“Wonderful,” Naitachal muttered. “Just what we need.”
As they came out into a courtyard, beneath a dramatically overcast sky, Eliathanis stopped short “Here come the guards. No one’s going to believe us against poor, sweet little Charina. We’ve got to split up.” He gave Kevin a shove. “Up that stairway, hurry! Naitachal, you go that way, I’ll go this. See you outside!”
We hope. Kevin scrambled up the steep stone stairway, a stone wall on his left, open space on the right, hearing a troop of guards clattering up behind him, and wound up on a narrow rampart between two towers. Which way, which way ... ?
He turned left at random, and dove through the narrow door into the tower, staggering to a walk, half blinded by the sudden darkness. His foot found the lip of a narrow staircase spiraling down.
But then Kevin stopped so sharply he nearly went tumbling down the stairs. Guards were climbing up this way, too! The bardling raced back out across the rampart, blinking frantically in the sudden return to daylight—and nearly ran into the arms of the guards who’d followed him up the first stairway. He kicked and squirmed and twisted, wriggling his way through so swiftly none of them had a chance to grab him, and dove into the second tower.
Oh dawn, oh damn, they’re among up this stairway, too!
He wasn’t going to surrender. He didn’t dare, not with Carlotta awaiting him! So Kevin took the only option open and raced up the spiraling stairway, stumbling on the narrow steps, banging knees and elbows, struggling up and up till at last, gasping, he burst out into the open on the tower’s fiat top.
Powers, now what do I do ?
The bardling glanced wildly this way and that, a surge of vertigo overwhelming him as he realized just how high up he was. The tower top suddenly felt impossibly narrow and insecure, while the casde was spread out in a dizzying panorama far below him, swarming with frenetic life.
Kevin tensed as he recognized two people out of that swarm: Naitachal and Eliathanis, two doll-size figures from up here, looked like they were having a wonderful time. They moved with elven speed and grace. almost like a matched pair of dancers, one dark, one fair, far swifter than the merely human guards trying to catch them. The bardling could have sworn he saw Eliathanis grin, heard Naitachal’s laugh come trailing thinly up to him. The elves took a moment to slap palms yet again, then scurried off in opposite directions. Kevin didn’t have a moment’s doubt that they were going to escape, and enjoy doing it.
Sure, great, now they can admit they’re friends. Fm glad they’re having fun—but meanwhile Fm trapped up here!
Here came the guards. Kevin turned to face them, back against the low balustrade, bracing himself, sick at heart, knowing that throwing himself to his death would be a kinder fate than letting himself fall into Carlotta’s hands.
“Jump!”
Wonderful. Now he was hearing voices.
“Kevin! Jump!”
Strong little Fingers pinched his arm so hard he yelped.—Tich’ki!”
“Come on, you idiot bardling, trust me, jump!”
Powers, what if this was some truly sadistic form of a fairy joke—see the trusting human go splat! But the bardling knew he had to trust her. What other choice was there?
All at once dreadfully calm, Kevin climbed up onto the tower’s narrow balustrade, the world a dizzy blur around him. As the guards cried out in sudden shock, the bardling jumped blindly into space.
Kevin jumped as far out and away from the casde as he could. For one wild, terrifying, thrilling moment, he was falling free, the earth surging up to meet him, and was sure he was dead.
Then Tich’ki was beside him, shape-changed to human size, catching him in her arms, her wings backwatering frantically. Those wings didn’t have the strength to actually carry her weight and his together, but slowly, painfully slowly, the fairy began to check his fall. But it wasn’t going to work, Kevin thought in panic, they were running out of time and space!
Tich’ki cried, “Go limp! It’s not going to be a soft landing!”
Kevin hit, not as hard as he had feared, and started helplessly rolling down the steep hill from the castle, sky and ground whirling in a dizzy circle. The bardling frantically snatched at grass and rock. trying to slow his fall, only to end up with a jolt against a tough little patch of bushes.
Aching, trying to remember how to breathe, deeply afraid of what he would find when he tried to move, Kevin
