Princess Of The Silver Woods Part 18

"We know," Walter Vogel said. "Oliver's men were watching."

"We came here, and when the courtiers arrived," Heinrich said, continuing the story while Galen finally took a drink from the waterskin, "we were overpowered at once, all of us. Galen, Frederick, and I were tied up, and we could hear Grigori talking to the girls in another room for some time. They must have agreed to go after Petunia, because after a while, we heard only Grigori and his men. Then they disappeared too."

"I'm amazed that Poppy didn't just shoot Grigori," Bishop Schelker said.

"She almost did. And so did I," Galen told them. "But he is the only one who knows where the new gateway into the Kingdom Under Stone is."

Prince Frederick sighed. "But now they've gone, and we still don't know where the gate is."

"We are not entirely without hope," Walter a.s.sured him. "The gate is somewhere in this lodge. Oliver's men haven't seen any sign of anyone leaving."

"Oliver's men again?" Heinrich murmured.

Oliver was strangely embarra.s.sed. "They were worried about Petunia," he muttered.

"And a good thing too," Frederick said.

"We'd better find that gate," the crone said. She turned and started out of the room.

"Hold a moment," said Heinrich. He got to his feet, nearly falling against the sofa as he did so. He stretched and rubbed his bad leg for a moment, a frown creasing his face. "What do we do when we get there?"

"Whatever needs to be done," Walter Vogel said.

"Not good enough," said Heinrich. "What will need to be done to stop this from happening over and over again?"

"Seal them all up once again, and this time we'll make sure it holds," the old man said, rubbing his seamed face.

"Can you be sure?"

"I haven't spent the last fifteen hundred years learning to knit my own socks, boy!" The crone looked like she might box Heinrich's ears, if she could have reached them.

Heinrich didn't look pleased; he looked even grimmer, if that were possible. "You've found the way? Galen's studies-"

"Galen's studies are a wonder," said Walter Vogel gently, "but as the good frau has said, we have had centuries of time to perfect our original spell."

"Last time it took a dozen pract.i.tioners, and most of them died," Galen pointed out. He put a hand on Walter's shoulder and squeezed it. "If we dared to take more time-"

"What did I just say to the other one?" The old woman jerked a gnarled thumb at Heinrich. "We wouldn't have come if we didn't think we could succeed."

"The power will mostly pa.s.s through the good frau and myself," said Walter. "The rest of you will be quite safe." He leveled his gaze at Oliver. "But we will need all of you."

"Of course," Oliver said, getting to his feet. He tried not to show how stiff the ride had made him. "Of course I'll do whatever necessary."

"And if you're wrong, Walter? About the focus? About the effectiveness of the spell?" Heinrich's frown had never left his face.

"Have we ever been wrong before?" The good frau smacked him on the upper arm, which was as high as she could reach. She looked at Galen. "Well? Tell him!"

"No, good frau," Galen said, with a faint smile that didn't reach his eyes. "You never have been wrong."

"I have everything here that Walter and the good frau have asked for, and the items that you sent for as well, Galen," Bishop Schelker said, indicating a satchel slung across his chest. "Let's find the gate and go. The princesses have spent long enough below."

They tramped from room to room, looking for a way to reach the Kingdom Under Stone. In every room, Walter Vogel and the good frau would stand with their heads c.o.c.ked as though listening to something. Then they would shake their heads and move on.

"The whole house reeks of magic," the crone complained after a few minutes. "Did Under Stone's men tramp through every pantry and water closet?"

After they had searched every room in the house, they went back through the front hall. Walter decided that Prince Grigori had destroyed his gate after he and his people went through, and there was no point in lingering.

They would have to make their own way Under Stone.

Frederick moaned. "How long will that take?"

No one answered him.

"As there is no food here, we could go to my hall," Oliver offered. "It's not very fine, but you could work there unmolested as long as you needed."

Oliver couldn't bear to look at Galen's or Walter's faces as he said this. He could see that they were thinking that making their own gate would take not a matter of hours or days, but months or years. It didn't bear thinking on.

He reached out and nearly brushed the canvas of an enormous painting that hung on the nearest wall. It was a hunting scene and looked very familiar. He was almost certain that it had belonged to his family. In fact, one of the figures wore a dark tunic that clearly had been painted over, and he thought it had borne his family's coat of arms before. He squinted at it. The paint in several places looked wet, now that he gave it closer scrutiny.

