Chapter Thirty-Five: Breaking Point
The look on Tommy's face when he realized Kimberly was truly gone was enough to break Katherine's heart. She was well aware that he and Kimberly had not been on the best of terms lately, but they had been making steady progress and she was sure they would have reconciled soon. It was a huge blow to lose Kimberly now, so soon after losing Jason and Dulcea. Watching Tommy now, she could tell he was torn between utter despair and rash determination.
As far as she was concerned, both were equally dangerous. Night was falling fast. They would have to come up with a plan and act quickly, or they would lose whatever meager protection the darkness might offer them. And yet at the same time they could not risk everything on a slapdash rescue attempt with a high chance of failure, not with the stakes so very high.
Come on, Kat, think! she thought furiously. You can't have read all those books in the archives and learned nothing useful! But moment after moment slipped by and she was no closer to a workable idea than she had been before. She sat uselessly off by herself, huddled under a tree while Rocky and Adam went off in search of a way into the castle and Billy and Aisha alternately consoled and consulted with Tommy. She could have joined them, she knew, but she had a feeling she would only get in their way.
Kimberly and Jason had been her staunchest supporters, and Dulcea had been her protector. There had to be something she could do for them now that they were the ones in need of saving.
The answer eluded her until Rocky and Adam returned to make their report. By then it was fully dark, and the report was just as dismal.
"The only way in's through the sewer," Rocky announced. "It's half in the moat as it is, and if we'd had any more rain today it would be underwater. We got the metal grate off it, but it's way too small for us to fit through."
Aisha fixed him with a glare that managed to be stern even in the near-total darkness. "For all of us?" she asked sweetly. "Or just for you overly large men and your big, bulky armor?"
"You might be able to do it," Adam allowed, "but we couldn't tell if there's actually a way in. It might be blocked somewhere further in."
"And there is no way you're going in alone," Rocky added.
"Why not? All I have to do is-"
"Get in, avoid Zedd and his henchmen, and find a way to open the gates and lower the drawbridge," Rocky cut in. "So, in other words: no. You are not going alone."
Kat watched all of this in silence until Tommy stepped in to say, "I agree. It's too risky."
And then Kat found herself saying, "She doesn't have to go alone. I volunteer. I'll go with her." She was taller than Aisha, but just as slim. She ought to be able to fit anywhere Aisha could. Her thoughts raced ahead, suddenly certain that this was what she needed to do. She might not be a trained fighter, but she could serve as a distraction in a pinch, giving Aisha the time she would need to take care of the drawbridge.
"There," Aisha said with finality. "Kat and I will try to sneak in through the sewer. While we're doing that, you boys see about making some ladders. Maybe you can get over the wall." They all heard what she did not say: if she and Kat didn't make it, the others would still have to try to find a way in.
However reluctantly, everyone was soon in agreement. They were running out of time, and they had no better options.
While Billy and Tommy began scouting for ladder-making supplies, Rocky and Adam showed Kat and Aisha where they had found the sewer entrance. It was well hidden toward the back of the castle, and Rocky was right: if there had been just a bit more rain in the past few days it would have been completely underwater. It seemed amazing to Kat that he and Adam had seen it at all.
As Aisha had predicted, it looked like she and Kat would be able to squeeze through the opening.
"I still don't like this," Rocky protested after both Kat and Aisha had demonstrated that they could fit into the tiny tunnel.
"You don't have to like it," Aisha told him. She had been standing knee-deep in water, about to enter the sewer tunnel again, but instead she turned and went to stand in front of him. Kat felt a pang of envy as she watched him wrap his arms around Aisha and pull her close against him. "If I never see you again… well, I'm only sorry it ended like this," she confessed, and pulled him down and kissed him so soundly it made Kat blush to watch.
She had to turn away while Aisha said her farewells to Adam, too; somehow she had not realized that the three of them were romantically entangled, and yet now that she knew it seemed as if it should have been obvious all along. While she was busy not watching her three companions, Kat wondered if maybe she ought to have said good-bye to Billy. And then Aisha splashed into the water next to her again and there was no more time for regrets.
They wormed and wriggled their way into the tunnel on their bellies, making their way through sluiceways not meant to accommodate a full grown human, and doing their best to keep their heads above the water. Inside, it was dark and slimy. Kat did not want to think about what might be in that water if it were indeed a sewer line and not merely attached to a storm drain. For a while, it felt as if the whole world was pressing down on them, threatening to push them into the water and drown them. It was pitch dark and wet and freezing in the tunnel, and only grew more so the deeper they crawled, but Kat followed where Aisha led. No matter how desperately she wanted to go back, there was no way to turn around. Given the option to go forward or give up and die in that horrible tunnel, Kat chose to go forward.
