"Ready for what?" Tavi asked. "I"m still not sure how we"re going to get in without touching down on the roof."
Kitai nodded at the narrow windows on the topmost floor. "I will go in through there. Wait until I am all the way across before you start. The rope is not designed to hold two."
"Better let me go first," Tavi said. "I"m heavier. If it"s going to collapse, it will be for me."
Kitai frowned at him, but nodded. She gestured to the rope, and said, "Go on. Leave me s.p.a.ce to work when I get there."
Tavi nodded, then turned to look at the slender rope stretching across to the Grey Tower. He swallowed and felt his fingers trembling. But he forced himself to move, sliding over to the rope and taking it in his hands. He let himself drop down, head toward the Grey Tower, hands on the rope, his heels crossed in an X to hold up his legs. The wind blew, the rope quivered, and Tavi prayed that the grappling hook would not slip from its purchase. Then, as carefully and smoothly as he could, he started pulling himself over the gap to the Grey Tower. He glanced back once to see Kitai watching him, her eyes glittering with mischief, one hand covering her mouth without really hiding the amus.e.m.e.nt on it.
Tavi forced himself to concentrate on his task, upon the steady, sure motion of arms and legs and fingers and hands. He did not hurry, but moved with deliberate caution until he had crossed the gap. He was able to spot a window ledge, and dropped his feet carefully down to rest on it until he was sure it would hold his weight. Then he stepped more firmly onto the ledge and looked back at Kitai, one hand steadying himself on the rope.
The Marat girl did not lower herself to the rope as he had. Instead, she simply stepped out onto it as though it were as wide and steady as a crossbeam of heavy timber. Her arms akimbo, she moved with a kind of casual arrogance for the deadly drop beneath her, crossed the rope in a third the time it had taken Tavi, and hopped down, turning in midair and landed with her heels steady on the ledge beside him.
Tavi stared at her for a moment. She c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at him. "Yes?"
He shook his head. "Where did you learn that?"
"Rope walking?" she asked.
"Yes. That was... impressive."
"It is a whelp"s game. We all play it when we are young." She grinned. "I was better at it when I was younger. I could have run along it." She turned to the window and peered through the gla.s.s. "A hall. I see no one."
Tavi looked. "I don"t either," he said. He drew his knife from his belt and tested the edges of the gla.s.s over the window. It was a single pane, crafted directly into the stone. "We"ll have to break it," he told Kitai.
She nodded sharply, then drew a roll of some kind of thick cloth from another pouch. She rolled it out with a flick, then drew out a small bottle and opened it. There was a sharp stench as she poured some kind of thick, oily substance onto her palm and smeared it all over her window. She hurriedly scrubbed the substance from her skin with the cloth, then frowned, her lips moving.
"What are you doing?" Tavi asked.
"Counting," she replied. "You"ll make me lose my place." She went on that way for another minute or so, then flattened the cloth against the window, where it adhered almost instantly. Kitai smoothed the cloth out as much as she could, waited a moment more, then drew her knife and brought the rounded hilt sharply down onto the gla.s.s in a short, precise blow.
The gla.s.s broke with a crunching snap. Kitai hit it again, in several different places, and drew the cloth out slowly. The window gla.s.s, Tavi saw, stuck to the cloth. Kitai then took the portion of the cloth she had wiped her hand upon and pressed it to the wall beside the window, where it clung as strongly as it had to the gla.s.s.
She glanced at Tavi as she broke off a few jagged pieces of gla.s.s the cloth had missed, dropped them, then bent nimbly and slid through the window and into the Grey Tower.
Tavi shook his head and made his way over to the next window, carefully holding the rope as he did it. He felt clumsy and slow in comparison to the Marat girl, which was vaguely annoying. But at the same time, he took a real sense of pleasure in seeing her ability and confidence. Like himself, she had no furycraft of her own, but it was clear to him that she did not think herself disadvantaged. And she had reason not to, having spent the last several months sneering at furycrafted security measures and defeating them with intelligence and skill.
Tavi filed away that trick with the adhesive and the cloth for future reference and slid inside to drop into a crouch beside Kitai.
They were in a hallway, one side lined with windows, the other with heavy wooden doors. Tavi crossed to the nearest door and tested the handle. "Locked," he reported in a whisper, and dipped a hand into his own belt pouch. He drew out a roll of leather containing several small tools.
"What are you doing?" Kitai whispered.
"Unlocking," he replied. He slipped the tools into the keyhole, closed his eyes, and felt his way through the lock"s mechanism. A moment later, he locked his grip on the tools and twisted slightly, springing the lock open.
Tavi opened the door on a small and barren bedchamber. There was a bed, a chair, a chamber pot, and nothing else but smooth stone walls.
"A cell," he murmured, and closed the door again.
Kitai plucked the tools from his hand and stared at them, then at him. "How?" she asked.
