With a Single Spell

CHAPTER 19

Hauling the tapestry was more work than he had anticipated; he had forgotten how much up and down there was to the road back to Dwomor Keep. He was also unsure of the best route; until the foursome had split up on the fourth of Harvest they had been zigzagging about almost at random, looking for the dragon. He had estimated that he would have been able to get back to the castle in four days, unburdened, but the tapestry cut the distance he covered each day by at least half.

The first night found him scarcely to the edge of the magically dead area; he worked Thrindle’s Combustion three times before he got a campfire lit.

The second day he covered slightly more ground, but watched with concern as the sky clouded over. He hoped that the tapestry would not be harmed by rain; when he settled for the night, he slept uncovered, using his blanket to protect his prize instead of himself, draping his pack over the end the blanket could not reach.

As he had expected, rain began falling around midnight, building from a slow sprinkle to a steady drizzle.

The third day he struggled onward, desperately trying to keep the tapestry dry and out of the mud, and far more concerned with finding shelter than with traveling any great distance. At last, around midafternoon, he found a broad overhanging rock ledge protruding from a steep hillside. He crawled under it, pushing the tapestry as far in as he could.

He remained there that night and all through the next day, waiting out the rain; his supply of dried beef gave out, leaving him nothing but raisins and one very stale biscuit.

The thirteenth of Harvest dawned gray and dim, but without rain, and Tobas decided to risk moving on. The skies cleared as the day wore on, and he made good time; he was fairly sure when he made camp that night that he had passed the point where he and the others had encountered the dragon. He judged that to be half a mile or so north or northeast of where he finally stopped.

He finished off his last provisions and awoke ravenously hungry on the morning of the fourteenth. Water was easily found in the wake of the rain, in pools on rocks as well as in streams, but food was not so readily come by.

He did find some nuts, which he cooked with Thrindle’s Combustion and ate from the shell; that helped slightly. He considered hiding the tapestry somewhere and coming back for it later, so as to conserve his strength, but decided against it; he was fairly sure he was nearing civilization, if Dwomor could be considered civilized, and was afraid some wanderer, such as a dragon hunter, might discover it.

He had not yet dared to unroll it and see whether its magic might manifest itself; he did not want to try that alone and unprotected in the mountains, out in the open air.

Around midafternoon he came across a ruined cottage; something had smashed in the door, the windows were gone, and there were scorch marks on the slate roof, but it was basically intact. Tobas wondered at the slate roof, but a look around at the stony ground helped explain that; thatch would not be readily found here. He wondered, then, why the cottage’s builder had wanted his domicile in so barren a spot.

He had no good explanation for that, but he could and did guess at why it was broken and empty; the dragon had undoubtedly eaten the inhabitants, or at any rate had tried to. That heavy, fireproof slate roof might have saved their lives.

And whether it had or not, they might have left some food; he hauled the tapestry inside, dropped it on the floor of the main room, and began exploring the kitchen cupboards.

They were all distressingly empty, in fact, they gave every sign of having been intentionally and systematically stripped bare. Tobas guessed that the cottage’s owners had been besieged for a time and had then gathered up supplies and fled. He wondered whether they had made it to the castle safely.

Then he wondered whether the castle was really safe.

That was silly, he told himself; if the dragon had been unable to smash this little cottage to the ground, what could it do against a fortress like Dwomor Keep?

He sat down in a convenient straight-back chair and stared at the tapestry, his stomach growling. He did not feel up to hauling the heavy thing any farther before nightfall, and this cottage seemed comfortable enough; he decided to stay until morning.

As he was leaning back, wondering what sort of spells he should trade the tapestry for, he heard a noise outside, as of something large moving about. He sat up.

Could that be dragon hunters, he asked himself, or perhaps the cottage’s owners coming back? He peered out a window.

It was neither; the dragon itself was perched on the top of a nearby hill, gazing out across the surrounding countryside. Tobas stepped back quickly.

He hadn’t expected that. The beast had not seen him, he was certain, but it was now quite definite that he would not be leaving this cottage for at least a few hours. If the dragon noticed him, he might never leave it alive at all. Worried and distracted, he started back for his chair and tripped over the rolled-up tapestry.

He caught himself before he fell, then turned and looked at his prize. Was there, he asked himself, a chance that he could carry out the task he had originally signed up for and somehow kill the dragon? Might there be some way he could use the tapestry’s magic, if it had any?

Well, he told himself, he obviously wouldn’t be doing anything else for a while, so he might as well look the thing over. He glanced up at the cottage wall and found a likely spot.

The place had not been designed for tapestries, of course; but with a little effort, he managed to wedge the tapestry rod diagonally across one corner, supported on one end by a step-back in the chimney and on the other by a gap betwixt a rafter and the wooden plate that topped the stone wall and anchored the tie beams.

Once he was satisfied that it was securely in place, he began unfurling the tapestry; the rod was wedged too tightly to turn freely, so instead he was forced to drag the fabric up over the top time after time and let it drop back behind.

