“What now?” asked Sun. “Do we head back down?”

“I don’t know. I guess we don’t have much choice.”

“Can you fly with your magic?”

“If I could fly, would I have been so terrified on the bridge?” I replied sardonically.

“No. You were almost crying.”

I ignored her mocking almost-smile and walked alone around the perimeter again. I guessed there was some kind of spell or incantation that would allow access. Either that or the bouncer would look down from on high and decide whose names were on the list. As it stood, neither myself nor Sun were wanted. I narrowed my eyes and looked skywards. The first balconies were so high it would take one of Pitchhollow’s pines to reach it in ladder form. A grappling hook on a rope thrown with my increased strength would clatter against the stone less than halfway to its target.

Placing my hand on the stone, I said, “Klaatu Barada Necktie!”

Nothing. Not even a tremor.

“Is that more of your magic?” asked Sun.

“Groovy,” I replied, winking, before turning back to the impenetrable stone.

“What?”

“Open sesame!”

Nada. Zip. Zilch.

“What is this foolishness, Mark?”

“I’m just trying to think.”

“While acting the fool?”

“Yeah, a little.” I scratched at the mortar joints which were just as solid as the stone itself. There was most definitely an enchantment at work here as no matter how hard I dug my fingernail in, not even a speck of dust could be scraped free. Trying with the point of my dagger yielded nothing. Not even a grain of sand. I reached higher and tried the same thing, to no avail. When I tried to pull my finger away, I felt a tug of resistance. “What the hell is that?” I mused, trying to repeat the effect. This time I put my whole palm on the stone, and once again it didn’t want to let go until I thought about it letting go. Turning my hand over, I leaned in close and found thousands of tiny hairs sprouting. I’d heard all the jokes in the world, and my eyesight wasn’t exactly 20/20, but I only rubbed out a normal amount for someone my age.

“What is it?” asked Sun, her head appearing next to mine as she studied the abnormality.

“I don’t know,” I replied.

Checking through my abilities, only one stood out from the Lock of Shinara’s Hair and I pulled it up.

Ability – Arachnid Setules

Description - Microscopic hairs appear on the bearer’s hands and feet. These hairs have thousands of even smaller filaments and provide van der Waals electrostatic forces.

Effect – Provide adhesion to any surface.

“No way!” I blurted, stashing my shoes.

“What is it?”

“If I’m not mistaken…” I said, using the flat of my hands and balls of my feet to crawl up the first few feet of wall.

“How are you doing that?” Sun gasped.

“It’s one of the abilities I received from a boss drop. I have the same type of hairs that spiders do,” I replied, climbing a few feet higher.

“Come down from there!” she demanded.

“Why?” I asked, lowering myself to within reach.

“I want to try something.” Sun jumped and grasped my legs. The effect was lost under the extra weight and we both fell in a heap to the cold stone.

“Hmm. This looks to be a quest for you alone,” she said, dusting herself down.

I climbed to my feet with a groan. “You could’ve warned me you were going to grab me. I might’ve been able to hold on tighter or something and taken both our weight.”

“Mark, your hands were flat to the wall. What else could you have held on to?”

“I don’t know. Let me try again, but this time just wrap your arms around my neck and jump on my back,” I replied, sticking myself to the wall at a safer height.

Sun climbed on my back and again the effect was broken. “Find a rope,” she offered bluntly.

“Yes, mother,” I said in my best Norman Bates voice.

“Or a door.”

“I’ll see if they have a helicopter,” I replied, beginning my ascent.

I reached thirty feet and the astonishment at my new gift gave way to my old friend vertigo. I looked down and Sun was scowling up at me.

“I know I’m pleasing on the eye, but do you think you could perhaps hurry up and climb?”

“It’s not as easy as that. You know I’m scared of heights.”

“That was before you knew you had the ability to climb walls,” she replied. “What danger is there now?”

“None. But knowing it and knowing it are two different things entirely.”

“I think I understand. The mind cannot accept that the danger is any less real even though it is?”

“Yeah!”

“Then do as I told you on the bridge. Keep your eyes to the sky and move slowly.”

I looked back up to the balcony which seemed a mile away to my paralysed brain. “Can you talk to me? Keep me distracted?”

“What would you like me to talk about?”

“Anything,” I said. “Anything at all.”

“My tattoos?”

“Fine!” I called down, hesitantly slipping my hand higher. What was it that the legendary steeplejack Fred Dibnah always said? If you made one mistake while climbing, it meant a half day spent with the undertaker? Something along those lines. Not to mention the guy who would be needed to scrape my pancaked form from the steps. “Not helping,” I muttered, rebuking myself.

