Tal had learned the value of a Sunstone. He chose the slower method, though he got an empty feeling in his stomach as he raised his Sunstone. He would only have one real chance at this. It was a feat of magic that would not usually be attempted by anyone less than a Brightstar of the Blue, and a confident Light Mage at that. Yet here he was, a boy, not even a full Chosen, trying to build a Stairway of Light thirty stretches high!
Step by rainbow step, the stair started to spiral up and around the Pit. Tal stood in the center, his Sun-stone raised high, sweat beading on his forehead. All his attention was on the stone and the light that poured from it. He had to mentally take each strand and weave it into six others, then when he had the short arc of a rainbow, float it up and attach it to the top of the last one.
When the stair was only a few stretches short of the top, Tal took a few steps. He had to concentrate so hard on keeping the whole stairway together and on making the last few stairs, that he almost fell off a couple of times.
Finally, the stair was complete. A multicolored, shimmering spiral of many small rainbows, each one a rounded step of solid light. Tal sighed with relief, and climbed up more quickly.
He was three quarters of the way up when he heard the clatter of metal on stone and a voice raised in anger or pain.
Tal was momentarily distracted by the sound, and he lost control of his Sunstone. It flared in his hand, and a wild beam of multicolored light shot out. The beam whipped around and under him, cutting the stair in half. All the steps below Tal fell apart in a sudden snowstorm of brilliant light. The ones above him changed color, and he felt the step he was on get soft, like melting wax.
Tal threw himself forward and up, jumping three steps at a time. He didn't even try to fix the stair. He instinctively knew that whatever had gone wrong was beyond his power to fix. He was also ready for whoever or whatever was waiting for him at the top.
This time, he had a Sunstone in his hand, and he would fight!
The last step felt like a sponge, but it held long enough for Tal to spring up and out of the Pit. He landed on the edge in a crouch, Sunstone ring held ready, his eyes looking wildly from side to side.
But there was nothing to see. The Pit lay at the end of an otherwise normal Castle corridor. A colorless corridor, whitewashed and lit by regularly spaced Sunstones. There was a door about thirty stretches down the corridor, but that was all.
Except, Tal suddenly noticed, there was a small, square dark hole in the ceiling and a metal hatch cover lying on the ground. That was what had made the noise.
Cautiously, Tal crept down the corridor. His every sense was alert for the sudden opening of the door and the rush of guards, or for someone or something - to drop out of the odd hatch in the ceiling.
As he got closer, Tal heard a weird scuffling sound whatever was up there was moving around. Then he heard a muffled voice cursing.
It sounded a bit familiar.
"Ebbitt?" asked Tal warily. "Is that you?"
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Tal was answered by a sudden explosion of foul-smelling green water, liberally mixed with what looked and smelled like clumps of rotten spearleaf. This was followed by Ebbitt's head, though it took Tal a moment to recognize him, since his hair was totally sodden and his face was bright green.
"Hurry up!" he said. "I can only hold the water back for a few "
Whatever he was going to say disappeared into a gurgle as more water suddenly cascaded through the hole. At the same time, Tal heard the door at the end of the corridor being unlocked, and someone shouting on the other side.
Despite the smell, he jumped up and got a grip on the edge of the hole. Ebbitt helped him get up onto his elbows, and then he was able to squirm up the rest of the way.
To Tal's surprise, they were in another corridor, rather than some small tunnel. He was even more surprised to see that apart from where they were standing, it was full of water with lots of green floaty things in it. Two walls of light, obviously made by Ebbitt, were keeping the water at bay.
Or most of it. Ebbitt was constantly using his Sunstone to seal off sudden leaks.
"Pow! Kapang! Take that!" he yelled, suppressing three different outbreaks. Then, while the water was momentarily under control, he made a lasso of Indigo light and used it to pull up the metal hatch from the floor. A few seconds later, it was firmly back in place, welded in a sudden flurry of sparks from Ebbitt's Sunstone.
Those few seconds were long enough for Ebbitt's walls to break down. The water came in with a rush, picking up both of them and dumping them down. Filled with sudden panic, Tal struggled to right himself. What if the corridor was entirely full of water and there was nowhere to breathe?
He bobbed to the surface, gasping. Ebbitt was treading water next to him and plucking the rotten plant material off his face. Without a word, he pointed a bony finger past Tal and started to swim in that direction.
Tal followed him with difficulty. He wasn't a great swimmer. Unlike some Chosen of his age, he didn't spend his free time in the Cavern Lakes or the Underfolks' fish pools.
"Thanks, Uncle," he gasped as they swam to wherever it was they were going. Tal couldn't see an end to the corridor. "By the way, where are we?"
"Surge tank, splurge tank, roly-poly nurge tank," said Ebbitt. He stopped swimming to tread water again and said, "When the superheated steam has passed through the heating system it reaches the condenser-menser-spencer, where it's '-turned back into water-aughter-daughter. The water then drains back down through the Castle's caterpillars. Caper-tillers. Copillanies. Capilleeries. Capillaries. Every now and then, there's a big tank like this one."
He stopped talking, but didn't start swimming again. After a while, Tal said, "Uh, Uncle Ebbitt? Are we going somewhere?"
"Of course we're going somewhere,"
replied Ebbitt. "There's not much point rescuing you if we don't go somewhere."
"Can we go soon?" asked Tal. "I'm not much of a swimmer."
"Really?" said Ebbitt, looking surprised. "Neither am I. Does it matter?"
He stopped moving his arms, but didn't sink. Tal looked down and saw that the old man was standing on his Spiritshadow, who was gently paddling beneath him.
Tal's shadowguard was trying to do the same thing. Experimentally, Tal stopped paddling, but quickly started again when his head instantly sank beneath the surface. In its weakened con
dition his shadowguard didn't have the strength to keep him up.
Ebbitt started swimming again. They swam for what seemed like ages to Tal, before Ebbitt's Sun-stone lit up the end of the corridor. Tal had expected to see a door or another hatch or some other obvious way out, but the corridor ended in a large chamber that was also half full of water. The three sides of the chamber were riddled with different-sized tunnel entrances, many of them well above water level.
Ebbitt pointed at one and said, "That's it. That's the one we want. Capillary 17824567834567 or thereabouts. Smear this on your face and hands."
He handed Tal a jar. It still had the top on, so the boy had to tread water and undo it at the same time, resulting in several momentary disappearances underwater. The third time Tal went under, Ebbitt snatched the jar back and easily unscrewed the lid.
"No enterprise," said Ebbitt gloomily, as he gave it back.
Tal spat out some water angrily, not caring if he hit his great-uncle. Then he looked in the jar. Whatever it was smelled horrible, and it was a sickly yellow. Knowing Ebbitt, it was also probably totally unnecessary.
"What is it?" asked Tal.
"Insect repellent," said Ebbitt.
Tal hesitated. Surely it wasn't that important to put on insect repellent. Not now, even if it did look sticky enough to stay on in water.
"The people who built the Castle thought of everything," Ebbitt said absently, as he pointed to each tunnel entrance and mumbled numbers. Tal continued to hesitate, till his great-uncle added, "They even made these quite fascinating water spiders, about so big, to put in the cooling system and eat up any bits of meat, bodies, and so on that might get accidentally caught up in here. Keep it free of contamination. Pity the spiders don't eat this revolting weed as well."
Tal stared at Ebbitt for a second, then slowly started to smear the yellow goo on his face and neck. He still wasn't sure if Ebbitt was playing a practical joke, but since the old man had spread his arms as wide as they would go when he'd said "about so big," Tal didn't want to take any chances.