It took Darrel and Willy another day and a half to learn the name of the world that connected Fire Mountain to the rest of the realm. A day and a half of searching through old texts and scrolls in the realm's largest library. A day and a half of sneezing over dusty shelves and fighting his tired eyes to search for information. He hated every second.
Alie would have loved it.
As Willy's magic whisked them away from the library, Darrel promised himself that he would return with her one day. If she wanted to spend weeks in the library, he wouldn't mind one bit. But without her, he couldn't stand another second with the smell of old parchment surrounding him. It made his heart ache for her even more than it already did.
Willy swayed on his feet as his transportation magic disappeared. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, closing his eyes for a moment as he steadied himself. "I've pushed myself too hard these last couple days," he murmured.
Darrel felt the same. Though he hadn't used magic like Willy had, he hadn't stopped moving since they'd left Hilltop Spires. His eyes felt dry from the sleep he'd missed. His stomach ached from meals he'd skipped. He couldn't go on like this much longer.
But they were so close. He couldn't afford to stop, now. Not even for much needed rest.
They looked around. Sprawling hills filled the landscape in varying layers of snow cover, with the hilltops buried under several feet and the valleys remaining mostly green under the thinnest sprinkling of frost. A small town, comprised of quaint little log cabins clustered in groups, stood about a mile out on the only stretch of flatland Darrel could see for miles. Puffs of white smoke rose from all the chimneys, fighting off the cold. Deer grazed the greenery. Birds chirped cheerfully from nests high up in the trees. In the golden light of early evening, the horizon sparkled.
Darrel didn't give himself any longer than a second to admire the world's beauty. "Where's the portal from here?"
Willy squinted into the light of the setting sun. "I feel three portals," he said, making Darrel's stomach sink. "We can ignore the one in town. It's likely used for travel to another populated world. No one would build a town next to a prison entrance."
"What about the other two?"
"There's one in the mountains, that way," Willy said, pointing into the sunset. "And one half a day's journey, that way." He pointed due east, in the opposite direction. "It could be either."
Darrel ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "We don't have time to check them both."
"No," Willy sighed exhaustedly. "We probably don't."
"Then how do we know which one leads to Fire Mountain?"
Frowning, Willy closed his eyes. He took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly between pursed lips. For a long moment, he stood perfectly still.
When he finally opened his eyes, he looked even more tired than before. But he said with confidence, "It's that way," and started walking toward the sun.
Darrel followed without hesitation. "How do you know?"
"Because there are imperial soldiers climbing the mountain path that leads to it."
A bolt of fear jolted through Darrel's gut. He focused on the pace of his breathing, forcing his heart rate to steady. Panic was not something he could afford at the moment. Of course there would be soldiers patrolling the portal. Just as there would be guards patrolling the prison.
Still, he couldn't keep from clenching his hands into such tight fists that his nails dug into his palms. "Think we can sneak around them?"
"I don't know. I'd transport us to the top to save time, but I don't think I have it in me to do that and transport us out of Fire Mountain if we need a quick exit."
Darrel completely understood. Willy had pushed himself to his limits popping them from world to world in search of information. How he hadn't collapsed already, Darrel could only wonder. All he lacked was food and sleep, and he felt absolutely awful.
Luckily, adrenaline was a hell of a drug. In the library, it had taken all his willpower not to fall asleep while searching through documents. Now, just a few miles away from their goal, he felt jittery. "I can transport us," he said, "but I'll have to do it in bursts. Tell me where the soldiers are so I can avoid them."
Willy tilted his head as he used magic to see that far away. He relayed the information just well enough to give Darrel an idea where they could avoid trouble. He gathered magic into himself, and with a thought, they vanished from the trees.
The mountain path was wider than he'd expected. It had two sets of cart wheel tracks carved into it, side by side, like a two-lane road. It trailed up the mountainside at a shallow incline, twisting back and forth in switchbacks. Darrel tilted his head up, searching for the end of the road.
"There's more soldiers around the portal," Willy warned, reaching uneasily for the blade he'd imagined for himself in place of the Ultimate. "Don't get too close."
"What will it matter? We'll have to get through them to get to the portal, anyway."
"We need time to make a plan. If we jump in without one, we'll be overwhelmed."
Anger flared in Darrel's chest. "We don't have time."
"We don't have a choice," Willy snapped back, surprising him. "We're exhausted. We're outnumbered. We're hungry and desperate and vulnerable. We cannot afford to be foolish, too."
As much as he wanted to argue, Darrel bit his tongue. Willy was right. They couldn't afford to be foolish. He couldn't save Alie if he died outside the world where she was being held prisoner. "Then what do we do?"
"We assess the situation. We find a way to get past without being noticed."
He shifted his weight back and forth on his feet impatiently. "That will take too long."
"It's our only option. We can't fight through two hundred soldiers."
Darrel's eyes widened. "Two hundred?"
"And a thousand more are coming up the mountain behind us," he nodded gravely.
That seemed incredibly strange. "Why are so many soldiers needed at a prison?"
"I don't know," Willy frowned. "But I don't like it." Solemnly, he pointed to a ridge jutting out from the mountain, about twenty feet above the top of the path. "Put us there," he suggested. "It will give us a good view of what we're up against."
