Page 34 of Elvenbred

She continued working on her illusion, streaming out tendrils of magic more quickly now, less detailed than before, working to complete the skein to the point where she could slide out of the bed without being seen. She would slip behind the screen and change in the tiny privacy of the water-closet, as they called it here. Her plan’s singular weakness lay in that one assumption … that they would not monitor the water-closet itself, and give her privacy to relieve herself. If she was wrong, and they proved less fastidious, then she would soon know. One more thing beyond her control.

The spell crafting wearied her. The detailed illusions required talent, focus, and substantial energy, and she spent much of her reserves in preparing her way. Once she heard her illusion’s snoring, she judged her deception adequate to screen her from casual discovery.

She relaxed a moment before beginning. She recognized she was procrastinating a bit. Right now she held to the fiction of being Haldeen’s “guest,” with the theoretical possibility of being sent back to her home if she cooperated. The moment she stepped out of the door and started her explorations, that hope would end. Lord Haldeen would not likely bother with the pretense once they determined she had taken matters into her own hands.

She hesitated again, another moment’s indecision, before steeling herself. Enough! I am a lord!

She carefully moved towards the nearside of the bed, staying just below the fabric of the illusion, until she could ease out from under the cover and down onto the floor. She reinforced the illusion where she slid out, spending another hundred heartbeats strengthening it, firming its opacity and its realness so that a scryer watching her would not see her crawl into the alcove. Once she had finished bolstering her illusions, she got up on her hands and knees and carefully moved into the alcove and lay for a moment next to the gurgling chamberpot.

She stood, dressed quickly, using the garments that Haldeen’s staff had given her. Try as she might, she could not fully suppress the wisps of sound and the brushes of cloth as she dressed. She hoped her snores, the soft sounds of her sleep, and water gurgling in the chamberpot would cover the bit of noise she made as she dressed.

She frowned as she put on the trews and blouse. She had considered darkening her clothes for this, making them deep black, but reasoned that if she were seen wearing midnight, then suspicion would be raised. She had also seen enough others in the compound wearing similar gray clothing, so even seen she might be taken for a lass slipping back to her quarters after an assignation. She laughed silently then … with her height and boy’s build, at least by their standards, she’d be more likely taken for a lad carrying his shoes home, rather than a lass.

She knelt and reached behind the chamberpot, feeling for the piece of bronze she had placed there. She found it with her fingertips and quickly peeled it away, then reshaped it in her hands to form the fibber-key that she had used to defeat her room’s lock. Dressed and ready, she took a deep breath. Moon or no, it’s time to do this.

She patted her hair to make sure the hairpins were in place, then crept around the periphery of the room, weaving her illusions as she went. Less detailed than those around the bed, and its occupant, but hopefully enough to fool a remote viewer.

Once to the door, she sent a tendril of energy to arm the bit of spellcraft she had set on the lock before, then inserted the fibber-key and gently eased it between the drums. She had rigged the lock well enough to open with just a spell, but the key helped manage the sound. Her craft proved sound. She had long experience slipping locks and stealing away after her own liaisons when her father had been alive, and her previous explorations with this made the act child’s play. With a small pinch of the fingers, a twist, and a softly exhaled breath, she turned the fibber-key and the lock silently gave way.

She tested the latch, and it opened. She was free of the room!

She cracked the door a sliver and peered out. A mage-light a few steps away illuminated the sturdy doors of this wing. Hers was the last door, a corner that provided the small window, the mage-light, and the trysting place. She knew about the pool of light from her earlier exploration, and that it represented one of the most vulnerable moments. No way around it. She should be clearly visible when she departed the room. She thought about disabling it … better a few moments where she might be seen than a sudden pool of darkness where a lamp formerly shone. Better the few moments.

No guard, dozing or otherwise, and no chair outside her door. Lord Haldeen, or one of his minions, really had taken the sentry away. In Haldeen’s place, she would never have done that unless she knew for certain she had a swarm of detectors over her “guest.” Then again, he seems to think as little of females as my own people do. She laughed inwardly. Well, my people got that idea from somewhere, now, didn’t they? She closed the door and listened, holding her breath at intervals. She closed her eyes, the better to hear an approaching guard, night worker, or other person who might be up and about at this time of night.

Nothing. Time for it.

She opened the door and slipped out, closing it softly after her, and rearming the lock. She used a small magic, a Lover’s Touch, that would open the lock for her hand, and hers alone. It would remain locked for anyone else. That complete, she stepped quickly out of the light, and paused in the first pool of real darkness she expected to find … the bower just below her window where the sometime, maybe, soon to be lovers, had flirted. Her first bit of luck arrived then. Clouds that washed over the larger moon, dimming it, and giving her the time she needed to cross the courtyard. She moved at a brisk pace, neither bending nor running … nothing too furtive, just a late worker out after curfew. Even so, she braced for a call and a shout.

She went over her priorities. A map of the place, so I can find the Gate he used to bring me in. Instructions, so I can work it and leave.

She tried to measure her risk. She reasoned that whatever Haldeen knew about the Gate would either be in the tower near the wall, the office she had heard he kept near the main house, or the deep room where she had been first roused after she had been brought through. She could see the Tower across the courtyard, and knew rather less about his office or the location of the Gateroom. Safest bet it is. The Tower. Best to scout a bit first.