Every second she spent in that tunnel terrified her. As the slow, torturous journey went on, it seemed as if Zedd ought to be able to hear her heart's frantic pounding through the castle walls, but no enemies showed themselves. So she kept silent and followed along and nearly screamed in terror when she ran right into Aisha, who had suddenly stopped moving.
"Look," Aisha hissed.
At first Kat wasn't sure what she meant. And then she realized that the darkness had lifted enough that she could see Aisha, and that there was enough space over their heads that they could kneel without hitting the ceiling. She followed Aisha's gaze upward and realized she could faintly see stars and clouds past a metal grate far above them. They were sitting roughly eight feet below a large storm drain.
"Do you think we can get out through there?" she asked. She spoke as quietly as she could, but her voice still sounded thunderous.
"Only one way to find out," Aisha muttered grimly.
It was a tight fit, and Kat was not quite sure how they managed it, but somehow Aisha got her standing upright in the cramped drain. It was barely wide enough to fit her shoulders, and then the next thing she knew, Aisha had clambered up past her and hauled herself up to stand on Kat's shoulders. If Kat stood on her tip-toes, Aisha reported that she could just barely reach the grate that covered the drain.
"Can you open it?" Kat asked, huffing from the strain of keeping her balance with Aisha perched on her shoulders. Even with the drain's walls to lean on it was a difficult feat.
"No," Aisha admitted after a moment. "It's too heavy for me to lift, and anyway I'm too short to lift it far enough."
"What are we going to do?" She dreaded the thought of crawling back out through the sewer, but she knew that they were risking discovery every moment they spent in that drain. She couldn't see how they could possibly hope to get into the castle that way, but dreaded the thought of going back the way they had come.
"We just need some leverage," Aisha muttered. Grabbing hold of the grate, she pulled her legs up to wedge herself into the drain. Left with nothing to do, Kat felt even more useless than before. Aisha fiddled with something, and suddenly her damp traveling clothes were transformed into yellow armor; Katherine knew she was using her magic ring, but the transformation was amazing nonetheless.
Aisha stifled a yelp of surprise. Along with the armor, a staff of sorts had appeared in her hand, glowing faintly golden in the dark. And then Aisha said, "Well, then. I think I just found our way out of here."
It took some time and a great deal of effort, but she managed to use the staff – which was more like a crowbar – to pry the grate loose. It seemed to Kat that the thing made a terrible noise as Aisha gently moved it out of the way and cautiously made her way out of the drain. How had they not yet been discovered? Katherine waited, trying not to panic, for an eternity before Aisha peered over the edge of the drain again. Please don't leave me down here, she thought fervently, even though she knew it was absurd to think Aisha would just abandon her.
"We're in the corner of a courtyard," Aisha whispered. "There's nobody around. I'm not sure what's going on, but I don't think we have much time. Come on."
And with that, she lowered a length of golden rope into the drain. Katherine tied it under her arms and half-climbed out of the drain as Aisha helped pull her up. She would never have been able to make it without Aisha hauling on the rope, and emerged from the drain with a healthy appreciation of just how strong Aisha was.
"Thank you," Kat gasped, "for not leaving me down there."
Almost as soon as Aisha had untied the rope from around her, it turned into a spear. "You're welcome." She paused for a bit to let Kat catch her breath, observing, "This magic thing is entirely too handy. Now come on, let's find the gatehouse."
They stuck to the deepest shadows where they could, but they saw no one as they made their way around the courtyard. They had to loop around the enormous keep to find the gatehouse. With the keep looming over them from behind and the wide, open expanse of the courtyard in front of them, Kat was sure they would be seen and killed before they could reach their goal at all. But she had little choice but to follow Aisha toward the gatehouse.
She could practically feel archers on the walls watching them, but somehow they made it to the gatehouse without being killed. Where are the guards? she thought. The evidence had suggested that Jason and Dulcea were captured by a relatively large force of men, but there was no sign at all of those men now. What had happened? It all seemed very wrong and very suspicious, but she couldn't even mention her suspicions to Aisha without worrying that they might be overheard. As she followed Aisha to the gatehouse door, she was starting to think that there were no guards at all and the evidence they had seen had simply been some trick of Zedd's.
She was wrong about that; the gatehouse was crowded with men in strange looking armor, clearly the missing guards. There were at least a dozen of them, causing Katherine to momentarily panic, but they were not expecting an attack and the gatehouse was not designed to be defended from behind. Aisha simply threw the door open, took a quick look at what was within, and charged in with her spear.
"Kat," she shouted over the sudden din, "find the gate mechanism! Get the drawbridge down and raise the portcullis!"
