The Hall of Doors

by Phillip Locey

  The Hall of Doors

  The Chain of Living Fire: Book 3

  Phillip M. Locey

  Elisahd Books

  DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA

  Copyright © 2019 by Phillip M. Locey

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  Phillip M. Locey/Elisahd Books

  5 Waterview Ct

  Durham, North Carolina 27703

  www.elisahdbooks.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Book Layout © 2017 BookDesignTemplates.com

  Cover Art by Soheil Toosi

  The Hall of Doors / Phillip M. Locey. -- 1st ed.

  ISBN 978-1-947579-14-9

  This book is dedicated to the dedicated –

  all the people who stick with it, whatever it is,

  even when the hill is steeper than you ever

  thought it would be.

  “Knowledge is a cursed gift, isn’t it? Ah, if one could

  simply choose to un-know things, our people

  might be spared tremendous strife.”

  ―Trigilas Evermoon, father of spells

  PLANAR RELATIONSHIPS

  within the COSMOS

  Contents

  The Long-Forgotten

  The Way Through2

  The Return from Sepathia’s Lair4

  Retrieving the Key7

  The Slopes of Mount Celestia1

  May His Light Shine Forever4

  The Abyssal Rift5

  The Recruitment29

  The Depths of Betrayal5

  The Destination Rune4

  The Chaos Cyclone6

  Ishmere0

  Starlight and Waterfalls5

  The Ruins of Rinn-Rhulian58

  The Eight Hills0

  Return to the Circle3

  Morning’s Shimmer0

  Reaping What You Sow29

  Chapter 1

  The Long-Forgotten

  “W ho’s going to go in first?” Thaelios asked. He figured taking the initiative of framing the question should make him exempt from the task itself. The hot, desert sun warmed his back, and while the cool of the darkness ahead was beckoning, the specter of the unknown was not.

  “I can’t see a thing,” Dyphina said, stretching her neck toward the threshold yet not daring to step across.

  Phaerim patted Saffron’s shoulder. “Good thing we have a fire-singer with us then, eh?”

  “Yes, give me a moment,” she responded. “We need something to burn.” Saffron and the rest of the group checked their personage, but Thaelios knew almost all their belongings were now buried like the rest of Ancient Tarmuth. Nothing remained to ignite save their clothing or perhaps the pages of his master’s spellbook, but those were clearly too valuable.

  “Cauzel cast a spell that made his dagger glow,” Be’naj offered to him in Eladrin once the fruitlessness of their search became obvious. “If you have his book, maybe you could duplicate it?”

  “Ah, yes, why didn’t I think of that?” Thaelios’s left side still caused considerable pain, and he kept his arm tucked against it for protection. Cradling the spellbook in his right arm, he extended it to Be’naj. “Would you mind holding this so I can find the incantation?”

  He’d already noted that Cauzel’s arcane writings were exceedingly organized, first by basic function and further by complexity, so it didn’t take long to locate a simple spell entitled ‘Radiance.’

  “What are you two discussing?” Saffron asked.

  “Sorry. I was just suggesting a spell I’d seen Cauzel use might be a solution,” Be’naj answered while Thaelios continued reading the instructions. “Could we borrow your dagger?” she asked Phaerim.

  He seemed hesitant to relinquish the only weapon the group possessed between them, but ultimately didn’t refuse. Thaelios accepted it from Be’naj and recited, “Lucemi,” as he held the pommel. A grin of satisfaction broke across his face as white light sprang from the metal, providing a soft globe of illumination.

  He handed the dagger back to Phaerim, who nodded repeatedly at the outcome. “Would you like to lead the way?” Thaelios asked, and Phaerim’s face fell as if realizing he’d been tricked into something he should have seen coming.

  “I don’t mind…” Be’naj offered, closing the spellbook and returning it to Thaelios while extending her empty hand in Phaerim’s direction.

  After seeming to weigh the risks of walking first against being unarmed, he mumbled something and headed into the tall, stone corridor. Thaelios cradled the book under his right arm and followed next, figuring he could see further than the human in their wan light, anyway. Dyphina came next, and the others filed in behind.

  Phaerim’s tentativeness supplied ample opportunity for Thaelios to assess their new environment. They entered a long hallway that extended beyond the reach of the dagger’s magical, white glow. A pair of wooden doors awaited only a few, long strides ahead on either side of the corridor, though at their creeping pace, they would take many steps to reach. The dry air of the sealed Hall of Doors had kept the wood in excellent condition, while its staleness supplied a heavy, dusty smell.

  Dyphina’s hand pressed against his back, and as he looked over his shoulder, Thaelios saw the women had all compressed in tight formation in an effort to remain within his spell’s aura. He felt cramped with Phaerim creeping just ahead of him and nowhere to go.

  “This is ridiculous,” he said. “The Hall has been sealed for centuries, and we’re all too old to be this scared of the dark.” Despite his words, Thaelios felt uneasy. While nothing could have reasonably survived such a duration of entombment, he couldn’t account for whatever magical experimentation may have taken place in the mighty Trigilas’s laboratory.

