A light beckoned him up steps along a gloomy hall. He emerged on a small balcony, and stepped cautiously out. "Incredible." Farah came from a side room down below and looked up. "I have only heard stories of such marvels, but to see one up close..!" She stood at the foot of a mechanical tower. "Is there not a similar device in Azad?" By the square platform at its base it appeared to be a lift of some kind. The Prince called down to her. "This lift will bring us to the Throne Room," he reasoned. "But wonder of wonders, it seems to have stopped working. I will try to return it to life." Farah stepped inside the device and stood in awe. "I do hope to visit Azad some day." The Prince was at the next storey above. A gap in the low balcony rail allowed a wall run to a springboard shutter. He landed on a thin ledge, a chimney gap behind him. He skimmed upwards until he reached the level of the next storey. On a balcony here stood a capstan with its familiar burning brazier. Making sure he had enough height to complete the jump, the Prince leaped forward and caught the balcony edge. In moments, he turned the capstan handle, and a door alongside opened up. He stood in an opulent hallway. The sound of machinery creaked and clanked somewhere beyond. It seemed the capstan also set the mechanical device Farah waited upon to motion; the elevator rose in its tower. There seemed no exit from the hallway. A pair of wooden doors was solidly shut, but a wall pillar had been broken away at one side, where torn lattice windows faced the rear of the lift shift at the centre of the room beyond. A red banner hung off it, and with no other way forward the Prince jumped out and dropped from its end. He caught a fissure in the wall under the broken pillar, further evidence of the destruction wrought by the invaders, and indeed he was not alone in this place - as he shimmied to an alcove area, above the clanking of machinery came the angry roar of horned Guards on alert. He scaled a wall under the very balcony on which they waited, and sprang up to do battle. Fierce as they appeared, these two were no match. As below, there seemed no exit through a very solid door. Yet as before he found a narrow gap in the balcony wall that let him run out beyond, there to spring backwards to a metal bar. He was midway up the lift shaft, that though damaged was evidently still operational. He jumped up to a higher bar. On the wall facing him was the recognisable shape of a dagger plate, and no way forward but a leap to it. As he crouched suspended by his blade in this perilous position, the Prince considered, not for the first time, that his path would prove impossible for any man of no more than ordinary ability. By way of confirmation, he made his characteristic sideways wall run off to a balcony. Farah should know of his efforts, and his reasons. "I am sorry," said the Prince, quietly. "What?" answered Farah somewhere above. "I said 'I'm sorry'. I never apologised for the way I acted, for the things I said. For who I was." "I owe you an apology as well," she conceded. "It was unfair of me to accuse you of such terrible things." "But I have done terrible things." "We all make mistakes, Prince. The difference is that you have accepted yours. I saw what you did at the workshop, and what the Old Man said is true - you are a prince." "You're killing me," commented the voice, drily. Once again, there was no easy exit from the balcony where he stood. He hopped the low wall to one side, and aligned with a dagger plate on the wall beyond. The Prince wondered at the purpose of these decorations, seemingly useless for any but himself. Without them he could not advance, although even with their indispensable utility he faced peril. Here now he judged he must time his run off the plate to a stone platform at one side. This made slow steady extension to butt against the lift shaft for a second or two before sliding back into the wall. The Prince guessed that it might serve some use as a service platform, for the lift shaft showed signs of patched repair at that point. One thing was certain: he had only those few seconds the platform connected in which to effect a wall run up from it to rebound against the planks above and there find safe purchase on a higher dagger plate. Any mistiming would see him plunge to the floor. He could see no vantage to either side, but poles from the adjacent wall appeared within reach of a daring run and jump. He swung for a moment and noticed on a balcony ahead wicked seductive Enchantresses that whirled in anticipation of their next guest. With his warrior's ardour, the Prince launched a furious assault, but where his dark side had cut them effortlessly with his flail, with his own weapons the Prince failed to observe that in their whirling trance state, the strange apparitions were immune to attack. "Wait until they stop moving before you attack them," the voice cautioned. Summoning the Eye of the Storm, he slowed them sufficiently and returned their advances, with interest. "Come on! Show me something I haven't already seen." the voice sighed. The Prince was not aware that he had been fighting for the delectation of the voice that spoke within. On the narrow balcony was a capstan lever, that opened a side door to a small anteroom. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Life Upgrade #5 [hand mirror] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
