Ascendant (15 page)

Cully smiled,
and winked as if Koren had passed some sort of test.
“
Aye, for the likes of you
and me, a feast. For the Quality people round here, over in the palace, this is
rough fare, why, they
’
d
turn up their noses at such as we say is a feast. The Quality, they have
roasted pheasant, and honey cakes, and tarts with strawberries and fresh cream.
”
Cully spread the food out
on top of the chest, and sliced the cheese and sausage with a knife from his
pocket. He tore off a chunk of bread, layered it with sausage and cheese, and
gestured for Koren to grab some food.
“
Come
on, I
’
ll show
you around.
”

They climbed
the tower, which was tall, but rather thin so that even at the bottom each
level only had three or four rooms, with lots of closets and other cubbyholes.
Koren reached out to tug open a door on the fourth level, when Cully slapped
his hand away.
“
Don
’
t you be touching that,
you fool! You see the sign there, that
’
s
Lord Salva
’
s
sign.
”
Cully
pointed to a dark smudge on the door, like a smoke stain, that was vaguely in
the shape of a lightning bolt.
“
Keep
away from those, unless the wizard hisself tells you to go in there. Set off
the banshees, otherwise, you will, shrieking demons that will wake up the whole
castle, and bring a troop of guards pounding up the stairs.
”

“
Banshees?
”
Koren looked closely at
the door, thinking Cully was playing a trick on him. It looked like any other,
old, worn wooden door.

Cully shook
his head.
“
Ah,
good thing for you I came along. Don
’
t
you know wizards set spells they call wards, to guard their things? You look
for that sign on the door,
”
he paused, biting one of his knuckles while he thought,
“
of course, there are also
invisible
wards, wind you.
”

“
Invisible?
”
Koren swallowed hard, his
throat suddenly dry, and not just from the bread he was eating.
“
How am I-
“

“
Don
’
t worry yourself about it,
”
Cully waved his hand
assuringly,
“
I
know which doors are warded. Or which doors are usually warded,
”
he added under his
breath,
“
you
never can tell with wizards.
”
He patted Koren on the shoulder.
“
I
’
ll show you which doors
not to open.
”

“
What
’
s behind the doors that
are warded?
”
Koren asked innocently.

Cully snatched
off his cap in exasperation.
“
There
you go, already getting yourself in trouble, scheming to stick your nose where
it don
’
t
belong! Can
’
t
leave well enough alone, can you? And of course, I
’
ll get the blame, Cully,
you should have warned the new boy, Cully, it
’
s your fault, Cully this and Cully that, it
’
s always me catches it hot
when things go wrong around here.
”

Koren backed
away, holding his hands up, although one hand was still filled with bread,
cheese and smoked sausage.
“
I
was just curious, that
’
s
all, I wouldn
’
t
get you into trouble. Had enough trouble myself.
”
He said, trying to calm the other boy down.

“
You best not.
”
Cully mumbled, calming
down as quickly as he had exploded.
“
What
’
s behind those doors is
none of our business, that
’
s
what
’
s behind
those doors. Especially not the business of a boy who just got to the castle,
stepping right off the farm.
”
His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.
“
I seen behind a few o
’
those doors a time or
two, strange stuff in there. Potions, and scrolls, and books likely filled with
dark magic, powerful dark magic. You best stay away, if you can.
”
He gestured for them to
go up another floor in the tower. As they climbed, Cully patted Koren on the
shoulder.
“
I
hear you did get in trouble. Poaching in old Duke Yarron
’
s woods, eh?
”

“
I didn
’
t get in trouble for that!
”
Koren protested over a
mouthful of sausage.
“
It
was only a few fish, anyway.
”

“
Only a few fish, you says.
No deer, no rabbits, that must grow thick in the duke
’
s private hunting reserve,
and you wasn
’
t
tempted, even with a hungry belly?
”
Cully winked.
“
Don
’
t you worry about it, the
royalty taxes us, I say we tax them right back, by taking a couple deer once in
a while, to fill our bellies.
”
They stopped in front of a door that displayed the faint lightning bolt symbol,
Cully pointed to it, and Koren nodded that he understood.
“
Only a few fish or not,
you coulda got in big trouble, if you hadn
’
t
saved our princess. Say, is that story true?
”

Koren hastened
to repeat the story that Paedris had given to him.
“
I don
’
t know which story you
mean, there
’
s
a lot of wild tales going around, I hear. She fell in the river, and it was
cold, and I was there to pull her out, before her guards could get there.
”
The genius of Paedris
’
tale was that every word
of it was true, so Koren didn
’
t
have to remember much of a lie.

Cully seemed
disappointed. The stories he
’
d
heard, of a giant bear, and a raging river, and bandits, were so much better
than the truth, he wished he hadn't asked.
“
You saved her, whatever the story is. And isn
’
t that like the Quality,
huh? You save them, and the reward you get is to be stuck cleaning a dusty old
tower for a wizard, who is likely as not to turn you into a frog someday, when
he
’
s brewing
up potions and not paying attention.
”

Koren was
about to protest that princess Ariana had treated him very well, and anyway,
living in a castle was better than shivering and starving in the woods by
himself over the coming winter. But just as he opened his mouth, Cully
excitedly pointed out a large door, which Koren saw didn
’
t have any lightning bolt
symbol.

