“The houppelande really does suit you better.”
I dusted off my gambeson and readjusted the jade brooch so it offered more coverage of the left hole, “It’s not as protective. And it’s far too bulky. It would snag on everything.”
“And the dress around you neck looks ridiculous.”
“I’m sure it’s fashionable somewhere.”
Attart was studying the lance, cutlass, and club as she spoke. She’d already retrieved the woman’s cloak I’d discarded, the skull, the bell, and the manacles.
“Best to avoid such places.”
“It’s magical.”
Attart snorted and plucked at her new cloak. It was the same shade of red her dream cloak was, “So is this cloak, yet you threw it in a heap with the rest of my things.”
I pulled back from the door I’d been pressed against. The ghouls were gone. Or very, very, stealthy.
“It’s magical? I didn’t notice anything.”
Attart gestured and a knight in chain armour burst through the wall in front of her, thundered toward her on his horse, bent low, and scooped up the lance before thundering through the opposite wall and disappearing.
“Clip all clop clip clop clip clop clip selves clip clop clip clop clip same clip wooOOOosh.”
The rush of wind from his passage blasted over me, “I beg your pardon?”
“Not all magical natures reveal themselves in the same fashion,” she repeated, “My cloak is more akin to a sentient creature than a powerful enchantment. Observe the edges carefully.”
There was something strange about it. The wind from knight’s passage had already stilled, and yet her cloak still flapped subtly in the breeze. The breeze of a dungeon, hundreds or thousands of feet underground. The air was dead still. Still except for her cloak.
How many “sentient” items and otherwise had I abandoned? It didn’t bear thinking about.
“Does it do more than flap in the wind?”
“Oh yes,” she spread her arms wide and the cloak flared behind her, “It is a sympathetic cloak. It works in sync with its wearer, even when not being worn.”
The cloak detached from her shoulders and fluttered around her in a circle before wrapping itself back around her.
I jumped.
A man had arrived precisely behind the cloak when it had spread out in front of Attart. Another of her ghosts.
He wore little save for a loincloth and a lionskin. He was a wielding a large bone club with one hand identical to the one on the floor beside him.
As I noticed him he gave a salute and then sunk into the floor without a trace.
Attart’s eyes twinkled, “More importantly it is very warm. You are lucky you were not brought here in winter,” she gestured to the two scarves and the coat, “Somehow the chill manages to get down here. I am not sure it is entirely natural.”
Though she looked like a local, her name wasn’t local at all. It reminded me of some of the languages far to the south-east of Bleakfort. I suspected the season had far less to do with her perceived change in temperature than whatever alterations the book had wrought to her body. It wasn’t for me to speculate out loud. No one I’d met had navigated the dungeon unchanged. That didn’t mean I needed to hide the truth.
“It should be spring right now, if my reckoning is correct.”
“Spring?” she looked surprised, “What year? My own track of time was somewhat confused by the sudden returns to the estate.”
“The first millennium. The year 1000. It’s a lucky time to break free, eh?” I grinned at her.
Attart neatly folded to the floor. Her cloak spread and furled about her like a flower closing for the night.
“1000? I thought it might be 997 at latest.”
Conan and I had lost two weeks to our afternoon in Elysium. How long had my brief stint in the etiquette book cost me? Was it even the year 1000 after all?
“If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you? No—how old do you think you should be, ignoring what I just told you? And what year were you born? It might help us figure how much time we’ve lost, if any.”
“Twenty-five. I counted my birthdays as they happened. I am sure of it.”
Twenty-five checked out. She looked young, but well past her teenage years.
“And the year you were born?”
“971.”
Twenty-nine. I didn’t even have to do the math. She was the same age as me. She was supposed to be the same age as me.
“So in four years, four more years than expected passed.”
Her lips moved silently as she did the math and then nodded, “So time moved half as fast there. Twice as fast out here.”
I hoped it was so consistent. That would mean I only lost two or so hours.
Attart only stared at the floor for a moment before grimacing, making a sour face, and then sticking out her tongue, “I am going to have to tell everyone I am an old woman now,” she smiled, “Do you think the clothes I left out on the line are dry yet?”
I offered a smile of my own, but it felt weak. I knew the feeling too well, though in my case I lost four years to illness rather than magic. I didn’t know which was worse. I still felt younger than my peers at times, but at least I wasn’t physically.
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“Depends if it rained last week or not.”
Attart gave a polite laugh. She looked at the door I’d come through, and then the archway the chimera had fled through, “Where do we go next?
I yawned. It had been getting late when I’d been trapped by the book, and two hours had passed since then. Four hours by the sun. The real sun. Not the one which gave me my spells.
Speaking of which—
“I need to write another spell,” I raised a hand to forestall the questions I could see forming on her lips, “it’s not usual for Magi, it is something to do with the dungeon. I see the sun getting devoured if I don’t. Nothing has come of it so far, but I don’t want to push my luck.”
I pointed at the archway, “However, a chimera fled through that doorway shortly before I entered the cursed etiquette book. I don’t think it is safe to hang around here.”
Attart’s eyes lit up, “A chimera? I’ve never even seen a wolf! Would it be safe to—no probably not.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, “The warlocks activated the Rift. The path to the surface is closed and the path to the caverns is open. You’ll see more fantastic creatures than you can stomach as long as you are down here.”
“The path to the surface is closed?” her face fell, “How do you plan to get out of here?”
I beckoned for her to follow me a short ways down the hallway past the archway.