It occurred to her abruptly just how foolish she had been to volunteer to come with Aisha, but it was too late to go back now. She ducked underneath the spear as Aisha swung it into two of Zedd's strange soldiers, grabbed hold of a sword that someone had dropped, and rushed deeper into the gatehouse. She plastered herself flat against the wall as a door swung open to send more guards flooding into the room. Hardly believing her luck – and hoping Aisha's magic armor and spear would keep her safe – Kat crept through the door unnoticed by the guards.
Most of the guards were now in the gatehouse proper, trying to figure out what was going on or trying to defeat Aisha, but they had left two men behind to supervise an enormous mechanism that Kat realized must control the drawbridge and the portcullis. She had only a moment to dispatch them before they would realize she was there and it would be too late.
She was not a trained warrior. She was definitely not a killer, or at least she had never considered herself to be a killer. But one of the guards had his back to her and the other had not yet noticed her. It was almost easy for her to put her stolen sword through a gap at the neck of the first man's armor and draw it back out, covered in dark blood while he fell to the ground and died. The second guard was less easy to kill, because he knew she was there and had watched his companion die at her hands.
He drew his sword and, abandoning his post at the machine, came at her. Suddenly and forcibly reminded of just how unsuited she was for this, Kat tried her best not to do what she most wanted to do, which was shriek and run. She reminded herself that Jason, Kimberly, and Dulcea were counting on her, but that could not make her into a skilled warrior, calm in the face of danger. Worse, it could not give her better spatial awareness.
It didn't take the remaining guard long to back her into a corner. She couldn't go back the way she had come, so she dove to one side and came up against a wall. Through the still open door she could hear the sounds of Aisha struggling with the other guards, but she could no longer see what was going on. It was almost painful not to know how Aisha was faring, or to be able to call on her for help.
Kat knew she had to face this trouble on her own, and that she probably had only a few more seconds in which to act, so she put her sword between herself and the last guard and swore that if she died she would at least take him to the afterlife with her. The guard said nothing; he merely swung his own blade at her, hard enough to decapitate her if she had not ducked in time. The tip of his blade caught in the wall, which was stone covered in a thick layer of plaster. The plaster fragmented on impact, but caught at his sword and held it just long enough.
Fumbling with her own blade, Kat ducked under his arm and smashed him on the head with the hilt of her sword. Her best effort had barely made a dent in his helmet. She had been hoping against hope to avoid killing him, but now she knew she would have no choice. If she couldn't render him unconscious, then her options were likely to be killed or taken prisoner. And she had a feeling she knew which this man would prefer.
But instead of whirling around and coming after her, the man staggered. Kat took advantage and bashed him over the head again and again until he collapsed. She could scarcely believe what had just happened. She was an archivist, a scholar, not a fighter! And yet the proof was right there.
Suddenly she recalled exactly why she had been fighting with those two men, and hurried over to the gate mechanism. She resisted the urge to check on Aisha, knowing that right now it was more important to get the gate open and let their reinforcements in. In a fight like that, she wouldn't be much help to Aisha anyway. Aisha needed room to use her spear. The last thing she needed was for Kat to get in the way.
It took several minutes and many, many tries, but finally she found the right lever and the mechanism gave way. The rumbling of the ground and the sound of chains moving told her that the drawbridge was going down. The sudden ring of metal told her the portcullis had also been withdrawn. She was shaking from equal parts shock and relief and, hoping that Tommy and the others were ready to swoop in for another attack, she took up her sword again and went to see if she could help Aisha.
-x-
Cut off from all sense of time or space, Kimberly drifted. Her awareness seemed entirely limited to the crystallized sanctuary she had created for herself; she did not even have any idea what her own body was doing. It was as if she had become caught in a dream and could not wake up. She pressed her fingers gently to the pink-tinted crystal and felt the rush of energy, but all of her attempts at freeing herself proved fruitless. Her prison might protect her from Zedd's magic, but it was implacable, and it would not let her out any more than it would let him in.
With a sigh, she sat down near the center of the crystal. "I really should have imagined a more comfortable haven," she muttered. "What am I gonna do?"
"That is a very good question, my dear," Bryndis Hart said. To her immense surprise, Kimberly found that she was not as alone in her prison as she had thought. "You did a fine job building this thing," the First Queen went on, "but you really ought to have thought about getting out of it first."
"I know," Kimberly groaned. "But I had to stop Zedd. I couldn't let him take me over!"
"I know," Bryndis said, her voice gentling. "You were in an impossible situation. There was no way out. I know." Somehow her words did not make Kimberly feel better.
