A Princess Of Landover Part 17

Time slipped away, and still they didn't find the back wall. Mistaya began to grow impatient-and more than a little uneasy.

Finally, Thom brought them to a halt once more. "We need to start back," he whispered in her ear. His face was so close she could feel the heat of his body. "The glow sticks are half gone."

"Why is it taking so long?" she hissed.

"I don't know. It didn't take this long before. It took much less time. Something is wrong."

"I think it's magic that's making us think the room is much larger and the way much longer!" She hesitated. "I know a little about how it works."

To his credit, he didn't ask for an explanation. "You want to go on?"

"For a little longer. I think we can find our way back."

They pushed on, their sense of urgency growing exponentially. Mistaya wasn't certain how much longer they could search, but she didn't want to give up until she absolutely had to. Thom, she sensed, wouldn't quit before she did, no matter what. His pride wouldn't let him. He was the older and stronger of the two; he would tough it out for as long as she did.

Then, all of a sudden, she heard the voice.

Help me! Help me!

From the way Thom drew up short, his body going rigid, she knew that he had heard it, too.

"Just ahead!" she whispered encouragingly, even though she wasn't at all sure that this was so.

But then she felt the pressure from whatever it was that had gripped Thom two weeks earlier, a sucking at the air about her that gripped her and held her fast, pulling her forward. She saw Thom lurch and stumble, his arms flailing. They collapsed in a tangle of limbs, grasping first at each other and then at the shelving units, trying unsuccessfully to get hold of something as they skidded along the floor and down the aisle. Whatever was pulling them forward was more powerful than she had expected, an irresistible force she could not fight against. She tried to get into a kneeling position, yet the force not only pulled her relentlessly ahead but held her down. The glow stick flew from her hand and was lost. She almost lost her grip on Thom, but just barely managed to hang on to one of his strong legs.

Ahead, a huge blackness hove into view, a tunnel of such impenetrable darkness that it looked as if it would swallow them whole. In that moment, she thought they were lost. So much so that she began to summon her magic in a last-ditch attempt to save them.

But Thom, resourceful as always, finally managed to grab hold of a leg of one of the shelving units and pull them both over to huddle against the heavy structure, anchoring them in place against the sucking force. She heard a sound like breathing, deep and powerful, and the force increased. But Thom held them fast, refusing to give in to it. She pressed herself against him, tucking her head against his leg, her face flattened to the worn wooden floor of the room.

Which was when she felt the sudden flush of warmth against her face. She jerked away in surprise, but then pressed down again with her cheek to make sure. The floor was pulsing softly, a sensation that was unmistakable. There was a life force embedded in the wooden boards. She felt the beating of its heart, and the entire experience was suddenly so familiar that she could hardly believe it. She knew what this was! She had known since she was a child!

It was Sterling Silver, the castle that cared for and nurtured the Kings and Queens of Landover and their families. It sheltered and protected them against the elements and enemies alike. It warmed them when they were cold and cooled them when they were hot. It provided them with food and clothing. It could determine their physical needs and to a very large extent satisfy them.

It was her home!

But how could that be? Sterling Silver was a sentient being formed of magic-infused materials, and it was the only one of its kind. Was it really the castle's life force she was feeling? If so, how had it found its way here when it was rooted in the bedrock of the island on which it had been built?

The glow stick that Thom held went out, and they were left in blackness. The sucking force continued to pull at them for a long time after that, but finally it eased into a soft breathing and then ceased altogether. Mistaya and Thom lay together, listening to the silence, waiting for something more. Mistaya kept her face pressed to the floor, but the warmth she had felt earlier was fading away.

Don't go, she thought. Don't leave me Don't leave me.

But there was nothing she could do to make it stay, and seconds later it was gone.

She sat up again cautiously, placing her back against the shelving unit that had served as an anchor, the darkness deep and unbroken all around. The warmth she had felt in the floor and the pulsing of the life that had created it had both disappeared.

Mistaya could not understand. What had just happened?

"I think we should quit for tonight," Thom said softly, a disembodied voice in the black.

"I suppose so," she agreed. She was silent a moment, and then she said, "Thom, did you feel anything in the floor?"

She could hear him sitting up next to her. "Like what?"

"A pulsing, a warmth?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "I was busy trying to hold on to the shelving so we wouldn't be sucked down into that tunnel. Did you feel all that? The pulsing and the warmth?"

She wasn't sure what to say now. "I might have been mistaken," she answered. "I was pretty scared."

He laughed quietly. "So was I. It wasn't any easier this time, even knowing what to expect. But I won't give up if you won't."

She reached out and squeezed his arm. "You know I won't give up. Thanks for sticking with me."

