by Whatever swept me away in Torvaston’s tower felt like a species of Waymastery, though I had never before heard of the kind that operated on an involuntary target. Or that could achieve the process so smoothly. Not to disparage Jay’s skill; he does remarkable things with the pale, faded stuff we call “magick” in our Britain. But this was something else. Even the henge complexes weren’t quite so seamless.
‘Jay,’ I began, once reality solidified around me and I’d stopped moving. ‘How do you think this works? I mean, even the complexes require some kind of token, though maybe that’s more to do with tax revenue than—’ I stopped, because I abruptly realised I was alone. Neither Jay nor Goodie were anywhere in evidence.
I steadied myself, and took a long look around. I had been dropped in the middle of a room the size of a hay barn. Oceans of space opened up around me. I couldn’t immediately decide what the chamber was for. Bookcases were in evidence, running from floor to ceiling, which suggested a library, except that there were nowhere near enough of them. One wall featured a row of high tables which reminded me of those in Orlando’s workshop, but their surfaces were bare. The far end of the room sported enormous armchairs upholstered in silk, elegant little tables, and plush rugs strewn about the plain oak-boarded floor. At the other end, great crystal cabinets rose some eight or ten feet high, their doors shut, and a complicated chandelier hung from the ceiling, its lights composed of jewels in the same shades as Torvaston’s compass.
Not a sound disturbed the dense silence. It was the same stillness we had experienced in old Farringale, the kind resulting from a profound absence of life.
Like Farringale, it showed no other signs of long abandonment. Shafts of sunlight shone through the long windows, illuminating clear, dust-free air. No cobwebs drifted down from the ceiling. The luxurious upholstery of those grand armchairs was untouched by time, and the carpets were pristine.
Hardly surprising, I supposed. The enchantments that lingered at old Farringale must have been the work of Torvaston’s court; of course they would have brought those magicks with them.
I felt a moment’s unease, though, at all these parallels. What else did Torvaston’s tower have in common with old Farringale? Why was this place abandoned, and so-long sealed to the outside world? I thought of Alban and Emellana outside, and fervently hoped that the same fate as Farringale had not befallen this place. If the rocky promontory upon which this tower was built was infested with ortherex, they were in danger.
Probably it was lucky they had been obliged to stay outside.
‘Stop gawking, Ves,’ I murmured, and forced my feet to move. I could worry later about my companions, and time would soon tell where Jay and Goodie had ended up. Investigation beckoned, and I’d better get on with it.
Being me, I went first to the nearest bookcase. A perfunctory perusal revealed a slew of texts, mostly hand-written. None of them in any language I could read.
‘Mauf,’ I said, retrieving him. ‘If you’d be so kind? The scholars of Mandridore don’t have nearly enough to do already.’
‘Madam, I would be delighted,’ said Mauf, as I placed him on a low shelf.
I could swear I heard him giggle.
‘Good stuff?’ I said.
‘Delicious,’ he purred.
What might rank as delicious in Mauf’s odd little world, I judged it best not to enquire into. ‘Have fun,’ I told him. ‘But if you can make it quite quick, that would be great. We are, as ever, pressed for time.’
Mauf rustled his pages in a sigh. ‘Great work cannot be rushed, Miss Vesper.’
‘Nonetheless, you always manage it somehow. Thanks, Mauf.’
He did not reply. I hoped it was because he was absorbed in the task of soaking up knowledge, not because he was offended with me.
Then I wondered how it had come about that I worried over the tender feelings of a book. And considered this normal, to boot.
‘Life doesn’t get any simpler, does it?’ I said to the empty air as I wandered off to look at the cabinets. They were locked, of course, every one, and I could see nothing of their contents through the frosted glass doors.
Nothing else of any interest beckoned, and I stopped, nonplussed. The place had the look of a workroom about it, excepting perhaps the plush luxury of the armchair nook. But if it was Torvaston’s old inventing room, standing in it wasn’t helping me much. Whatever he and his colleagues might once have worked on was long gone. Or well hidden.
I went to a window, and glanced out. I was much higher up the tower, the view told me that much. But how close I was to the tower-top rooms, I could not tell.
‘Mauf,’ I said. ‘Time to explore. How are you getting along?’
‘I will need at least an hour,’ Mauf told me coolly.
‘We don’t have an hour. Can you prioritise?’
‘Which ones would you like me to prioritise?’
‘The… most interesting ones?’
‘Please elaborate on how you are defining the word “interesting” in this context.’
‘Um. The most important? No, don’t say it. I don’t know. Carry on.’
The silence that followed was broken by the sound of approaching footsteps, and I felt a surge of relief. ‘Jay,’ I said as the door opened. ‘Where did you get to— oh!’ Halfway to the door, I stopped dead, for the person coming through it was not Jay.
Nor was he human.