"How are you even here?" she asked. "I could've really used your help –"
"I have always been here, Kimberly," Bryndis answered tartly. "Ever since you married Tommy and the spell's conditions were met and your magic was at long last unleashed. All you had to do to reach me was to come here and listen, but I suppose no one taught you to do that." She sighed. "Just as no one taught you not to do this."
Kimberly stared down at her lap, where her hands were furiously wringing the fabric of her skirt. No one had taught her anything, but she suspected Bryndis knew that, too. Bryndis rested a hand on her shoulder; she felt the gentle pressure in spite of the fact that none of it was real. "I came here for a reason," she murmured.
"Of course you did," Kimberly snapped. "You always show up for a reason, only you never tell me what that reason is or what I really need to know! I just have to figure it out for myself, and then you stand around and sneer when I mess things up. Do you have any idea how much trouble all of this magic nonsense has caused for me and Tommy? Not to mention Jason and the others…"
"Of course I do," Bryndis said. "I am aware of much that you see. As I said, I am always here. If you would come to me, I could tell you a lot more about your magic and your destiny. But it requires a great deal of power for me to reach out to you, and I must borrow that power from you because my own power is very limited now. You may not be aware of it, but you are very possessive of your power, Kimberly." She sounded almost amused, as if she were talking with a favored grand-daughter, instead of the angry and recalcitrant heir to her power and her kingdom.
"And that's why you only show up when I'm sleeping, or have fainted," Kimberly surmised sourly.
"Quite."
Kimberly wondered if it would do any lasting harm to start tearing her imaginary hair out.
"Now if you will stop sulking," Bryndis went on, as if Kimberly were not at the end of her rope, "I will teach you what I can, and we will see if we can get you out of this mess."
The last thing Kimberly wanted to do at this point was cooperate with anyone, but the lure of learning more about her magic and getting out of that stupid diamond was enough to make her reconsider. "You can teach me?"
Bryndis smiled. "Of course I can. I always could, from the moment you came into your magic. And if you would've been willing to let me have enough power to communicate with you more fully, I would have begun to teach you long ago."
Kimberly disliked the implication that this was all her own fault, but she kept her mouth shut in the interest of maybe actually managing to escape from this self-made prison. "All right. Teach me."
"You possess great power," Bryndis began. "So much that it is evident even to the people around you who do not possess any magical gifts. That makes your gift especially dangerous, but there is a reason for it." Kimberly looked at her, brow furrowing in confusion. She wasn't sure she knew what the First Queen was getting at.
"Magic is hereditary," Bryndis went on. That much Kimberly had guessed, since her mother and grandmother and great-grandmother all the way back to Bryndis Hart herself had held magic power. "At least, it is hereditary under ordinary circumstances. Your power, on the other hand, is both hereditary and cumulative. That is why I can appear to you here. What you see here and now is not me. In reality, I am dead and gone. This is the imprint of me that was left in the magic that has been handed down from mother to daughter for generations and comes now to you."
"That is actually really creepy," Kimberly muttered. "Wait…"
"Every Queen has left her own imprint and her own power, adding them to the whole," Bryndis confirmed, without Kimberly needing to actually ask the question. "The power that you possess is yours, and your mother's, and her mother's, and mine. Every Queen who has ever lived and ruled and died in the last thousand years exists still within you, and lends her power to yours. And you were uncommonly powerful all on your own, so you can imagine what this accumulation of power really means."
"That's why Rita wanted me. And it's why Zedd was so determined to control me."
"Exactly. And it's why, even though this condition is supposed to be permanent, you may be able to escape it."
"This condition," Kimberly mused. That was a funny way to put it.
"Didn't you wonder why this exact form sprang into your mind? Why it came so easily to you to seal yourself into a gem?"
"I didn't question it," she admitted. "But now you're making me wonder. What are you getting at?"
"You've seen it before," Bryndis assured her. "Just think. The form of that spell is in your blood. You didn't create it, you remembered it."
Kimberly shook her head. "It's always riddles with you. Can't you just speak plainly for once?"
"Each of the gems in our family's crown –"
"No," Kimberly denied, suddenly understanding and wishing she did not.
Unstoppable, Bryndis continued, "Was given form and power by one of my sisters. They gave their lives in a covenant, using their very souls to shape the magic that would protect their descendants for a thousand years or more, so that the likes of Zedd would never trouble our people again. I was the youngest, and so it fell to me to be Queen when they had gone."
"No," Kimberly said again. "That cannot be true. That would mean -"
"I was born not far from this very castle," Bryndis confessed. "Did you not think it strange that Zedd should speak your language, when even Trini did not when she first came to live with you?"
