Finn didn't dare stop to think. He scrambled up the wall, jumped, caught the rope just above Letitia's grip, scissored his legs about her and swung back from the dizzying heights below.
The balloon sagged beneath their weight and began to tip dangerously to one side. Bucerius bellowed, and yanked frantically on his cords. The swollen craft surged up again, and this time the Bullie's skill dropped the pair safely on the tower floor again.
Finn struggled with the rope and tied it securely through a hole in the stony wall. Bucerius tossed down two more lines, and, in a moment, the craft was riding balanced and secure, straining against the wind.
Finn lifted Letitia up, and the Bullie pulled her aboard. Finn handed Julia up next, then went to help the seer.
DeFloraine-Marie knew exactly what was coming. She screamed like a banshee, and managed to sink her teeth into Oberbyght's arm. She kicked out with her legs and struck Finn in the head.
“Enough of that, Princess, I'm losing my patience with you.” Oberbyght slung her over his shoulder, stomped over to the balloon, gripped her like a sack of meal, and tossed her to Bucerius waiting there.
The Bullie caught her and dumped her to the wicker floor. In her sheltered life, DeFloraine-Marie had had little to do with Bullies. Bullies were merely Newlies who carried heavy things about. At the sight of this great, powerful creature she backed away into a corner of the basket and loosed a pitiful wail.
“Go on, get aboard,” Finn shouted at the seer. “I'll finish up here.”
Oberbyght paused, then nodded, and made his way up to the balloon. Bucerius flipped a short-bladed knife to Finn, and Finn began to slice the restraining ropes, one by one.
Left unchecked, the Badgies swarmed like angry hornets onto the tower floor, a blur of broad shoulders, stumpy legs and bristling jaws, silver mail and flashing blades.
With a fierce battle cry, Maddigern swept his Guards men aside and came at Finn, his sword cutting deadly arcs at Finn's heels, forcing him back against the tower wall.
Letitia shouted a warning, but Finn didn't hear. He knew he was but a breath away from losing it all, that everything he'd been through, everything he'd dared, could come to naught if the Badgie caught him here with nothing but the Bullie's short blade.
If he turned, and made a leap for the balloon, Maddigern would surely plunge his weapon into his back. If he stood his ground another moment, though, he could slice the final rope and let the others go.
“Don't, Finn, you cannot!” Letitia knew full well the path he would choose, knew what he had to do.
Finn didn't hesitate. He sawed frantically at the rope, slicing one layer then the next. The rope creaked and strained as each strand sprang free.
Maddigern's dark eyes glowed, for he saw his triumph near. With a growl of victory he raised his blade shoulder high and slammed one boot against the ground.
“Go on, have at it,” Oberbyght shouted. “I care nothing for the wretched fellow, and you clearly have no concern for this baggage here”
Maddigern stopped, his stout frame suddenly rigid, as he stared at the hovering balloon. The seer stood at the basket's edge, his hands grasping the princess’ ankles as she swung precariously over nothing but a great deal of air. She shrieked and flailed about. The most frightening moment in her life before this was when a bee stung her toe when she was twelve.
Maddigern didn't move. He glared at the seer with rage uncontained, no longer mindful that Finn was there.
Oberbyght smiled. “What does it take to get your attention, Badgie? I've got an idea, see what you think of this?”
With that, the sorcerer let go of one of the princess’ an kles, holding her weight with a single hand. DeFloraine-Marie cried out, a most frightening sound that was heard by many citizens far below.
Maddigern stared, his blade still poised above his head. Finn could see a tremor, a shudder, as the fury of indecision swept the Badgie's stout frame. For a moment that seemed to last forever, he stood his ground, as rigid as the cold, fossilized rulers in the Holy Place of Emperors, Tyrants and Kings.
Then, he took a step back, lowered his blade, and turned away from the princess, gazing at nothing at all.
Finn didn't hesitate an instant. He grabbed the nearly severed rope and swung from the tower wall. The cord snapped beneath his grip and the balloon jerked free, moving swiftly in the strong evening breeze.
Bucerius hauled him in and dumped him roughly on the wicker basket's floor.
“Finn, I wish you wouldn't do things like that,” Letitia said, as a single tear trickled down her cheek. “I will be severely upset if you ever leap off over nothing again.”
“I think I can promise I will avoid such antics, my dear.”
“Where have I heard that before,” said Julia Jessica Slagg…
FIFTY-SIX
Finn marveled at how swiftly the great palace of Heldessia's King shrank to a speck he could hide behind his thumb. He had forgotten the perversity of balloons, which will hang without moving, and refuse to go anywhere at all, then rush through the clouds with a speed impossible for any conveyance on the ground.
Before they had drifted too far, he had seen Maddigern and his Badgies crowded on the top of the tower, watching in silence as their prey moved farther and farther away.
Finn was still watching when the great bell pealed again, its solemn tones resounding through the ‘rip in the cosmic trousers,’ as the seer liked to say, from the world of illusions to the deepening afternoon where the Bullie's balloon rushed away toward the west.
Either that, Finn said to himself, or this is the illusion, and the real world's somewhere past the bell.
And, indeed, if that were so, who could ever tell?
“If you've nothing to do,” Bucerius said, “you can get your head back where it belongs and be helpin’ me with them lines. You didn't learn much on the way in here, but you might be better'n some.”
Finn felt a small, but honest moment of pride at the Bullie's words, for he knew this was as close as the fellow would come to granting him some station as the crewman of a balloon.
“This is really a difficult craft to master,” he told Letitia Louise. “It takes enormous skill to learn the order of cords, the drift, the height, the strength of the winds, the correct amount of ballast to loose to gain the proper altitude.
“When I can find time from my work, I would like to learn more about the fascinating world of vessels of the air.”
“That's wonderful, dear,” Letitia said, with a sweet and haughty smile she'd learned from DeFloraine-Marie. “When you do, just give me time to pack my bags, for I'll not be living with a man who's hanging from a bag of gas, worrying me sick, instead of minding his business on the ground.”
Nothing more was said on the subject after that.
Princess Defloraine-marie kept very much to herselfafter the craft was under way. Letitia tried to speak to her once, for she wished to thank her for doing her part in breaking through to Oberbyght's lair.
Letitia had been quite surprised to find that within that slim, near-perfect frame there was strength enough to crack stone and plaster and help bring down the ancient wall.
Still, the princess clearly didn't wish for company at all. She stayed by herself and looked wistfully back at the quickly receding hills of Heldessia Land.
“You're free to leap anytime you wish,” the seer told her. “I'd not interfere with your efforts now.”
Finn watched her from the far side of the basket, which was not that far away in the Bullie's craft. Bucerius had given her a blanket against the cooling afternoon, but the wrap did little to hide her lithe and graceful form.
Finn had had no chance to tell Letitia what he'd seen in the chamber of the Deeply Entombed, or, indeed, the other startling sight he'd witnessed there, though Letitia could guess some of the story herself.
Maddigern, and the daughter of the King. There was no doubt of the intimacy between them. No doubt of the