"I"ve been learning this kind of thing," Tavi replied. "I can show you later. How did you steal all of that without learning how to open a lock?"
"I stole the keys," Kitai said. "Obviously."
"Obviously," Tavi muttered. "Come on."
They went down the hall, and Tavi checked every door. Each room was the same-drab, plain, and empty. "He must not be on this floor," Tavi murmured, as they reached the end of the hall. There was a door there, and Tavi opened it, to reveal a stairway curling down, lit by dim orange furylamps. Sound would bounce merrily around the stairs, and Tavi made a motion cautioning Kitai to silence, before slipping out the door and to the stairs. He hadn"t gone down more than three or four when he heard the sound of song ringing through the tower below, another Wintersend round, though this one performed with the benefit of far more drink than practice.
Tavi grinned and moved a little more quickly. If the guards were that raucous below, it would be a far simpler matter to move around the tower.
They took the stairs to the next floor, and Tavi opened the door on the landing, only to find another row of holding rooms just as there had been on the top floor. They left that one to slip down one floor more, when Kitai suddenly seized Tavi"s shoulder, the tight grip of her fingers a warning.
Then just below him was the sound of a heavy door bolt opening, and men"s voices speaking to one another. Tavi froze. Their footsteps started down the stairs toward the singing.
Tavi waited until they were gone before stealing down the rest of the stairs, struggling to keep his excitement from making him sloppy. He handled the lock on the door to the stairway as easily as the others and opened it onto a very different area than on the floors above.
Though still furnished very plainly, the whole floor was given over to a single, large suite. There was an enormous bath, several bookshelves complete with simple couches and chairs upon which to sit while reading, a table for four where food might be served, and a large bed-all of which were behind a heavy grid of steel bars with a single door. The windows were likewise barred.
"Told you I"m fine," said a heavy, tired voice, from somewhere beneath a large lump under the bed"s covers. "Just need to rest."
"Max," Tavi hissed.
Max, his short hair still damp and plastered to his head, sat bolt upright in bed, and his jaw dropped open. "Tavi? How the crows did you get in here? What What the crows are you doing here?" the crows are you doing here?"
"Breaking you out," Tavi said. He crossed to the barred door, while Kitai left the stairway door open a crack and stood watch. He started on the lock.
"Don"t bother," Max said. "It"s on the table on the north wall."
Tavi looked around, spotted the key, and fetched it. "Not terribly secure of them."
"Anyone who winds up in this cell is being held by politics more than anything," Max said. "The bars are just for show." He grimaced. "Plus furycrafting doesn"t work in here."
"Poor baby, no furycrafting," Tavi said, taking the key to the lock. "Come on. Get dressed and let"s go."
"You"re kidding, right?"
"No. We need you, Max."
"Tavi," Max said. "Don"t be insane. I don"t know how you got in here, but-"
"Aleran," Kitai hissed. "We have little time before dawn." She turned her head to Tavi, and her hood had fallen back from her face. "We must leave, with or without him."
"Who is that?" Max asked. He blinked. "She"s a Marat Marat."
"That"s Kitai. Kitai, this is Max."
"She"s Marat Marat," Max breathed.
Kitai arched a pale brow, and asked Tavi, "Is he slow in the head?"
"There are days when I think so," Tavi replied. He entered the cell and went to Max"s side. "Come on. Look, we can"t let that idiot Brencis send the entire Realm into chaos. We get you out of here. We go down into the Deeps and come up near the palace and get you to Killian without anyone being the wiser. You get back to work and help my aunt."
"Fleeing custody is a Realm offense," Max said. "They could hang me for it. More to the point, they could hang you you for helping me. And great b.l.o.o.d.y furies, Tavi, you"re doing it with a for helping me. And great b.l.o.o.d.y furies, Tavi, you"re doing it with a Marat Marat at your side." at your side."
"Don"t mention Kitai to Killian and Miles. We"ll fix the rest of it," Tavi said.
"How?"
"I don"t know. Not yet. But we will, Max. A lot of people could get hurt if this situation goes out of control."
"Can"t be done," Max said. "Tavi, you might have gotten in here, but the craftings to block the way out are twice as thick and strong. They"ll sense anything I try to do, and-"
Tavi picked up a pair of loose linen trousers and flung them at Max"s head. "Put these on. We got in here without using any furies at all. We"ll go out the same way."
Max stared at Tavi for a second, skeptical. "How?"
Kitai made a disgusted sound. "Everyone here thinks nothing can happen without sorcery, Aleran. I say it again. You are all mad."
Tavi turned to Max, and said, "Max, you saved my life once already tonight. But I need more of your help. And I swear to you that once my family is safe, I will do everything in my power to help make sure that you are not punished for it."
"Everything in your power, huh?" Max said.
