This was followed by a chorus of cries from the other officials.
“Of course!”
“His majesty’s safety is of utmost importance!”
“We must preserve the monarchy at all costs!”
Any objections the king may have had were overridden as a surge of officials swept down and half carried, half dragged him into the castle.
“Put me down, you idiots!” the king bellowed, but the officials were good and scared now. Each saw only the precipitous fall that awaited him personally if there were a regime change, and fear gave them courage as they pushed their protesting monarch into the castle, down the arching hallways, and into the throne room.
“Don’t worry, Your Majesty,” the Master of Security said, organizing two teams to shut the great, golden doors. “That thief won’t get in.”
The king, who had given up fighting somewhere during the last hundred feet, just harrumphed and stomped up the dais stairs to his throne to wait it out. Meanwhile, the officials dashed back and forth across the marble—locking the parlor doors, overturning the elegant end tables, peeking behind the busts of former kings—checking for every possible, or impossible, security vulnerability. Henrith did his best to ignore the nonsense. Being royalty meant enduring people’s endless fussing over your safety, but when the councilors started talking about boarding over the stained-glass windows, the king decided that enough was enough. He stood from his throne and took a breath in preparation for a good bellow when a tug on his robes stopped him short. The king looked down incredulously to see who would dare, and found two royal guards in full armor standing at attention beside the royal dais.
“Sir!” The shorter guard saluted. “The Master of Security has assigned us to move you to a safer location.”
“I thought this
was
a safer location.” The king sighed.
“Sir!” The soldier saluted again. “With all due respect, the throne room is the first place the enemy would look, and with this ruckus, he could easily get through.”
“You’re right about that,” the king said, glowering at
the seething mass of panicked officials. “Let’s get out of here.”
He stomped down the steps from the high marble dais and let the guards lead him to the back wall of the throne room. The shorter soldier went straight to an older tapestry hanging forgotten in one corner and pushed it aside, revealing, much to the king’s amazement, a small door set flush with the stonework.
“I never knew this was here,” the king said, genuinely astonished.
“Doors like these are standard in most castles this age,” the guard said, running his gloved hand over the stones to the right of the door. “You just have to know where to look.” His fingers closed in the crack between two stones. Something clicked deep in the wall, and the door swung open with a soft scrape.
“This way, sir,” the soldier said, ducking through.
The secret passage was only a few feet long. This was good, because it was only a few inches wide, and the king was getting very claustrophobic sliding along sideways between the dusty stone walls, especially when the second soldier closed the door behind them, plunging the passage into darkness. A few steps later, they emerged into the back of another large tapestry. The soldier pushed the heavy cloth aside, and the king was amazed to find himself in his own drawing room.
“Why did no one tell me about this?” he said, exasperated, watching as the second soldier draped the tapestry back into place. “It will be fantastically useful the next time I want to get out of an audience.”
“Over here, sir,” the shorter guard said, waving toward the wide balcony that overlooked the castle garden. The
king didn’t see how a balcony was much safer than a throne room, but the guard seemed to know what he was doing, so the king followed quietly. Perhaps there was another secret passage. The king frowned, regretting all those times he’d chosen to go hunting rather than let the Master Builder take him on that tour of the castle the man was always so keen on. Well, the king thought, if the Master Builder had put more emphasis on secret passages rather than appreciation of the flying buttresses, perhaps he would have been more inclined to come along.
The balcony jutted out from the drawing room in a large semicircle of pale golden marble. His mother had had it built so she could watch the birds up close, and the handrails brushed right up against the leafy branches of the linden trees. The king was about to comment on how peaceful it was compared to the nonsense in the throne room, but the shorter of the two soldiers spoke first.
“I’m really sorry about this.”
The king looked at him quizzically. “Sorry about wha—” His question was answered by a blinding pain at the back of his head. The trees and the balcony swirled together, and then he was on the ground with no notion of how he’d gotten there.
“Did you have to hit him that hard?” The soldier’s voice floated above him.
“Yes,” answered a voice he hadn’t heard before, which his poor, aching brain assigned to the tall soldier who hadn’t spoken while they were escorting him. “That is, if you want him to stay quiet.”
The shorter soldier took off his helmet, revealing a young man with a head of dark, shaggy hair. “If you say so,” he said, tucking the helmet under his arm.
The shorter soldier trotted to the edge of the balcony, where the trees were thickest. Spots danced across the king’s vision, but he was sure he saw what happened next. One of the trees moved to meet the soldier. The king blinked, but the tree was still moving. It leaned over as far as it could, stretching out a thick branch to make a nice little step up off the railing. So great was his astonishment, the king barely felt the bigger soldier heft him over his shoulder like an oat sack. Then they were up on the tree branch, and the tree was bending over to set them gently on the ground.
“Thank you,” said the shorter soldier as they stepped onto the grass.
And the king, though his ears were ringing horribly, could have sworn he heard the leaves whisper, “Anytime, Eli.”
That thought was too much for him, and he dove into unconsciousness.
T
he ghosthound appeared at the gates of the royal city of Allaze without warning. One moment, the guards were standing beside the gatehouse playing divel shanks and speculating on what all the noise in the palace was about, the next they were on their backs, staring up at an animal that only lived in stories. From the way it was showing its teeth, the guards would rather it had stayed there. Twice the size of a horse and built like a racing dog, it had to swivel its head down to look them over. The great orange eyes, each the size of a dinner plate, twinkled with amusement, or perhaps hunger. But most horrifying of all was the way the white patterns on the animal’s silver fur moved like night clouds in a high wind, forming terrifying, shifting shapes above its dagger-sharp teeth.
“Excuse me,” said a voice, “but I need you to open the gates. I have an urgent message for King Henrith.”