They rose and began groping their way back down the aisle, using the edges of the shelves to guide them, careful to keep together in the deep gloom. They didn't speak of what had happened, knowing it was better to wait until later. Mistaya wondered how much time had pa.s.sed. If magic had obscured distance and light, it could have obscured time, as well. It could have obscured everything they had experienced. Nothing might have been what they thought it was.

Yet she couldn't dismiss the strong feeling of recognition that had flooded through her. She wasn't mistaken about that, but she didn't know what it meant. Was she sensing the presence of her home? Had Sterling Silver reached out to her somehow? Was it a warning that something was wrong at home? Or perhaps it wasn't the castle at all. Perhaps it was Libiris she was feeling. But if so, why did it feel like it was alive?

Those questions, in turn, made her wonder anew about the voice. Exactly who was it that was calling?

They had almost reached the front of the Stacks and Mistaya was thinking of how good it was going to feel to sleep when a hunched figure appeared abruptly in their path, and a familiar wizened face lifted into the pale wash of the moonlight.

"Out for a little nighttime walk, are we?" asked Rufus Pinch with a visible sneer.

"We were just ...," Mistaya began.

"Just looking for ...," Thom picked up.

Pinch held up both hands. "Doing what you were expressly forbidden to do. That's what you were doing! Well, now you're going to have to pay the price for your disobedience, aren't you? His Eminence will know how to deal with you!"

Mistaya felt her heart sink. She had ruined everything.

"Off to your rooms!" Pinch ordered, making shooing motions with his hands. "Don't even think of trying to do anything else. Lock yourselves in and remain there until sunrise. Then report to His Eminence first thing. Now go! Get!"

Obediently, Mistaya and Thom headed out of the Stacks. Mistaya was miserable. She would be sent home for certain. In all likelihood, Thom would be punished in some equally unpleasant way. And it was all because of her.

"Don't worry," Thom declared cheerfully as they parted for the night.

"I won't," she promised. But of course, she already was.

She reached her bedroom sunk in a miasma of gloom and dark thoughts, opened the door, and nearly jumped with fright when a tall, gangly figure seated on the edge of her bed abruptly stood.

"h.e.l.lo, Mistaya," said Questor Thews, and held out his hands in greeting.

REVELATIONS.

Mistaya gave a small cry of mingled relief and joy and rushed over to her old friend, wrapping her arms about him with such ferocity that she could hear his shocked gasp. She crushed his body against hers, the feel of his bony frame, all the angles and k.n.o.bs so wonderfully familiar and welcome. Her reaction surprised her, but it didn't lessen the intensity of her enthusiasm. She had never been so glad to see anyone in her life.

"Mistaya, goodness!" he managed, his voice a bit strangled, but obviously pleased. "Did you miss me so much?"

"I did did miss you," she whispered into his shoulder. "Oh, I'm so glad you're here!" miss you," she whispered into his shoulder. "Oh, I'm so glad you're here!"

The long, thin hands patted her hair comfortingly. "Well, I would have come sooner had I known you were in such distress. Of course, it would have helped if you had told me just where you were."

"I know, I know. I'm sorry. But I just couldn't ..."

She gave a deep, long sigh, and then she backed away from him far enough that they were eye-to-eye. "How did did you find me?" you find me?"

"It was a guess," he advised, rather sheepishly. "When we couldn't find you any other way, Abernathy and I tried to think where the last place was that we would expect you to go. A kind of reverse psychology, I suppose. We put ourselves in your shoes-which isn't all that easy to do, I might add-and we came up with Libiris. It didn't make a whole lot of sense, but we were running out of options. So we decided to come here and see if we might possibly be right."

"Abernathy is here, too?"

"Outside with the G'home Gnomes." The blue eyes twinkled. "They gave you up, I am afraid. They couldn't help themselves. They denied everything, but when G'home Gnomes deny everything, it is usually true. I left them in Abernathy's care and came inside for a look."

"But how did you manage that? This place is guarded like a fortress!"

"Oh, I know a few tricks about how to get in and out of places." He took her hands in his own and squeezed them. "Come. Sit down on the bed while we talk. My bones do not allow for prolonged periods of standing in place anymore."

They sat on the bed, the scarecrow wizard and the young girl to whom he had always been mentor and friend. She kept one arm around him, as if afraid she might lose him. It was uncharacteristic of her to be so clingy; she saw herself as independent and strong, not as a child in need of an adult's protective presence. But just now, in this time and place, all that seemed unimportant.

