The Rings of Salammis

Apprehension

     They left the clay man alone for a couple of hours, to stew on its condition. Seskip would have liked to have left it for a day or two, to allow it to sink to a really satisfactory level of despair, but there was young Bobby Fell to think of and there was no way of knowing how long the saboteurs would remain at the rendezvous point. After attending to a couple of unrelated matters, therefore, he gave his instructions to his proctors and then he, Ewen Petrie and Borgh Ulbah, the two whose intelligence and common sense he trusted the most, returned to the cell. They freed the clay man from the chair, clapped it in irons and led it up to the surface.

     "You think they won't be suspicious when they see these?" Yyathum demanded, holding up his manacled hands.

     "By the time they see you it'll be too late," replied the Head Proctor. "Now walk."

     In fact, Seskip had cast an illusion spell on the clay man without its knowing, so that those they passed saw a young Beltharan soldier walking confidently across the University grounds. Yyathum didn't see the illusion himself, as is the way with illusion spells, and so he was astonished and dumbfounded by the way the wizards they passed gave him only a sidelong glance before going on their way.

     Seskip invited the clay man to take the lead, and with a sigh of resignation it did so, stepping out across the open grasslands between the buildings and the encircling mountains. Before stepping out of cover, the three proctors cast spells on themselves and faded out of sight as a magical field diverted light around their bodies. "Do not think you are alone," the Head Proctor whispered into the clay man's ear. "You are surrounded by forces that can destroy you in a moment, and Mengull's slab is still waiting." Yyathum nodded sullenly.

     It took only a couple of minutes for the proctors to find that they were heading for a gap in the mountain chain; a narrow valley that wound a few miles into the mountains before terminating in a dead end. That valley contained half a dozen castles and mansion houses, moved into place by elderly wizards over the centuries as retirement homes, and only one was currently occupied. The Lamaniss mansion, owned by a wizard who had served in the Beltharan army. Seskip frowned. Lamaniss would doubtless still have many friends in that country's army, some of whom might very well be in the valley right now, training for a place aboard the Ship of Space. A perfect cover for people passing back and forth. On the other hand, a single fixed base of operations would be too vulnerable to discovery. More likely they moved from place to place, in which case they could be in any of the other five castles. Be patient, he told himself sternly. You'll know soon enough.

     The clay man took the path leading to the empty Spindrush mansion, one of the first of the houses to be moved into the valley five hundred years before, even before the last of the actual University buildings had been magicked across from their previous home in the Endless Plains. Since then it had been occupied many times by many different wizards, the most recent of whom had been old Escalanus, a crotchety old man who'd gone to his eternal reward at about the same time that Tragius Demonbinder and his gang of rebels had blown the city of Arnor into the next plane of existence. Seskip had had his own eye on the castle recently. He liked the fact that it overlooked the research buildings. He'd be able to go on keeping an eye on his younger colleagues even after his retirement. The idea that it might have been occupied by a desperate gang of alien saboteurs filled him with rage, therefore, and he filled the forefront of his mind with a whole arsenal of attack spells. Enough to turn half the mountain into a puddle of molten slag.

     He was surprised and relieved, therefore, when the clay man turned aside from the path and began scrambling up a scrubby rock face, holding onto the tough, twisted stems of stunted shrubs with his manacled hands to help pull himself up. Seskip's two companions stared after him in dismay, but Seskip himself activated his levitation spell again and floated after the shape changer, staring higher up the craggy slope in an attempt to see where they were going. He reflected upon the fact that a cat would have been able to leap up the slope easily, whereas only a foolish human would dare to attempt the dangerous climb. Another point in favour of the felisian theory. He looked down with his magically augmented senses that enabled him to see through invisibility spells, useful for catching mischievous apprentices keen to try out their spells on any convenient symbol of authority. They allowed him to see his two companions beginning to attempt the climb, cursing and grumbling as they went.