The Adventures of Benjamin Skyhammer by Nicole Sheldrake

them out of any trouble they got into as long as they were within the Royal Circle."
    Higgins considered this a moment, then nodded. "But that doesn't change the fact that your sword still didn't get through the bars."
    Skyhammer grinned. "Not these bars, no. But those, yes." He pointed with his sword tip to the bars and spikes in the darkness ahead.
    Realization dawned on Higgins' face. "Of course! The Royal Circle ends right here. Over there, the bars across the crevasse will be normal strength not magically powerful." She smiled and held her hands up. "Tell me what to do."
    "Okay, Bethany." He raised his eyebrows in question.
    She shook her head. "Not even close."
    "Move the carpet forward until it is as close to the edge of the Royal Circle as you can get. Then stand at the back." He liked solving physical problems like this. Made him feel like he was back outside the Royal Circle, Relic hunting. Where ingenuity and muscle strength counted for something. And he especially liked solving a problem that Higgins couldn't. He chortled to himself.
    Higgins did as he instructed, nudging the orange carpet right next to where the magic ended started.
    After stepping to the front of the carpet, he positioned himself with one foot forward and one back. He stretched his sword out into the darkness ahead of him, close to the right-hand wall. In a quick, focused movement, he thrust the sword up then pulled it back, as if he was going to plunge it in to someone behind him. The sword sliced through ten of the bars on the shadowed side. When the sword crashed into the last bar still inside the Royal Circle, the blade rebounded against the bar, unable to break it. The movement pulled Skyhammer forward. For a few nerve-wracking seconds, he teetered at the edge of the carpet, gazing down into the well of blackness.
    Higgins grabbed his hips and pulled him back onto the carpet.
    He breathed a sigh of relief. He preferred the darkness to seeing the bottom. It meant he could delude himself into thinking the ground was just a few feet down. "Thanks. Ready for a second time?"
    "Yup."
    This time he sliced the blade of his sword along the left side of the bars. Cut-out pieces tumbled into the blackness below, leaving a dark hole. There was no sound of them hitting the bottom. Skyhammer shivered. Much deeper than a few feet then. He wondered what was happening above the Crystal Lines now that the Keeper was trapped in the fissures. Since no one had ever escaped from the Lines, his attackers would believe him dead, their mission accomplished. He resolved to prove them wrong. What a surprise they'd get when the Sorcerer changed more Retrographs.
    Skyhammer fetched a length of rope from his backpack, then tossed one end of it up into the hole he had created on the non-magic side. Judging by how quickly it fell back down, he determined there were more bars above.
    "That's a lot of cutting." Higgins had realized what he was testing. "And climbing."
    He thrust his sword through the gaps in the bars above his head. "Oh, we won't be climbing." The blade went through to his hilt. "Need to find out one more thing first. Raise the carpet two feet higher please."
    This put the carpet four feet below the bars. Reaching up, he threaded the rope end through a gap between the bars, then around the bar closest to the edge of the Royal Circle and back down. He tied a knot then yanked on the rope. The bar held.
    "Lower the carpet to about ten feet please."
    As the carpet sank, Skyhammer tightened his grip on the rope. When the carpet stopped, he swung in the air two feet above it.
    The carpet rose so he could stand.
    He tied the rope around himself. "Raise the carpet a few feet again." He thrust his sword into the dark hole he had made in the bars on the shadowed side and sliced down the left then down the right. Pieces of bar fell past his nose, clinking against the crystal walls as they continued down to the bottom of the fissure.
    "And now, the grand finale!" He put