"It wasn't their fault, you know," she told him. "Poggwydd went with me to grandfather because I made him. I threatened him. I told him that if he didn't come with me, he'd be blamed for my disappearing because he was the last one to be seen with me." She felt embarra.s.sed by her admission, but didn't back away from it. "The truth is, I was afraid to go alone. Shoopdiesel just happened along and stayed because he's Poggwydd's friend."

Questor Thews nodded. "I thought it might be something like that. Their attempts at an explanation suggested as much. They kept insisting that they only did what was necessary to look after you. I guess that included bringing you here, too."

"No, they didn't have anything to do with that. That was all because of the cat."

"Edgewood Dirk?"

She sighed, somehow unsurprised that the wizard knew. "He showed up at Elderew after Grandfather said I would have to go home. He was the one who suggested that n.o.body would think to look for me at Libiris. He said he'd come with me and hide me with his magic from any other magic that might uncover my presence." She shrugged. "I don't know what I was thinking, coming to the one place I said I wouldn't go. But I came, anyway. It just seemed to be the only thing to do. He was pretty persuasive."

"Edgewood Dirk can be like that. But you have to be careful of him."

"I guess so. Once we got here, he disappeared, and I haven't seen him since. I don't know where he went."

Questor grimaced. "If I know Dirk-and I do-he will not have gone very far away. You have to understand. A Prism Cat is a fairy creature, and his motives are his own. But he always does things for a reason, and bringing you here was not accidental. He brought you here for a purpose. You just don't know what it is yet."

He gave her a rea.s.suring smile. "Now tell me everything else that happened."

Well, she wasn't about to do that, of course. And she didn't. But she did tell him some of it: her arrival at Libiris and Rufus Pinch's refusal to admit her; Thom's intervention; His Eminence's decision to let her remain and work with her "brother" in the Stacks; the terrible impossibility of the task to which she and Thom had been set; the ways in which they were spied upon and mistrusted by both His Eminence and Pinch. Finally, she worked her way around to the two questions that weighed most heavily on her mind and to which she was hoping he might provide the answers.

"A couple of very strange things happened during the last few days, Questor," she began. "Yesterday, I heard a voice calling out to me. Or to someone, at any rate. I heard it clearly. Thom heard it too, both tonight and several weeks earlier, before I got here. We talked about it. We don't think we were mistaken."

She chose her words carefully. She had no intention of revealing too many details. If Questor thought she was in any real danger, he would take her away at once, and she wasn't yet ready to go. For starters, things with Thom were just getting interesting. Besides, she didn't think that she was in any real danger.

Questor nodded as if he understood. "You probably did hear something."

"All right," she continued, wanting to get the rest of it out before she heard what he had to say on the matter. "The other thing is that while I was lying on the floor, just resting for a moment"-she was making it up as she went-"I put my cheek against the wooden boards and felt a pulse and a warmth that reminded me instantly of Sterling Silver. But I don't understand how that could be."

She waited for his response, which wasn't given immediately. Instead, the wizard pursed his lips, c.o.c.ked first one and then the other eyebrow, narrowed his eyes, and then drew in and let out a long, sustained breath.

"Well," he said, as if that pretty much covered it.

"Well, what?"

"If you had not gone off on your own, so determined that none of what has already happened would would happen, if instead you had taken the time to learn about Libiris first, you might have avoided a good deal of the confusion in which you now find yourself mired." happen, if instead you had taken the time to learn about Libiris first, you might have avoided a good deal of the confusion in which you now find yourself mired."

He held up one finger in warning as she was about to object. "I just think you need to hear how difficult you have made things for people who love you before I tell you what you want to know. You caused us all a great deal of worry, Mistaya. It isn't as if you didn't know we would wonder whether something had happened to you. We have all been thinking of little else since you disappeared. If your grandfather had not sent word that you came to see him, we might not even have known that much."

"I know," she said. She had left them dangling, running off like that. But what choice did she have? Still, an apology couldn't hurt. "I'm sorry," she added, only half meaning it.

He gave an emphatic nod. "Then we shall put this behind us. Let me tell you a few things about Libiris that you do not know. Things, I would point out again, that I would have told you much earlier had you agreed to come here voluntarily with me as your companion. But it is not too late to rectify that now."

He paused. "I suppose I should start by telling you that you are not mistaken in believing that Libiris feels like Sterling Silver. It does, and there is a good reason for it. The buildings share a commonality that you know nothing about. Sterling Silver was constructed of materials and magic in equal parts in a time long since forgotten. She was created to be a sentient being, a caregiver for Landover's Kings and Queens, a protector for their families. You know all this from your studies. Libiris shares something of those same characteristics, though to a lesser extent. When the old King had her built, back in the years before your father became ruler, he did so using materials taken from Sterling Silver. He did so in hopes that Libiris, like Sterling Silver, would take on a life of its own and become a living organism that would care for its books just as the King's castle cared for its royal family."

