Sister of the Dead

by Barb Hendee

  The stairs emptied into a square space at the head of a passageway running beneath the keep, and the air was as chill as outside. Jan led the way with Wynn just behind him, and he stopped briefly to light two oil lanterns on the walls.

  Along the passage were six doors, three to a side, of thick wood and rusted iron fixtures. Between them were support arches of larger stones across the passage's roof. At midway, Jan pointed downward in caution to a floor grate so no one would trip upon its hinges. Leesil took Wynn's wrist and steered her crystal down closer to the grate.

  Beneath it was a hollowed-out square chamber that smelled of stagnant moisture—the keep's dungeon for prisoners. For a moment, Leesil thought he saw gaunt faces peering up at him from below. He pulled away.

  These were only old guilts resurfacing in Leesil's mind. How many had he helped put in such a place—or worse— beneath Lord Darmouth's keep in the Warlands?

  "What is in these rooms?" Magiere asked. She pushed on the first door in the passage's left wall, but it would not open.

  "One holds stores we've gathered, " Jan replied. "Another has surplus goods collected for taxes in place of crops and coin. "

  "And nothing was found here when you first came?" asked Leesil, studying Magiere's obstinate door with its rusted latch.

  "Nothing of note, " Jan answered. "Old crates with moth-eaten cloth or tin plates, probably from when the barracks were manned. I didn't look in all of them myself. "

  'Time to do so, " Magiere said, and pointed to the doors. "Are these locked?"

  "This one isn't, " Leesil offered. "Give it a shove. "

  Magiere joined him to push. The door shifted enough for Leesil to work the latch.

  "They should all be open, " said Jan. "There's nothing here worth locking up. "

  Wynn stepped in behind Leesil, holding out her crystal so that its light spread through the doorway. The room was large enough to lie down in, but it was empty. Leesil took the crystal and scanned once along all four walls before shaking his head at Magiere.

  "It's an old keep, and not one of importance, " he said regretfully. "We'll look carefully, but don't expect this forgotten place to hold many secrets. "

  "Next room, " she said, ignoring his forewarning.

  They proceeded one by one through the doors along the passage. Some opened more easily than the first. Cleaned and swept, they held recently added goods delivered by villages for taxes due from the fief. A few loose or broken wall stones had been replaced or remortared. There was nothing else of note.

  Leesil studied the stones of the hallway. Cracked or broken ones had been replaced over the keep's history, and the walls were a patchwork of shades and textures. Likely wet weather and dank earth had combined with the weight of the keep to wear away at the understructure. There were signs of other erosion by time, repaired or not, and also hints that the lower level had been slowly expanded since the keep's first construction. The stones at the passage's end were not as aged as those nearest the stairs and the landing's chamber.

  Only the last two rooms on opposing sides held anything interesting. Inside were stacked crates, which contained wares likely stored from the long-abandoned barracks. Leesil stepped out into the passage to face Magiere.

  She glared down the passage of open doors as if searching for an enemy that would not reveal itself.

  "There's nothing here, " Leesil said.

  She turned on him, expression cold like the stone surrounding them, as if neither his words nor his presence affected her. Her resistance faltered as she inhaled deeply. "Finish with the crates, " she said, and turned away to walk back down the passage.

  Leesil returned to the last room, where Wynn looked at him with sad eyes.

  "Go through them all, " he said, gesturing to the crates stacked around the small chamber's walls. "Empty them all... and then we're done with this. "

  Wynn nodded, and even Jan remained silent as he pulled the first crate down to the floor and opened it.

  Leesil was about to follow Magiere but thought better of it. She sat on the bottom stair with her head down, elbows resting upon her knees. Her fading desperation would be covered by her usual anger. Anything he said would only make it worse.

  "Leesil, come look at this, " Wynn said.

  "What is it?" he asked, stepping back into the room.

