The Steward and the Sorcerer by James Peart (small books to read .TXT) 📗

They’d have to make me an honorary Don just for the stories alone.  I could parcel them out at lectures over a long, distinguished career.  I could take women back there...folk singers maybe; the possibilities would be endless.”

They arrived at the North Tower before they realised it, walking past the stairwell until Christopher pointed it out.  Ascending the coiling tower steps, they spotted the other half of the Drey torch on the ledge of a window that overlooked the view from the keep’s North Wing.  Motioning Christopher to stand back as before, Simon tried to match the broken piece against each of the stick halves he carried, drawing the two ends together.  Nothing happened with the first of the sticks, or the second.  Then, as he drew it against the third stick, green flame sparkled in a crown that circled the broken pieces of the torch, and an image issued before him from inside the crown.  The image displayed tall white pillars bursting with light that stretched high beyond the frame of the image and numbered more than they could count.  The green fire pulsated, drawing them toward it, and, spellbound, they almost leaned right into the flame had it not been for Christopher’s hand quickly grabbing Simon’s and pulling it back, thus breaking the connection between the two torch halves.

Simon dropped his hands to his sides, still holding the Drey torch.

“That was the temple,” he gasped.

“Yes.”

“But- but it should have been England, or Italy.  I don’t understand.”

They stood facing each other for a time, not knowing what to do.  “Perhaps,” Simon ventured, “the other torch halves will give us a different result.  All we have to do is test them against each of the halves we’re carrying.”

“They won’t,” Christopher said.  “They’ll show us exactly the same thing.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because it’s the same fire: green for drawing matter into your world of origin from another world.”

“We’ll try it anyway, but...” Simon slapped his forehead, “of course!”

“What?”

“It’s the ‘world of origin,’ that’s the problem.  We’ve been thinking all along that England was our world, but since we’ve been through the temple, that substituted England as our origin.  Daaynan told me this.  The temple overrides any other world if you pass through it.  Stupid!”

“That’s it, then.  It’s over.”  Christopher’s expression was one of serene detachment.

“It’s not over by a long shot.  Give me a moment...

“We can still use the fire to send Iridis back to the temple and out of harm’s way.  Or use it on the Faerie creatures outside...”

“That won’t send them to the temple.  They haven’t been there.”

“Yes, it will!  The magic in the torch sends matter to the user’s point of origin, remember?  Like it or not our origin is the temple.  We’ll have to get close to them, of course, close enough to spit.”  He eyed his friend speculatively.  “We have no other strengths, no magic at our disposal save the torches.  You’re a dead ringer for that Longfellow chap, but they won’t believe he’s here and I very much doubt they’ll take instruction from you.  They’ll take one look at us and charge.”

“We have to decide something first: which of the two present a greater threat, Iridis or the Faerie creatures?”

“We’d be relatively safe in here were it not for Iridis.  He has to come first.  Of course, he’s not simply going to walk into the flame; we’ll have to use some form of chicanery to get him close.”

He looked at Christopher.  “For the life of me I don’t know what that could be.”

“Maybe,” Christopher said, “we can use one threat to get rid of the other.”

“What do you mean?”

“We have to make contact with Iridis.”

13.

“The Druid mentioned he had use of a study.  Perhaps this was the chamber we emerged in when we arrived on this level.”  Simon was running his finger along the edge of the Drey torch, crouched in repose beneath the North tower window.  Christopher was watching him, his face animated by an expression which was nowhere in evidence until yesterday.

“So?”

“So, we have to find a way to talk with Iridis without his being able to approach us.”

“I don’t get you.”

“If we could find a part of the castle which overlooks a room or corridor to which there is no easy access, then we might be able to converse with this devil safely.”

“Sure, but what good would reading books from a study be?”

“Blueprints, Chris!  Blueprints.”

Christopher shot him a look of amused, almost queer pride.  “That’s good, that’s very good.  Wait a minute.  If he’s broken out of there, won’t he be headed in our direction back the way we came?”

“If he has stolen onto this floor, there’s no reason to think he’ll be headed in our direction.  We’ve been quiet, and you might have noticed that our footfalls have carried no echoes.”

“There’s a lot about this place that’s strange.”

Simon nodded.  “It’s creepy, but we can use it to our advantage.  Now, if we manage to succeed in finding the design plans and the kind of arrangement we’re looking for exists, there’s the trifling matter of what we’re going to say to him.”

“We tell him what we know about Longfellow, that he’s a threat to the Northern Earth and we’re trying to protect the Druid and blah blah.  He’s so moved by the nobility of our quest that he decides to help us.”

“Don’t be a fanny.  We have to impress upon him that his survival in this brave new world depends on his getting rid of the Faerie creatures.  It’s the truth, after all.  I doubt they were sent here to distinguish one enemy from another.  It’s all the same to them.  Everyone in Fein Mor is a target.”

“We could tell him they were sent here to put an end to him personally.”

“That’s not such a brilliant idea.  You saw what he was like.  He’s sharp and can think on his feet.  He’d see through the lie quick as that.

“No, we have to find out what he wants.  He may