A shadow crossed the floor, and Clariel looked up. Someone was looking down through the glass ceiling high above, but the glass was cloudy and she could not make out who it was, till the central pane was lifted up by unseen hands, and there was Kilp staring down at her with his horrible eyes.
‘Lady Clariel.’
She didn’t answer, just stared back at him. He was leaning over and partially into the window, so there was some sort of walkway up there, suggesting she might be in the base of a tower and not a pit. Though she supposed it still could be a pit, with a raised upper portion. Like a well. It could be a well. A very wide one. Which might mean it extended much deeper below, and that could be useful …
‘Lady Clariel,’ Kilp said again. ‘May I say that I regret the circumstances that have led you here. They were not of my choosing.’
Clariel didn’t answer. She looked away from him, up and along the brickwork. The bricks were small and very tightly packed, with hard mortar in between. But perhaps if she could pick that mortar out, to make toe- and fingerholds, then she could climb to the skylight window above. If she had something hard she could turn into a mortar-picking tool …
‘Regrettable things have happened,’ continued Kilp. ‘But let me assure that your mother is receiving the best care, a healer –’
‘What!’ exclaimed Clariel, goaded into talking to him. ‘Mother’s dead.’
‘No, she is badly wounded, I grant you, but the healer says she will live,’ said Kilp. ‘And your father’s death was an accident. If only we could have all just talked about it!’
‘Talked about consorting with Free Magic creatures,’ snapped Clariel. ‘Against every law of the Kingdom and all common sense!’
‘In many ways I am now the law of the Kingdom,’ said Kilp. ‘And this so-called Free Magic, how does it differ from Charter Magic really? I employ Charter Mages. Why should I not employ a Free Magic entity?’
‘Because they are inimical to mortal life,’ said Clariel.
‘That is a story we are often told,’ replied Kilp easily. ‘But Az, as we called it, never harmed anyone, and it did much useful work.’
‘And how did you pay her … pay it?’ asked Clariel. ‘Blood?’
‘No, no. Some gold, some gems, nothing much different than any other in my employ.’
‘You’re lying!’ screamed Clariel. ‘Lying about everything!’
‘No,’ said Kilp. ‘I speak the truth. I deal with the world as it is, not as some would wish it to be. I would like to make an arrangement with you, Clariel. One of benefit to both of us, as all good trades are. But we cannot talk about it while you are in this aggressive frame of mind. I will come back tomorrow. And to help you concentrate your thoughts, I think we’d best give you more shade down there.’
He snapped his fingers. Guards moved up next to him, lifting across large sections of planks. Shutters, Clariel saw with dread, shutters that were quickly fixed across two of the panes so that only the central, open window still admitted any sunlight.
‘I understand you are not the Mage your mother is,’ said Kilp. ‘Even so, you should know that Charter Magic will not help you escape this particular place. It was made so, long ago, and then forgotten. Till Az showed us. You see again how useful the creature could be? Think hard about being more conciliatory, young Clariel. As I said, we can help each other. Deal with what is, not dreams and fancies.’
He stepped back, and the last shutter was fixed in place, plunging the deep chamber into total darkness.
Clariel felt her way slowly back to the bed and sat on it.
Could her mother still be alive? Kilp had sounded convincing, but she felt sure he always did. Surely, there was no way Jaciel could have survived, charging towards so many enemies, so many weapons raised and ready. They would have had no choice but to fight against her, for she would have given them no quarter … but Clariel had not felt her die, not as she had felt her father’s death. Perhaps she had been too far away …
But what if Jaciel was alive?
Clariel rested her head in her hands, massaging her temples, as if she could somehow force the memories of the night before out of her mind, make it as if it hadn’t happened.
But it had happened, and she was sure both her parents were dead. Even if Jaciel had miraculously survived, that didn’t matter now, Clariel decided. She was never going to enter any arrangement with Kilp, no matter what. The only thing she would do with Kilp was hunt him down and kill him, and Aronzo too, as if they were crazed stoats that had to be got rid of before they killed again.
That meant she had to escape, and soon.
To test Kilp’s last comment, Clariel tried to conjure a Charter light. But when she sketched the first mark in the air and tried to draw it out of the Charter, she couldn’t make it appear. She could feel the Charter, could sense the flow of it, but she was somehow cut off, as if it could only be observed and not interacted with at all. At the same time, she became aware there were Charter marks deeply woven into the bricks, thousands and thousands of them, all joined together in some great and terrible spell. This place had been made by Charter Mages to contain one of their own … A nasty thought. But she supposed Charter Mages must go crazy from time to time, or otherwise need to be confined. Though it was surprising this prison wasn’t part of the Palace.
So Charter Magic was out as an escape method, though to be honest with herself Clariel had not really considered that a likely aid in any case. She just didn’t have the knowledge or skill to cast anything very powerful.
She would have to escape by more mundane means. Up to the skylight and out through the windows and the shutters. Or down, hoping to find a tunnel, a sewer or something that this well connected up with. If it was a well, and if there was a way to get through the floor.
Clariel stamped her feet, hoping that the groan and creak of timbers would answer. But there was the dull, leaden sound of stone instead, and she hurt her feet testing it. To make sure, she got up and slowly stomped around, feeling her way with her outstretched hands. With every stomp she hoped to hear an echo or some give in the floor, indicating a trapdoor under a thin veneer of stone, or a timbered portion in one corner or something.
There was no such echo. Even checking under the bed confirmed that the floor was stone, and solid stone at that. Her fingers told her there were four great slabs, each
covering a quarter of the room, and they were butted up so close together she couldn’t even get a fingernail between them. Each one would be far too heavy to lift or move anyway, even if she could find some purchase.
That left climbing. Clariel sat down again and thought about a tool for picking mortar. It would need to be metal, and there was nothing metal in the chamber. She crawled over to the chamber pot to confirm that it was a soft terracotta, as was its lid and the water jug. So breaking them wouldn’t even provide a useful shard.
The bed turned out to be pegged together. Clariel felt over every part of it, without finding any nails, screws or bolts.
She went over to the wall and felt the bricks and tested various lines of mortar. None were crumbly enough to pick out with just fingers. A metal tool was absolutely necessary. Even then, the bricks were so close together that if she did somehow manage to pry out the mortar, the toe- and fingerholds would be thin, and extremely precarious. It was thirty feet to the top, and a fall from even halfway might be fatal …
Clariel was thinking about that and regretting the absence of anything even vaguely useful when she remembered her silk tunic was fastened at the back of the neck with a metal button. Quickly, she felt for it, fearing it might have been torn off. The buttons looked gold, but they were only gilded, iron coated with a thin layer of gold. Jaciel did not approve of using soft gold for such utilitarian purposes as hidden buttons.
Or rather, she hadn’t approved … Clariel fought against the hope that her mother was alive. She was certain Kilp had told her this to weaken her, and she would not be drawn into believing it.
Jaciel and Harven were dead, and she was alone.
Clariel tore the button from her tunic. She almost started to scratch at the mortar in a brick in front of her, but a moment’s thought sent her over to the bed, in her enthusiasm going too quickly and running into it, barking her shins. Hopping and cursing, she levered the bed up on its end and pushed it against the wall. Then after removing the water jug and chamber pot, she slid the table against the vertical bed to hold it in place, and clambered up. It was difficult to judge how precarious it all was without being able to see, but it felt solid enough.