“Fine. Then you take the left side, over here. I’ll be on the right, where I can get a dear shot at any would-be snipers. And you, of course, Kevin, get the place of honor here in the center.” She grinned. “Now all we have to do is wait.”
Tich’ki tittered. “Nighty night, everybody! Try not to fall off the ledge in your sleep!”
“Thank you, Tich’ki,” Naitachal muttered. “Thank you very much,”
“You’re welcome!” the fairy laughed, and darted away before he could hit her.
It might not have been the single most miserable time he’d spent; there certainly had been worse during their adventurings. But Kevin, blinking blearily in the chill light of early morning, not at all rested and not quite daring to stretch lest he lose his balance decided he had to rate this cold, hard, precarious night just past right up there with the worst.
Naitachal was already on his feet, gaudy finery replaced some time in the night by his usual somber black, and Lydia, stripped down to her preferred warrior garb, bow and quiver within easy reach, was limbering up her muscles as best she could in that narrow space.
I wish we had something to eat other than a flask of water and some bread and cheese, something warm, Kevin thought wistfully. Ha, he added, looking gingerly down into the depths of the tower, and I wish we had ... ah ... more refined sanitary facilities, too!
Ah well, at least it was morning, and the sun would soon be warming things up. The morning he would win or die—No, curse it, he wasn’t even going to think about that, not yet!
“Good morning,” he said.
Lydia snorted. “More or less!” She leaned daringly out to study the courtyard far below. “At least we’re going to get a splendid view of the whole event. That’s got to be the count’s chair, there on that dais, under the canopy —Now, if only Carlotta will just cooperate by showing up with him ....”
She did. Kevin tensed as the false Charina, pretty in blue silk, simpered out to take her place beside Count Volmar, who was dad in rich robes of dark red-violet.
That’s almost royal purple! Kevin thought indignantly. They really are planning to make a move towards the throne! Well, not if I have anything to say about it!
Then he had to laugh at his own bravado.
Not if I’m allowed to have anything to say about it, the bardling corrected wryly.
Lydia was right They really did have a splendid view of the whole event—And an endless event it was, too, with minstrels being replaced by acrobats being replaced by more minstrels being replaced by—Kevin fought back a yawn, astonished that he could feel bored even while he ached with tension. And had he really been cold before? Now it was hot in this tower, baking as it was directly in the sun, so hot the bardling envied Lydia her scanty garb.
Powers, would Berak’s troupe never get to perform? Kevin took yet another small sip of water, trying to keep his throat moist. Were they going to be stuck up here until they starved or died of thirst? Would they never get to even try the spell that had cost them so much already and—
“There they are.” Naitachal’s voice was right with tension. “Be ready, Kevin.”
“I—lam.”
Between the hopefully fine acoustics of this sound chamber and with—again, hopefully—his own Bardic Magic to provide the rest, there should be no way for Carlotta to escape the sound of his voice till the spell was cast.
Oh please, he prayed to all the Powers, let it be so!
In order to make the best use of the chamber’s acoustics, Kevin realized, there was only one place he could stand: squarely in front of the bell, in plain view —and bowshot—of the crowd. If Lydia or Naitachal failed to protect him ...
No. They’d been through so much together already; he wouldn’t doubt them now.
Berak’s troupe were performing with all their elven skill, “carrying the crowd,” as Berak would put it, taking them through rousing heroic ballads and songs so light and humorous that waves of laughter surged to Kevin’s ears.
Come on, he begged them. You don’t have to put on quite so good a show, do you? Or so long?