  Wynn shook her head. "I am not certain. This room holds barracks equipment from many years past. Perhaps there was a military contingent here once. There is a parchment in this first crate. A list of some kind. "

  The worn parchment was frayed at the edges and torn along one ancient crease, where it had been folded in quarters. Leesil couldn't see the writing itself directly as Jan silently mouthed the words on the yellowed and dingy sheet.

  "Just an account of the room's contents, " Jan said. "From many years past. My father wouldn't have an interest in packing lists or inventories too old to be helpful. "

  Wynn studied the sheet and looked around the small room. She shoved the parchment in her pocket and opened another crate. With Jan's help, she searched the remaining crates but found nothing else noteworthy.

  Jan looked at Leesil and shook his head.

  "That's enough, Wynn, " Leesil said, and gripped the young sage's shoulder. "We're done here. "

  Wynn pulled away, not ready to give up. She removed the parchment from her pocket to stare at it again, even though she couldn't read the language.

  "Let's go, " Leesil said.

  He led the way out and down the passage, pulling each door closed as he passed. He could hear Wynn counting under her breath as she followed behind him—"One, two, three... five, six, seven"—until they reached the landing chamber.

  Magiere looked up at him. There were no words of comfort he could find that wouldn't sound like hollow excuses. He held out his hand to her, and after a lingering silence, she took it and stood. Leesil headed up the stairs.

  "Seven?" Wynn murmured from behind. "Leesil... there are seven. "

  When he looked back, she stood below in the small chamber facing the passage. Leesil couldn't see her face, but her head bobbed as she looked to the parchment and back down the hallway again.

  "If this parchment accounts what these rooms once contained..., " she muttered. "Seven lists... for seven rooms. "

  Magiere's grip tightened on Leesil's hand. She let go to scramble down the stairs and grab the parchment from the sage. She stared at it but a moment, and then looked up at Leesil. If there was hope in her eyes, it was smothered by fear of another misdirection.

  "The seventh room could just be the chamber here at the stairs, " suggested Jan.

  Wynn's shoulders slumped, but Magiere kept her eyes on Leesil, waiting.

  Leesil stepped back down to join her and tried to keep his expression impassive as he held his hand out to Wynn. "Give me the crystal. "

  Wynn's crystal in hand, Leesil dropped to one knee and inspected the chamber's floor. Strangely, along its center he found shallow traces of lines where something heavy had been dragged along the chamber floor and into the passage. The scarred lines were packed with dust and dirt, so were quite old. Closer to the walls were circular stains that suggested large barrels full of liquid had been stored here at one time, and he pointed them out.

  Jan was looking at the list over Magiere's shoulder and shook his head. "There's no mention of barrels here, just crated goods, " he said.

  Leesil took a deep breath, careful to let it go silently before looking up at Magiere.

  "Be certain, " she said to him.

  He stood up and let his gaze wander from the stairs to the ceiling, along the passage of doors, and down to the hallway's end with its blank wall. There was just this one cellar storage area and one dungeon under the keep.

  Leesil looked up once again to the stone ceiling. Above these cellar chambers was the main floor of the keep, surrounded by its thick stone walls. Any hollowing below the keep to produce this passage of chambers would've been done with thought for the
support of the upper building.

  "Wait here, " he told the others.

  Leesil counted his steps as he climbed the curving stairs up to the main floor. With the exceptions of the entryway, the kitchen out back, and the stairs leading up and down, the main room's wall was the keep's outer wall. He paced the same number of steps back along wall until certain he stood directly above the cellar's landing chamber below. From there, he stepped out the distance to the other side of the keep—fifty-eight paces. He returned to cellar's landing chamber and looked down the passage of chambers.

  "What is he doing?" Wynn asked.

  "Be quiet, and let him think, " Magiere answered.

  Leesil's stomach rolled at the rekindled spark of hope in Magiere's eyes. This was all a hunch at best, but she nodded for him to continue. Leesil paced out the distance down the passage between the six rooms. At forty-two paces, he reached the end wall.