"Shall I return to Bruch, while the rest of you go to this hall of Oliver's?" Frederick asked.

He started to add something more, but Karl and the rest of Oliver's men burst through the front door. Karl had an ax in one hand and a pistol in the other, and all their masks were in place.

"What's afoot?" Karl demanded.

"Ah, an escort back to the young earl's hall," said Walter Vogel with a laugh.

"Karl," Oliver said, holding up his hands. "Hold your fire!"

When he lowered his arms, his elbow pa.s.sed right through the painting as if it hadn't been there. Oliver slowly removed his arm, then he plunged his hand in. It was as though there was no paint, no canvas, and no wall behind. It just kept going.

"I believe I've found the gate," Oliver said.

He moved his arm back and forth. The gate was as high and as wide as the painting, and Oliver held his breath as he thrust his head in to look around.

"Oliver! What are you doing?"

He heard Karl shout, but it wasn't necessary. He could see quite well, and there was nothing to alarm him. Just a stairway of gold that descended toward a silver gate. Beyond the gate he could see a wood, also of silver, and beyond that the spires of a black palace. He drew back.

"That's the gate all right," he told them, feeling almost giddy.

"How in heaven's name?" Prince Heinrich's mouth was agape. "They walked through a painting?"

"And not a very good one, either." The crone sniffed. "Those horses have stumpy legs, and what are they hunting? I can't tell if that's a fox or a polecat."

Oliver bowed to the old woman. "When this is all over, I shall replace this painting with a portrait of you, good frau."

"Well!" That seemed to please her. "Help me over the frame, then."

Arsonist.

Petunia was crouched in a corner of Rose's bedchamber, trying to light the leg of a small table on fire. Her sisters all stood watch, except for Poppy and Violet, who had gone off on some mission of their own. This made Lily even more nervous than did the prospect of setting Rose's room on fire, for as she said, "Anytime Poppy gets that look in her eye, it makes me nervous."

"Just light it already," Jonquil shrilled. "And try not to use up all the matches!"

"Thank you, Jonquil," Petunia snapped. "I hadn't thought of that."

"Be nice," Daisy whispered. She was standing next to the chair with a pitcher of water, ready to douse the experiment.

But there was no fire. Petunia had even shredded a handkerchief as kindling and wrapped the bits around the leg of the chair. They had no books in their room, though Rose swore she had seen some of the princes reading when they had been trapped in the palace as children. Even if the slick wood of the chair was reluctant to burn, the linen-or whatever it was the handkerchiefs were made of in Under Stone's realm-should have caught fire by now; she'd placed three matches directly on the threads.

"I don't think it will work," Petunia admitted. "And Jonquil's right: I shouldn't use up all my matches just playing around. I've never seen them so frightened; there must be some way to use that against them." She closed the little box of matches and put it in her bodice.

"What was it exactly that you started on fire last night?" Rose's forehead was creased with concentration.

"The horrid flowers that I had picked in the wood," Petunia recited. "And my fan from the ball, and my handkerchief."

"Did it all burn?"

"Yes!" Then Petunia stopped. "No," she said more thoughtfully. "I don't really think the fan burned. But that handkerchief-wait! That handkerchief was one of mine! It burned and so did the flowers. There was a nasty mess on my dressing table afterward; I could see it through the webby thing that Rionin put over it all. I don't know if the sticks of the fan burned; I could see its shape through the web. But a footman cleared it all away before I got a good look at it."

"If they are so afraid of fire," Orchid said, "it might be that things here aren't meant to burn. They might have some chemical on them, or be made of things that aren't naturally flammable." She pushed her spectacles up higher and nodded.

"What isn't flammable?" Petunia frowned at her.

She'd never heard of such a thing. Her father had lectured her at length when she was a child about how everything had the potential to burn, and burn out of control, from green wood on down a list of household items he thought she might try her matches on.

"Wool doesn't burn," said Orchid. "In fact, it smothers fires."

"I don't think this is wool," Petunia said, fingering the slippery shreds of what had been a black handkerchief edged with rather tatty lace.

"Silk burns," said Orchid. "But not very well." She squinted at the mess around the table leg. "Did that even singe?"

"Not a bit," said Petunia with despair.

