She had awoken that first morning in her Tower to the sound of the sea with surprise then remembered where she
was and touched the hilt of her dagger instinctively as she sat up.
“Oh how I wish this was a dream” she said to herself as she pulled on her skirt. It was creased and crumpled where
she had slept on it. She needed some men’s leggings here really, but the fashion for women wearing those at Court
had passed some five years ago, and she had none to bring. Perhaps in the village. She would find out.
She smoothed the creases out as best she could and put on her jacket. The wards still buzzed in her mind peacefully,
but she would need to spend some more time with them today.
“and when they come, what then?” she asked herself the question again, and got no answer… again. She made up an
uninspiring breakfast from dried fruit and oats. The morning sun was gradually sneaking into the room, and she
decided upon exploring every inch of this place today. She needed a place to retreat to, and a place to feel safe
in. This had obviously been a defensive structure, surely there would be a secret place, somewhere to hide gold or
a person from intruders?
The first floor was one large open expanse. The huge fireplace with her bed in front of it, and little else other
than rubble and broken pieces of furniture sat against the Eastern wall.. She found some kitchen tools though
scattered around in the mess. A cooking pot, a knife with a broken handle, a spoon…a few things that she could lay
claim to. It pleased her to have some things again, even old broken things. There were windows facing towards each
the four cardinal points. None had glass or shutters. Foraged by the villagers, no doubt, years ago. The Westerly
and North facing windows were very high up, about fifteen feet she guessed. The Sea would be the reason for that
she surmised. It must hit those rocks down below with some force. Perhaps people had been irritated by the noise of it.
The door was in the southern wall, and outside a path wound slowly downwards to the village. The second floor was
much the same layout as the first, but it was divided into two sections with sturdy oak doors dividing them.
She had paid no attention to this floor when she had arrived, feeling a need to be high up and keep a watch.
The watch station on the roof had been her main objective. These could have perhaps been barracks quarters for soldiers she
thought. A few iron braziers lay in the corners. They might be useful, and she logged that they were here.
If these had been soldiers quarters, no weapons had been left around. No sign of any secret passage or hidden room either.
All walls matching the contours of the ground floor exactly. She was looking for some where with a wall a little
too far forward, or flooring that showed signs of being lifted. There were none.
The third floor at the top was divided into four and the doors here were also oak and in surprisingly good
condition. She explored each room carefully. Nothing. Sighing in disappointment, she climbed the stairs to the
Watch station on the roof. The wards in the forest flickered softly. She spent about an hour with them, mentally
recharging and replenishing them with her energy. It was more pleasant out here this morning in the sunshine, the
wind still blew very cold, trying to claim her, whisk her away to a fifty foot fall. Part of her wanted to let it.
With her defences settled for the day she looked again towards the East. All was quiet. She walked around the Tower
to look at the ocean. The tide was out, and about a half a mile of rocky shale beckoned her to try and explore it
before the Sea rushed back to claim it. She realised that it would be important to know the movements of the tides.
The desolate beach was flat. She wanted to be aware of just how long it took the water to return to its highest
level. What she wouldn’t give now for pen and paper! She smiled at herself, “you have precious little to give,
milady, even if Wishmaker Ern walked in now with his rattle” she reminded herself.
For now the tide was out. She had no idea how much time she had to think of somewhere to hide if someone came
looking for her. If she was careful and didn’t stray too far from the sea wall, she would be safe enough.
She wrapped her cloak around herself and went out into the wind. The path to the village round around on itself and
split off into what looked like a rarely used trail down to the beach. She looked up at the tower and noticed that
once there had been a stone stairway from the first floor window down to the beach. Pieces of it still remained
intact, though unusable now. Puzzled, she went closer to investigate. The tide was still a long way out. She felt
relatively safe in walking across the wet slippery rocks to the remains of the old staircase. What had this been
used for? Maybe the kitchen workers used it to collect shellfish or kale when the tide was out? Standing at the
bottom of what would have been the stairway, she gazed out towards the sea, and scanned the beach for clues as to
what purpose the staircase might have served.
About twenty feet away she could see metal glinting in the sun. Curious, she walked towards it. The sounds of water
were louder, and she sensed that the tide had turned. She must be careful. She could still run to safety in a few
minutes even if …
The image of a huge wall of water instead of a gentle inflow of tide had barely touched her mind when she looked
out to sea and saw exactly that roaring towards her.
