8. N
Triana waited with growing impatience for Lord Haldeen’s estate to settle in for the evening.
The larger moon had already risen, a disquieting green when seen through the city’s shield.
She’d hoped to be out of her room and be well away before it rose.
The fact that Haldeen’s servants were not keeping reasonable hours was powerfully interfering with her plans.
Staying up half the night! You have work in the morning!
Go to sleep! A pair of elves close to her window did the most to test her patience.
He had a jug of wine, and designs upon her, whilst she appeared primarily focused on the wine, and avoiding taking things any further.
They did the dance of flirting and drinking, with her giving him just enough encouragement to keep his hopes up and the wine flowing, while he hoped her resistance would fall with the volume of wine in the jug.
Listening to the back and forth, Triana had her money on the lass.
She hoped either his wine or her will would fail, and they would take the slap and tickle somewhere else.
At least the guard no longer darkened her door.
He had been reassigned at some point during her illness.
She expected they would have put some kind of detectors or monitors in her room to take his place, but so far she had not found them.
She had briefly considered that they were inept, and hadn’t done it, then corrected herself.
Better to assume that they had her under constant observation, certainly by sound, and probably by sight.
She had seen that the elves here considered illusions here to be children’s games, so they might not be prepared for someone who excelled at that discipline of spellcraft.
The web of illusions she’d planned would cover her absence from most any inspection that didn’t involve actually touching.
She did consider that she might be wrong, and they would see through the skein of illusions.
In that event, the alarm would go up, she would be caught, and she very seriously doubted she would be returned to this room.
Lying on her side in her bed, she built up the first of her craftings.
First, her own self … appearing asleep, with her hair askew, curled on her right side, and face squashed against the pillow.
She moved her lips soundlessly, whispering into the pillow, repeating and reinforcing the images.
She built up her first mirage, layer by layer, laying the illusion just above herself, so that she could, if careful, slip out from under it, and leaving the illusion intact.
She had to proceed carefully, always assuming that she had a watcher, so the illusion could not just be dropped in.
It had to creep in, like fog, and on little cat feet.
This required time and patience, neither of which she had in abundance.
Still, when it was done, Triana lay there, just below her illusionary form.
She added sound, a soft snore that repeated at intervals.
She kept her illusion’s face buried in the pillow, so she did not have work to match sound to mouth movements …
usually the giveaway. With her form complete, she built up the rest of the illusion’s fabric, building the warp and weft on the side of the bed nearest to the alcove with the chamberpot, lit by the faint glow of a single weak mage-light.
She listened for a moment as a guard made his rounds, and sent the lovers packing.
Triana smiled. The unseen girl had timed it well, leaving enough wine for her beau so that he didn’t have to take the resentful dregs, and ending the evening with a promise …
if only the guard hadn’t come right when he did!
She continued working on her illusion, streaming out tendrils of magic more quickly now, less detailed than before, working to complete the skein to the point where she could slide out of the bed without being seen.
She would slip behind the screen and change in the tiny privacy of the water-closet, as they called it here.
Her plan’s singular weakness lay in that one assumption …
that they would not monitor the water-closet itself, and give her privacy to relieve herself.
If she was wrong, and they proved less fastidious, then she would soon know. One more thing beyond her control.
The spell crafting wearied her. The detailed illusions required talent, focus, and substantial energy, and she spent much of her reserves in preparing her way. Once she heard her illusion’s snoring, she judged her deception adequate to screen her from casual discovery.
She relaxed a moment before beginning. She recognized she was procrastinating a bit.
Right now she held to the fiction of being Haldeen’s “guest,” with the theoretical possibility of being sent back to her home if she cooperated.
The moment she stepped out of the door and started her explorations, that hope would end.
Lord Haldeen would not likely bother with the pretense once they determined she had taken matters into her own hands.
She hesitated again, another moment’s indecision, before steeling herself. Enough! I am a lord!
She carefully moved towards the nearside of the bed, staying just below the fabric of the illusion, until she could ease out from under the cover and down onto the floor.