"It makes sense that they wouldn't have clothes and things that could burn, if they're afraid of fire," said Hyacinth. "Which is a shame, since we shan't be able to burn this place to the ground after all."

The others all stared at her in surprise, and she flushed.

"Well, there must be something around here that burns," said Lilac, disgruntled.

"I'm not sure that this chair is even really wood," said Petunia, chipping at the lacquered leg with a fingernail.

"If something did burn, how could they replace it?" Rose pointed out."I don't know how the first king created all this, but I doubt Rionin has the power to do the same. There's no quarry to get new stone, no forests other than the silver wood."

Petunia's head snapped up and she blinked at her oldest sister. "The silver wood! Do you think that would burn?"

"It's silver," Iris said. "Metal doesn't burn." She was rearranging her hair in the dressing-table mirror. "But I do wish we could go across the lake to the forest. I want some knitting needles."

"What are you going to knit?" Lilac wanted to know. "A nice scarf for Derivos?" Her voice was thick with scorn.

"No," Iris retorted, "I want something that doesn't look like a weapon so that they won't take it away from me, but I could still stab someone with it."

"I just want clothes that don't scratch at me," Jonquil fretted. Her pale skin was red where the lace of the bodice chafed, and she was so thin that the gown hung off her shoulders, though Lily had tried pinning it up as best she could.

"I wonder," Petunia said, tucking the box of matches into her own bodice and getting to her feet, "if they would let us go over to the wood if we said that we wanted knitting needles."

"It can't hurt to ask," Rose said, her eyes gleaming.

"Someone's coming," Lily whispered, and hurried to sit on the end of the bed by Pansy.

The door was thrown open, and at first Petunia wasn't sure what she was seeing. It looked like a mountain of clothing had come to life and was about to attack them. Then she noticed a high pile of black curls atop the pile-Poppy. And some of the clothing was familiar too....

"My riding gown!" Pansy leaped up to seize a pale-yellow gown from the middle of the pile.

"Careful!"

Poppy tipped forward and all the gowns spilled on the floor. She came all the way into the room, kicking the pile ahead of her, with Violet on her heels holding a lumpy bundle wrapped in a petticoat.

"The good news," Poppy said, closing the door behind Violet, "is that Blathen is the worst poker player in the history of the game. I mean, really, Violet and I simply slaughtered him and Telinros." She smiled at the memory. "The better news is that I won back all our clothes, including our boots, as you can see." She made an expansive gesture at the pile on the floor, and the bundle that Violet was putting down with greater care.

"If you're good with numbers, poker isn't all that difficult," Violet said. She shook her head over the princes' lack of skill but couldn't hide a pleased smile.

The sisters quickly shed their Under Stone gowns and put on their own things. Even Jonquil, the most fas.h.i.+on-minded among them, didn't complain about wearing a riding habit and boots indoors. Instead, she smiled for the first time since they had arrived, and Poppy hugged her in an uncharacteristic show of affection.

Petunia even tied on her scarlet cloak. She had brought it with her to Rose's room, not wanting to let it out of her sight. She had been using it as a blanket at night, instead of the thin, slick covers on her bed, which gave off little warmth and smelled like pond water.

Once she was dressed, Pansy looked around nervously at her sisters. "Shall we all go together?"

"Go where?" Poppy looked up from putting Petunia's pistol in a pocket that tied around her waist under her gown. "Are we going to try to rush out the front door?" She looked rather excited by this idea. "I still say they won't expect it, always a benefit in any battle."

"We're going to ask if we can go to the wood," Rose said. "And gather twigs to use as knitting needles."

"And then we're going to stab Rionin with them," said Jonquil firmly.

"I love this idea," announced Poppy. "Let's all pick a prince, inscribe his name on our needles, and then attack tonight during the ball. If we all strike at the same time, no one will stop us until it's too late. Then we run for it. If there are ways in, there are ways out."

Petunia felt a chill at Poppy's cheerful words. It seemed far too easy. If there was a way in and out, shouldn't Galen and the others have found it by now? It had been almost five days! At least carrying some kind of weapon would make her feel safer.

So they all trooped out of Rose's room and down the corridor, until they found where the princes were gathered. Their request to cross the lake was met variously with unease or hilarity, however, until at last Hyacinth's partner Stavian silenced his brothers with a loud hiss.

"You cannot leave the palace," he told the princesses.