Faculty of Fire (54 page)

Alice and I both glanced at Kelnmiir.

“But wouldn’t you like to do the scouting yourself?” Kelnmiir asked feebly. “I’m not refusing, it’s just that I’m not back to normal yet ...”

“But what about the spirit of the hunt?” I asked in surprise.

“Ah, yes, the spirit of the hunt,” Kelnmiir muttered. “Of course ...”

Kelnmiir went off to scout out the territory, just as we wanted.

We had so little strength left that while the vampire was away, we sat on the floor and rested. We didn’t even have enough strength to talk to each other

Kelnmiir came back amazingly quickly. There wasn’t even enough time to have a proper doze.

“I’ve made a few interesting discoveries,” he said, to our delight. “There are about twenty stonehead trolls ensconced in there, and no people to be seen at all.”

“Did they notice you?” I asked, just to make quite sure.

Well, of course I understood that if he wanted to go unnoticed, then he would. He’d proved that more than once already ... But what if he’d already hacked all the trolls to pieces with his stonecutting sword?

“Of course they didn’t notice me,” Kelnmiir declared, offended. “And what’s more, they won’t notice you either, because they’re behaving like careless children. They’ve only put one guard by the teleports, and they’re wandering around aimlessly. Brilliant invaders they are ...”

“Amateurs,” Chas added acidly. “Then I wonder how these stoneheads managed to capture the Academy?”

“That’s right,” Alice put in. “And how did they get into the Academy at all?”

“The right questions to ask,” Kelnmiir said approvingly. “But we won’t discover the answers to them until we get ourselves an informer.”

I could have given him answers to a few questions, but they would only have been guesswork. We really couldn’t manage without an informer.

“Okay,” I said with a thoughtful nod, trying to imagine how we were going to capture a ten-feet-tall stone troll. “This is going to be fun ...”

Chas got up lazily.

“Right then, what’s the plan of action?”

“We go down to the seventeenth floor, and then we act as the circumstances require,” Kelnmiir suggested.

Act without a plan again? Absolutely no way!

“No, Kelnmiir,” I said firmly. “This time we’ll take some time to study the situation a little better and figure out the possible course of events, so things won’t turn out like they did last time.”

“And what happened the last time?” the vampire asked naively.

“The last time was a total washout. That’s what happened the last time,” I snapped.

But they still didn’t listen to me. There wasn’t even any discussion, because no one, apart from me, was interested in having one. Chas and Kelnmiir said it wasn’t their job to make plans, and Alice said straight out that with so little information it was simple pointless to make any.

Anyway, the outcome was that we would have to act on the spur of the moment again.

Kelnmiir went down first – he simply jumped out the window. Then, after Kelnmiir had checked that everything was quiet, the three of us climbed down the curtains.

I went down last. The moment my feet touched the floor, Kelnmiir shoved me in through the nearest door in to a room where Chas and Alice were waiting for us.

“Quiet,” the vampire, hissed. “Don’t walk in plain view along the corridors, only speak in a whisper, and don’t even think of making any noise.”

As he said those last words, for some reason the vampire glanced in my direction.

Well yes, of course, I was at fault again. Just because once, purely by chance, I happened to knock over a couple of wooden crates, I was going to be blamed for everything. But I was going to be as inconspicuous as a shadow!

“Now we have to capture our informer,” Kelnmiir went on. “Alice and I will do the job. Zach, give her the broom just in case and tell her how to use it.”

While I was explaining to Alice the functional principle of the all-purpose battle broom, Kelnmiir reached in under his cloak and took out a small sachet of something red.

Blood!

“So the Craftsmen gave you some blood anyway?” I asked in amazement.

“How else do you think I could have crawled through the pipe? A stunt like that consumes a colossal amount of energy.”

He made little hole in the sachet and drank its contents without spilling a drop.

Chas and I winced, and Alice simply turned away. That was odd – was she disgusted too, or was it just the opposite ... she wanted some?

“Okay, we’re off,” Kelnmiir said at last. “Sit here quietly and wait for us to come back. I don’t think we’ll be long ... “

“Look at that, will you, if it’s interesting, it happens without us,” Chas said as soon as the vampires had disappeared through the door.

“Oh come on,” I said, trying to calm my friend. “What can we do?”

“I realise there’s nothing we can do,” Chas growled. “But it’s so annoying! We worked so hard studying the Craft, took all those bumps in the process, and in the end none of our knowledge is needed.”

“That’s nothing,” I chuckled, “just imagine how the Craftsmen are feeling right now. They’ve been studying the Craft all their lives, they have the reputation of near-demigods, and they really can do the most incredible things ... but there they are confined in their own tower and they can’t do a thing. It’s just a great big joke.”

I was very glad that Chas had started this conversation. At least it would take my mind off things for a little while ... Or would it? I hoped Kelnmiir was going to look after Alice ...

“Do you really trust that vampire?” Chas suddenly asked.

“Why?” I asked in surprise. “Is there any reason to doubt him?”

Chas shrugged: “I don’t know. It was strange the way he appeared in the Academy, at the very moment of the attack ...”

“He’s been in the Academy since we started our studies,” I reminded him.

“Sure, sure,” Chas said dismissively. “But that’s what he says.”

“And Alice ...”

“And Alice spent a suspicious amount of time on the Craftsmen’s floor. That raises a few suspicions. She was most likely snooping for Kelnmiir, but what exactly was she sniffing out for him?”

Had Chas gone totally nuts, or what? Now he suspected everybody, even Alice.

“Drop it,” I said casually. “We’ll ask them later, I’m sure they’ll explain everything to us.”

“Sure, they’ll explain ...” Chas muttered. “We’ll see about that ...”

We didn’t talk any more after that.

