Young Writers Society

Chapter Sixteen: 

Fright and Flight

Malkolm was lost.

He bit down on his tongue as he looked around the corridor he was currently standing in, trying with all his might not to curse in his frustration. He had managed to shake Kelm off in the main hall, stating that he would be fine finding a suitable tower on his own--if his terse, jumbled up sentence could even qualify as a statement--and he did not require any servants to accompany him, anyway. A simple Floating Spell was more than enough to carry the large wreck of a carriage along the castle’s wide halls.

It was quite a sight for all the maids, watching ‘the young boy in that ridiculous Ixister garb’ strutting down corridors and bumping into the roughcast walls. Malkolm spared one of the giggling maids a fierce look as she scurried into the scullery. He couldn’t help the fact that he was so clumsy, really, it was magically induced--and part of the reason he had refused Kelm and Smeth’s help in navigating the castle was because of this. With most of his attention focussed on Arlene, it was a surprise he could walk, let alone communicate coherently with anyone. He did not particularly want to become a bumbling fool in front of Donovan Smeth, war hero, Legal Advisor to the king himself. His pride would not permit it.

Although, he thought dazedly, as he crashed into another wall, it was not helping matters for him to be meandering through the castle like a drunkard either. He shook his head to clear it, another slew of Arlene’s sporadic rushes of panic beating on the inside of his skull. The mirror he had tucked under his arm was burning hot; warmth trickled down from his scalp as his hair turned bright pink, and he was certain that his face was a boiling scarlet, too.

He ran a hand through his hair, cringing as it came back wet, and wiped his sweaty palm on a nearby tapestry. That would leave a stain, he was sure, but he really could not bring himself to care. His head was throbbing, filled with Arlene’s screaming--he was sure, in fact, that her ragged breathing and erratic heartbeat was mirrored by his own. The effort of twining his consciousness to hers was increasing by the second.

Turning yet another corner, Malkolm walked through a stone archway and found himself looking up a stairwell and breathed a sigh of relief. Flicking a hand at the carriage, he managed to distort its shape and fit it through the archway. He continued up the spiral staircase, stopping only as his breathing worsened and his head spun. Arlene was not doing well. He shook his head, rubbing at the back of his neck with a shaking hand.

God, I feel sick.

Biting down on the end of his sleeve, he heaved himself to his feet, and continued walking up the stairs.

When he reached the top, he groaned. The ceiling here was vaulted and low, and there wasn’t a window in sight.

‘A cellar in a tower,’ he muttered. ‘Really.’

He sat down again, casting a look around the tower-cellar. The entire castle was garishly decorated, and this room was no exception. Tapetries in the royal colours covered most of the harling walls; there were paintings of war-scenes and past kings and queens hanging on the walls; and even the beams on the ceiling had been hand-painted with the text from a famous epic, Kingdoms of the Eyre. He scoffed when his gaze landed on the flower-shaped gaslamps. They looked absolutely ridiculous.

All the luxury was rather inconvenient, in Malkolm’s opinion, nothing but a distracting impediment for lost, nearly-unconscious strangers looking for a way out--it was also unneeded. He thought of the beggars he had seen whilst on an excursion to Syti, with the rest of the Sreya during his schooldays, and he frowned.

When he took Kelm’s place in the castle, he told himself, the first thing he would do was have some maps of the castle made and hung on the walls--tapestries be damned.

Five minutes later, following another almost panic-attack and several more bruises and bumps, Malkolm staggered into a tower. An actual, draughty tower with a landing pad for rentai. Malkolm exhaled noisily. There was a small cot in the corner, as well as a fireplace that was blocked up with large stones. It carried all the appearance of having been used as a prison, the walls stripped of harling. Malkolm’s gaze lingered on a patch of wall that was smeared with a rust-brown substance; it looked suspiciously like blood. He could not dwell on it, however, because Arlene had started once again to scream.

‘How deep is the dratted tunnel anyway?’ he asked the tower angrily. The wind whirled around the empty room in answer.

He managed to magic the carriage onto the landing pad, scrambling into it with all the grace of an addled hen; he tweaked the controls, muttering a quick floating spell and causing the engarvments along the floor of the control room to flicker and change to those that supported flight.

The last thing he did was open all the windows. Sunlight flooded the control room. Malkolm blinked furiously, squinting into the distance. Clouds gathered thickly over the hodgepodge of buildings; they looked like treacle spun into wool. Past the buildings, the land took a sudden dip, alluvium fanning out into the Re'acian desert; Malkolm could see sand dunes rising like small humps at the bottom. The carriage rattled. With the wind-screen down, there was nothing to stop the wind from hurling large amounts of sand into his face. He sputtered and magicked a visor to pull down over his eyes.

Then—carefully, slowly, he drove the carriage straight off the edge.

He could feel his face growing numb as the wind thrashed the carriage around; his teeth chattered and his hair turned a bright pink. As the carriage plunged towards the earth, his entire body was lifted into the air. He clutched the controls tighter, silently whispering a safety enchantment under his breath. A shimmering square of magical energy appeared below him, just as the carriage stopped abruptly, suspended in mid-air. His knees collided with his magical safeguard, but he had barely gotten his bearings again before the carriage was off again. It flew over the city, its wheels scraping the shingles off a nearby bell-tower.

Malkolm pulled himself to his feet, torn by the effort of keeping Arlene safe whilst manoeuvring the beastly metal bat of a wagon through the skies. The carriage seemed to have a mind of its own, however; it continued heading North, unperturbed even as a vulture nearly crashed into it. The land beneath Malkolm changed from cobbled stone to dry rock. He heaved a sigh.

He was off. And he could feel the safety-net he had cast over Arlene getting stronger as the Meare grew closer.

