The Adventures of Benjamin Skyhammer by Nicole Sheldrake Page A

away his sword and stood at the edge of the carpet, facing Higgins. He grasped the last bar that was inside the Royal Circle.

Chapter 9
     
     
    Countdown to ceremony: 14 days
     
    "Raise the carpet very slowly please."
    Higgins nodded, her face serious. As the carpet rose, Skyhammer maintained his grip on the bar.
    "Stop!" He sat down, still holding the bar. Leaning back, shoulders out over the fissure, he threaded his legs between his arms. A thrust of his hips lifted his body up and on top of the bars on the Royal Circle side. He poked his fingers through a gap and wiggled them. "Hi, Higgins!"
    She rolled her eyes. "Nice work."
    Once Higgins, their backpacks and the carpet were on top of the bars, they rose straight up the fissure.
    "We can zip around to the mountain path and go straight across the mountains to the Vault." Skyhammer peered back across the Crystal Lines. The sun had set in the hours they'd been in the fissure. A few lights flickered from the Palace. Floatilla hung like a chandelier high above them. A lumpy dark line delineated mountains and starry sky.
    The half-mile mile buffer zone was quiet this time of night.
    "How many days would the mountain route add?" Higgins mused. "Six or seven, right? We can't afford that. We've already lost one day inside the fissure and we still have no idea who or where this Sorcerer is."
    "We can't afford to die if they see us either," Skyhammer argued. His throat closed up at the thought of being in another magic battle, powerless to defend himself.
    Higgins faced him. "It's night. No one will be able to distinguish us from other carpets. We stay in the buffer zone. Land in the village closest to the Retrograph Vault, walk through the village and we're in the forest and home free. No one'll track us in there." The carpet rose out of the fissure and headed for the mountains.
    Skyhammer's thoughts leapt ahead to the Vault. Maybe the Retrograph Sorcerer would be there, waiting for him. The most magically powerful human in the world versus the human with no magic powers at all. But out of the Circle, maybe his magic wouldn't work. But maybe it would work and that was why the Sorcerer wants to stop the ceremony. So that other humans can't use magic outside the Circle as well! Or-- stop! Just wait and see.
     
    * * *
     
    "Think the Retrograph Sorcerer knows we're after him?" Skyhammer was grateful the sky had cleared. Stealing two horses on a cloudy night was hard enough but navigating their way to the Vault would've been almost impossible without the stars. Leaving a bag of money in place of the horses still made Skyhammer feel guilty, even though he had left quite a bit more than the horses were worth. They needed the speed though.
    Higgins shrugged. "The King meeting with the Keeper is a pretty good sign, I'd say." She patted her horse's neck.
    "He has to know the King would try to find him."
    "Why do we think it's a him?" Higgins grinned. "I mean, would a man really have the balls to change the King's Retrographs?"
    "Now, now, you don't have to bring your previous relationships into this-"
    "At least I've had relationships," she shot back.
    "Hey now! I had . . . one." Skyhammer chuckled as he held a branch out of the way for Higgins. "But what's the point?"
    "Of relationships?"
    He rolled his eyes. "Of overturning the drawings of the ceremony. Does the Sorcerer mean to communicate that he is sabotaging the ceremony? Or is there another meaning? Maybe he wants to destroy magic entirely. If he plans to kill the King with the sword, like in his Retrograph, that is certainly a way to destroy magic." He couldn't bear the thought. The ceremony was two weeks away. Magic power was two weeks away. He couldn't let this Sorcerer ruin his chance.
    "Save that question for when we catch her."
    As they continued through the dark forest, Skyhammer puzzled over relationships. Romantic relationships. Three years ago, he would've bitterly retorted that there was no point to relationships, only