Soon Alice and Kelnmiir returned, and we lost all interest in making conversation. They brought a troll with them, and the way they “brought” him was quite original ...

The first to enter the room was Alice, then came the stone troll with Kelnmiir on his shoulders. The vampire was sitting on the troll holding the sword to his stone neck.

“Welcome our guests,” said Alice, sitting down on the floor right beside the door. “What fools these trolls are. Honestly, they haven’t even noticed that one of them has gone missing.”

“We’re not fools,” the troll piped up. “We’re clever. It’s just that we think slowly ...”

“That’s right, very slowly,” Kelnmiir agreed. “I had to hack lumps out of this blockhead before he realised he was in any danger. The stoneheads are used to the idea that ordinary weapons can’t hurt them ...”

It was only then I noticed that the troll really wasn’t in the best of condition. He was covered in cuts, and on one hand two fingers had been cut away completely. The marks left by the sword suggested that the artefact was working superbly.

“How long do you think it will take to convince this blockhead that he ought to co-operate with us?” Chas enquired. “If you’re going to do any more mutilating, warn me in advance and I’ll go out. I don’t like gratuitous violence.”

“Oho,” said Alice, screwing up her pretty face. “So he doesn’t like violence. A real druid.”

Contrary to Chas’s suspicions, the troll proved quite talkative. It turned out that the invaders were already caught in the same trap as we were. Why? Because they couldn’t get out of the Academy. The teleport through which the trolls had entered the Academy from the Borderland (just as I thought!) had stopped working after almost forty of the stoneheads had gone into it. At first they’d hoped that their man in the Academy (the spy!) would be able to find a solution. The trolls had plundered the History Museum and gathered all the people from every floor of the tower and herded them into a single hall as they were ordered. The troll didn’t say what which hall – apparently he didn’t know, although he told us what they were going to do with these people. Their Master – that was what they called the man from the Academy – planned to hypnotise all the people collected from the different floors and turn them into obedient puppets. Since there was no way the invaders could get out of the Academy, and the teleports inside the tower had started breaking down, the man had ordered the trolls to seize a couple of Craftsmen to be used for checking the teleports and for interrogation ...

“And where are these Craftsmen now?” I immediately asked.

“One of them tried to escape, and we had to ...” – the troll hesitated – “... strangle him ...”

Did he mean me?

“The other one is in our headquarters now. He’s being interrogated ...”

“Where is this headquarters of yours?”

“On the next corridor,” the troll replied. “Don’t go getting the wrong idea, we don’t beat people during interrogation ...”

“Of course not,” agreed Alice, involuntarily raising a hand to her badly scratched lips. “And what about the Craftsman you strangled?”

“We had no choice but to do that. We don’t like violence,” the troll told us and suddenly confessed: “We want to go home. We’re tired and we’re hungry. There isn’t a scrap of meat anywhere in this tower of yours ...”

“Good thing they don’t eat people,” Alice remarked in a quiet voice.

The troll suddenly burst into laughter.

“You were just lucky that when the Tabernaclians hired a team for the attack, they came to our community,” he said. “We don’t eat people. But the community in the next village is quite happy to eat human flesh. If the Tabernaclians had hired trolls from the next tribe ... they wouldn’t have been sitting here starving like we are.”

Was I imagining it, or was the troll feeling a bit sad?

“And what does this Master of yours look like?” Chas asked impatiently.

“Like ... a man,” the troll replied. “You know, you all look the same to us.”

“So do you to us,” Alice shot back.

That was right – she was reading my mind.

“Well, how is he dressed at least? What colour are his clothes?” Kelnmiir asked.

“The same as theirs,” said the troll, pointing at Alice and Chas.

Aha! So the spy was one of the Academy’s pupil ... or ... someone dressed up as a pupil.

“Interesting,” Chas drawled. “How do you manage not to get us confused? What if I’m this Tabernaclian Master of yours? Do you recognise him from the colour of his hair, or what?”

“The colour of his hair wouldn’t be any good,” the troll retorted. “The Master always wore a hood.”

“Then how do you recognise him?” said Chas, repeating his question.

“In the first place, he knows a special password. And in the second place, he speaks our language. How many people do you think know the language of the trolls?”

So they had their own language? Well, would you believe it!

“You mean to say that if some man arrives who’s dressed in yellow livery, knows a special password and speaks your language ... then he’s your Master?”

The troll thought about it.

“We-ell ... yes,” he finally replied.

“Right!” the vampire exclaimed in delight. “And do you know the password?”

“I do,” said the troll. “But I’ll only give you it on one condition ...”

“I don’t understand,” said the vampire, moving the knife closer to the troll’s neck. “You think you can set conditions for us?”

“All right,” said the troll, deciding to put it differently. “Call it a request, not a condition.”

“That’s a bit better,” Kelnmiir chuckled. “Whoever said that trolls were stupid?”

The troll shrugged, almost unseating Kelnmiir, and glanced darkly at Alice out of the side of his eyes.

The troll’s request turned out to be quite simple. He wanted to go home and take the rest of the trolls who were still alive with him. And by the way, there were only twenty of the stoneheads left. Ten of them had been killed when they drew the entire fire power of the Craftsmen, one had been killed by Kelnmiir and two had been destroyed by the Vickers brothers. The rest of the troll casualties had been smeared across all the levels of the tower by the teleports that had started to malfunction. Now there was only one thing the remaining stone heads wanted – to go home as soon as possible. But there was no way they could do that. And, in addition, their contract didn’t allow them to abandon the Master voluntarily. So the troll offered us all the help he could give in exchange for our promise not to kill any more trolls unless it was absolutely necessary. And as well as that, we promised to do everything we could to make sure that after all this commotion the trolls would be sent back to their village. (What was that village like? I wondered. It would be interesting to visit it some time.)