“You can always tell who the fiercest warriors are by their tattoos,” she began. “Eventually we run out of skin and the old tattoos are covered with the latest tales of bravery. If you see a barbarian and they are nothing but a mass of colours, be very, very wary.”

“Daulf?” I asked loudly as the wind pulled at my clothing.

“He is a walking tapestry of battle,” she confirmed.

Great! And here we were on our way to confront the bear killing lunatic.

“The face is always the last to feel the needle. It marks the point where our warriors have reached maturity and can seek a life mate.”

“How many fights until that happens?” I called, the conversation helping my nerves. If this plucky warrior could win enough fights to earn her face tattoos, I could climb a simple tower.

“Three campaigns on the ogre frontier during the warmer seasons is generally enough. Six in the winter when they are sluggish. During the summer, the fat brutes would attack our fortresses almost daily.”

“Tell me about it.”

“There are three fortresses guarding the only routes into our kingdom by land. Splitcrag, The Mire, and Death Gorge. Anyone attacking the gorge is suicidal. Two miles of valley where we rain down rocks and spears. Most of the time they ignore it completely. Splitcrag and The Mire are constantly besieged, however. Not even our bravest climbers can reach the tops of the cliffs which leaves Splitcrag undefended. The rock itself is weak and crumbles at the first strike of a climbing pick. The wall guarding the pass itself is similar to Kherrash’s newest construction which you’ll see in the coming days, only on a slightly smaller scale. The Mire is exactly what you think it is; a sunless area that gathers the mountain water runoff. The festering bog it created emits the most foul stench.”

“Which one did you fight for?” I yelled, her voice becoming fainter.

“Twice at Splitcrag and twice at The Mire.”

“You said your people fought on the water too?”

“The ogre barges are as reliable as a Dostmer trader. The wake of our vessels was often enough to have them sink to the bottom of the ocean. It was always a good source of slaves if we should chose to pull them from the water. Most of the time we didn’t bother and they fed our fish instead.”

“They don’t sound very intelligent!” I cried, nearing the balcony.

“With their size they don’t need to be. If barbarians are the nails, ogres are the hammer, heavy and hard. We’ll see them soon enough!” she shouted, but I could barely make it out as I slumped over the parapet.

The going hadn’t been hard, nor the temperature hot, but I was ringing wet as I lay panting on the balcony. The increasing power of the gusts curling around my body the tower itself had chilled the sweat on my skin.

“Mark?” Sun shouted.

I picked myself up and made for the low wall surrounding the platform. The stonework at my level was unenchanted, the joints crumbling and weak. It appeared the mages needed to get a few builders in to do some repairs, or at least cast a few pointing spells to fix the hazard. A simple stumble could see the wizard breaking straight through, plunging out into the nothingness. I got as close as I dared, leaning over while keeping my weight as far back as possible, and waved.

Sun returned the wave. “Be on guard!” she called. “The sorcerers aren’t to be trifled with.”

“Thanks for the tip!”

I looked out from my vantage point and marvelled at the stunning view. The soaring grey mountain range that shielded the north of Kherrash stood in stark contrast to the pristine blue of the ocean beyond. Shifting my gaze to the right, I could just about make out the speck of great wall which stretched from peak to peak, far away across the vast green sea that was Wildwood Forest.

Returning to the room, I discovered it was a shared sleeping quarters, likely for the apprentices. I found it hard to believe that full blown sorcerers would sleep six feet away from their peers in one of the beds which circled the outer wall of the suite. It just wasn’t… prestigious enough, if that was the right term. The upper floor was supported by two dozen thick pillars which were situated all around the circumference, set at the halfway point between the outside wall and the thick, circular stone staircase in the centre. At the foot of each small cot was a tempting chest, but my goal was to discover the fate of the spellcasters. If they were alive, I’m sure it would raise eyebrows when they climbed the tower for a rest and found their belongings gone. This wasn’t an RPG where I would steal absolutely everything that I could find, knowing that as long as I went unseen I would face no consequences. There were no town guards ready to appear and haul me to prison, with a growled line about fisting and flames or something like that. Only a tower of powerful mages who would probably get a bit upset with me.

“Yeah, I’ll leave it for now.”

My only decision was up or down. Dungeons were always down, weren’t they? The penthouses always up? Sun was also down, waiting, and if I could find a way of letting her in that would make my job that much easier.

“Down it is!”