She made her way between two lesser buildings, staying away from pools of light cast by the mage-lights. She frowned. The mage-lights around the courtyard flickered and dimmed, behaving like candles caught in a breeze. That’s odd. She paused and looked back to her own room, and the ’light next to it. It had definitely dimmed as well. She wasn’t sure what was causing the lights to dim or why, but she was not about to waste the opportunity. The ’light nearest her gutterred and dimmed, fading to a firefly’s strength.

She quickly crossed the courtyard, and scouted the portions on the far side, and away from the blocks where most of the household’s workers and lesser servants slept. One of those buildings looked like it might have been stables, once … but if the food situation was as dire as she’d been told, horses were a thing that ate stuff you could make directly into rations, and most of the time stayed idle in a stable or pasture. You only needed horses if you were going long distances, or pulling heavy loads. She scouted the stables … just on the off chance a fast horse or something like one had been stashed somewhere.

No luck. The stables had long since been emptied of animals. Now, the stalls held pieces of broken equipment and castoffs. There did appear a type of wagon contraption with a wheel and a high-seat. She recalled Nora telling her about the drays, cargo-wagons moved by magic. This looked to be something similar, though in truth enough strong backs together equaled a horse for moving heavy cargo

She concluded she had done enough scouting for one night. Time to get to the heart of matter, and start finding her way home.

She left the stable and retraced her path until she came around the corner of one dark building and saw the tower, its base deep in the shadows. The clouds temporarily occluded the moon, and the mage-lights remained flickering ghosts. She glanced upward. The topmost level of Haldeen’s Tower appeared dark. No sign that he kept late hours there, at least not tonight.

She had never been one for patience. She fast-walked across the open ground, keeping to the shadows as much as she could. Her heart hammered in her chest. No guard called out. She crossed to the door near the base of the tower, and opened it. She remembered the corridor from when she was taken up to Haldeen’s Tower, and that if she turned away, she could begin to retrace her steps to the room where she had awakened. I need a map to find it.

She cracked the door that gave access to the hallway that connected Haldeen’s Tower with the underground complex. The hallway was dark now, though it had first been brightly lit when she had first been brought from the Gateroom. She saw the mage-lights along the halls, all set in their sconces, and weakly flickering, so that instead of its steady illumination, it appeared lit by dying candles.

She was glad for the darkness in the hall, though she didn’t understand it. She turned towards the tower and crept along the corridor that led up the stairs. She didn’t recall whether there was a door at its base … she had been too disoriented to pay much attention to that … but felt relief when she came around a slight bend. Haldeen’s Tower had a stout door to secure it.

She breathed a sigh of relief. Haldeen put his trust in stout locks, and good carpentry. She would have worried more if the way had been open, with perhaps an inviting flight of stairs going up. That arrangement would have certainly been defended by magical traps. She wasn’t confident she could spot the local versions, much less disarm them.

Metal locks and wooden doors? Those, she could handle. She studied the lock, and let out a vexed sort of sigh. The door lock was different from the sort that worked best with her fibber-key, with smaller drums and a much tighter action. She had worked with this kind, and could beat it, but it would take time. She pulled one of the stronger hairpins Nora had so helpfully purchased and bent it straight, then wet it with her mouth. Kneeling at the door, she slowly worked it into the lock, wetting it again to help her slip it inside the tumblers. She used the most delicate of touches to feel the tumblers, the little cylinders that would align just so. This lock gave her confidence she held to the right trail. It proved to be one of the most complicated and difficult that she had ever worked. Only a carefully guarded treasure would be put behind a device this complex. How would her father have felt, if he had ever discovered that one of his daughter’s bodyguards had been teaching her lockpicking?

Even trade. I’d keep dropping him pretty baubles and saying I lost them, he’d teach me lockpicking and breaking and entering. She smiled a bit, recalling that surprisingly smooth-faced rogue with his ever so full lips and long lashes. She was suddenly struck by a wave of something she had never felt before, a sense of loss mixed with … regret? It shook her for a moment, as if she had seen something she had been missing for a long time, only to have it slip from her grasp again. She struggled to put a name to the feeling. Nostalgia? It must be nostalgia. I couldn’t possibly miss him, the bastard.

She considered using her magic to aid her in feeling her way through the lock, but finally decided against it. She had drained much of her reserves escaping from her room, and she still didn’t know how much magic she would need to use to get back. Best to do this one the mundane way. Minutes passed, and she found she had to divide her attention in case someone came up behind her. The slight bend and gloom would do much to conceal her unless someone came to check the door itself, but the metal on metal would carry some small distance and would doubtless draw the attention of a passing guard. There would be no excuse she would make for her presence, kneeling at the lord’s door and picking the lock, but she would be damned if she would be taken unawares.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the tumblers fell into place and the lock yielded with a soft click. She very carefully cracked the door open a finger’s width. She then felt behind it for wires that might set alight a trap, alarm, or spell warning. She risked a fine mage-light, a tiny blue flicker at the end of her finger to peer behind the door. Clear.