The Crown Conspiracy

“I must admit, you two have been quite impressive. Your reputation is certainly well earned. It was very clever of you two, slipping in the sewers behind those rat catchers, using them as a decoy. It was also intelligent of you to send that note causing me to direct you right to the princess, but your genius ended there. You see, I can kill you whenever I want, but I want you alive. I need at least one person to execute. The mob will insist on that. In a few moments, Wylin and a dozen guards will come up here, and you will be taken to the stake. Meanwhile, your friend, whom you are sure is rescuing Arista, will be the instrument of her death and his as well. You could run and warn him, but oh—that’s right—you are keeping me at bay, aren’t you?”

Braga grinned evilly and attacked again.

-- 5 --

Royce reached a door at the end of the hall and was not surprised to find it locked. He pulled his tools from his belt. The lock was traditional, and he had no trouble picking it. The door swung open, but immediately Royce knew something was wrong. He felt, more than heard, a click as the door pulled back. His instincts told him something was not right. He looked up the spiral stairs that disappeared around the circle of the tower. Nothing looked amiss, but years of experience told him otherwise.

He tentatively put a foot on the first step and nothing happened. He moved to the second, and the third, inching his way up. Listening for any telltale sounds, he searched for wires, levers, or loose tiles. Everything appeared safe. Behind him down the hallway, he could hear the faint sounds of swordplay as Hadrian entertained the archduke. He needed to hurry.

He moved up five more steps. There were small windows, no more than three feet tall and only a foot wide, just enough to allow light to pass through, but nothing else. The brilliant wintry sun revealed the staircase in a colorless brilliance. Weight, rather than mortar, held the smooth stone walls together. The steps were likewise made of solid blocks of stone also fitted with amazing artisanship so that a sheet of parchment could not slip between the cracks.

Royce moved up to the sixth step, and as he shifted his weight to the higher stone block, the tower shook. In reaction, he instinctively started to step back and then it happened. The previous five steps collapsed. They broke and fell out of sight into an abyss below him. Royce shifted his weight forward again just in time to avoid falling to his death and took another off balance step upward. The moment he did, the previous step broke away and fell. The tower rumbled again.

“Your first mistake was picking the lock,” Magnus told him.

Royce could hear the dwarf’s voice from the doorway below. When he turned, he could see the dwarf standing just outside the door in the castle corridor. He stood there, spinning a door key tied to a string around his index finger, winding and unwinding it. He absently stroked the hair of his beard.

“If you open the door without using the key, it engages the trap,” Magnus explained with a grin.

The dwarf began to pace slowly before the open door like a professor addressing a class. “You can’t jump the hole you made to get back here. It’s already too far. And, in case you are wondering, the bottom is a long way down. You started climbing this tower on the sixth floor of the castle, and the base of the tower extends to the bedrock below the foundation. I also added plenty of jagged rocks at the bottom, just for fun.”

“You made this?” Royce asked.

“Of course, well—not the tower, it was here already. I spent the last half-year hollowing it out like a stone-eating termite.” He grinned and flashed his eyes. “There’s very little stone left in it. All those very solid looking blocks of rock you see are parchment-thin. I left just the right amount of structure in place. The inside looks like a spider web made of stone rather than thread. Tiny strands of rock in a latticework of a classic crystalline matrix—strong enough to hold the tower up, but extremely fragile if the right thread is broken.”

“And I take it each time I take a step up, the previous one will fall?”