"No," Kimberly repeated, but she knew that the First Queen was not lying about any of it. All of a sudden, it made sense. Jason was the Heir to the Sword of Power because his family had originally come from here, too. How many of the great families of her kingdom had actually come from Phaedos? And what about the rest of the people she ruled? Had all of them originally lived in Phaedos?
It was impossible.
And yet she knew in her heart it was true.
"Kimberly, you must calm yourself," Bryndis warned. She had already begun to fade. "You are," she faltered, grimacing, fading even more. "Kimberly, stop this. Don't panic. You must let me have enough power to –"
And then she was gone, and Kimberly was alone again – and still trapped.
-x-
"Aisha's not going to be happy when she finds out we didn't listen to her," Adam pointed out. For the third time.
"Has that ever stopped me before?" Rocky asked halfheartedly. As a matter of fact, Aisha's wrath, while impressive, had never stopped him from doing anything before, and they both knew it. And it wasn't fear of her that had made him reluctant to agree to Tommy's plan. It was fear for her. If her wild plan didn't work…
Sending her into that tunnel, even with Katherine, even knowing she would have accepted no reason why she should not go, had nearly killed him. When he and Adam had caught up with Billy and Tommy only to find out that Tommy's plan was to mount a cavalry charge instead of trying to find their own way into the castle, it had very nearly come to blows between them. Rocky considered the risks unthinkable. Tommy thought Kats quick thinking and Aisha's magic ring meant their chances of failure were minimal.
Rocky had a feeling Adam was trying to distract him. He appreciated the effort, but it wasn't working. All he could think about was Aisha in the monster's lair. And Tommy pulling rank on him to force him to obey. He didn't like that one bit, but he had to admit Tommy had guts to even attempt it. That, or he was that desperate to save Kimberly.
He didn't like to admit it, but if their situations had been reversed, he would have done the same thing. That they were two knights, a squire, and an archivist, and mounted on pack animals rather than warhorses would have meant nothing. He would have done anything to save Aisha, so he couldn't begrudge Tommy too much for doing just that for Kimberly.
The only problem was that Rocky didn't share Tommy's confidence about Aisha's success. Zedd, or his underlings, had taken Jason and Dulcea captive, and that couldn't have been an easy feat. Against a force like that, in their very citadel, what hope did Aisha possibly have? He knew she would be furious if she knew he doubted her like that, but he couldn't help the fear.
He tried not to notice how the sky was growing noticeably lighter in the east. He tried to ignore the feeling that they had been waiting too long, the sure knowledge that something must have gone wrong, that Aisha needed his help and he wasn't there to give it. His horse shifted placidly under him, as if it were completely unaware of the frantic racing of his thoughts. His warhorse back home would have sensed his restlessness. Not that missing the loyal beast would do him much good now, with home so very far away.
All of a sudden Tommy gave a triumphant cry and spurred his horse into action. For a moment Rocky just stared after him, not comprehending. And then he realized that the drawbridge was lowering. Whether it was Aisha's doing or not, this was their only chance and they would have to take it.
He hurried his horse after Tommy, listening as Adam and Billy raced after. It seemed to take no time at all to cover the open expanse between the forest and the castle, and then they were on the drawbridge. There were no defenders; Rocky could only hope that meant that Aisha had succeeded, and that this wasn't some kind of trap.
They crossed into the courtyard to find Aisha and Katherine waiting, exuberant grins on both of their faces. Miraculously, they were both unharmed. They had obviously been involved in a fight, but Rocky could see no sign of a battle anywhere. He dropped down off his horse and swept Aisha up into his arms.
She whapped him playfully on the shoulder. "Put me down, you big lout."
"You have no idea how happy I am to see you," he murmured for her ears only, but he set her down again anyway. "Tell us what happened. This… doesn't make any sense."
"You mean because there are no guards?" Aisha asked pointedly. "Yeah, we didn't run into anybody at all until we got to the gatehouse. That was crawling with guards, but the rest of the castle looked deserted."
"Rocky's right," Tommy said. "That doesn't make any sense."
"Neither does the fact that once we had dispatched them, the guards disappeared," Katherine added.
"Unless they were created by magic," Adam murmured.
He had barely finished making his observation when the enormous doors to the castle keep flew open. At first Rocky thought they had opened of their own accord, but a moment later Lord Zedd himself strode out into the courtyard, flanked by rank after rank of soldiers.
"This has gone on long enough," he announced. He did not speak loudly, but his voice carried with perfect clarity.
Rocky reached for his sword. He did not even have to glance over to know that Aisha was standing ready for battle at his side. They were as massively outnumbered now as he had feared Aisha and Kat would be before, but somehow he was less afraid now. With Aisha on one side and Adam on the other, he knew he had nothing to fear.