“
This door! This one!
”

Koren saw that
it was a large door, heavier that the other doors in the tower, and the wood
was reinforced by iron bands. It had a large but simple lock.
“
What about it?
”

“
Stay away! You stay away
from this door. That lock may look simple to pick, if you know how, but this is
one of those doors I told you about, that has invisible wards. Or it did.
Anyways, stay away, unless the master wizard tells you to go in there. And even
then, you watch mind your business, and get out quick as you can.
”

“
I will. Thanks, Cully.
”
Being servant to a wizard
was going to be a lot more complicated than Koren had thought.

"Now,
here," Cully announced after they'd climbed another set of stairs,
"is the wizard's bath room."

"A bath
room?" Koren asked, peering over the other boy's shoulder to the partly
open door. "What is a bath room for?"

"For
bathing, you dimwit! What else would it be for?"

Koren's mouth
dropped open. "There is an entire room just for taking baths?"

"Sure,"
Cully said matter of factly, enjoying the chance to play the role of a
sophisticated castle resident, to Koren's country hick. "Where else would
you bathe?"

Koren shrugged
as he walked into the room. "We had a tub we'd put in the kitchen, that's
where the stove is for heating the water."

"Oh."
Cully was sorry for putting on airs in front of Koren. "That's what my
family did, too. Before we got here, leastwise. The Quality, like the wizard,
they use a room like this."

"Everyone
has a room like this?" Koren's eyes fairly popped out of his head. Such
luxury! He could scarcely imagine it!

"No, you
dum-dum. Not me, and not you. But you think the princess bathes in a little
metal tub? No, she has a bathing room that makes this," he gestured around
the wizard's stone and tile bathing chamber, "look like a chicken
coop."

Cully was
going on about something, but Koren's brain was frozen on the image of the
crown princess in her bathing room, her robe slipping down over her shoulders-

Koren coughed,
shaking his head and thumping his chest. "Sorry." He needed to get
his mind off the princess, get his mind away from what was probably a
treasonous thought, certainly dangerous. Looking at the large bathing tub, he
groaned. "Ahhh, I have to haul buckets of water all the way up here?"
He tried to figure how many buckets of water he needed to haul up to the fourth
floor of the tower. And how was he going to heat that much water? By the time
he had a couple buckets of water heated and poured into the tub, the water already
in the tub would be cold! Who ever saw a tub that big? The wizard was a tall
man, and even he could stretch his legs all the way out. A person could duck
their head completely under the water!

Startled,
Koren realized Cully had been snapping his fingers in front of Koren's nose.
"Hey, ho, you listening to me?"

"Huh,
sorry."

"I
said
,
you don't need to haul any water up here, it comes out of the tap." Cully
pointed to a metal pipe which came out of the wall and extended over the lip of
the tub. Koren had been wondering what it was used for.

"The
tap?"

Cully blew out
a long breath, flapping his lips in exasperation. "The tap, the pipe, the
water pipe." He turned the valve on top of the pipe, and water flowed out,
into the tub, splashing loudly in the stone-lined room.

Koren jumped
back. "Are
you
a wizard?"

"What?
Me, a wizard? What in the world makes you think I'm a wizard?"

Koren pointed
to the splashing water with a shaky finger, water which came from nowhere he
could see. "That's magic?"

"Magic?
You think that's
magic
? It's plumbing, you numbskull."

"Plumbing."
Koren repeated the word slowly. "What is plumbing?" Carefully,
hesitatingly, he touched the pipe with a finger, then drew back. It hadn't
hurt.

Cully himself
had only a vague idea of what plumbing was and how it worked, but he wasn't
going to let Koren know that. "There's water pipes like this running lots
of places in the castle, and especially in the palace. It comes from, from the
river, and there's wheels, and," he guessed, "pumps and stuff that
push the water along. So, when you open the tap, water comes out."

"Even
this high off the ground?" Koren held the pipe firmly, feeling it vibrate
as water flowed out.

Cully
scratched his head. "I heard this is about as high as it can go, which is
why there isn't as much water coming out here as there would be if the tap was
on the first floor. The water gets, I don't know, tired, from climbing up the
pipe, or something like that." He shrugged.

Koren smiled.
Water didn't get tired, Cully didn't know as much as he pretended. He turned
the valve experimentally, and the water stopped flowing. Without the water
splashing, he saw that the tub hadn't been filling, because the water was
running down a drain hole in the bottom. The draining water swirled around,
faster and faster, like a whirlpool in a fast-running stream. "Where does
the water go?" He asked, relieved that he wouldn't need to haul buckets of
soapy bath water back down the stairs, either.