“Keep your light pointed down there and let me know if anything approaches, chimera or otherwise. I have a plan to get out of here, but I’ll have to explain later,” I crouched down and pulled her down with me as I peered back around the corner, “and don’t mind the noise.”
“Noise? What noi—”
Sword Storm II
The door was only wood. A sliding door it turned out, didn’t even have hinges. It didn’t stand a chance.
Attart jumped beneath my hand. Her eyes were large and round under my ring sight. As were her—I turned off every sense on my ring but the spider sense. This was the first time I’d been close to another person since finding the ring. It was bad enough seeing and feeling myself naked everywhere I went. Combine that with seeing and tasting what she’d had for tea an hour ago and you had a truly unpleasant juxtaposition.
I turned my head to look back at the hallway behind Attart. Nothing had yet come to investigate the noise. I stood and started heading for the now broken door. My swords formed a vanguard ahead of me. Two down one hall, one and two fireballs down the other. If the ghouls were still waiting I’d be ready.
“We’re clear. This way.”
Attart rushed to follow, “How did you that?” she asked in a hushed tone, “I thought Magi recorded every day actions.”
I wiggled my fingers at her, “Magic.”
She slapped my shoulder, “I should have brought my spoon.”
I led her to the room with the large hex tiles and the river cutting through one corner. No ghouls revealed themselves.
“I met with some orcneas when I first escaped from my prison, do you know of them.”
“Yes indeed! They are enemies of the warlocks. I met with several myself. Fascinating creatures. That is how I got my cloak.”
“They offered me guidance in return for a favour, another one of my potions. They told me that there is a way through the caverns below. Once freed I can enter the fort and disable the rift.”
“The fort full of warlocks?”
“One problem at a time,” I took a sharp turn to my left, to the dead-end corridor I’d found off of the hex room. Once at the end I parked all but one of my weapons in the corridor while I myself spun and sat on the crumbling flagstones. My final sword I left hovering above myself, in case one of the walls was less solid than it appeared.
“I’ve got a spell to write. Unfortunately for you that means an hour of not distracting me unless there is an emergency. Is that alright?”
Attart ran a gloved hand along wall, “Quite alright. I am still revelling in my freedom. Would it disturb you if I consorted with the spirits of this place while you worked?”
I retrieved my wax and spellbook, “As long as you’re not loud. If you can keep your lantern focused on me that would be a bonus. I can see by the light of the will-o’-wisps, but I would appreciate the extra light. My fireballs won’t last the full hour. Don’t be alarmed when they go out.”
Attart gestured and the man bearing the lantern stepped out of her to stand neatly inside the boundaries of the nearest flagstone. He fixed his light on my spellbook.
“Much obliged.”
It was time to write.
***
Push IIII. Push V. Push VI. The nature of the spells changed as I cast them. Push V was lost from my spellbook. Push VI doubled in strength while halving in time. That was fine. I could end the other spells early. It was wasteful, but the dungeon seemed to delight in combining disparate spell components in unexpected ways. I wouldn’t give it the opportunity.
The wall I set my spells against groaned.
Then shifted.
Then gave.
A large stone in the centre slid free under the force of my spell. I heard it crash into whatever space lay beyond, a room past the wall directly behind me. I shifted my seat and set a fireball over the entrance. The space was big enough for a man to crawl through.
Attart gestured and a second ghost appeared in the entrance with his lantern pointing out into the space. I returned to my spell before my focus wavered entirely. Attart was a necromancer with four years of preparation for this moment. She could handle it.
Push VII: Push an object with 4200lbs of force for up to half an hour.
The moment my spell was done I rose to get a look down the tunnel Attart’s ghost was guarding.
“I’m finished,” I said.
I recognized the room lit by the ghosts lantern. My spell had accidentally forced a hole into the low ceilinged room full of traps. No spiders or trogodytes were looking back at me and the hole I’d made was actually wider than the tunnel I’d carved. It would have been a blessing if not for the fact I now had serious questions about the stability of the entire dungeon. Two tons of force was a lot of force, but it shouldn’t have been enough to push through a ten foot thick wall.
“Does spell writing normally cause so much noise?” Attart asked politely, “I did not see any trees explode when you were in the garden, but perhaps you were out of sorts?”
I yawned, “Depends on the pen. You should see me with a quill.”
Attart peered down at my book, “The page is blank.”
I held up my bar of wax, “The wax is clear. It means I can’t read the spell directly from my spellbook, but Magi rarely do that anyway.”
“Should we be concerned about the hole?”
I shook my head and dusted off my trousers, “It’s fine. It was the way I was planning to go in the first place. Actually a better path than sloshing through that stream over there. I can dry my shoes easily enough, but I don’t know if you can.”
The sun rose.
I was never going to get any sleep, was I? It hadn’t been this persistent since my battle with the ogre.
“The spirit I consulted mentioned a safe space back the way we came. Down the corridor past the jelly-floored room.”
“Did they now?” My base of operations was nigh impregnable, but I was getting to be tired enough I wasn’t sure if I could make it safely back. Plus Life’s room had gone strange with my last spell. I didn’t want a powerful necromancer forgetting all her recent memories of me rescuing her. And I wasn’t sure she could climb the rope back up the well. She didn’t have the build for it.
“Is it far from here?” I asked.
She shook her head, “A hundred feet or so.”
I grinned at her, “So one room over?”
She smiled and gestured down the short hallway, “Is it preferable to where you were leading us?”
I started walking, “For today, yes. It is a bit of journey to get back to my base. I’ve slept in far worse places than ones with a recommendation from a ghost.”