"Release our friends," Tommy ordered.
Zedd had the audacity to laugh. "You are welcome to them," he said finally, "if you can take them from me."
It was hardly a fair offer, since Zedd had clearly been expecting them and his forces outnumbered them at least five to one, but it was the best they were likely to get. The odds had been stacked against them from the very beginning of this adventure. They just hadn't known enough about what they were getting into to realize it. They'd been lucky so far. Rocky saw no reason to back down now.
And neither did Tommy, obviously. He drew his sword and raced toward Zedd, heedless of the way Zedd's minions moved to protect their lord. Tommy's horse crashed into them and panicked, and he was soon forced to let the beast go rather than risk being thrown.
For a moment Rocky regretted letting his horse go, but there was no time to dwell on it, and he would rather be on the same level as Aisha anyway. He brandished his own weapon, conscious of Aisha and Adam forming up behind him, and rushed after Tommy. Somehow, he was certain, they would have to find a way to get Tommy through to Zedd. Their last encounter had proved that Tommy was the only one with any kind of resistance to Zedd's evil magic, which made him their best chance at winning this fight.
As Zedd's minions flowed against and around them like a deadly wave, Rocky found himself wishing he had thought to bring a weapon like Aisha's spear. His sword simply didn't have the reach of her spear. If he hadn't been so busy defending her back, he would have wondered where in the world she'd acquired that thing in the first place, because she certainly hadn't hauled it all the way across Phaedos with her.
At one point, he caught sight of Adam helping defend Kat and Billy, and Tommy hacking his way past soldier after soldier… but it was an uphill battle and they seemed to be making no progress at all in reaching Zedd. No matter how many of the soldiers they dispatched, there always seemed to be more of them streaming out of the keep. They had been fighting for several minutes now, and had barely moved from their original positions.
It was impossible.
Rocky realized with a flash of irritation that it was magic. None of the soldiers were real. That was they their bodies disappeared after they had been slain, and that was how there could be so many of them. The only problem was realizing it didn't give him any idea of how to deal with it. It hadn't been that long ago that he'd been sure magic was just something from children's stories, something the royal family was said to possess in order to justify the pattern of matrilineal succession. Beyond that and the bits and pieces he'd gleaned from Kimberly and Dulcea, Rocky knew as good as nothing about magic.
"Billy!" he shouted. "You got any brilliant ideas?" But it was obvious that Billy either didn't hear him over the din of battle or was too preoccupied with staying on his horse and using his quarterstaff to fend off enemy soldiers to answer. Rocky was pleased to note that at least for the moment, Billy was still on his horse.
Since Aisha was close enough at hand to actually respond, he turned to her next. "'Sha –"
"Yeah, I heard you," she said, grunting as she thrust her spear hard enough to pierce her opponent's armor. "Tell me what you need and you'll get it."
Something suddenly fell into place in his mind. "That spear," he paused to dispatch a soldier that got too close. "Your ring?"
"Yeah. Turns out it makes more than armor." She swung her spear in a wide, warning arc, but the enemy soldiers were not intimidated in the least and kept right on coming after the spear passed them by. "Ugh, these guys are relentless!"
They were. But Rocky had noticed that while at first they had seemed almost human, they had slowly begun to become less and less human. Some of the enemies they were fighting now seemed to be little more than animated suits of armor. He was pretty sure some of the helmets staring at him were empty.
"Rocky, if you've got a plan, I'd love to hear it," Aisha grumbled.
Rocky sought frantically for a solution. "Do you think you could make a catapult?"
Aisha actually stopped fighting to glare at him, only returning to the fray when three of the enemy soldiers closed in on her. "What?" she demanded as she fended them off. "Do you want me to just throw Tommy over them?"
"Do you think that would work?"
She did not dignify that with a response.
"Could you make something that would take a lot of these guys down at once?" he asked.
"I don't know. Why?"
"Because I think Zedd's creating them," he told her. "On the fly. Look at them closely."
She inhaled sharply. "He's just throwing as many of them at us as he can to tire us out."
"My thoughts exactly. But if we could take them down fast enough, I wonder if we could wear him out before he wears us out." He risked a glance over toward Billy, Adam, and Tommy again, and fleetingly wondered where Kat had disappeared to. It didn't look like the others were faring any better than he and Aisha were. Between them, they had now managed to gain perhaps ten feet of ground. At this rate, they would be too exhausted to move by the time they finally reached Zedd. Exactly as he planned, no doubt.