Finally it hung down freely, brightly lit by the rays of the setting sun pouring in through one of the western windows, and Tobas looked at it with renewed interest — the scene it depicted was so very weird! That ghastly lighting, the strange rocks, the empty areas beyond the castle, whoever had designed it had quite an imagination, Tobas thought, even without considering the castle itself, with its bizarre architecture and hideous carvings.

He reached out to brush the cloth smooth. To his astonishment, he saw his hand go right through, into the picture. The baleful red-purple seemed to leap up around him.

The magic was obviously working; he knew that instantly. This was no oracle or conjuring device, but a magical portal.

He pulled his hand back, shaken, but then realized with a shock that red-purple light still colored his fingertips.

A hot wind blew across his face from somewhere, hot and dry and like nothing that he had felt in the hills of Dwomor; when he raised his eyes to the castle, he saw an indisputably solid and three-dimensional castle, not a mere picture.

He knew then that, without meaning to, he had stepped through the tapestry.

But by all the gods, to where!

He had not realized when he reached out his hand that he might be doing something dangerous, but he cursed himself now for not seeing the obvious perils of touching the picture; he had had no idea what lay beyond. Perhaps the wizard had created the tapestry as somewhere to send his enemies or somewhere to keep demons and monsters.

Well, maybe even now it was not too late. He had not taken a single step inside, but only put his hand through; surely that couldn’t hurt. He could simply turn around and step back out. The moment he saw that he was, beyond question, inside the scene in the tapestry, actually standing on that barren stony pathway, he lost his nerve. He gave up any thought he might have had of exploring further and stepped back, expecting to find himself again in the abandoned cottage.

Nothing happened; he was still standing on the narrow path across the rocks. He turned around, looking for the little cottage in the hills of Dwomor, but it was gone. All that he could see behind him was empty space.

He turned in a full circle, slowly, taking in his surroundings.

The only things in sight were the castle, the luridly colored void, and the path on which he stood; the path started out of nothing just a few feet from where he had entered and led nowhere but up to the castle. The rocks that supported both path and castle ended a yard or so out in every direction.

He got down on his belly and crawled to the nearest edge; leaning out cautiously he peered over, expecting to see something, a valley of some sort, far below.

He saw nothing at all, nothing but infinite empty space lit an eerie red. The rocks supporting the path were themselves hanging unsupported in midair. As far as he could discern, they extended down about six feet and across about eight feet in all.

Looking over toward that ornate and frightening castle, he saw more of the same; the rocks on which it stood were not parts of a mountaintop, but of a boulder, perhaps fifty or sixty yards in diameter, hanging in nothingness. Nor were they simply flying; below them were no distant fields or forests or even clouds, not even stars, but only endless emptiness. A wave of vertigo overcame him, and he closed his eyes.

Hot, dry wind, curiously odorless, ruffled his hair as he lay there, his eyes held tightly shut.

This place, he realized as he lay motionless, was not a part of the World he knew at all; that much was quite obvious. He inched himself back onto the path and got slowly to his feet, trying to suppress his trembling.

Quite plainly, he had only one place to go, and there could be no point in putting off going there. He walked slowly and cautiously toward the castle, taking it one small step at a time.

The rope bridge across the chasm, the chasm that was actually ten feet of nothing at all, was the worst part, but he managed it and stood at last on the lower lip of that fanged, grinning mouth that served the castle as a gate.

He was utterly terrified.

He peered in; torches blazed on either side of the gateway, which led to a huge pair of iron-bound wooden doors. He forced himself to step forward.

The doors were closed; he reached for the huge iron rings that would haul them open, then drew his hands back. He was trembling too hard to grip anything. He gritted his teeth and put his hands down at his sides, forcing them to stop shaking.

When he was as calm as he thought he was going to get, he reached out again and tugged at the iron rings.

Nothing happened; the doors were locked from inside. At first a wave of relief swept over him, but that was quickly followed by renewed terror; whatever might lurk within this grotesque structure, it could not possibly be worse than being trapped outside it forever, with nowhere to go, no food, no water, nothing but a few feet of bare rock. He dropped the rings with a loud double clunk and began hammering on the doors with his fists.

When his initial panic had spent itself, his hands dropped, and he turned around, looking out at the void and trying to think what he could do next.

A voice came from inside the castle, an uncertain female voice asking, in a very strange and old-fashioned accent, “Derry? Is that you? Where have you been?”

Tobas froze for a minute; he had not really expected an answer, certainly not an ordinary human voice mistaking him for someone else.

At last, however, he gathered his wits sufficiently to reply, “It’s not Derry; it’s me, Tobas.”

“Who?” The voice was almost plaintive.

“Let me in and I’ll explain.” He had no intention of giving up anything that might get him inside, away from all that empty nothingness, out of the ghastly colored light and the dessicating wind.

Tobas could almost hear the hesitation on the other side; although the pause could not actually have been more than five or ten seconds, it seemed like an eternity before the woman said, “Well, I suppose it’ll be all right. You feel harmless enough.” Almost immediately, Tobas heard a heavy bar being drawn back. Then a chain fell, a lock scraped, and finally the heavy doors swung outward, revealing a broad, torchlit hallway. Another equally massive pair of doors, some ten feet in, stood open; beyond that lay some thirty feet of passageway, the walls broken by side passages, and then yet another set of doors, this pair closed. The corridor was completely unfurnished save for elaborate wrought-iron brackets on the walls, holding torches, but demonic faces were carved in the stone at each corner of the ceiling, leering down at him.