He gave her a knowing look. "Why could this be so? Because the Kings of Landover had discovered over the years that left to her own devices and occupied by a true king, Sterling Silver would take care of herself without human or fairy a.s.sistance. She could repair damage, brighten tarnish, clean off dirt and grime, and generally revitalize herself all on her own. It only became a problem for her to perform when no King sat upon the throne and the central purpose of her existence was undermined.

"The old King, then, instructed the court wizard to remove shelving throughout the castle to form the foundation for the Stacks and to take some stone from the battlements and ramparts to cap the walls of the library buildings. Just enough magically infused material to give Libiris a life of her own. Just enough so that she, too, would be able to function as an independent ent.i.ty. Of course, this process was not an exact science, and the old King's belief that you could graft pieces of one building onto another and get the same results was flawed. Nor did it help that his court wizard was my brother, who was already planning to take control when the old King was dead."

He sighed. "So the effort failed, although not altogether. Libiris did become a sentient being, but on a much lower level of intelligence than Sterling Silver. There simply were not enough magically enhanced materials employed to achieve the desired result. The old King ended up with a building that was little more than a child. It could perform basic tasks, but it lacked the capacity for critical thought and problem solving. Its ability to care for itself and the books it housed was severely limited."

"But was it Libiris that I heard calling out to me?" she pressed.

"Of course. The feeling of life in the flooring of the stacks and of a pulse that signaled a living presence was not something you imagined. Libiris is alive, and she obviously chose chose to call out to you and to make herself known. Perhaps she senses a kinship born of your connection with Sterling Silver. I don't know. I can only guess." to call out to you and to make herself known. Perhaps she senses a kinship born of your connection with Sterling Silver. I don't know. I can only guess."

Mistaya thought about it a moment. Questor's story explained most of what she had encountered, but not all. There was nothing that explained the black hole in the back of the Stacks or the fact that the Stacks themselves seemed to go on endlessly or that there was magic being employed to disguise time and place and to mute light. She didn't think this could be the work of Libiris, given her limitations. This was someone or something else. Then there was the matter of the conversation she had overheard between His Eminence and Pinch. Clearly, it had something to do with what was happening at Libiris.

But she couldn't tell him any of this or even talk about it in general terms without giving him too many reasons to spirit her back home.

"What do you think I should do about the meeting tomorrow morning with His Eminence?" she asked instead. "How do I explain what Thom and I did so that he won't banish us?"

Questor Thews frowned reprovingly. "You are a Princess of Landover, Mistaya Holiday, and you do not answer to people like Craswell Crabbit or Rufus Pinch for anything. Once you have revealed yourself to them, we can dismiss this matter and return home."

"What?" She jumped to her feet, her worst fear realized. "What are you saying? Go home? I can't go home!"

Questor was suddenly fl.u.s.tered. "But why not? I can't just leave you here, Mistaya! What do you expect me to do-go back and let your parents continue to wonder what has happened to you?"

Well, in point of fact, she did. But she also knew from the way he said it that she had better change her thinking. Besides, he was right. She couldn't just leave her parents hanging with the possibility that she might be injured or in trouble. Still, she didn't want them to interfere with what she was doing.

She took a deep, steadying breath. "I won't give up on what I'm doing as if it didn't matter," she said to the wizard, emphasizing her words. "I have to see this through, and I don't want to do it as a Princess of Landover. I want to do it as Thom's sister, Ellice. I don't expect you to understand this. But it's something I've started that I intend to finish. I want to know more about that voice trying to communicate with me. I think there was a reason for it, Questor, and I have to stay long enough to find out what it is."

The old man shook his head. "I don't like it. I don't trust Crabbit or Pinch. Especially Crabbit. You don't know him as I do, Mistaya. For starters, he is a wizard and a very dangerous one at that. He was exiled to Libiris by the old King, well before your father's time in Landover, for that very reason. It was necessary to put him somewhere that he wouldn't cause trouble."

"What sort of trouble had he caused earlier?" she asked, curious now.

Questor sighed. "This and that. He was an ambitious sort and lacked anything remotely connected to scruples. He was intent on advancing his position at court, and he didn't care what it took to achieve that end. The position he coveted most was my own. Unfortunately for him, it was occupied at the time by my brother, the man who recruited your father to Landover and very nearly added him to a long list of failed rulers. But my brother was a more formidable adversary than Craswell Crabbit antic.i.p.ated, and he was quick to recognize the other's ambitions and was responsible for his exile. Crabbit's magic made him a dangerous man, but my brother was more dangerous still."