“First things first,” Pael mumbled to himself as he ducked into a not so well known passage. To get to his tower, he had to traverse a labyrinth of halls, tunnels, and stairways. Some were bustling with staff and grieving visitors, and some, like this one, were more private and hidden. There were other passageways that only he knew about.
The castle’s outer walls were laid out in a diamond shape. Each towered corner of the diamond pointed in one of the four cardinal directions. The southwest wall loomed over the huge body of water known as Lion’s Lake, thus the name, Lakeside Castle. The bulk of the noble folk and merchants who lived in the castle, resided in the smaller towers and apartments that sprung up around the massive King’s Spire there. Most of them looked out over the water. The southwest wall was also the only wall without its own gate. There was no need for one there, for it would only open up to the lake.
Pael’s personal tower was in the southern most corner of the grounds. It overlooked a well used guard barracks. It was so close to the castle’s southern turret tower, that an agile man could easily leap from the lower landings of the Wizard’s tower to the top of the crenellated wall, where they met the southern turret.
Pael knew that old King Balton had kept spies in the turrets, and among the members of the wall patrols, to keep an eye on him. He wondered if they were still there now. He and King Balton had started off well enough, but the King of Westland hadn’t liked the subtle ways Pael tried to influence him in several situations.
Pael had always sided with Lord Brach. Both of them constantly wanted to expand the kingdom by use of force and trickery. King Balton, on the other hand, was a man of peace who remembered the lessons of the old wars, even though he hadn’t been alive for them. Balton Collum had also remembered the stories of peace and hope that filled the years after the demons were defeated and purged. Pael had been loyal enough to him though. The wizard had helped strengthen the kingdom, with his arcane skills and with plenty of hard work as well. But King Balton had never fully trusted him, and Pael had always known it.
The crafty Master Mage used the King’s spies to his advantage by making sure that any and all of his suspect activities took place well above the eyes of the guard patrols. To do this, he required a means of traversing the heights of his tower quickly and quietly. To meet his need, he created a hidden lift. It was a small, cylindrical cage, just large enough for three men to crowd into. Each floor in Pael’s tower, and half a dozen floors below it, all the way down to the dungeon’s lowest floor, had a hole bored through it that was in line with the center of the tower. By way of the powerful and naturally enchanted stuff known as Wardstone, the lift would rise up and down at Pael’s command, stopping at whatever floor he directed it to. This allowed Pael to work on complex, questionable spells and other dark magics in private, while still being seen every now and then reading in his library, or making charts in his map room.
His contraption kept unwanted eyes out of his true affairs well. The lower floors, the ones that could be seen from the castle wall and the turret tower, still had stairs and landings curving around the inside. Pael had had masons wall in the lift tube on these lower floors, so that it couldn’t be seen as it moved up and down through the tower. Of course, he had to kill the masons when the job was finished. The upper floors were only accessible by his lift. The stairs and landings above the turret tower had all been removed to make more room. Only Pael and his assistant, Inkling, knew how to use the lift, and in all of Westland, only Pael knew that Inkling existed.
Inkling was an imp, a small, minor demon, who could assume the shape of many different living things, though not very large ones. He could change into a human child, a full grown dwarven woman, or a thin, hungry looking wolf, and nearly any creature smaller than those. He was in the form of a young boy when Pael glided off of the lift onto the second highest floor of his tower. This level was one wide open circular room with several open windows. Pael called it the Nest.
“Any news?” the wizard asked, as he seemingly hovered just above the surface of the thick, plank wood floor.
“Only one bird has returned, Master,” Inkling answered, in his thin, wispy voice.
He thrust a finger sized scroll towards Pael. Pael looked at the rows of empty cages that lined the shelved walls. Only two hawklings and a pigeon remained. His gaze shifted to Inkling for a moment. No matter what form the imp took, his eyes were always solid black pools, with no whites at all. It was unsettling even to one such as Pael.