“Perhaps it departed with its masters,” Malkin suggested.
Wiz looked skeptical. “The Dark League didn’t exactly have time to clean up after themselves. And I know there were some pretty unpleasant things left when I was kidnapped back here. A couple of them almost got me.”
“Then best assume our foe lurks here yet,” Glandurg said, shifting his grip on Blind Fury.
“Best assume whatever it is is pretty potent,” Wiz added. “These guards were not pushovers.”
“There is another thing we can assume,” Malkin said as she stood up and brushed the dirt from her knees without letting go her grip on either her rapier or her dagger. “These bones show cut marks. After they were killed their flesh was stripped from their bones and probably consumed on the spot.”
The group left the guardroom walking softly and peering into the shadows and silence with every sense alert.
“Nice thing to find,” Danny muttered to Wiz as they continued down the tunnel.
“In a way it’s good we found it. People will take this place more seriously now.”
“I already took this place plenty seriously.” “Well, take it even more seriously.”
At the Wizards’ Keep, the day dawned on a castle under siege. There was no sun, only dark fog full of darker shapes that swirled about the castle and poked and pried at every nook and cranny. Nor were the fog’s powers growing any less.
“Three wing beats out and you’re lost,” Dragon Leader told Bal-Simba in the latter’s workroom. Dragon Leader was a compact man with blond hair and ice-gray eyes, still muffled in his flying leathers. His teeth did not chatter but that seemed more from an effort of will than warmth. The cold sucks the life out of you, heat spell or no.”
Bal-Simba looked at his wing commander over the remains of his breakfast. He had worked the night through and eaten at his desk, much good it had done! He stood up and walked to the window, scowling out into the swirling fog with its half-revealed shapes. Arianne, who had been listening from the corner, moved beside him.
“Lord, say the word and we will go again. But I am not sure how many will return.”
“No.” The wizard shook his head and turned from the window. “You have done well and I thank you, but best that we husband our resources until we know more.”
As unobtrusively as possible a castle page slipped into the room and began to collect the breakfast things.
“I’m sorry, My Lord.”
“There is nothing to be sorry for. You have done all you could while this magic fog hangs over the whole land.”
“But it doesn’t,” the page piped up.
All of them turned to face him and the boy colored to the roots of his ash-blond hair. “Well, it doesn’t,” he added half-defiantly. “It starts thinning almost as soon as you get outside the castle walls and by the time you’re across the river it’s almost gone.”
“How do you know?” Bal-Simba asked.
The boy studied his toes. “I’ve been there,” he admitted finally. “I know I wasn’t supposed to but Henry bet me and…” He ran down, reserves of courage exhausted.
Bal-Simba and the others studied the page. Look at him once and you’d think he was fifteen or sixteen. Look closer and you’d see he was a couple of years younger, just tall for his age.
“Who are you?”
“Brian, My Lord. The cook’s son.”
“Do those things in the fog hinder you?”
The page shook his head. “They sort of talk to you, but mostly they ignore you. You can walk right through them. It’s cold and you can’t see anything, but if you stay on the path you can follow it right down to the river and take one of the boats across.”
“It appears,” Dragon Leader said, “that this cub is a better scout than any of my riders.”
“Or the thing is attracted by ridden dragons,” Arianne said, “and perhaps the magic you carry.” She looked back at the page. “Did you have any magic upon you?” The boy shook his head.
“Brian, do you think you can get back across the river?” asked Dragon Leader.