Page 132 of Fortune's Blade

And then making a break for the fissure again, as soon as I was distracted trying to hear what was out of range. Damn it! I finally gave up and let him go, throwing myself back into the void again, hoping that I could find another mind to latch hold of before I lost my connection to this place.

And to my relief, I did.

I found Marlowe’s.

The realization shocked me, as invading a first-level master’s mind should not have been possible even for an instant, which was why I hadn’t tried it. I had been attempting to snare a pixie, although I wasn’t sure that that would work, either, as it hadn’t with the duergar. And pixies were at least as strong minded and magical as the dwarves.

But I’d had no choice, as Mircea or the Pythia were my only other options, and neither of them was a remote possibility. I had placed Marlowe into that group as well, but it seemed I had been wrong. Because instead of immediately throwing me out, he barely flinched as I grasped hold of his mind.

Maybe because he was busy doing something else.

I did not know what that was, having come in a little late, but it involved running about, ignoring the others who were trying to talk to him, and tightly grasping something in his hand. I could see it in flashes whenever his eyes turned that way, especially when it suddenly jerked, causing him to hold it out in front of his body. It appeared to be some kind of staff, although it did not look sturdy enough to be a weapon.

But maybe it wasn’t that kind of staff. Because there were runes etched into the side of it in a crude sort of way, as if whoever had done them had been in a hurry. Instead of stylized, well-made markings, they were mere scratches. And so shallow that I probably wouldn’t have noticed them at all except that they were glowing.

I saw them again in his mind, saw my father coming toward him down the corridor a moment ago, saw Mircea holding the item in his hand, which was dark and uninteresting until Marlowe came close. And then it lit up like a beacon in the gloom, shedding a bright glow onto the surrounding stone. And the spy darted forward and snatched it out of a very surprised looking Mircea’s hand.

He had been about to tell father what we’d found in the other room, even had mother’s name trembling on his lips. But that fled his mind as soon as he saw the staff. And once he grasped it—

Everything changed.

It didn’t feel like touching wood, but like taking someone’s hand, someone with soft skin and a strong grip, someone who I saw in his mind for a moment, standing on a grassy hilltop with her bright red hair blowing in the wind.

I didn’t get a name, but I didn’t need one. She was important to him and she was powerful. I could feel her magic running through the wood, coursing through the fibers like blood. Could sense when it leapt onto our flesh, flowing up our hand and onto our body. The staff was imbued with it and it knew Marlowe, knew him immediately and instinctively, as she did.

We have been waiting.

The words came out of nowhere, echoing in our shared mental landscape, and then were gone, so fast that I thought one of us might have imagined them. But no. The woman’s voice hadn’t been mine, and the taste of it . . . like her lips . . . lips like honey and nectar and fine spring days, all combined . . ..

Marlowe could taste it, could taste her, and for a moment, so could I. And then he was off, tearing down the hallway like a man possessed. So, it was a wizard’s staff, I thought dizzily, trying to pull back from his mind without entirely letting go.

I wanted to give him privacy, for he was remembering things that were none of my business. But I also wanted to be sure that the magic didn’t snare me, too. Because there was magic at work here, old magic, powerful magic, sparking off the walls and sinking into our pores, magic that approved of me for some reason that I didn’t understand.

But it had a distinctly self-satisfied air when it enveloped me, which frightened me more than anything that had happened in a long time. Because it knew I was here, knew I wasn’t Marlowe, and didn’t care, which meant that it had a need for me. But what that need was, I had no idea.

Suddenly, I was wondering if perhaps the troll hadn’t been the smart one.

I should go, I thought, but the idea no sooner flitted across my mind than I had a new sensation: cuffs twining around my mental wrists, cuffs of roses and sweet honeysuckle, perfuming the air around me. They were gentle and light, so much so that I could hardly feel them—until I tried to pull away. At which point they tightened, enough for me to sense the edge of thorns hidden in all that lovely profusion, and the strength of them, which I fought against but couldn’t break.

They left me a prisoner, being carried along by a madman, who was running hell-bent-for-leather through a maze of stone, and how did I get here?

I didn’t know, only that I wasn’t alone, and I didn’t just mean Marlowe.

There were indentations down both sides of the hallway that we currently found ourselves in, and these were mostly inhabited, although the things in them were long since dead. I could see them in flashes in the light that the staff was shedding, and in the vague, ambient lighting their wards gave off. The latter wasn’t very good, however, and the former was slinging around as we ran, giving me only glimpses.

But they were enough.

Skeletons, some with the delicate scaffolding of wings still attached, stared out at us, held in place by dried up ligaments and old restraints. There were many versions of them, some as small as my hand, being barely pixie size, tiny and delicate and strangely beautiful. While others were twice as big as a man, with one so large that it had been housed in a long indentation in the ceiling, as nothing else would fit.

I stared into their dead eyes and felt a hard shiver go up my spine.

Or perhaps that was my father. He brushed Marlowe’s mind, trying to calm him, but was shoved aside. The spy hadn’t been lying about being resistant to that sort of thing. And then the Pythia stepped out of nothing, using her unique powers to get in front of us.

“Kit!” she called. “Talk to me! What are you doing?”

“I knew we should have left him behind,” the queen said, flying just above us.

“Grab him, Cassie!” Mircea called, from somewhere behind us. “Get him out!”

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