The Spell of Undoing (15 page)

‘You came here on your
own?’
Tab gasped.

Philmon shrugged. ‘We couldn't alert the City Watch. If they knew Tolrush was so close they'd have alerted the Navigators’ Guild and they'd have fled faster than you could say “drop dead”.’

Tab was amazed, and humbled. It must have taken a lot of nerve for both of them to come and rescue her. This was probably the first time in her life that she knew that other people actually cared about her. She felt an odd stinging in the back of her eyes.

‘Nearly there,’ said Philmon as they reached an arched doorway. They had been following an enclosed passageway between high walls. Tolrush was a grim rat's warren of alleyways, tunnels and interconnected streets that had long ago been built over, forming even more tunnels.

‘Hold!’ growled a voice.

The children skidded to a stop in front of four armed guards. ‘What we got here? A scurrying rat pack, no less!’ one of them said. ‘And fell right into our trap, they did.’

‘Behind me,’ Amelia said.

‘The skinny girl and the boy alive,’ said the leader. ‘Kill the others.’

Amelia blew into her hands and something not quite invisible sparkled like a gust of vapour, smothering the nearest guard. He coughed and buckled over.

Philmon snatched up the fallen man's sword and waved it uncertainly. ‘Stay back,’ he threatened, his voice almost breaking.

‘Take them!’ snarled the leader.

A guard smashed down on Philmon's sword, jarring his arm. The sword clattered to the floor but Tab leapt forward and snatched it up, raising its point just as the guard advanced, almost skewering him. He leapt back just in time, bellowing a curse as he tripped over his fallen comrade and slammed backwards into the wall. There was a nasty
crunch
as his head connected, and he dropped.

Meanwhile Amelia's shaking hands wove a quick spell and the third guard's face went suddenly blank, as though he didn't know where he was.

But now the first guard who had fallen was getting up. The leader shouldered past him, cried ‘Enough!’ and swung his sword. It sliced through the air an inch above Philmon's ducking head. Amelia, drained from her use of magic, slumped against the wall. Tab tried to block the leader's way, brandishing Philmon's sword, but she knew she was useless at fencing.

Someone blocked the light from the doorway. Tab's heart sank. Reinforcements had arrived.

‘Drop your weapons else I'll slay the lot of you,’ warned the leader, who had also seen the shadow.

Then a chair came crashing down on his head and he fell like a sack of wheat. The first guard, his head clearing, took to his feet, and bolted.

The man in the doorway stepped forward.

‘Fontagu?’ exclaimed Tab. She couldn't believe her eyes. ‘Wha – how –?’

‘Never mind all that,’ said Fontagu in a quavering voice. ‘Let us flee this horrible place!’ The Tolrushian sergeant groaned. Fontagu started. ‘He's not dead, is he?’

Amelia said, ‘Usually they don't groan when they're dead.’

‘Right,’ Fontagu mumbled.

‘Is this
the
Fontagu?’ Philmon asked, wonderingly. ‘The one you told us about?’

‘Yeah,’ said Tab, still amazed to see her friend.

‘I thought you said he was dead.’

‘I thought he was,’ Tab replied, dropping the sword and replacing it with a sturdy dagger.

Amelia looked at Fontagu through narrowed eyes. ‘He's about the same size as the one who guided the Tolrushians.’

‘I've just saved your wretched lives,’ said Fontagu petulantly. ‘And I've been a prisoner here too, you know.’ He glared at them.

‘You don't look as though you've been tortured to me,’ accused Amelia. This wasn't quite true. Fontagu did look thin and pale and his eyes were red-rimmed, but whether from poor treatment or crying, it was hard to tell. He was, however, wearing clean and rather expensive clothes.

‘Tortured!’ Fontagu cried theatrically. ‘Bound and gagged, half drowned, beaten to within an inch of my life, starved and driven mad with thirst –’

‘I think I saw that play,’ said Tab. Then she was struck by a sudden, rather unpleasant idea. She looked at Fontagu. ‘They captured you during the battle, didn't they? And you've been a prisoner ever since … ’

‘Oh, I could tell you tales of woe … ’ he began, but Tab cut him off.