Rocky wondered just how limitless Zedd's power was, and then he remembered the castle full of people who had been turned to stone by Zedd's magic. This castle was empty, too. Somehow Rocky had a feeling he knew what had happened to the people who lived there. Horrified by the implication, he had to wonder if the same fate had befallen everyone in Phaedos, and that was why they hadn't run into any people during their entire journey.
"Aisha, we've got to do something," he began.
"I know," she agreed. "Can you keep these guys busy for me? Don't kill them, he'll just send more. But keep them busy?"
They switched places as easily as if they'd practiced the maneuver a hundred times. He was only armed with his sword, so his range was more limited, but Aisha had decided on a course of action and she acted on it immediately. She backed up several paces, took aim, and hurled her spear directly at Zedd.
Her aim was dead-on. Zedd did not even bother trying to block the spear before it embedded itself in his chest. Clearly he considered himself invulnerable to such an attack. His soldiers abruptly disappeared and for a moment it seemed that all he could do was stare at the haft, which was embedded grotesquely in his chest. Then he looked up, and his gaze in all its fury focused on Aisha. "Magic?" he snarled. "You have no magic!"
He pulled the spear from his chest; the wound smoked and leaked dark red fluid. His hand gripped the spear so hard that it suddenly shattered into a million golden shards.
Aisha cried out and collapsed, her magical armor shattering like the spear. She hit the ground before Rocky could intervene, and when she did, the magic ring came off her finger. The chain that had kept it always attached to her wrist disappeared, and so did the ring itself, which turned into a finely cut topaz as it clattered to the ground.
Rocky rushed to her side. Zedd could have struck him down then for all he cared. All that mattered was Aisha. Adam was there an instant later, followed more slowly by Kat, Tommy, and Billy.
"This isn't over," Zedd fumed. He sounded even angrier than before, and yet he had made no attempt to attack. A quick glance revealed that the wound Aisha's spear had inflicted continued to smolder and leak blood. Rocky got the impression that Zedd thought it should be healing by now. "This isn't over!" Zedd repeated, before disappearing in a cloud of thick smoke.
Adam had the presence of mind to intercept Tommy. "Go. Find Kimberly. This could be your only chance. We'll look after Aisha."
Tommy nodded once, and disappeared into the keep. Kat and Billy hesitated, but went after him.
Rocky barely noticed them leave.
"Come on, Aisha," he murmured. She remained completely unresponsive, barely even breathing. "You have to be all right…"
-x-
Tommy couldn't stand the thought of leaving Rocky, Adam, and Aisha behind, but he had to admit Adam had made a good point. Aisha had scored a decisive blow against Zedd. This might be their only chance to find Kimberly and the others.
With that in mind, he told Billy and Kat, "You two try and find the dungeon. See if you can find Jason and Dulcea."
"Where are you going, then?" Billy asked.
"I'm going to finish this," he answered grimly. But first he intended to find and free his wife, and somehow he was absolutely certain that she would not be beneath the castle in the dungeon. Something, maybe magic, told him that she was somewhere in the tower up above. He knew with equal certainty that Zedd was up there somewhere, too, which was part of the reason he was sending Billy and Kat somewhere else. They'd helped get him this far. The last thing he wanted to do now was put them in any more danger than he had to, especially after seeing what had happened to Aisha.
"Go," he urged. "I'm probably going to need their help."
That got them moving.
When he was certain they were not going to come back and follow him, Tommy made for the prominent staircase that dominated the keep's entry hall. It was meant to impress, but it would have seemed more striking to Tommy had he not been so set on his goal. As he made his way up the steps, ready at every twist and turn for Zedd or his minions to jump out at him, the sensation of simply knowing where Kimberly was grew stronger and stronger.
A trap? Or was Kimberly herself guiding him?
He couldn't be sure. But the feeling was so strong and so hard to resist that by the time he reached a landing several floors up, he knew it had to be Kimberly. And all that stood between them now was a thick wooden door.
Much to his surprise, the door was not barred or locked in any way. His heart sank. Either this was a trap after all, or Zedd hadn't thought anyone would make it this far. Steeling himself, and as ready as he could be for an attack, he threw the door open.
Inside was a spacious chamber. A fire had burned to embers in the hearth, outlining the silhouette of a bed, and there was no other source of light in the room. The darkness filled him with trepidation. He hadn't thought to bring a torch, and anything could be concealed in the dark. But if Kimberly was in there, he had to reach her. He had to break whatever hold Zedd had over here. There simply was no other option.
"Kimberly?" he ventured, and received no response.
He took a deep breath and stepped into the room. Nothing happened. No one attacked him, but he still felt an enormous sense of foreboding, like a warning that Zedd was still lurking nearby. He wished he knew how long it would take Zedd to recover from that injury, but worrying about that would do him no good right now. He would just have to make every second count.