She reinforced the illusion where she slid out, spending another hundred heartbeats strengthening it, firming its opacity and its realness so that a scryer watching her would not see her crawl into the alcove.
Once she had finished bolstering her illusions, she got up on her hands and knees and carefully moved into the alcove and lay for a moment next to the gurgling chamberpot.
She stood, dressed quickly, using the garments that Haldeen’s staff had given her.
Try as she might, she could not fully suppress the wisps of sound and the brushes of cloth as she dressed.
She hoped her snores, the soft sounds of her sleep, and water gurgling in the chamberpot would cover the bit of noise she made as she dressed.
She frowned as she put on the trews and blouse.
She had considered darkening her clothes for this, making them deep black, but reasoned that if she were seen wearing midnight, then suspicion would be raised.
She had also seen enough others in the compound wearing similar gray clothing, so even seen she might be taken for a lass slipping back to her quarters after an assignation.
She laughed silently then … with her height and boy’s build, at least by their standards, she’d be more likely taken for a lad carrying his shoes home, rather than a lass.
She knelt and reached behind the chamberpot, feeling for the piece of bronze she had placed there.
She found it with her fingertips and quickly peeled it away, then reshaped it in her hands to form the fibber-key that she had used to defeat her room’s lock.
Dressed and ready, she took a deep breath. Moon or no, it’s time to do this.
She patted her hair to make sure the hairpins were in place, then crept around the periphery of the room, weaving her illusions as she went. Less detailed than those around the bed, and its occupant, but hopefully enough to fool a remote viewer.
Once to the door, she sent a tendril of energy to arm the bit of spellcraft she had set on the lock before, then inserted the fibber-key and gently eased it between the drums.
She had rigged the lock well enough to open with just a spell, but the key helped manage the sound.
Her craft proved sound. She had long experience slipping locks and stealing away after her own liaisons when her father had been alive, and her previous explorations with this made the act child’s play.
With a small pinch of the fingers, a twist, and a softly exhaled breath, she turned the fibber-key and the lock silently gave way.
She tested the latch, and it opened. She was free of the room!
She cracked the door a sliver and peered out.
A mage-light a few steps away illuminated the sturdy doors of this wing.
Hers was the last door, a corner that provided the small window, the mage-light, and the trysting place.
She knew about the pool of light from her earlier exploration, and that it represented one of the most vulnerable moments.
No way around it. She should be clearly visible when she departed the room.
She thought about disabling it … better a few moments where she might be seen than a sudden pool of darkness where a lamp formerly shone. Better the few moments.
No guard, dozing or otherwise, and no chair outside her door.
Lord Haldeen, or one of his minions, really had taken the sentry away.
In Haldeen’s place, she would never have done that unless she knew for certain she had a swarm of detectors over her “guest.”
Then again, he seems to think as little of females as my own people do.
She laughed inwardly. Well, my people got that idea from somewhere, now, didn’t they?
She closed the door and listened, holding her breath at intervals.
She closed her eyes, the better to hear an approaching guard, night worker, or other person who might be up and about at this time of night.
Nothing. Time for it.
She opened the door and slipped out, closing it softly after her, and rearming the lock.
She used a small magic, a Lover’s Touch, that would open the lock for her hand, and hers alone.
It would remain locked for anyone else. That complete, she stepped quickly out of the light, and paused in the first pool of real darkness she expected to find …
the bower just below her window where the sometime, maybe, soon to be lovers, had flirted.
Her first bit of luck arrived then. Clouds that washed over the larger moon, dimming it, and giving her the time she needed to cross the courtyard.
She moved at a brisk pace, neither bending nor running …
nothing too furtive, just a late worker out after curfew.
Even so, she braced for a call and a shout.
She went over her priorities. A map of the place, so I can find the Gate he used to bring me in. Instructions, so I can work it and leave.
She tried to measure her risk. She reasoned that whatever Haldeen knew about the Gate would either be in the tower near the wall, the office she had heard he kept near the main house, or the deep room where she had been first roused after she had been brought through.