The Keys to the Realms (The Dream Stewards) by Roberta Trahan Page A

of the pens. At the end of the tunnel was an exit used to put prisoners to work in the fields. Thorne stopped just short of the turn. He knew another way out.
    Angry voices echoed from above, with the strike of boot heels on stone steps soon following. With only a minute or two to spare, he waved the rush dip over the right-hand wall of the passage until he found the hatch to the wastewater sluice. It took a good tug to wrench open the metal cover, but good fortune was with him—at least this far; the hinge was well-oiled and moved silently. Thorne tossed the burning rush stalk into the culvert, to douse the light and free his hands.
    Gripping the top of the hatch for leverage, he swung his legs through the opening and perched on the narrow shelf just above the drop, so he could pull the hatch shut behind him. The effort unbalanced him, sending him plummeting down the narrow chute in a feet-first gut slide. Less controlled and less prepared than he had intended, but at least the hatch had closed.
    The culvert was set at a straight, steep incline that ran a good forty feet before letting out in the cesspool. Thorne wondered briefly which was more nauseating—the stench rising from the rancid pool as he barreled toward it, or the thought of landing in the wastewater itself. The landing was worse by far.
    He was out of the cistern nearly as quickly as he had entered it. From the pool edge he only had to kick the cantilevered vent out of its housing to get free of the keep. Then it was a short scramble down the steeply pitched earthen mound that formed the defensive foundation of the castle, and a short wade across a ditch that once had passed for a moat.
    It wouldn’t be long before his pursuers discovered his route, but by that time he would be nearly a league ahead of them. He’d left his horse tethered in a small copse of ash trees a dozen yards from the moat. Fresh clothing was still some miles off. However, far more discomfiting than the fetid, wet cloak and shit-soaked leather leggings, was the fiery tingle he’d felt at the nape of his neck, just before he’d slid down the shaft.

    Glain positioned the hornbeam wand-rough she had brought from her room in the center of the spell room floor. Any rigid thing of similar size and weight would do—a rush stalk or even a candle. But Glain believed that something of meaning and value to her, something inherently magical like the length of consecrated wood she had chosen to become her next wand, would bring her luck. She had been trying all morning with a raven’s quill with no result.
    The finding was a complex invocation. The act of envisioning an object and calling it forth seemed simple enough on the face of it, but to coax the thing to reveal itself actually required remarkable control and concentration. The wand-rough was merely a conduit, a medium of sorts that connected her to the object of her desire. It would respond by pointing out the object—a bit like a divination stick or a south-pointing needle.
    Handling it lightly, Glain held forth her wand and called to mind an image of parchment rolls fixed with the wax impression of Madoc’s signet—a bearded wizard encircled with a wreath of laurel leaves. This had long been the sigil of the Stewardry. Once she had the vision of the scrolls firmly fixed, Glain then imagined them in as much detail as she could summon from memory—the faint mottled texture of the fine vellum that Madoc favored, the scent of tallow and pipe smoke, and his sprawling letters penned in the signature blue-bl ack ink. For years she had prepared the unique mixture for him—from albumen, soot, and honey—and just a drop of indigo dye.
    Anguish unsteadied her, like a chill rippling along her spine. T he memor ies were reawakening her sorrow and making it hard to think. Madoc’s loss was still fresh. The chaos of the last weeks had prevented a proper mourning, and any plans for a public tribute had been put off for a better time. A