  The passage was short of the distance across the whole keep along the same line.

  This meant little, other than perhaps the cellar's end had been kept short of undermining the keep wall. The stones of the passage's end wall were newer than elsewhere but still well aged. It confirmed his earlier appraisal that the cellars had been slowly expanded over time from when the keep was first built many decades ago. He studied the end wall— and suspicion grew.

  The stones were aged more uniformly than he'd noticed in his early inspection. There were no signs of patchwork here. He held the crystal close as he moved back and forth across its surface. The stones were fitted solidly up to the edge of the passage's side walls in both corners.

  Leesil held his breath. He heard Magiere and the others moving in closer behind him.

  "What?" she demanded. "You found something.... I can see it in you. "

  He held the crystal close to the corner.

  This end wall's stones had been cut off to fit inside the passage's side walls.

  Something at the passage's end had been blocked off long ago, as the passage had originally been longer. Leesil took off his cloak and began unstrapping his blades.

  "We need tools, " he said. "This wall was added, and the passage runs beyond it. "

  "Hold there, " Jan said. "Even if my father agrees, you can't start knocking down walls. Remove the wrong support, and the place could collapse on us. "

  Magiere grabbed Jan by the shirt. "Just do as he says!"

  Leesil reached out and grasped Magiere's wrist, pulling her away from Jan.

  "This wall was a later addition, " he explained, keeping an eye on Magiere. "It isn't supporting anything. Get your father, and find us some tools! Wynn, go with him. "

  Jan turned away, muttering under his breath, and Wynn followed. Magiere's gaze was fixed upon the end wall.

  "There must be something..., " she whispered. "I can't... I can't leave here with nothing. "

  Her voice was so full of desperation that Leesil wrapped her in his arms. Magiere slumped forward, her face buried in his shoulder. He felt her tremble, and he rocked her slowly. What if there was nothing behind the wall? And what if there was something leading into Magiere's past? There was little hope either would bring her any relief.

  Jan and Wynn returned with Cadell. It took some convincing, but once Leesil showed the zupan the wall's structure, Cadell was reasonably convinced it was safe to break it open. He seemed as disturbed by the discovery as Leesil. Jan had brought a pair of prybars and handed one to Leesil. The two of them set to breaking out the wall's top-center stones first.

  The stench that wafted through the opening made all of them step away, gagging and coughing. Cadell caught Wynn as she stumbled, retching, and his face twisted in disgust at the scent of decay assaulting them.

  Leesil's fear mounted. All he wanted was to drag Magiere from this place and never return. He thought he saw this same thought on her own pale face, but Cadell broke the silence.

  "Finish it. Tear it down. "

  Leesil and Jan rammed through stone and mortar with their prybars to widen the opening. When enough of the wall fell away to allow him to step through, Leesil found the dark cavity where the passage continued, but it reached only a short distance. Another wall obscured by darkness stood before him, and he held Wynn's crystal out.

  "The seventh room, " Wynn said from somewhere behind him.

  The door in the revealed wall was severely decayed, and the air smelled of rotted wood over the top of something more rank. Magiere tried to step past Leesil, but he held her back with a shake of his head, and began carefully inspecting the seventh door.

  There was no sign of anything unusual, but the years had eaten at the wood. He hooked the door's latch with his pry-bar, stepped as far back as he could, and pulled. The door collapsed outward as it broke from its hinges, and the fetid stench mounted until he could taste it in his mouth.

  Leesil heard Wynn moan as his own stomach lurched.

  Magiere stood close behind him as he held the crystal up in the doorway. The crystal's light, undiffused by a lantern glass, was so sharp mat it deepened the room's shadows as much as it revealed pieces of what lay within.

  The back wall appeared to be old mortared stone. It barely caught the light, so the room was quite large. Near it, Leesil . spotted what he drought were the shattered remains of a large wooden crate or box. One strut remain vertical, its height above his own waist. There was another slightly smaller crate to its right.