‘Sorry,’ I said numbly, paralysed with shock. Two minutes ago I had been certain that the tower was deserted; the absolute lack of signs of life, together with the deep silence, had equally proclaimed it. As had Wyr’s assertion that nobody had got inside in centuries.
But here was a living person, a troll, clad in the fashions of eighty or so years ago but very much alive. Elderly, judging from his white hair and stooped posture, though his face was largely unlined. He stared back at me with a shock to mirror my own, and stammered something I could not understand.
‘Apologies,’ I said, moving forward again. ‘I would not have barged in had I known I was intruding on somebody’s home — though to be quite truthful, I did not perfectly intend to be up here at all. I’m Cordelia Vesper, a… scholar.’ I held out my hand.
He did not immediately take it, nor did he speak again. I found myself scrutinised by a pair of lively, but wary, grey eyes, with a shrewdness to his glance that made me most uncomfortable.
‘I must say,’ he said at last. ‘Treasure-hunters have changed a great deal in recent years.’ He spoke lightly accented English, with a hesitation that suggested he did not often use the language.
‘I’m not a treasure hunter,’ I said firmly, choosing not to mention that I had brought one such to his doorstep. Even if I had also turned him into a charmingly unthreatening tree.
I was awarded a handshake at last, though a tentative one. ‘And yet,’ he said, ‘you have contrived to find your way straight into the workshops.’
‘Not entirely by choice. I was on the ground floor, and then somehow whisked up here—’
‘Oh?’ he interrupted, and looked at me afresh. Was it my imagination, or had the suspicion increased? ‘And how came that about?’
‘I do not know, sir. I wish I did.’ I hesitated, on the point of telling him about Jay and Pup. Should I?
Yes. Something told me that to err on the side of honesty might be wise.
‘I came here with an associate,’ I said. ‘And a… dog.’ Curse it, if he found out that the dog in question was a treasure-sniffing nose-for-gold, he would never believe that I wasn’t a thief. ‘I do not know whereabouts they have ended up.’
‘Outside, most likely,’ he said, with a trace of amusement. ‘That is where intruders are usually sent.’
Oh. Then I was on my own in here.
‘The question remains,’ he said, looking keenly at me. ‘How is it that you were not? And indeed, how came you to pass the wards at all?’
If by “wards” he meant the spectacular illusions which disguised the tower as an impregnable mountain, I was dying to ask him all about that.
But courtesies first.
‘Regarding the second question,’ I said, ‘I have this.’ I showed him the compass. ‘I have three other associates outside. We took down the wards between us. Though we did not expect to encounter… occupants.’
Why hadn’t they? Because the enclave had been founded hundreds of years ago. Because according to Wyr, the door hadn’t opened in living memory; no one had got in, and presumably no one had been known to come out either. Because I was used to the echoing decay of lost civilisations, in particular Farringale, and to imagine that someone might still be living in this one had seemed unthinkable.
My unexpected interlocutor had gone very quiet. He held out his hand for Torvaston’s compass, and with only a slight hesitation, I gave it over to him. It lay in his palm, untouched, and he gazed at it as though he beheld a miracle.
Slowly, carefully, he stroked a thumb over its surface.
‘Well, now,’ he said softly. ‘And I never thought to see its like again.’
It struck me that my possession of the compass might prove to be the answer to both of his questions. If the henge complexes operated based on something in the traveller’s possession, might not the tower’s Waymastered enchantments also respond to something I held? If I hadn’t had the compass with me, I might well have ended up booted outside.
Which led my thoughts back to the topic of Jay. He’d had the snuff box with him. So, then. Was he outside, or somewhere else in the tower?
My new troll friend (hopefully) looked up. ‘I think you had better tell me how you came by this,’ he said, and a hint of steel had crept into his tone. ‘Was this stolen?’
Tricky question. ‘It— well— no, although also yes. It’s complicated—’
His eyes narrowed, and I stopped gabbling and held up my hands.
‘I work for the Troll Court at Mandridore, on the sixth Britain,’ I said hastily. ‘We’re here at their instigation. We took that— object— from old Farringale-that-was, withTheir Majesties’ permission, so in that sense it isn’t stolen. And somewhere in the valley out there is Prince Alban, next heir to the troll throne.’
All of this came out in a rush, and was met with silence.
Then: ‘And what is your aim, in infiltrating this tower?’
I swallowed. ‘We— perhaps ought to have a longer conversation about all this.’
I expected more of the inquisition, perhaps greater hostility. To my surprise, instead, he gave a mournful sigh, his fingers closing slightly around the compass. ‘We knew it would come,’ he said, so quietly I wondered whether he was talking to me at all. ‘Well, and it has come.’
‘May I… ask what you mean?’ I said.
‘His Majesty’s kin,’ he said. ‘We hoped you would not find us. And at such a distance of years, it seemed unlikely that any of you now would.’
‘But… why?’
‘Because you would doubtless come looking for his work, and… it was not his wish that you should ever find it.’
