Finn scrambled up the ladder, urging Letitia ahead, grabbing at her legs, pushing her shapely behind. Letitia told him she didn't care for this, but Finn didn't hear.
He could feel the ladder shake, and didn't dare look back to see. One step, another, two at a time when Letitia took three.
Something seized his ankle and held. Finn lashed out, felt the grip give way, heard the Guardsman fall back.
The ladder creaked, groaned. Finn pushed frantically at Letitia, nearly lifted her off the ladder and hurled her through the narrow hole above. The ladder snapped with the weight of Badgies, flinging them down in a tangle below.
Finn desperately grabbed for the rim of the hole. Letitia's strong hands clutched his wrists and held on. Finn drew up his knees, tore one hand free, got a firm grip on the tower floor and rolled himself clear.
Angry shouts rose from below. Badgies tossed bricks, stones, jugs, and ponderous tomes at the hole, while others piled chairs, cabinets, tables, anything they could find, in an effort to reach their prey above.
“That should slow them down a bit,” Oberbyght said, grinning over Finn's shoulder at the rabble below. “Fools ought to think before they leap, but that's not the Badgie way.”
“Let me go, you oaf,” cried DeFloraine-Marie. “Get your filthy hands off me, I'm of noble birth!”
“I fear not, lady. I've become enamored with your manner, your gentle voice, your royal charm.” The princess glared, her eyes bright points of fury, her golden tresses tumbling loosely down her cheeks.
Oberbyght still held her wrists in one hand, the other tightly around her slender waist. No matter how the princess squirmed, the seer refused to let her go.
“You're going to keep her?” Finn asked. “What do you intend to do with her, seer?”
“I intend to use her lovely self to keep us alive,” Oberbyght said. “I can't tell you how pleased I am she dropped by.”
Finn looked at the fellow, and Oberbyght met his glance, in a manner that said he was certain Finn knew full well the value of DeFloraine-Marie.
Finn turned away, then, and looked about. It was late afternoon, which surprised him a bit, for he'd lost all sense of time since his stay in the cell. That, and a venture within an illusion, where time meant nothing at all.
The open tower was surrounded by a shoulder-high wall, with the usual crenellations so soldiers could fire at their foes below.
Finn peered down from the dizzy heights. Beyond the courtyard, the bailey and the breastworks lay Heldessia Town and the vast open countryside beyond.
The walls of the tower dropped straight away, with no visible access to the ground.
“I hate to ask,” Finn said, “but I hope you have a grand plan. I don't see any way off this thing.”
The seer smiled. “There isn't. That's the beauty of it, you see?”
“This isn't more of that jacket and bread business, is it? I can't handle that.”
“They're working awfully fast,” Letitia said. “They're halfway up the wall.”
“Oberbyght, isn't there a cover, a plank, something we can put over this hole?”
The seer shrugged. “I used to put a pail under the thing when it rained. Never thought about keeping Badgies out.”
“You haven't answered Finn's question,” Letitia said, her dark opal eyes larger than ever. “I'd like to hear what you have in mind too.”
At that very moment, the deep, solemn peal of the bell resounded from somewhere, or nowhere at all. The tower shook precariously, and several large stones plummeted down the long wall.
Below, in the seer's former chamber, chaos was the order of the day. Badgies howled, and raged in fear. Bricks, plaster, and rotten timbers rattled about their heads.
Finn wondered how Maddigern had managed to bully his Guardsmen this far. The King's Third Sentient Guards were stout and valiant warriors, but they greatly feared the magician and his spells. Only a creature as fierce as Maddigern, Finn decided, could have held them under his sway.
“Finn,” Letitia said, close so no one would hear, “we've found each other again and I'm grateful for that, but I fear we've followed a madman to the same dire end we faced below.”
“We'll think of something,” Finn said, aware that such bravado did not fool Letitia Louise. Still, he refused to admit they were doomed, for that would not bolster her courage at all.
“Yes, I'm certain we will,” Letitia said, looping her arm tightly in his. “Though at the moment, I cannot see how.”
“It is a peculiarity of Newlies and humankind,” said Julia, who had mostly kept her silence during the recent dread events, “one I can somewhat understand, since I, too, possess an animal brain. When the situation is totally hopeless, as it clearly is now, reason says ‘quit, give up, yield, resign one's self to one's fate.’
“Yet, does that foolish gray organ in our heads desist, surrender, throw in the trowel-whatever that means- does it submit, capitulate, bend? Does it-”
“Stop that thing from squawking, or by damn I'll toss it over the side!”
Oberbyght, the princess flailing about in his iron grip, was kicking at a Badgie who had suddenly appeared at the entry hole. The seer stomped on his hand and the Badgie cried out and let go.
“I don't suppose you could give me a hand over here, Finn. As you can possibly see, I don't have one free.”
“Sorry, be right with you.” Finn left Letitia and joined the seer, whose chubby features had now turned a startling shade of red. As another green-robed warrior scrambled for a hold, Finn kicked him squarely in the face, where the white streak of hair angled sharply at his brow. The soldier howled, and tumbled back below.
Still, it was only a matter of minutes before another, then another, surged up through the hole.
“I don't see how we can keep this up,” Finn said. “I think Maddigern has an endless supply of these brutes.”
“Won't have to,” said the seer. “We can stop this nonsense soon.”
“Wait, now,” Finn protested, “I never said I'd quit. I certainly don't intend to give in.”
“Didn't say you would. Said you wouldn't have to.”
Oberbyght glanced over his shoulder with a grin.
“You think I'm an idiot, boy? That I climbed up here for the view?”
Finn turned, then, just as Letitia Louise cried out, leaping for joy, and waving at the sky.
“Hooks and Crooks!” Finn could scarcely believe his eyes, but it was clearly no illusion floating majestically overhead, blotting out the afternoon sky.
“Bucerius!” Finn shouted, cupping his hands about his face. “I never saw a sight more pleasing to the eye!”
“I told you one has to do business with all sorts of rogues in my trade,” said the seer. “You've got to learn to listen to your betters, Master Finn…”
FIFTY-FIVE
Finn and Letitia dashed about the top of the tower, chasing the tangle of ropes that dangled from the bloated craft overhead. The ropes snapped and whipped in the wind, close at hand one instant, hanging over nothing the next.
Bucerius cursed and shouted, bringing the worst of seven languages to bear, as he struggled to keep the balloon from drifting away or plummeting down to crush the creatures scurrying about below.
Obern Oberbyght did all he could, kicking angry Badgies down the hole, keeping the screaming princess intact.
The balloon dipped low, the wicker basket knocking loose stones off the wall. Letitia leaped, caught a rope and held on. Finn heard her triumphant shout, then heard it turn to a fearsome wail, as the rope yanked her off the tower and over the abyss.
Finn's heart nearly stopped. Letitia swung back, past the tower wall, just out of Finn's reach. He could see her hands slipping, quickly losing their grip. Her Mycer eyes mirrored her fear for she was clearly terrified.
