The door at the base of the North Tower had its own guard stationed. As Celesta approached, Baron Rostov thought to her, “Please, let me talk through you.”
They told the guard in her imperious contralto, “Kristijan has a new device. I wish to see it.”
The guard looked at her night robe but did not let the leer reach his face as he waved her by.
“What a peculiar look that guard had on his face!” the Baron heard Celesta thinking. He chose not to explain.
Celesta climbed the narrow stairway that circled inside the North Tower. As she reached the first landing, she looked at the door off it and thought, “This door is new.” The Baron’s hackles went up immediately, and he stopped her so quickly from taking the next step that she nearly fell.
“What?” she thought loudly. “How did you do that, and why?” Celesta had not realized that her body was controlled.
The wizard ached to get out of that body and look the world over ethereally, but he felt sure he would be discovered if he did. So he had Celesta breathe deeply a few times as if she was out of breath, in case anyone had heard the stumble he’d caused, as he thought to her, “I’m very sorry. I was startled by what you thought! If that door is new, it’s part of a new guard system, probably magical. It doesn’t know you yet, so please let me talk to it. I want it to believe that the ‘we’ you are now is simply ‘you’, so we can readily approach it again if we have to.”
As Celesta walked up to the door, they both admired the ornate bas-relief, mostly of demon and monster heads, that covered it.
“Aren’t you the fancy one!” the Baron had Celesta mutter as she tried the door handle. It did not budge, but the central face inquired, “How may I help you, my lady?”
Celesta started. “I am Lady Celesta, Kristijan’s sister. You can help me by letting me pass,” her voice said confidently.
The Baron felt the door doing some magical sniffing, as he had expected. He and Celesta held her ground until finally the door answered, “That I can do, my lady, but I have a message for you from Master Kristijan that he wants to see you first. He is still in his chambers at the top of the tower.”
“All right, I’ll go see him. But I left something of mine in the room, here. Will you open so I can get it?” the wizard asked.
“I’m sorry, my lady.”
The Baron rolled Celesta’s eyes and sent her up the stairs in a huff.
“This is not how I would have handled that,” thought Celesta with a growl.
“I didn’t think it would be,” Rostov thought back, “but the door ward’s trust in our combination could be very useful over the next few minutes, if your brother is the traitor I suspect he is.”
There were two more doors, each with a door ward, on the way to Kristijan’s chambers. The wizard took the time to train them both. As they walked up the last staircase, Rostov thought, “Your brother is for you to deal with,” and retreated deeply into Celesta.
“Thank you for your confidence!” she thought sarcastically.
The door opened at her approach, and her brother met her there. Silently he pulled her close, brought her lips to his, and slid his arms up and down from rump to neck as he kissed her. She warmed instantly at her brother’s touch; her breathing quickened and she kissed him back. Her back arched as her arms slid under his and her pelvis pressed into his. The Baron felt himself uncomfortably aroused toward Kristijan, as inappropriate a target for his own passion as for Celesta’s. And she thought this man was insufferable? What did she feel when she was in Gaspar’s arms, he wondered. He suppressed sending the thought, “You Stokavskis certainly live up to your reputation.”
But that was not all. After perhaps a minute of this, Kristijan maneuvered Celesta to a wall where straps hung from a hook. With unnerving speed, he pulled her hands up behind her between her shoulder blades, tied them there, slapped a collar around her neck, and strapped her wrists to the collar—she was totally in his power, but feeling quite untroubled. Worse, a charm hanging from the collar was designed to chime if the wearer went out-of-body. Her brother would suspect something if the Baron left Celesta!
Finally, still fondling her, Kristijan spoke. “It’s been too long since you were here! What can I do for you, my sister?”
Her warm glow making her languid, Celesta responded, “Oh, yes! Rumor is that you have something new in the tower. I came to see what it is.”
“Ah! Then you met my new doors. Were they polite? I’m still training them,” he said.
“I did!” she said. “Where did you get them?” She might have been asking him about new, exotic pets, which was just the right tone. Inwardly, the Baron breathed a sigh of relief that he had given Celesta control. There was no way he could have guided her body in what they had just been through!
“Well, part of it is my design,” said Kristijan proudly, “but it’s built around new equipment that they brought in for this siege.” He frowned. “They’re scared, ’Lesta! The forces they face out there are so different from anything they’ve faced before …” He walked over to look out a window. With the fondling stopped, Rostov found he could think more clearly.
Kristijan beat his fist against the windowsill. “When we—”
“I know, dear,” his sister interrupted. “It’s so terrible. What new equipment have you brought in?”
Kristijan turned around and looked at her closely. “You’ve never been interested in my ‘things’ before. Why now?”
She walked over to look out the window beside him, pressing lightly against his side. Through her gaze, the Baron saw some of the besieging forces. But immediately she turned and looked into her brother’s eyes. “I’m scared, and I want to help.”
He seemed puzzled for a moment, then looked back … deeply … and laughed. “All right! Let me show you what we have. You’ll need some proper clothes. Meet me at the ground floor room in ten minutes.”
He pulled off the straps and collar. Celesta kissed him lightly, then hurried back to her room.