Investigate the Order of the Unyielding, on behalf of the Marquis of Silbury, and find out if their fragment of the key is real or fake. Reward: 55,282 xp.

Josh choked. Fifty-five thousand experience?

He did a rough calculation, and decided it would probably take him from level 13 to level 15. That was two whole levels for a week’s work.

Assuming he could pull it off at all.