  Leesil stepped in and spotted a large crusted vat to the left. Next to it was a crumpled mass, and other such piles appeared here and there on the floor along the wall. As he approached the vat, shadows turned around the walls as the crystal's light moved with him, making the dark heaps upon the floor shift like animals disturbed from slumber in their unearthed burrow.

  One appeared to roll its head, and as Leesil stopped, the shadows froze all around him.

  A mass on the floor in the left front corner took shape in the light as Magiere gripped his shoulder.

  It was a body in a sitting position. Rotted clothing par-tially obscured the bones but not the skull. It narrowed toward the dangling lower jaw, hinting at a triangular face it once wore. Its dark eye sockets were larger than those of human skulls Leesil had been forced by his parents to study in his youth. And upon it still clung wisps of white-blond hair. Slender fingers too long for a human rested on a narrow rib cage.

  Leesil didn't need a closer look to recognize the tall lithe stature. This elf had died and been entombed without ceremony in the dark forests of Droevinka, far from its homeland.

  Magiere's other hand flattened against Leesil's side. Her grip on his shoulder tightened as she pulled him around to face the chamber's back wall again.

  Around the base of the walls were the remains of more bodies.

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  T hinly veiled by a night mist, the keep appeared to have aged a century in the brief decades since Welstiel had last seen it. From beneath the branches of a spruce at the clearing's edge, he watched two men with spears walk slowly across the courtyard.

  "She is inside?" Chane asked. He crouched nearby, and moonlight peeked through a break in the clouds to wash over his pale features.

  Welstiel nodded. He peered about the forest with his senses open wide, letting not only sight but also sound and scent flood into him. Being this close to the keep, this close to the beginning, made him wary. Magiere was inside—of that much he felt certain—but what concerned him more was who else might still have a keen interest in this place, and in any visitors from the past.

  "We wait, " he said. "Stay close to me if she appears, or I will not be able to hide you from her awareness. "

  Chane looked at him expectantly, waiting for an explanation of how this could be accomplished. Welstiel silently kept his attention upon the keep.

  The two would-be guards walked the grounds' circumference together rather than separately. Simple villagers, their presence was one more hint that this place might well have been forgotten by a
ll who knew what had happened here. Somewhere inside those stone walls, Magiere wandered, unaware of the ghosts of her own past. Welstiel willed that she remain ignorant.

  As the guards passed from sight around the stables, the crumbled keep appeared still as a headstone in a forgotten, hallowed place. This illusion of peace and serenity masked a long-ago madness, and Welstiel's mind slipped back....

  IIt was nearly twenty-six years earlier, and Welstiel's father dragged Magelia from her village home. She rode behind Welstiel, clinging silently to his waist all the way to the keep. Her sister ran after them as far as she could, screaming Magelia's name in a frenzy of fear and anger. Someone loves her, Welstiel thought without feeling. Someone was frightened for her.

  It hadn't mattered. It hadn't changed anything.

  Lord Bryen Massing was tall, but Welstiel had not inherited his father's imposing height. They shared dark brown hair, square faces, and the shallow bump at the bridge of their noses, but heritage and a few features were all they had in common. Most notable to all who saw them together, the father did not have the white patches of hair at his temples that the son wore.

  The fief his father had been assigned was primitive compared with others they had tended over the years, with a squat tower keep of mortared rock with crude barracks and stable attached, built near the central village of Chemestuk. Welstiel rode into the keep's muddy courtyard that night following his father. Their family retainer, the robed and masked Master Ubad, stood waiting for them.

  The torch-lit courtyard was alive with activity. Men-atarms and a few conscripted villagers attempted to unload the contents of five sturdy wagons. Along with family baggage, each wagon carried a square crate at least two-thirds the height of man and covered by a thick canvas tarp. Seeing the lord and his son arrive, the men grew openly nervous and too hurried in their tasks. They pulled a tarp aside to reveal one of the crates.