‘That attack on Quentaris was a ruse to land a boarding party. They were really searching for you. You told them that I knew where the icefire was hidden. That's what happened, isn't it?’

Fontagu began to bluster. ‘Me? Well, really! Shame on you! You think I would hand over my only friend in Quentaris? What sort of man do you think I am?’

Tab said nothing. She continued to stare at him.

He broke down in a rush, falling to his knees and wailing, ‘Don't blame me, Tab. I couldn't help myself. They were going to poke out my eyes with a red-hot poker … I would never have acted again!’

Amelia and Philmon glared at him. Amelia snatched up a sword and looked as if she was going to run him through. ‘Because of you,’ she said, ‘Tolrush now has the magicians’ icefire gem and you nearly got Tab killed!’

Fontagu was weeping. Tab stepped between him and Amelia. There had been one brief flash of resentment when she had found out that Fontagu had betrayed her, but then she remembered her own torture, and Torby's, and how she had quickly caved in and told them where to find the icefire.

People like Kull Vladis always knew how to reveal the thing each person feared most, how to find their breaking point.

She stuck out her hand. Fontagu looked at it, not understanding at first, then he took it, still weeping, but with a kind of wonder.

‘I don't blame you, Fontagu,’ said Tab. She helped him to his feet. ‘But it's a pity about the icefire.’

Fontagu stared at her, then smote his forehead. ‘Oh, but it's not,’ he said.

Amelia muttered something darkly. Fontagu stepped around Tab, making sure she was between him and the more hot-tempered Amelia. He reached into his pocket and drew out the icefire in question.

Amelia and Philmon's mouths gaped. Tab stared. Torby eyed the gem with wonder.

‘How –?’ Tab began.

‘Well, I do have some skills you know … and the master magician does like to keep things in his pockets … ’

Amelia gaped. ‘You
stole
it again?’

Fontagu tried to look bashful, and failed.

‘Now we'd
really
better get out of here,’ said Amelia, ‘’cause they're going to come after us with everything they've got!’

Leading the way, Amelia hurried through several passageways, covered courtyards, and a long narrow lane. They came out into a square open to the sky. At the same time, a platoon of guards entered from the opposite side. Sighting their quarry, the guards charged, bellowing.

‘This way!’ shouted Philmon.

They fled up a stairwell to a tower that bordered the square. At the top, Tab slammed shut the stairwell door and drew the bolt. The door wouldn't hold for long, but it gave them breathing space.

‘Now what? We're trapped!’ said Tab. Fontagu wailed softly. Torby said nothing.

Amelia had rushed onto a large balcony. It was some eight storeys from the ground. ‘I'll have to try summoning the boat. We'll never get there with that lot on our heels.’

She closed her eyes and concentrated.

Tab could see sweat breaking out on her forehead. Summoning an object as large as a rowboat was no joke. Even some fully-fledged magicians couldn't manage something like that.

Just then, an impact nearly tore the door half off its hinges.

‘Hurry!’ hissed Philmon, darting looks back and forth between Amelia and the door. More pounding came. Bits of plaster fell from the wall around the door frame.

Tab hurried out to stand by Amelia's side, as if her presence might somehow help. Then she gasped. ‘What are they doing? Why are they just sitting there?’

Barely a mile away, cruising slowly under full sail, was Quentaris. ‘They don't know Tolrush is here,’ said Philmon. ‘Tolrush is cloaked. When we followed the raiding party, we couldn't figure where they were going. I mean, there was nothing there. Then suddenly we were here.’

‘You mean, this whole city's invisible?’ asked Tab.

‘And sort of soundproof, too,’ said Philmon. ‘It's like there's a bubble or something around it. So Quentaris doesn't even know we're here. They can't see us.’

Behind them, the pounding had intensified. Any second now and the door would crash in, and it would all be over. ‘I'm sorry I got you two into this,’ said Tab to Amelia and Philmon.

Philmon pushed his way in front of the girls. ‘Nonsense,’ he said.

‘We're trapped like rats,’ wailed Fontagu.

‘Look!’ cried Philmon.