The guards cowered on the sandy ground. “Great powers,” the left one muttered. “I never knew they could talk.”
There was a long sigh, and the beast lay down in a fluid motion, bringing the woman on its back into view. She was very well dressed in a handsome green riding suit with a crisp white shirt and tall boots. Red hair hung in a cascade of curls around her pretty, girlish face. Overall, she had a very striking look that was entirely out of place for a woman who rode a monster.
When she was sure she had their attention, the woman said, very slowly and with a charming smile, “My name is Miranda Lyonette, and I am here on behalf of the Spirit Court with a warning for your king. Now, I’m on a very tight deadline, so I would appreciate it very much if you would open the gate and let me on my way.”
It was the older guard who gathered his wits first. “Um, lady,” he said, picking himself up off the ground, “we’d like to help, but we can’t open the gate without the Master Gatekeeper, and he’s been called off to the castle.”
“Well,” she said, “then you’d better run and get him.”
The men looked at each other, then back at the woman. She made a little shooing motion, and the guards ran off, falling over each other as they rushed the tiny gatehouse door.
When they were gone, Miranda slid down the hound’s back and began to stretch the last few days out of her joints.
“I could have just jumped it,” the hound growled. It eyed the two-story wall and snorted dismissively. “Saved us some time. I
thought
you said we were in a hurry.”
“We
are
in a hurry,” Miranda said, shaking the road dust out of her hair as best she could. “But we’re also trying to make a good impression, Gin. Mellinor has a reputation for not liking wizards.”
“Good impressions are wasted on this lot.” Gin shook himself vigorously, raising a small cloud of grit from his ever-shifting coat. “We should have just jumped and saved the act for the king.”
“Next time I’ll just leave the negotiating to you, then.” Miranda stepped clear of the hound’s dust cloud. “Why don’t you worry less about the schedule and more about keeping your nose sharp? He has to be skulking around here somewhere.”
Gin gave her a withering look. “My nose is always sharp.” His long ears twitched, then swiveled forward. “The guards are coming back, and they brought a lot of other clanky metal types with them.” He flopped down, resting his chin on his paws. “So much for doing things the quick way.”
Miranda ignored him and put on a dazzling smile as the two guards, and a small squad of spearmen, marched through the gatehouse.
The gate guards had had no trouble finding the Master Gatekeeper. He was in the throne room, standing in a rough clump around the empty throne with every other official in Allaze.
“Sir,” the older guard said, tapping him on the shoulder. “We have a situation outside.”
“I’m a bit busy,” the Master Gatekeeper snapped.
“But, sir,” the guard said, clutching his metal cap, “it’s really something I think you should—”
“There’s a wizard at the east gate!” the younger guard burst out, and then shrank back as the older guard and the Master Gatekeeper both snapped their heads around to glare at him. “It has to be a wizard,” he said sheepishly. “Ain’t no one else can ride a monster like that.”
“Did you say wizard?” The Master of Security pushed his way over to them. “Was it a dark-haired man? Young looking?”
“No, sir.” The young guard saluted. “It was a lady wizard, sir. Redheaded. Said she had a warning for the king.”
The Master Gatekeeper and the Master of Security put their heads together and began arguing quietly. Whatever it was they argued about, the Master of Security must have won because he was the one who started barking orders. Three minutes later, the two gate guards were back at their post, only now with a squad of royal guard and the Master of Security between them and the monster, which lay with its long chin rested on its paws, watching.
The woman appeared completely unruffled by the sudden arrival of a large number of spears pointed in her direction. If there were any remaining doubts about her being a wizard, the large, ostentatiously jeweled rings covering her fingers put those to rest. She watched patiently, gently tapping her nails against the large ruby on her thumb, which was beginning to glow like an ember in the bright sun. Several of the men started to ease back toward the gatehouse, their spears wobbling, and the Master of Security decided it was time to take control of the situation.
“I hear you have a warning for the king,” he said boldly. “You may speak it to me.”
“My orders are to speak only to the king himself,” Miranda said. “It is a matter of some delicacy.”
“I am Oban, Master of Security. You’ll speak it to me, or not at all,” he huffed.
Miranda looked at Gin, who flicked his ear in the ghosthound equivalent of a shrug. “I suppose we have wasted enough time,” she said. “I am here on behalf of
the Spirit Court by order of the Rector Spiritualis, Etmon Banage. Yesterday morning we received a tip that the known fugitive wizard and wanted criminal Eli Monpress has been sighted within your kingdom. It is our belief that he is after an old wizard artifact held in your treasury. I am here to offer my assistance to keep him from stealing it.”
There was a long pause, and Miranda got the horrible, sinking feeling that she had missed something important.
“Lady,” the Master of Security said, shaking his head, “if you’re here to warn the king about Eli, then you’re a little late.”
Miranda scowled. “You mean he’s already stolen the artifact?”
“No.” The Master of Security sighed. “He’s stolen the king.”
Three hours later, Miranda was seated at the foot of a small table in a cramped office in the lower part of the castle. Oban, Master of Security, the Master of the Exchequer, and the Master of the Courts were crammed together at the other end of the table, as far from her as possible. Other than Oban, none of them had told her their names, and they all looked equally displeased at being cornered in a small room with a wizard. Still, this was a step forward. An hour ago, she’d been sitting in the throne room with all forty masters of Mellinor, whom she guessed were the local equivalent of the standard governing body of lords and appointees that most kingdoms this size seemed to favor, staring daggers at her. It was only after much official argument that these three had stepped forward to speak for the whole, but from the way they
were glaring at her, Miranda didn’t think she’d gotten off any easier. In fact, she was beginning to regret telling Gin to wait at the gate. Miranda knew from experience that a large set of teeth on one’s side tended to make these bureaucratic talks much easier.