He blurted a startled squawk. The chamber darkened as he lost his concentration and his mage light went out. The floor continued to tilt, and he scrambled backward, groping for something to grab. Dak cursed and jumped onto the desk. It remained stable, the rock under it not moving, but the rest of the office floor tilted almost to vertical. Yanko slid inexorably downward. It all happened so quickly that he hardly had time to think of levitation or using air to slow himself. The sloping floor dumped him into the equivalent of a laundry chute, and he skidded downward, picking up speed. Light appeared below him, and he glimpsed the blue of the ocean far below. He did his best to slow his fall, even as the draft rushed past him, pushing his robe up to his waist as he hurtled toward an opening in the cliff wall. He channeled air under him, pressing it against his body, against gravity. Meanwhile, he turned to face the rock slipping by and patted around with his hands, trying to find something to grab.
He caught a rough nub even as his legs slid over an edge. Daylight nearly blinded him after the dimness of the office. The rug that had been lying on the floor skidded down, swatting him in the head and almost knocking him loose. It fell past, and the wind caught it, batting it and whipping it around as it fluttered down more than a hundred feet to land on a boulder-strewn beach below.
Yanko squinted back up into the dark gloom of the chute and managed to get his second hand up to further grasp the nub of rock from which he hung. If it broke off, he would be practicing his levitation skills again, whether he wanted to or not.
Something clanked and clunked down from above. Dak’s lantern? Dak? If the big Turgonian struck him in the head, that would do a lot more to knock him loose than the rug.
But he felt the object skidding toward him before it came into sight. Its magic preceded it, and he reached out at the right time, catching the lodestone, paperclips still attached, before it could tumble to the rocks below.
“Yanko?” Dak called down. “Are you there?”
“For the moment,” Yanko called back, his voice coming out squeaky. He dangled from four fingers and a thumb now as he tried to one-handedly find a safe pocket in his robe for the precious artifact.
“I’m on the desk. I’m going to lower a rope. Hurry up and grab it. I’m not sure how long the floor will stay canted.”
“Hurrying sounds good to me.” Yanko spotted movement below.
A group of pirates was running down the beach. They reached the end of the sand and did not hesitate to scramble onto the boulders. Maybe they wanted to catch him if he fell. More likely, they wanted to catch the lodestone if he dropped it.
You found it, Pey Lu spoke into his mind.
Yanko hadn’t recognized her from so far above, but when she looked up, meeting his eyes across the distance, he realized she was leading the group.
We did, yes.
We? You and the Turgonian? His people are coming with ironclads. They’re on the horizon. I’m sure they would be happy to take you and your find with them, but I wouldn’t recommend that to you. Turgonians like to torture Nurians for information, especially those from moksu families. They’re always convinced you know a great deal about how the government works. Bitterness came through with Pey Lu’s words, and Yanko wondered if she had been captured and tortured by Turgonians before. Then he wondered what was taking Dak so long with that rope.
A faint thump came from the darkness above.
“Can you reach it?” Dak called down.
“No.” Yanko stuck the lodestone into a pocket, careful to make sure it was snug and secure before lunging upward and catching the nub with his free hand again. His other hand ached from holding up his body weight. How he was going to climb up to reach a rope, he did not know. So far, he had only managed to slow himself with his levitation skills. If he let go, could he give himself enough of a boost to go upward instead of downward?
You’re in a precarious position, Pey Lu observed. She and her pirates were directly under him now.
I’ve noticed.
One of the pirates lifted a pistol, but Pey Lu stopped him.
She could have had Yanko shot—or shot him herself. Then