“That’s unnatural! “ she shrieked, adrenalin beginning to demand some action from her legs. She looked down at
brassy ring in the shale, about six inches in diameter. There was no time to get to shore. Cursing herself for not
waiting to watch the tidal patterns she tugged at the brass ring.
“You just have to be a door, you have to be…Be a door! Please!”
The sound of the water was almost deafening now. She had maybe a few minutes to live. She twisted the brass ring
this way and that, tugging at it desperately in panic, and suddenly a round metal trap door opened outwards
sending her backwards. “Oh gods!” she whispered seeing a twenty foot wall of freezing oblivion only a few seconds
away from her. Getting down there would do no good unless she could close the trap door. Logic nagged at her
unhelpfully “it won’t stand that pressure even if you do, you are dead Riani”. Ignoring the option to give up she
grabbed the handle on the inside and threw herself into the hole, her weight pulling it closed behind her.
She hung there, dangling pointlessly as water leaked through the unsecured seal of the trapdoor. She was soaking wet
already, her hands struggling to retain a grip on the ring. “Light” she spelled desperately, and immediately a
soft pearlescent glow illuminated her situation. There was a metal stair rail to her left, and she swung her legs
over to it until she had a foothold. Steadying herself with one hand she twisted the ring with all her might to the
left. It wouldn’t budge. She tried the right and impossibly heard the seal clicked into position. She was still
dripping salt water by the bucketful, but by some miracle the trap door wasn’t.
Clinging to the stairway she looked down. “Oh gods!” she whispered again. It was at least a forty foot drop.
The light that she had spelled didn’t stretch to illuminate the bottom of this strange metal tube. She stayed there for
a few minutes, breathing deeply and trying to be positive. At least she wasn’t dead. And at least she had a fairly
good place to hide in case of pursuit, if the tide was out, and if they didn’t see her climb down there.
Still, it was more than she had had this morning. She was shivering, and decided to climb down the stairway. She had a
ringing in her ears, probably caused by the pressure of the water above her. She spent a few more moments trying to
attune her senses to it. Having no way of guessing how long the tide would stay in, and therefore when it would be
safe to get out again, her only hope was that her Woodsense would adapt to give her some idea of whether water or
air was above her. Then she began the unpleasant climb down. Now and again her boots would slip on the metal made
wet by the sea’s brief invasion, and she would cling harder to the rail. After what seemed like hours of careful
climbing her feet hit floor.
There was only one direction to walk, and so she started walking in it. She was still very cold and wet, and knew
that she would need to find warmth soon. The shivering was becoming distracting. There was nothing for it, she
would have to try and modify a fire spell. She stripped off her wet clothes and put them in a pile in front of her.
Carefully weighing up the effect she needed, and hoping that she didn’t make a mess of this like she often had in
class, she cast a new spelling from her fire spellinglore, “Dry” . She examined the results with some pride.
There was a hole burned in her skirt at the hem, and the jacket looked a little singed, but they were dry, the cloak was
in perfect condition as far as she could tell. The shift had disappeared, probably too thin for the effect to do
anything but vaporise it. “Oh well” she said to, herself smiling, “not bad for a brand new spell I just invented
myself”. She put on the dry clothes, using her cloak to dry herself a little first. That was much better, and they
still felt warm. She now felt much more comfortable and carried on in optimistic spirits down the long corridor.
She rounded a corner and the gentle crackling and blue flashes that appeared just ahead of her were unmistakeable.,
“A ward!” she whispered to herself, surprised. Someone had set a ward about twenty feet ahead. She could see its
blue tendrils twisting and crackling, and there was no way to avoid it. In front of it was a door. She considered
her options. The ward would do her no harm, but it would alert whoever had set it of her presence before she
reached the door. She held her dagger tightly and did the only sensible thing to do in the situation. She walked
through the ward, feeling it tingle and hearing it send its alarm and knocked on the door.
She felt suddenly very silly standing knocking at the door as if she was just visiting a friend holding a dagger as a calling card.
No-one answered, so she knocked again louder, and for longer. No answer. Raising her left hand to bang on it
one more time she was surprised as it flew open by itself. An irritated male voice exclaimed,
“Well come in will you! I am very busy.”
She lowered her guard a little, holding the dagger down by her side and hesitantly walked through the door .
“Yes, right the way in, good grief! Are you challenged in the area of social convention or deaf madam?”