"Kimberly," he said again, and again there was no response. But now his eyes had begun to adjust to the darkness of the chamber, and he could make out a faintly pink glow emanating from the bed in addition to the faint red light from the hearth. There was no mistaking that shade of pink light; he'd seen it a hundred times when Kimberly practiced her magic.
Throwing caution to the wind, he rushed to her side only to stop in horror when he saw her. She was lying on the bed, completely unresponsive. She looked like she might be dead. Her chest did not even rise and fall as she breathed. Was she even breathing at all? Somehow he thought not.
He could hardly bear to look at her, but he could not seem to look away. Against all logic, he felt the overwhelming compulsion to kiss her. And almost before he realized what he was doing, he had taken off his helmet and done just that.
The moment his lips brushed against hers, he ceased to be in that dark and creepy bedchamber and found himself somewhere else entirely. At first he thought he was nowhere because all that was around him seemed to be mist and emptiness, but then he turned and caught sight of the crystal. It was enormous, taller than he was, and brilliantly pink, and he knew Kimberly had had a hand in creating it. Only she could love such a gaudy shade of pink. The thought of her made him smile in spite of his confusion.
Since it was the only thing in sight, he headed over to the crystal. As he neared it, he realized that it wasn't as opaque as he had originally thought. The faceted sides were translucent, and inside the gem he could see… "Kimberly!"
She had been sitting forlornly at the center of the gem, but when he spoke she looked up to stare at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. "Tommy? Is that really you?"
"In the flesh," he said. "Well, sort of. Where are we?"
"I think we're in my head," she admitted, sounding a bit sheepish. "Though I don't have any idea how you got here…"
"What is all this?" he asked, gesturing broadly at the crystal.
"Yeah, funny story." She sighed. "Zedd was trying to control me," she told him. "But I wouldn't let him. This thing keeps him out. Unfortunately it also keeps me in, and I can't find a way to get rid of it."
"I know this is an obvious question, but did you try magic?" he asked.
She fixed him with a fiercely irritated look. "What do you think created this thing in the first place? I know it's trying to protect me, but I can't do anything from in here, and no matter what I try, it won't go away."
Hesitating only a little, Tommy reached out and pressed his hand against the crystal. He knew none of this could be real, but it felt perfectly solid under his palm. He pushed against it, but it did not yield. He reached for his sword, realized he did not have it, and gave up on that plan of attack.
"What I can't figure out," Kimberly went on, "is how you got here." Tommy wondered if he should admit to kissing her while she was unconscious and still under Zedd's control, but she rambled on without giving him a chance to confess. "All of my power is supposed to be locked up in here with me, or at least Zedd thought it was. Hell," she said, exasperated, "I thought it was."
"But remember what happened with the stone spell?" he murmured, almost to himself as he thought out loud. "Your magic on your own wasn't strong enough to stop it. But together…" He paused, wondering if maybe he had hit on something crucial. "I wonder… your magic is linked to me. Is part of it in me?"
She stared at him, bewildered.
"When I was looking for you just now," he explained. "I knew where you were. I didn't even have to look, I just knew. It was like you were calling me."
Her expression shifted from confusion to wariness.
"Come here," he went on, increasingly excited. "I know how to get you out."
She stayed exactly where she was. "This isn't some kind of trick, is it? You're not really… Zedd… are you?"
"Do you think I'm Zedd?"
"No," she admitted. "But I wouldn't put it past him to try and disguise himself as you to trick me."
"I wouldn't either. So let's get you out of here and safe while he's still out of commission."
"He's…"
Tommy grinned. "You can thank Aisha for that, but yes. He's out of our hair for the moment, but I don't know how much time we have."
That seemed to settle her doubts. She inched closer to stand directly opposite him, so that the only thing that separated them was the pink wall of the crystal.
"Put your hands up here, like mine," he instructed.
She did as he asked. He could feel the familiar warmth of her hands against his through the crystal and, after a moment, the crystal seemed to fade where their hands touched. He interlaced his fingers with hers while she stared in awe, and pulled. There was a sense of mild resistance, but Kimberly tumbled right through the crystal wall and into his arms.
And just as suddenly as he had been pulled out of his body, Tommy was thrust back into it. He stood up and pulled away from Kimberly. He was so ecstatic to see her open her eyes, and to see her in those eyes again, instead of the terrifying emptiness that had been there when Zedd took control of her, that it barely registered that the chamber they were in was now fully lit.
Kimberly opened her eyes with a faint smile and started to prop herself up…
…and then she screamed.
It took him a moment to realize that he'd staggered forward from the force of a sudden blow, and that Kimberly was screaming because there was a sword's blade protruding from his chest.