Mage Quest - Wizard of Yurt 3 by C. Dale Brittain Read Free Book Online Page A

would like to see the lord of this castle. We have captured some bandits.”
    The soldiers took a good look at us and our packhorses and then abruptly fled with startled cries. Giving each other surprised glances, we dismounted and came through the gate on foot.
    “It’s a good thing we caught these bandits,” said the king, “if even the sight of them bound terrifies the people here.”
    “It’s a good thing the castelan has such a fine castle if his soldiers are al cowards,” replied Dominic.
    Inside the wals were al the working parts of a castle that someone would not want to transport up narrow stairs cut inside a cuff: the stables, the kennels, the armor shop, the mews, the kitchens, and the big grain storage bins. Down at the far end stood a set of gibbets; this castelan did indeed practice high justice.
    We waited politely for someone to come meet us, but for a few minutes there was only panicked shouting and scurrying. I even wondered momentarily if some bizarre spel had made everyone here think that we were dragons. But a quick probe found no spels other than my own.
    After a while, one of the soldiers came back. “Are—are they dead?”
    “Of course not,” I said “I paralyzed them with magic.”
    He hesitated. Something very odd indeed, I thought, was happening here. Did they think we were another band of ruffians ourselves? If so, why did they make no effort to resist us?
    “You’d better go up to the castle,” the soldier said at last, “and talk to the constable.”
    There was a brief pause while we tried to decide if it was possible to carry the bandits up the stairs. Finaly I broke the spels that held them. They looked disoriented and confused as we untied them from the packhorses, then puled them to their feet and tied their hands behind them. As we started toward the castle, Ascelin, Dominic, and Hugo each had a bandit in front of him, a dagger point resting against the back of his neck.
    The first flight of stairs was wide enough to give us few problems, even though the steps were uneven and extremely dark. There were no windows and we had to feel our way. The sandstone wals were gritty on either hand, and I heard Dominic cursing quietly as he bumped his head.

    V
    We came out into what appeared to be a guard room cut into the stone. A single window gave a little light. On the far side, the stairs started up again, much narrower and even darker.
    The soldier leading us glanced at Dominic and Ascelin. “We’d better take the outside stairs,” he said.
    The bandits, who had said nothing, turned toward a door set in the room’s outer wal, next to the window. The soldier opened the door, which led to wooden stairs built on scaffolding on the outside of the cliff. These were much wider than the inner stairs though the gaps between steps made them potentialy treacherous.
    I glanced down as we came out into chily daylight and saw that we were already forty feet up. This was indeed an admirable castle for war. Even if an enemy made it as far as the guard room, he would stil have to climb either the narrow inner stairs, which could easily be blocked, or the outer wooden stairs, which could be set on fire.
    But how had the bandits known that the doorway led to the stairs?
    Al of us except the bandits were breathing hard when we reached the top of the cliff and entered the castle itself through another door. We came into a great hal, wel lit by tal windows looking out in al directions across the countryside.
    “They can afford windows, being up so high,” I heard Dominic say appreciatively to Ascelin. “In Yurt, al our windows open onto the courtyard.” But I was thinking about the bandits rather than castle architecture. Was it because they been captured and brought here for justice so many times that they had known where the stairs were and had been able to climb them so readily, even with daggers pressed against then-necks? If so, why had they not yet been hung?
    The constable of the castle