Riani was unsure of what to think, or what to do next, so she walked a little more quickly into the room trying to
think of a retort, her hand still gripping he hilt of the dagger. Sitting at a substantial desk in a large study,
not unlike that of her brother’s but with more books, was a man about forty years old. His hair was blond, with a
touch of grey starting to show in strands here and there. It was quite long and reached below his shoulders.
He was wearing a grey shirt buttoned up all wrong, like a child would have done it,
with one button at the top having no home to go to and a gap two buttons further down.
In spite of her disorientation she found herself smiling and saying,
“Hello, I’m Riani.”
“I can see I am in for a treat of intelligent conversation here” he muttered, then stood up and waved his left
hand. Her dagger appeared immediately in it.
“How did you do that!” she gasped.
“How did you become careless enough to let me?” he responded calmly with a smile that was predatory and a little
lascivious. Riani saw that now the shirt was correctly buttoned up, there was no trace of grey in his hair and that
what she had thought was a harmless grumpy scholar prematurely aged by reading too much was absent. He was standing
a good head taller than her, just two feet away, holding her dagger, and looking very dangerous, albeit about
fifteen years her elder. It would be an uneven fight. She decided not to try.
“Now what will you do? No weapon. Perhaps you’ll to try and seduce me?” He asked, staring into her eyes with a
cruel intensity and a smile that made her nervous. She was fairly frightened but also angry at having being taken
for a fool She realised she was very angry, then the stresses of the last few days stole her temper.
Three days frustration and emotion came out of her mouth before she could stop herself.
“Not if you were the last man …under the… sea!”, she blustered, and then found her coherence,
“ Have you any idea what I’ve just been through! Have you!?” She delivered a list of her ordeals of the past few
days in about a minute flat with the shrillness of a shrew scolding an errant husband and the tenacity of a Harpy.
Then, without taking a breath, or time to think about what she was doing, she walked boldly towards him and
snatched her dagger from his hand.
“That’s mine, and I didn’t say that you could borrow it.”
Silence and peace for a few seconds, then,
“Quite right, you didn‘t”, he smiled pleasantly, “Tea?”
Riani was wishing that they could start the conversation again, but there was nowhere to start from but here.
Without waiting to be asked she plonked herself on one of the leather chairs and said “Yes please, and have you
got anything to eat?”
He clicked a finger. Tea and sandwiches and cake appeared in front her on the desk neatly arranged on a tray.
“Bet you want to know how I did that too don’t you?” he said pouring her a cup of steaming tea from a delicate
looking white pot, and proffering her a jug of milk and a bowl of sugar.
“That very much depends on what they taste like” she answered a little petulantly.
“As you clearly have your stomach set as a priority, I’ll introduce myself while you entertain it. “
He sat down in the other chair and swung his feet upwards onto the desk next to the tray. Leather leggings.
She wanted a pair of those. He looked very different now to both of the roles she had just seen him play.
She found herself staring at his legs. “Oh please don’t let me start finding this arrogant bully attractive”
she thought to herself. Too late. She was already finding him very attractive.
“My name is Avin. I live here, mostly.” he gave her an appraising look and said “you can too if you tidy yourself
up and look decorative. I need some light relief around the place.”
Riani concentrated on her sandwich and resisted the temptation to be baited into another show of temper.
“Do you get many visitors Avin?” she asked innocently, “I ask because my answer will very much depend on whether
you are offering a slot on a rota or negotiating a tenancy agreement.”
“Touché madam. I’m sorry I couldn’t resist it. You looked so serious out there with your little dagger up front.
Shall we start again, and this time I will also try to be a little more serious?”
She took in what he had just said. He had seen her standing out there. What else had he seen? She had been standing
naked in the corridor for at least five minutes drying her clothes. Could things get any worse? Her face, slowly
flushing from pale to pink, betrayed her,
“All of it.” he answered before she asked the question, producing a Seerorb from the air, showing her current
expression of humiliation and embarrassment glowing brightly back at her from its amber glow ,“from your valiant
dive into my entrance hall, right up to you standing knocking politely at my door.” He flicked the Seerorb into the
ether again.
“There is nothing to be embarrassed about, you dealt with everything very well. Pity about your shift though, never
mind, you‘ll get more precise with practise.”
he said in the manner of a reassuring parent.
“Yes there damn well is!”
She was furious and banged her teacup onto the desk making the crockery shake.
“You should be embarrassed! You didn’t lift a finger to help me! How could you watch me struggle like that?
How could you watch anybody struggle like that? Why didn’t you help me?”
He shrugged dismissively, “You didn’t need me to.” and poured himself some tea.