The man named Jaston turned and walked away without waiting for an answer. The captain didn’t look pleased with his instructions, but after a moment turned to Hal and Ty. ‘Ask the lackeys inside to fetch out two sturdy mounts. We’ve a very long ride ahead and we’ll be weeks on the trail. We leave in a half-hour.’
They walked towards the stables and when they couldn’t be overheard, Ty said, ‘I never understood just how far Jim Dasher’s reach went.’
‘I had no idea,’ said Hal.
In less than half an hour, a patrol of thirty cavalry with two mercenaries tagging along left the palace of Bas-Tyra and wended its way through the second busiest city in the Kingdom, moving slowly towards the western gate and the road to Salador.
• CHAPTER SEVEN •
Journey II
MIRANDA SCREAMED.
The frustration of finding herself in what appeared to be an endless maze of tunnels somewhere underground had brought her to the brink of unleashing destructive blasts in all directions. Despite her enraged state, she realized the best she could hope for would be to vent some rage, and the worst that could happen would be to bring the tunnel crashing down on her. Not that she feared for her safety, but digging herself out from under tons of earth would be even more tedious than wandering lost. At least she wasn’t wandering blind, as she was able to use her magical abilities to light a path.
Her magic worked here, though as in the last place she had tried a spell, it was amplified. She was as adept at willing herself to new locations as anyone she had met, far better at it than Pug, and perhaps still better than Magnus, but even she had to have a rough idea of where she was headed. And despite her prodigious ability, even she didn’t wish to risk discovering she had transported herself into solid rock, or off the face of the planet.
The tunnels were not commodious, but large enough that she didn’t have to stoop or squeeze through narrow openings, but they were seemingly endless. She had come tumbling out of the vortex to land hard on her face, and since then her mood hadn’t got any better. She had lost track of how long she had been walking, but she knew it was at least the better part of a day.
She had tried a technique used in mazes: to keep turning in one direction, then turn back when hitting a dead end, go to the last intersection, turn in the other direction, then again keep turning in the original direction. It was tedious and likely to be anything but swift, but lore had it foolproof for eventually finding a way out.
At last she heard a sound. It was faint, as if echoing down corridors from a great distance away, but she heard it. A light, trilling sound, which she almost recognized. It stopped. She paused, and a moment later she heard it again. She hurried first one way, then the other, moving from one end of her tunnel until she was certain where the sound was louder, and almost ran to the first intersection she had found. At a crossroads she turned her head this way and that, until she was certain again which way the sound was loudest.
After fifteen minutes of tracing the source of the sound, she realized that what she was hearing was music – a pipe of some sort, playing a simple refrain over and over.
After another ten minutes, she was certain where the music was coming from. She closed her eyes and used her magical senses to locate the source. Trusting there wasn’t some evil joke by Kalkin, God of Tricksters, at play, she willed herself to the source.
She found herself in a cavern where dozens of tunnels met, and above was a series of stone ramps leading to other tunnels. A pit in the centre of the clearing showed more tunnels below. A single large rock sat at the edge of the pit, upon which sat a young man, barely more than a boy, playing a simple wooden pipe.
He was dressed in leggings vertically striped in yellow and green and a matching green tunic with yellow piping. He wore slippers of green with silver bells at the toe, and a flop cap of green with a dyed yellow feather held by a silver buckle.
‘A jester,’ said Miranda, wondering if some mad god had conspired to drive her to lunacy.
The boy stopped playing. ‘I’m Piper,’ he corrected her. ‘And you are a demon called Child, or Miranda. Which do you prefer?’
After a moment’s hesitation, she said, ‘Miranda.’
‘Predictable,’ answered the youth.
‘Who are you?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Piper. ‘Until a few moments ago, I didn’t exist, or if I did, I lack memories of that existence.’ He leaped nimbly from the rock, rose en pointe and flexed his knees slightly. ‘Everything feels new. No creaks, aches.’ A quizzical expression crossed the youth’s face. ‘Lacking experience, I wonder if I would know what creaks and aches are. And then, how do I even know to speak of them?’ A bright expression was followed by, ‘Then again still, how do I even know to speak?’
Miranda was not amused. ‘Where is this place?’
‘We are in the last bastion of a dead race, where they futilely attempted to resist chaos. They were obliterated so many years ago that no sign of their existence remains save these ramps and tunnels.’
‘How do you know me?’
Again, a bright expression was followed by one of wonder. The boy had a perfectly round face save for a slightly pointed chin. He had vivid green eyes and wisps of reddish-blonde hair stuck out under the hat. ‘I don’t know. I just know.’
‘What do you know?’
The brow furrowed for a moment. ‘I am your guide.’
Lacking patience even in the best of circumstances, Miranda barked, ‘Then guide me!’
‘Very well,’ said Piper. ‘We need to go up there.’ He pointed to the dark top of the cavern.
‘Give me a moment,’ said Miranda, focusing her concentration on that gloomy destination. She cast a spell of distant vision and her view passed through several levels of lightless tunnels and caverns, only her magic senses giving her a vision in the darkness, until she saw a large hole beneath an open sky hundreds of feet above them. Darkness above indicated a massive cavern above the one in which they found themselves. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Do you need my aid?’
Laughing, Piper said, ‘Would I be sitting alone in this godsforsaken pit if I didn’t?’
Miranda found the youth’s penchant towards good humour irritating, and realized that was felt from both her demon half and her human half. With a single step she grabbed Piper around the waist and willed them to the indicated destination.
She found herself on the lip of a vast crater, and letting go of Piper, she used her demon’s vision to pierce the darkness. The landscape was desolate, without a hint of any living thing. Glancing skyward almost gave her vertigo, for there was no cavern above.
The sky was empty.
Where stars should have abounded, only a vast expanse of emptiness sprawled overhead. Miranda felt something akin to panic rising as she pushed her senses outward. Farther and farther she reached and finally she retreated back to where she stood, almost overcome by the experience. There were no stars. There were no comets. No worlds, or any other