Standing in the middle of the hallway was a lovely young woman, tall, slender, and dark-skinned, clad in an elegant crimson gown, her waist-length black hair spilling down across her shoulders. She watched Tobas warily.

“Hello,” he said, trying desperately to look harmless. “I’m Tobas of Telven, a wizard of sorts.”

“I am called Karanissa of the Mountains; I’m a witch. Did Derry, I mean, Derithon, send you?”

“No, he didn’t. Ah... if you’ll let me come in for a moment, I’ll try to explain.”

Karanissa hesitated. Tobas’ stomach unexpectedly emitted a loud growl, and he added, “And could you spare anything to eat?”

The self-proclaimed witch smiled, then nodded. “This way.”

She led him down a side corridor and through a small open door into the first place he’d seen on this side of the tapestry that seemed fit for humans rather than demons, a quiet, windowless, torchlit little chamber carpeted with furs, with banners on the walls, and furnished with several folding wooden chairs with fabric seats. Karanissa took one chair and motioned for Tobas to take another. When he had settled warily, she clapped her hands.

The air stirred, and Tobas shifted uneasily in his seat.

“Bring us food and drink,” Karanissa ordered, though Tobas saw no one else in the room. “Is there anything in particular you’d like?” she asked him.

“No,” he said. “Whatever is convenient. I’m hungry enough to eat almost anything.”

“Some sharp cheese, then, and the new bread, and the best red wine we have left, oh, and apples.”

The air stirred again, then stilled.

“Go on,” Karanissa said, her attention fully on Tobas now.

“Ah...” he said, “I don’t know where to begin.”

“Start with how you got here,” she suggested.

“Through a tapestry,” Tobas said. “I just tried to smooth it out, but I must have taken a step in and I couldn’t find my way back.”

“I know that story well enough! Derry left me here while he went to check on something, and I haven’t been able to get out since.”

Tobas’ spirits, which had begun to rise, quickly sank once more; did that mean he, too, was stranded here indefinitely?

Perhaps not; the mysterious Derry, or Derithon, had gotten out. “If you don’t mind my asking, who is this Derithon?”

“You don’t know?” The witch’s startlement seemed quite genuine and not just a sort of boast. “You never heard of the wizard Derithon the Mage?”

“I’m afraid not,” Tobas admitted.

“Well, this is his castle, he conjured it himself. And he made the tapestry I came here through, which I would assume is the one you came through, as well. Unless something terrible has happened, it should be hanging in a private room of his other castle, which was flying over the mountains of central Ethshar last I knew. That was some time ago, though.”

A strange realization dawned on Tobas as the witch said this. For an instant he refused to believe it, but by the time she had finished speaking, he was almost sure of it. He had assumed that she and Derithon were adventurers who had somehow stumbled upon, or rather, through, the tapestry, but now he thought otherwise. An adventurer would not consider either castle his own.

And the flying castle had been fallen and empty for centuries.

“Lady Karanissa, excuse me, but how long have you been here?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t know!” she replied, annoyed. “Ages, it seems, it can’t really be as long as it’s felt like, locked up here all alone, and there aren’t any days or nights here, so I just don’t know. Why? Do you know how long it’s been?”

“You said that when you came here, Derithon’s other castle was still flying?”

“Yes, of course!” Tobas had startled her again. “You mean it isn’t anymore?” “No, no, it isn’t — and it hasn’t been for a long time — and I’m afraid that Derithon was killed when it fell. At least, I think he must have been; my companion and I found a body near the tapestry that must have been his.”

“Derry’s dead?” She stared at him, open mouthed with shock.

“I think so; I can’t be sure it was he.” Tobas was apologetic.

“What did he look like, this dead person? No, don’t tell me. You said that the castle hadn’t flown in a long time? How long, then, months? Years?”

“Years, at least.”

“Gods, how long have I been here? What’s the date?”

“It’s the... let me see... the fourteenth of Harvest, or maybe the fifteenth by now; I don’t know how long I’ve been here.”

“What year, you idiot?” Karanissa shouted.

“Fifty-two twenty-one, by Ethsharitic reckoning.”

She stared at him, dumbfounded, then demanded, “Is this a joke? Are you playing some sort of trick on me? Is Derry in on this?”

Taken aback, Tobas said, “No, of course not!”

“It was the twenty-seventh of Leafcolor, in the Year of Human Speech four thousand seven hundred and sixty-two, when Derry and I came in here for a private evening together! Are you trying to tell me I’ve been sitting here waiting for that damn wizard to come back for four hundred and fifty-nine years?” With her final words she rose from her chair, shouting directly into Tobas’ face.

Tobas simply stared back, unable to think of any reply.

After a moment the witch sank back into her chair and stared at the ceiling for a long, slow breath. “Derithon of Helde,” she announced, shaking a fist at the air, “if you weren’t already dead, I’d kill you myself for getting me into this!”