Darrel's magic transported them there with a warm golden glow. The ridge was long, but shallow, allowing them only a dozen or so feet of movement away from the face of the mountain. He and Willy dropped to their stomachs and crawled up to the edge, carefully peering over the side down onto the mountain path below.
Just as Willy had said, hundreds of soldiers camped at a plateau where the mountain had been hollowed out. They sat around small fires, eating their evening rations and relaxing. A few stood guard on the mountain path itself. Darrel counted ten wagons piled with supplies and covered with heavy tarps. He could also glimpse the portal, far on the other side of the soldiers, glowing a bright, cheerful blue.
Willy cursed under his breath and shrank back suddenly. Instinctively, Darrel did the same, ducking his head out of sight. "Did someone see us?" he whispered, reaching for his swords. Outnumbered or not, he wasn't going down without a fight.
"No," Willy assured him. "But I saw Victoria."
"What?!" That was impossible. Victoria had no way to know they had come to Fire Mountain. She had marked them as traitors and put them on the realm's most wanted lists. She had turned the entire realm against them overnight, making Willy's transportation ability essential. But she couldn't possibly have tracked them here. Not even they had known where they were going until a few moments before they'd arrived.
Willy seemed to be working that out himself. His eyebrows furrowed tightly together, and his eyes darted back and forth, as if he were reading something in the air. "She must have known about this place already," he surmised. "Maybe she figured it out before us. You told her just before we met the Phantom that Sole had Alie. She could have ordered the soldiers into position then."
"For what? To stop us? She had no reason to believe we'd figure out where to go. She was going to kill us before the Phantom talked, remember?"
"Doesn't she want Sole, too? I thought you said she mentioned something about him being part of the old way and him not fitting into Tyla's plan."
"But why wait until now to make that move? Why not go after Sole right away?"
Willy's expression turned grave. "Maybe she was waiting to see if he and Alie would take each other out of the equation."
Darrel looked at him in shock. "You think Tyla wants them both dead?"
Willy shrugged. "She knows Alie has the power to stop her plan."
"Doesn't that mean you also have that power?"
"The power, yes. But not the authority. And before you ask, no, Alie doesn't have that authority either." He risked peering over the edge again, scowling down at the soldiers below. "I'll bet Tyla was counting on her spell removing my magic before I learned of her plan."
"Which meant that only Alie would be left to stop her."
"Or Sole. Whoever survived."
Understanding dawned on him. "She's letting her opponents destroy each other."
"And weaken each other," Willy nodded. "Whoever survives will still be at a disadvantage against Tyla if she strikes quickly enough."
"That's underhanded."
"That's brilliant, actually. Just not great for us."
"So... what do we do?"
Willy bit his lip, his gaze scanning the soldiers. "It doesn't look like they've moved into Fire Mountain, yet. These soldiers have been here for a while. They're probably waiting for the others to reach them so they can make a single advance."
"And do we want that? Or no?"
"They'd make a great distraction for breaking Alie out of the prison."
"They really would." Darrel tried to picture the mayhem that would ensue from twelve hundred soldiers attacking a prison fortress. If they were lucky, they could waltz right in as soon as the soldiers broke through the gate.
"But we'd have an added enemy to fight on our way out," Willy pointed out. "Both Sole and Victoria would be after us."
"That is also true." Darrel rolled onto his back and stared up at the slowly darkening sky. Its blue hue was streaked with pink, orange and yellow clouds, stained in half the rainbow by the light of the fading sun. "What's the better plan?"
"We don't know what condition Alie is in," Willy determined. "Or whether Sole would kill her to prevent her from escaping whenn Victoria launches her assault. We can't take that risk."
No, they couldn't. There was already such a great chance that Alie was dead. He couldn't add to that chance. "Then we go now."
"We have to find a way to prevent anyone from following us through the portal," Willy said. "We accomplish nothing if they pursue us."
"How are we going to do that? You said yourself we're short on magic. And we need some strength to bust Alie out of prison. We don't even know what we're going to have to do to get inside, let alone get her out."
"I don't know. Give me a minute." He slid back out of sight with a groan, and sprawled out on the ground with a tired sigh.
Darrel stared at the sky. He watched the clouds change colors from pink to purple to black. He watched the stars come out one by one, until the sky was full of them. His exhausted limbs, finally given rest, seemed to melt into the stone beneath him. It felt so good to lie still. His thoughts began to slow, and then his eyelids began to droop...
"I've got it."
He forced himself to blink awake. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." Clenching his jaw as if every movement pained him, Willy rolled back onto his stomach. "It won't give us forever, but it should give us enough time to find Alie. And it will give Victoria reason to launch her assault immediately."
Darrel frowned. "Why do we want her to act immediately?"
"Because once we have Alie, we want Sole distracted so we can get her out."
"Ah." He wouldn't have thought that far ahead. He was too tired and too desperate. "So what's the plan?"
With a mischievous grin, Willy leaned a little closer and explained everything. "But we have to wait," he said, "for the thousand soldiers to get here. We want as big a force as possible going after Sole."
"Agreed." Darrel glanced down the mountain. "How long do you think it'll take them to get here?"
"Less than an hour."
"Then we'd best get ready."
Willy patted his shoulder. "We're almost there," he promised with a reassuring grin.
Darrel thumped him on the back. "Almost there." Then he pulled back from the edge, rose on tired feet, stretched, and used his imagination to vanish into the shadows like the thief he had never been so proud to be.