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than wenches.
Then came the day Tarthe found a merchant's account of a trip across the high hills north of Ong Wood,
and of a vale where griffons flew out of a lone keep and drove his band away. They were collared griffons, their
breasts bearing shields with the mark of Ondil of the Many Spells.
That excited moment of decision, when they had all leapt at the thought of plundering the Floating Tower,
seemed long ago now as they tethered their horses in the shadow of its grim and silent bulk.
Tarthe turned to the fierce-eyed woman with the wand. The sun gleamed on the warrior's broad, armored
shoulders and danced in his curling, reddish hair and beard. He looked like a lion among men, every inch the
proud leader of a famous adven-turing band.
"Well, mage?" Tarthe waved one gauntleted hand at the tower floating above them.
Elmara nodded in reply, stepped forward, and made the cir-cling gesture that meant fall back to give her
space for a spell. She tossed a long, heavy coil of rope to the turf between her feet.
Her hands dipped to one of the vials at her belt, flicked back its stopper, and tipped it, then deftly
restoppered it while holding some of its powder in one cupped hand. A few gestures, a long murmured
incantation as the powder was cast aloft, and some lightning-fast work with a strip of parchment
 twisting it in
still-falling powder
the  and the coil of rope on the ground stirred. As the young mage stepped back, the rope rose
from the ground like a snake, wavered, and then began to climb steadily, straight up.
Elmara watched it calmly. When the rope ceased to move, hanging motionless and upright in the air, she
made a "keep back" gesture and went to the saddles for a second coil of rope. Wearing the coil about her
shoulders, she climbed the first rope, slowly and clumsily, making several Blades shake their heads or grin
with amusement, and came at last to the top of the rope. Curled around it by the crook of one elbow and the
crossed grip of her booted feet, she calmly opened another vial, tapped a drop of something from it, and blew
it from her palm while gesturing with the other hand.
Nothing seemed to occur
 but when the sorceress stepped off the rope to stand on empty air, it was clear that
an unseen plat-form hung there. It sank a trifle under her boots, but Elmara calmly laid the coil of rope on it and began
her first spell over again.
When she was done, the second rope stretched straight up through the air, into the darkness of the riven,
floorless chamber at the bottom of the hanging keep. The wizardess spared no breath on any words, but
looked down at her fellow Blades as she traced a wide circle with her hands, showing them the limits of the
platform. Then she turned, and without another look back, began her slow, awkward climb again.
Sudden lightnings flashed in the air around the wizard, and she slid hastily down the rope, hugging it in
pain. She hung there a long time, motionless, while the anxious Blades called up to her. Though she made
no reply, she seemed unhurt when at last she stretched forth her arms again and cast something that made
the lightnings blaze and crackle, then fade away.
She climbed on, into the darkness of the lowest chamber. Just before disappearing into its gaping gloom,
she turned on the rope and beckoned once.
"Right, Blades!" Tarthe was climbing swiftly up the rope while his eager bellow was still echoing around
them.
The lean warrior beside the rope shrugged, spat on his hands, and followed. The hard-eyed priest of
Tempus elbowed his way past the others in his haste to be next on the rope. The thieves and warriors
shrugged and gave way, then calmly took their turns. So did the stout priest of Tyche, his mace dangling at
his belt as he puffed and heaved his way up.
The youngest warrior checked his cocked and loaded cross-bows again and sat down among the tethered
horses. He watched them calmly cropping all the grass and weeds they could reach, and spat thoughtfully off
into the dark hollows below, whence came the faint tinkling of running water. More than once he stared up at
the ropes above him, straight as iron rods, but his orders were clear. Which is more than many an armsman
can say, he thought, and settled down for a long wait.
*****
"Look ye!" The rough whisper held awe and wonder aplenty; even the veteran Blades had not seen the
likes of this in their adventures before. Time had touched the tower, but it seemed enchantments held wind,
cold, and damp at bay in some places. At the end of a crumbling passage whose very roof-blocks fell at his
cautious tread, a Blade might step through a curtain of mag-ical gloom into glory.
One room was carpeted in red velvet: a dancing-floor ringed with sparkling hanging curtains crafted of
gems threaded onto fine wire. Another held smooth whitestone statues, perfectly life-like in their size and
detail and depicting beautiful human maid-ens with wings arching from their shoulders. Some were speaking
statues, who greeted all intruders with soft, sighing voices, uttering poetry a thousand years dead.
"Such shouldst be my only joy, to behold thee, but yet mine eyes see the sun and the moon and cannot
but compare them to thee... and thou art the brightest ennobled star of my seeing...."
"Look to find me no more, where silent towers stare down upon the stars, trapped in still pools of dark
water...."
"What is this but the mist-dreams of bold faerie, wherein noth-ing is as it seems and all that one can
touch, and kiss, are but dreams?"
Marveling, the Blades stalked among them, careful to touch nothing, as the endless, repetitious sighing of
the unfeeling voices echoed all around them. "Gods," even the unshakable Tarthe was heard to mutter, "to
see such beauty ..."
"And not to be able to take it with us," one of the thieves mur-mured, voice deep with loss and longing. For
once, the priests felt as he did, or so their nods and awestruck gawking said, if their mouths did not.
The room beyond the chamber of speaking statues was dark but lit by a rainbow of tiny, glittering lights
 sparks of many hues that darted and soared about the chamber like schooling fish, a riot of swirling emerald and
gold and ruby that never went out.
Lightning, they all thought, and hung back. Tarthe finally said, "Gralkyn ... your foray, I fear."
One of the thieves sighed eloquently and set about the long process of divesting himself of every item of
metal, from the dozen or so lockpicks behind his ears and elsewhere on his per-son to the small forest of
blades tucked and slid into boots, under clothes, and into nearly every hollow in his slim, almost bony body.
When he was done, he stood almost naked. He swallowed, once, said to Tarthe, "This is a very large thing
you owe me," and strode forward on catlike feet into the midst of the lights.
They reacted immediately, darting away like frightened min-nows and then circling about, faster and
faster, until they rushed in on him from all sides with frightening speed, clung
 the watching Blades saw
Gralkyn wriggle, as if tickled by many unseen hands and cloaked him in glittering lights.
He looked like an emperor robed all in gems, and stared down at himself in wonder for a time before he
said, "Right. Well. . . who's next?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]