“Only my poor self, you fiend!” She burst out giggling.
“Oh, that’s good enough,” Tobas said. “I’ll take it.”
“You already have,” she pointed out.
“Oh, but I mean to keep it!” He turned serious, and asked, “Karanissa, would you marry me?”
Her giggling subsided. “I don’t know,” she said. “How do you mean that?”
“Is there more than one way?”
“There were in my time, civilian marriages were different from military marriages, and there were various more casual affairs as well.” She pushed him off and sat up. “That doesn’t matter, though. Tobas, I like you — maybe I love you, I’m not sure — but I am not going to marry anyone until we’re out of this castle.”
“Good enough,” he replied. “We don’t have the witness we need here, anyway.”
“Only one? In my day you needed three.”
“Well, more are better, but one will do.” Tobas got to his feet and retrieved his boot from the hallway, where it had landed when thrown at the spriggan.
“What do you want your boots for?”
“I don’t like walking around barefoot, especially not with the spriggans around, and Nuisance did something to my slippers so that they’re all sticky.”
“Well, tell it to clean it off! Or have one of the sylphs do it!”
“The sylphs won’t obey me, you never told them to. And it never occurred to me to tell Nuisance to wipe it up.” Since the incident of the spilled chamberpot he had avoided telling Nuisance to clean up anything.
“No wonder it gives you so much trouble! You let it get away with making a mess. If you made it clean up after itself, it would behave itself better.”
Tobas shrugged. “Maybe that’s it.” He settled in a chair and began pulling on the boots.
“You still haven’t told me why you need anything on your feet; where are you going?”
“Well, if you won’t marry me until I get us out of here, I thought I’d go check on the tapestry again and, if it’s still not working, try sending Peren another dream.”
“Wait a minute. I’ll come with you.” Karanissa stood up, straightening her crumpled skirt and pulling her bodice back into place.
Tobas waited, and a moment later the two of them were ambling slowly down the hall toward the tapestry, arms about one another. They paused while Tobas opened the door to the chamber, and he took advantage of the opportunity to kiss her lingeringly.
Their little interlude was interrupted by a furious chorus of squeaks and squeals, and the soggy sound of Nuisance running desperately toward them, gasping out hideous noises.
Tobas turned, and saw the spriggan mirror bouncing toward them, obviously carried by Nuisance, with a horde of spriggans in hot pursuit.
“Good boy!” he called, ignoring momentarily the fact that Nuisance’s gender, if any, was unknown. “Bring it here!”
Nuisance tried, but before it could reach its master, a pair of spriggans jumped it; the mirror fell to the floor and rolled free.
Tobas dived for it and snatched it up, but a spriggan was in the process of climbing out of it and let out an ear-piercing shriek of sheer terror. Tobas ignored the creature as he tried to dash the glass against the wall.
The spriggan wrapped itself around his hand, clinging for dear life and incidentally forming a very effective cushion. Tobas started to pry it loose with his other hand, but after a glance back down the hallway he thought better of it.
Every spriggan in the castle, three or four dozen of them, was charging directly toward him. Clawless and toothless they might be, but that many of them could still be formidable. He got to his feet and scrambled into the tapestry chamber, dragging Karanissa with him, and then slammed the door in the faces of the onrushing mob.
The latch did not engage, and an instant later he was swept off his feet by a wave of squirming, squeaking spriggans.
He rolled over, trying to force them to drop off to avoid being crushed; most of the little creatures panicked and jumped clear. Holding the mirror high, he tried to get to his feet once again.
A dozen spriggans jumped him. With others close underfoot, he lost his balance and staggered backward. He wobbled, then fell.
The lights went out, and he felt a sudden rush of cool air about him. When he hit the floor, it was at a steep angle, so that he rolled involuntarily. Startled, he loosened his grip and felt the spriggans pry the mirror from his grasp.
That goal achieved, they ran off in every direction, squeaking like an entire castle’s complement of rusty hinges, all swinging at once.
Tobas got slowly to his feet, discovering as he did so that the floor had tilted somehow. His eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness, and he realized that Karanissa was not in the room; he was alone.
Only then did it register that he was not in the room he had been in, and, after a moment of wild fancies about secret doorways and trick walls, he realized that the tapestry was working again. He had gone through it! The sloping floor told him immediately where he had landed — the bare, empty chamber in the downed flying castle where his tapestry had once hung.
He had been afraid of that. He had hoped that the tapestries, being a pair, were somehow linked, so that he would emerge in the little cottage a good distance closer to Dwomor Keep; but since this was the chamber the tapestry showed, he was not surprised to find himself in it.
He had half expected to find Peren waiting for him, though. “Hello?” he called.
No one answered. He felt his way forward; the darkness was so complete that he could see almost nothing of his surroundings. He found a wall and groped his way along it, rounding a corner.
The instant he had cleared the corner, he heard a footstep behind him. A familiar female voice called, “Tobas?”
“Kara?” He realized that she had been unable to use the tapestry until he had removed himself from the scene and cursed himself for not doing so more promptly.
“I’m right here,” she replied. “Why is it so dark? Where are we?”
“In the flying castle. I’m not sure why it’s dark.” His eyes were still adjusting; he could see now that he was in the narrow, vaulted corridor leading to Derithon’s study. Turning around, he could make out, dimly, Karanissa, standing unsteadily on the slanting floor.
“I don’t suppose you went back to the study and got that pack of supplies I had prepared,” he said.
“No,” she admitted, “I didn’t think of it. I didn’t bring anything.”
He could see that she was still wearing the light gown she had on when he fell through the tapestry; that was hardly surprising, since she had had no time to change.
They were poorly dressed for the journey to Dwomor, all their supplies were back in Derithon’s study, and they had made no definite plans beyond this point, but the tapestry was working again.
“Well,” he said aloud, “at least we’re out.”
CHAPTER 27
The flying castle’s outer study was not as dark as the tapestry chamber, but was still dim and gloomy; Tobas realized that they had emerged either at night, or at least dusk, or during a heavy rain. He heard no rain and decided it must be night. He tried to flick a fire into existence, then remembered that wizardry did not work here.
“Can you make a light?” he asked Karanissa.
She responded by raising a hand that glowed dimly. “I’m out of practice,” she apologized. “I’m better with fire, if you can find me something to burn.”
Without regard for whatever respect might be due the dead Derithon’s property, Tobas picked up the nearest length of shelving. “I’ve got some wood here that should burn; light one end, and I’ll hold the other.”
The witch complied; in a second or two a blue flame sprang up from a corner of the ancient plank, then