"I know. It isn"t much."
Max regarded Tavi evenly for a second, then swung his legs down to the side of the bed and put on the linen trousers. "It"s enough for me." He let out a hiss of discomfort as he rose, unsteady on his feet. "Sorry. They healed the wounds, but I"m still pretty stiff."
Tavi stuffed the bed"s pillows under the blankets in a vague Max-sized lump, then got a shoulder under his friend"s arm for support. With luck, the guards would leave "Max" to sleep in peace for hours before they noticed that the prisoner was no longer in his cell. They left, and Tavi locked the cell behind them and replaced the key.
"Tavi," Max mumbled, as they went up the stairs again, Kitai pacing along behind them. "I"ve never had a friend who would do something like this for me. Thank you."
"Heh," Tavi said. "Don"t thank me until you see how we"re going to leave."
Chapter 32
"And then we left the same way we came in, Maestro, and now we"re here. We were not seen entering the Deeps or moving here, except at the guard post on the stairs." Tavi faced Killian, working hard to keep his expression and especially the tone of his voice steady and calm.
Killian, sitting in the chair beside Gaius"s bed, drummed his fingers on his cane, slowly. "Let me see if I understand you correctly," the old teacher said. "You went out and found the Grey Tower. Then you entered through the seventh-floor window, by means of a grappling hook and rope thrown from the top of the aqueduct, shielding yourself from air furies with a salted cloak, and from earth furies by not touching the ground. You then searched for Antillar floor by floor and found him, freed him and extracted him, all without being seen."
"Yes, Maestro," Tavi said. He nudged Max with his hip.
"He didn"t seem to leave much out," Max said. "Actually, the room they had me in was quite a bit nicer than any I"ve ever had to myself."
"Mmmm," Killian said, and his voice turned dry. "Gaius Secondus had a prison suite installed when he arrested the wife of Lord Rhodes, eight hundred years ago. She was charged with treason, but was never tried or convicted, despite interrogation sessions with the First Lord, three times a week for fifteen years."
Max barked a laugh. "That"s a rather extreme way to go about keeping a mistress."
"It avoided a civil war," Killian replied. "For that matter, the records suggest that she actually was was a traitor to the throne. Which makes the affair either more puzzling or more understandable. I"m not sure which." a traitor to the throne. Which makes the affair either more puzzling or more understandable. I"m not sure which."
Tavi exhaled slowly, relieved. Killian was pleased-and maybe more than pleased. The Maestro only turned raconteur of history when he was in a fine mood.
"Tavi," Killian said. "I"m curious as to what inspired you to attempt these methods."
Tavi glanced aside at Max. "Um. My final examination with you, sir. I had been doing some research."
"And this research was so conclusive that you bet the Realm on it?" he asked in a mild voice. "Do you understand the consequences if you had been captured or killed?"
"If I succeeded, all would be well. If I"d been arrested and Gaius didn"t show up to support me, it would have exposed his condition. If I"d been killed, I wouldn"t have to take my final history examination with Maestro Larus." He shrugged. "Two out of three positives aren"t terrible odds, sir."
Killian let out a rather grim little laugh. "Not so long as you win." He shook his head. "I can"t believe how reckless that was, Academ. But you pulled it off. You will probably find, in life, that successes and victories tend to overshadow the risks you took, while failure will amplify how idiotic they were."
"Yes, sir," Tavi said respectfully.
Killian"s cane abruptly lashed out and struck Tavi in the thigh. His leg buckled, nerveless and limp for a second, and he fell heavily to the floor in a sudden flood of agony.
"If you ever," Killian said, his voice very quiet, "disobey another of my orders, I will kill you." The blind Maestro sat staring sightlessly down at Tavi. "Do you understand?"
Tavi let out a breathless gasp in the affirmative and clutched at his leg until the fire in it began to pa.s.s.
"We aren"t playing games, boy," Killian went on. "So I want to make absolutely sure that you realize the consequences. Is there any part of that statement that you don"t comprehend?"
"I understand, Maestro," Tavi said.
"Very well." The blind eyes turned toward Max. "Antillar, you are an idiot. But I am glad you have returned."
Max asked, warily, "Are you going to hit me, too?"
"Naturally not," Killian said. "You were injured tonight. Though I will hit you when the crisis is past if it makes you feel better."
"It doesn"t," Max said.
Killian nodded. "Can you still perform the role?"
"Yes, sir," Max said, and Tavi thought his voice sounded a great deal more steady than his friend looked. "Give me a few hours to rest, and I"ll be ready to go."
"Very good," Killian said. "Take the cot. We can"t have you seen running back and forth to your room."
"Maestro?" Tavi asked. "Now that Max is here..."
Killian sighed. "Yes, Tavi. I will write up orders to begin a full-scale search for Steadholder Isana. Will that be satisfactory?"