  “Do you want to lead, then?” Phaerim asked without turning his head. He’d nearly reached the first door, and the shuffling of feet on worn stone was the only sound beyond their voices so far.

  Thaelios would have considered it, but given the distracting pain and bound status of his left side, putting him in front didn’t make sense. “Let’s have a look at the doors,” he replied instead. His curiosity regarding anything to do with the Father of Spells was enough at the moment to ignore the constant prickling of his eroded flesh.

  Yielding to his suggestion, Phaerim turned to the right and lifted the glowing pommel of his dagger closer to the nearest portal. Thaelios gazed upon the colorfully painted door, whose tones were muted in the pure white light. Chips of missing paint marred the forest motif of the surface design, creating an effect similar to the aftermath of a locust swarm. Eladrin runes scripted at eye level declared the name: Erdelain.

  “What about the one next to it?” Thaelios asked. Phaerim moved the light over to the adjacent door, which looked plain in comparison. Though it appeared stained and mostly smooth, there were no letters or designs upon it. Without being asked, Phaerim shifted to the opposite side of the corridor, and Thaelios followed to study the mirroring doors. The one across from the ordinary door was similarly devoid of decoration, but his heart leapt into his throat when he viewed the portal opposite Erdelain’s.

  Faded runes, aligned over a majestic mountain background, announced this as the room of none other than Trigilas himself. A gasp from Dyphina suggested she understood the discovery’s significance as well, and Thaelios’s mouth went dry as he struggled with whether or not to set
down Cauzel’s spellbook to free his hand for the door.

  Dyphina recognized his plight and reached a hand toward the painted surface to assist. “Should I open it?” she asked, though Thaelios now noticed all the doors lacked latches.

  He nodded, failing to generate the saliva necessary to speak.

  “Perhaps I should go first?” Saffron offered, her earlier reticence banished by the presence of illumination. Dyphina shrugged and Saffron squirmed past, switching places with her in the hallway. She reached out, and as soon as her fingertips met wood, a sharp tinkle like the ringing of a wind chime sounded and the door swung fully open.

  They all took a step back at the unforced movement, but once the door stopped and no further effects manifested, Phaerim crept forward, carrying light into the room. The spacious chamber was furnished like personal living quarters combined with a study. It was nearly square, with one corner abbreviated by a diagonal wall.

  A still made bed lay against the wall to the door’s left, though the top blanket was shredded by the ravages of time or insects. A carved, oaken desk sat opposite, and it its chair was…

  “Shecclad, grant us shelter!” Be’naj said from behind as Thaelios passed the spellbook back to Dyphina and stepped closer.

  A robed body occupied the seat, but its head was obscured, slumped forward on the desk. Phaerim brought the dagger only marginally closer, but it was enough for Thaelios’s keen eyes to see. He reached out slowly and lay a hand on the figure’s shoulder. Thaelios knew the person had to be long dead, but his pulse beat as if expecting a different revelation. He grabbed hold and pulled back, twisting the slack body until its face popped upward.

  Phaerim jumped when it did. “For the love of—” He closed his eyes and turned away.

  Sockets once belonging to large, eladrin eyes gaped up at Thaelios as the skeletal remains creaked at his disturbance. The fleeting thought that he could be looking at the decaying body of the greatest Shaper who ever lived passed through him before he remembered Trigilas had died well before the Hall of Doors was sealed. One of his apprentices must have taken over residence in his quarters.

  Behind Thaelios, the others filed into the room, spreading out now that they were free of the corridor. He let go of the skeleton’s shoulder and it shifted to equilibrium.

  “There’s another one,” Saffron said.

  Thaelios turned to see a second skeleton lying on the floor near the wall opposite the door, marking a gap of vertical shadow, perhaps a hand-span in width. “What is that?”

  Be’naj reached the spot first. She put her hand into the darkness. “The air’s cooler.” She grabbed hold of one side of the gap and pulled, stretching the shadow wider. Everyone drew nearer as she did.

  Dyphina was closest and stretched to peek around as the stone seemed to slide into itself. “It’s some sort of passage – there are stairs.”

  Giving the dead scholar at the desk a wide berth, Phaerim carried the light across the room. Thaelios followed on his heels. Once closer with better illumination, he saw that Be’naj had opened a hidden door in the midst of the stone wall. His skin tingled in excitement at the thought of what secrets the Father of Spells had sought fit to hide in a disguised chamber.

  “Do you suppose what we’re looking for might be down there?” Be’naj asked, stepping over the eladrin corpse to peek further into the shadows.

  “What exactly are we looking for?” Phaerim asked. “Besides a meal, of course. If I don’t get some food soon, my stomach’s going to eat me.”

  “To save the Eladrin, we have to pass through a series of portals,” Be’naj answered, staring down the stairs into the darkness.

  Thaelios expounded, for Be’naj seemed to have lost her focus. “The Hall of Doors supposedly housed gateways to other planes for the purpose of Trigilas and his apprentices conducting magical research.”

  Be’naj took two steps down the secret stairs, her wings folded tightly to squeeze through the opening, then immediately backed out, nearly tripping over the corpse behind her. “I don’t think we should go this way.”

  “Is something wrong?” Saffron asked.