~*~

Later, it occurred to Malkolm that flight by dragon was preferable to flight by chunk-of-Meka-built-metal. He wished dearly that he had not sent the dragon that had taken him to the Meare back to the Council. His name was Doyle; Malkolm knew that the creature had liked him, because it was rare for a dragon to tell a rider its name. A name was a bond of trust between dragon and human. It meant that the dragon was loyal to you, unwaveringly loyal, and would recognise you immediately no matter where and when your fates entwined.

'I wouldn't mind fate being kinder right now,' Malkolm muttered. His face felt raw, his lips cracked and bleeding as the wind whipped mercilessly into the carriage. He shivered. 'Doyle would have ... would have ... saved a lot of time.' He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. He was struck by the thought of what Kelm would say if he could see him now, and a guttural laugh emitted from his throat. He quickly grew sombre again, however, as the engarvments on the floor flickered out—the carriage dipped downwards turbulently, and Malkolm waved his hand. The inside of the control room glowing with silvery light again, the engarvments changed shape and settled into an automatic flight pattern. Malkolm knew the path to the Meare by memory, and yet ... and yet...

It was taking every ounce of his strength to keep the carriage adrift. He had abandoned the controls long ago, that odd medley of buttons and knobs that were now moving on their own. They clicked and clacked, but Malkolm was hardly paying attention to them over the sound of Arlene's sporadic screams and fits of panic. He had taken the mirror out again, laid it on the floor where he sat, cross-legged, staring into its depths. Arlene was now hanging onto a rocky protrusion jutting out of the tunnel's wall—in the darkness, she had failed to notice that there was a hole directly above the protrusion, large enough for a man to crawl through, and incredibly similar to the many other holes pressing into the tunnel's side.

He groaned. She had been stuck in the same position for the last half-an-hour, and the screaming had ceased, to a degree, except when she tried to scrabble onto the rock and nearly slipped. He could not get into her head, but he had been sending strengthening charms her way, hoping that Elborn's niece was as smart as he had attested she was.

Apparently, thought Malkolm, she was not. He grunted and pressed his forehead against the mirror's cool surface. He was exhausted. He had not slept in over twenty-four hours and although the link he had built with Arlene was getting stronger and stronger, holding it up was burning his nerves to a crisp. He let his hot breath condense against the glass, wash over his face and warm his nose. He could have made his situation several times more comfortable with magic, but he was too tired to move.

Dusk sifted gently into the sky. He had flown over the River Jaib an hour ago, crossed the wild, foamy waters that flowed south-east, towards the swamps and the fishing villages of Gull and Till, before entering the Adreitian sea. The carriage cut through the air like it was a cherry-stone being spat to some far-off destination; it showed no intent of slowing down and Malkolm was, at least, pleased about this.

'Tentavus,' he muttered to the mirror, before peeling his face from it. He rubbed his forehead with the back of his palm, feeling tired and disgusting. He slowly got up and moved towards the wind-screen—or rather, the lack of wind-screen, for he had taken it down and laid it on the floor. Casting a quick glance at the view of the plains beneath the carriage, he calculated mentally that it would be well into nightfall by the time he reached the Meare. After that, he would have to navigate his way into Quixa's cave, and actually pull Arlene out of harm's way.

He assumed he would collapse as soon as he got to the Meare. His vision was already speckled with flies, anyway. He swayed slightly and groaned again, rubbing at his face. He pulled a length of caramel lace from his pocket and chewed on it, but felt too sick to swallow. So he sat down again, and tried to hold on.

It was at this point that Malkolm felt suddenly ... aware of someone else's presence in his head. The connection he had built with Arlene only centred on her emotions, not her thoughts—it was against Ixister Law to read into someone's mind—but his head felt empty, cavernous, as if echoes were bouncing inside it.

He blinked as Arlene's panic ebbed. His eyes widened and he rushed over to the mirror again. She was talking to someone. But there was no one there. He pushed himself to strengthen the link and hit a block. There was someone reading into her mind. He didn't know whether it was intentional or by accident, but Arlene was letting them in. 

'A mind-link,' he whispered, slightly awed. 'I didn't know the Meka's niece had that ability.' 

He watched as Arlene managed to climb onto the ledge of rock that jutted out of the tunnel wall. His muscles relaxed and his jaw unclenched as a sudden load was lifted from his mind. He exhaled noisily. 

A few minutes passed. Arlene managed to locate a small hole in the wall; Malkolm watched as she slid into it, amid violent bursts of colour. A tunnel, he thought, surprised. I know Quixa's caves are always filled with secrets, but I didn't suppose...

He lost track of the thought as his connection with Arlene abruptly broke. He felt lightweight--free, drunk on the relief that crashed into his body. He sighed, but his relief just as quickly turned into panic. What was he to do now? The first thing that occurred to him was that he was incredibly tired, but that he ought to let Elborn know that Arlene was safe. At least, he surmised she was. 

Growling in his throat, Malkolm stumbled toward the front of the carriage. Raking a hand through his hair, he took in the night sky. On one hand, the Meare was not far away. He could stop there for the night and then follow Arlene into the Meargro caves. On the other hand ... there was that job at the castle that Kelm had promised to trade him. Besides, Malkolm reasoned with himself, somebody has to tell Elborn his darling niece is safe. 

Knowing fully well that his decision was a stupid one, Malkolm changed course for Syti. He would catch a train back, he thought, and get to Durthnõt by mid-afternoon. Before that, he'd dispatch a messenger-orb to Elborn. 

'Wholly unnecessary,' he said, thinking out loud. 'I bet I'll arrive at the same time as the orb does.' 

He carried on southward, but could not ignore the churning feeling of guilt in the pit of his stomach. 

He hoped, for his sake, that Arlene was all right.