Rising into view beyond the balcony's rail was an old rowing boat. Unseaworthy, with ragged tears in its planking, it nonetheless floated in mid-air. Tab looked at it doubtfully. It didn't appear sturdy enough to carry the five of them.

Amelia wove her hands in the air and the boat drew closer, and bumped into the balcony's rail. One of its planks popped out from the impact and fell into the street far below.

Fontagu pushed past the others and climbed unsteadily into the boat. It tipped and yawed with his weight. ‘Hurry, you fools!’ he screamed.

The children needed no urging, for just then, the stairway door crashed in. Yells and curses followed, and bodies falling over one another, then pounding feet coming straight for the balcony.

Philmon dragged Tab into the boat and Amelia vaulted the railing and joined them. The rowboat shuddered and started to pull away from the balcony, but with agonising slowness. They weren't going to make it.

At the same moment, Tab realised Torby wasn't with her. She spun wildly. He wasn't in the boat. ‘Amelia, stop!’ she shouted frantically. ‘Where's Torby?’

‘There he is!’ yelled Philmon. Tab gasped. Torby was standing in the middle of the balcony. When Tab cried out his name he turned and looked at her with his owl-like eyes. Then the Tolrushians rushed them.

There was a blinding flash of light. Then nothing. The balcony was empty.

‘Wh-what? What happened?’

The boat rocked as though a large wave had hit it.

‘We have to go back!’ yelled Tab.

‘We can't,’ said Amelia. ‘Tab, I'm sorry. It's all I can do to get us home – and I may not be able to do that … ’

Tab stood up, went to leap back to the balcony, but suddenly Fontagu's arms were around her, dragging her back into the boat. ‘He's gone, Tab,’ he screamed. ‘He's gone. We must think of ourselves!’

In another moment the crisis had passed. The rowboat was now too far from the balcony for anyone to think of jumping to it.

Tab slumped against Fontagu. She had promised Torby that she would protect him, no matter what. And he had trusted her …

Tears spilled down her cheeks. She felt awful. Was it always this easy to betray someone?

Fontagu produced a monogrammed silk handkerchief, the kind that equalled a week's wages for a poor Quentaran, and dabbed the perspiration from his brow. Noticing Amelia and Philmon glaring at him, he offered the handkerchief to Tab. She snatched it from his hand and wiped her eyes and blew her nose. Then she offered it back to Fontagu.

He eyed the dampened handkerchief with disdain. ‘Consider it a gift,’ he said through gritted teeth.

The boat picked up speed as it sailed out over the rooftops of Tolrush, avoiding Kull's castle which protruded from the portside like a dark tumour.

‘I'm glad that's over,’ said Philmon, breathing a sigh.

But he had spoken too soon. A flurry of arrows suddenly whizzed past them. Several twanged into the bottom of the boat and one came whistling through the gap where the plank had fallen off.

‘They're firing from that rooftop,’ said Tab, pointing.

Amelia muttered something, wove her hands in the air. The boat tossed and twisted, nearly flipping over at one point. Philmon and Fontagu looked ill.

‘You idiot!’ Fontagu screamed as the boat spiralled downwards instead of up. ‘We're doomed! Oh! Oh!’

The boat righted itself and began to fly straight, though it sagged alarmingly at the stern. Everyone had to hold on tight to stay aboard.

‘I'm falling!’ Fontagu screamed piteously. Tab grabbed him and tugged. The boat suddenly veered into a clear area, away from the higher towers, but several planks popped their rivets and were snapped away, as if torn by a buffeting wind.

‘We're breaking up. Do something!’ cried Fontagu.

‘Yeah,’ growled Amelia, ‘somebody do something. Gag him, so I can concentrate.’

Philmon awkwardly clamped a hand across Fontagu's mouth. Over the top of Philmon's hand, Tab could see Fontagu's eyes bulge.

Amelia was struggling to keep the boat moving and under control. They began to lose height, though they were still high above Quentaris.

Faster and faster they fell. The ground appeared to rush up at them. Then, just as a crash-landing seemed inevitable, they veered off towards Quentaris. Amelia groaned and her eyes rolled back.

By now Amelia was white-faced and shaking from trying to keep them in the air. The boat continued to lose height in an alarming fashion.