  “My skin started itching, and I’ve felt that before – at the Shaper’s mansion in Zeblon.” Be’naj rubbed her forearms with her fingertips, worry evident on her face.

  “Do you think it’s magically trapped?” Thaelios shared her concern, but still felt enticed by discovery.

  “I don’t know,” the half-Aasimar responded. “Before, it was when that fiendling drew near.”

  “Sirran?” Saffron interjected. “Did he do something to you?”

  Be’naj walked further from the disguised door, distracting her eyes by inspecting the contents of a bookshelf opposite the foot of the bed. “I don’t think so. It was more like his presence itself affected me. I just think we should leave those stairs alone.”

  “That’s a good enough reason for me,” Phaerim added, crossing to Be’naj’s side of the room to provide more light.

  Thaelios frowned at the summary rejection of exploration, but peeled his attention from the shadowed crevice when he heard Be’naj exclaim, “Look at the detail on the binding of these books!”

  She pulled one off the shelf, an expulsion of dust coming with it as the ancient text separated from its peers for the first time in centuries. Be’naj carried the tome to the bed and blew more dust out of its textured cover. Sewn into the binding of tanned animal hide were designs in dyed, iridescent cloth. They depicted rainclouds releasing a deluge on the dark world below, while above the clouds sat a bright, heavenly sky. Shiny, silver lettering announced the title: Gradations of Immortality. “It’s still in excellent condition.”

  “Probably a preservation enchantment,” Thaelios said, squirming between Saffron and Dyphina to get a closer look.

  Saffron crouched by the bookshelf and trailed a finger down the edge of a couple spines. “I wonder how much forgotten knowledge is resting on this single shelf…”

  “I’m sure there’s plenty,” Phaerim quipped, “but unless it’s going to help conjure a plate of venison, can’t it wait until we’ve either found a meal or one of these portals? Hells, I’d probably even settle for just watching you read in a room that doesn’t have dead Eladrin draped over the furniture.”

  Saffron stood. “You’re right. Curiosity can wait until our basic needs are met. We should continue exploring the halls. Maybe we’ll find some food stores with a preservation enchantment on them.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” Dyphina echoed, holding her stomach as the reminder of food caused it to complain anew. She leaned over the bed and set Cauzel’s spellbook overlapping Trigilas’s tome.

  When Thaelios shot her a look, she shrugged. “It gets heavy. It’ll be here when we come back – it’s not like those other books have walked off in the last few centuries.”

  “What if there’s a trap or other mischievous magic we need to overcome?” he objected.

  Dyphina cocked a hip to the side and placed her hand upon it. “And you think you’re going to be able to break an enchantment placed by the greatest Shaper ever to walk the forests of Elisahd? She rolled her eyes and followed Saffron, who was exiting into the hallway with a hand on Phaerim’s shoulder.

  As the light from the dagger receded beyond the doorway, Be’naj tucked her arm around Thaelios’s uninjured one and interlocked elbows. “Come, there are more great things to be discovered,” she offered in Eladrin. After glances back at the bed and secret stairway, Thaelios sighed and joined Be’naj in leaving Trigilas’s room.

  They caught up to the others soon after, for they’d reached an intersection of corridors, and the light didn’t extend far enough to illuminate an end in any direction. More doors were visible along the walls in the perpendicular hall, but after they’d regrouped, Phaerim kept straight. “I wonder how many poor souls met their end down here,” he asked to no one in particular.

  A dozen slow paces forward, the corridor opened up into a spacious hall, com
plete with a vast table running across their view. Thaelios was last to enter what must have been the dining area, and after peering right and left, he guessed there were enough seats in place for at least a score of Shapers to have eaten simultaneously in the days of Trigilas.

  Across the table from where he stood, a wide circle was cut out of the floor, three-fourths of it surrounded by an iron railing. To either side of the circle were tight rows of close-set doors, extending the length of the table. Beyond the open space at the head and foot of the table, Thaelios could just make out more doors in the uneven walls at the edge of the light.

  “Phaerim, we should check those doors,” Saffron said, pointing across the table. “If this was where they ate, maybe those held their food stores.”

  While the others eagerly skirted around the edge of the wooden furniture, lured by the hope of quelling their hunger, Thaelios remained still, his eyes fixed on the dark circle. As the light moved away with his companions, its receding coincided with faint whispers tickling his ears.

  “Did you say something?” he asked, shifting his gaze and nearly shouting so the others could hear.

  “What?” Dyphina called back.

  He realized almost immediately they hadn’t been the source as the voice was distinctly Eladrin, and he heard it again as his friends peered back at him.

  “Khilterel pelenari,” it whispered. “Yelen quentireth guriel.”

  “Did you hear that?” Thaelios responded, narrowing his eyes to penetrate the darkness in search of the speaker.

  “What’s going on?” Saffron asked.

  “Shhh.” Thaelios held up his hand as multiple voices repeated the message.

  “I hear it, too,” Be’naj said.

  “Hear what?” Saffron demanded, irritation setting in.

  “Look! Up at the ceiling.” Be’naj pointed upward and Thaelios’s eyes followed.