The others looked at each other. None of them wanted to budge from this bedroom where they took refuge from that monster. The monster snapped up the first thing it got hold of, which just happened to be Gahkra. It shook the hag in its jaws, and the men escaped in the interval.
Now the thing ran off somewhere else and took Gahkra with it. Carmen was nowhere in sight—at least, the men never took the time to search for her. They hid in this room until all trace of the monster died away.
Angus refused to consider Gahkra’s statement about Carmen being responsible for the curse. He couldn’t allow his feelings for her to cloud his judgment, and at this point, who caused the curse made no difference to him.
He wouldn’t kill Carmen. That much he knew, but something told him he didn’t have to. If she caused the curse, she didn’t mean to. She loved him, and he loved her. Nothing could be more certain. Losing her was bad enough. He wouldn’t turn against her in his heart, not for anything.
Right now, though, he had to get these men moving. They had to find the witch…somewhere. He opened the door and, just to show these fainthearted comrades of his there was no danger, he stepped outside. The spinning blade things lay still and silent all over the floor. A few fire balls smoldered in corners where they fell when Gahkra disappeared.
Angus took a few steps down the passage, and his brothers followed him into the open. Their plan to find Gahkra worked, but they still got no closer to their destination. Angus discarded the plan of searching all these doors. Gahkra wouldn’t help them. She couldn’t now, wherever she was.
Only one possibility remained: the bell tower. A few moments searching, and he found another stairway. He started up it without a word to his comrades. They wasted enough time with this misguided search, and now they lost Carmen, too.
How could that hag accuse Carmen of setting the curse on them, of killing all his men and even killing Rob? Carmen risked her life to save them both. Still, he couldn’t shake the image of her face out of his head. Her expression changed when Gahkra accused her of those crimes. Some part of Carmen believed it was all true. Why?
The stairs wound higher and higher. They ended in another simple wooden platform, but this time, when he looked up at the tower’s pointed pinnacle, he beheld the huge iron bell suspended from a cross beam. This was it, the bell tower.
He studied the surroundings, but he couldn’t see any way to climb higher. Wherever the croft was, and wherever the bell ringer slept, it must be here somewhere. Carmen described the place where she found Gahkra throwing the wraiths into the mirror. She said two doors opened onto the platform, but he saw no doors here.
He turned around to face his party. “We’ll just ha’e tae go down again and find the bell ringer’s croft. Perhaps whate’er’s under his bed’ll show us what tae do next.”
Now that they knew they found the right tower, a spirit of excitement infected the group. They were on the right track. They couldn’t be far off finding some clue to end this long nightmare once and for all.
They trooped down the echoing stairs. This time, they searched every door for any sign of the way around to the bell ringer’s croft. Most of the doors in that tower opened into empty rooms. The clear light of day shone through their windows, but they contained no furniture, no people, no magic monsters—nothing.
The quickening energy surging through the band infected Angus, too, but he kept a lid on his emotions. Too many defeats, too many tragedies taught him to mute any hope he might have for the future.
The party split up. They could search more doors that way. They descended a long way down the tower before a shout went up from behind Angus. He and Callum retraced their steps to find Fergus standing in a doorway like all the others. He stared into the room, straight at the window on the other side.
“What is’t?” Angus asked.
“This is it,” Fergus whispered. “This is the way.”
Angus swept a glance around the room. “There’s naught there. It’s empty.”
Fergus didn’t move. His wide eyes stared at the window. “The croft. It’s there.”
Angus took one more look. He didn’t see anything—not when he looked around the room. When he looked at his brother’s face, though, he saw something. He saw something he’d seen on the long road here.
He passed his hand in front of Fergus’s eyes. The young man didn’t blink. Angus murmured low into Callum’s ear. “Go get the others.”
Callum hurried away and came back with Jaime and Ewan. Ewan frowned. “What is’t now?”
“The croft,” Angus replied. “Fergus says it’s ‘ere.”
Ewan scoffed and pressed forward to enter the room. Fergus’s arm shot out, and he slammed the big Highlander back from the threshold.
Ewan swelled up in anger. “Ye wee fud…”
Without turning around, Fergus drew his saber from his scabbard. He jabbed it down point first on one of the stones embedded in the floor. In front of their eyes, a long spear shot out of the far wall. It zinged across the room, struck its iron point into the wall opposite, and banged to the floor.
The other stared at the fallen spear. “The room’s booby-trapped,” Fergus murmured.
“How do we get inside?” Angus asked.
“Ye mun’ follow me footsteps exactly,” Fergus replied. “Ye mun mak’ no a single step tae the richt or left, or ye’re done fer.”
He didn’t turn around. He didn’t take his eyes off that window. He put out one foot and positioned it on a different floor stone. When he got a sure footing, he shifted his weight onto it.
He picked out another stone and repeated the process, but he never looked where he was going. Angus recognized this behavior. Fergus did this from his earliest boyhood when these spells came over him. He saw something beyond this world, some layer of the magical realm to which this castle belonged.
Jamie followed him, but he made certain to place his feet exactly on the stones Fergus picked out. One member of the party followed the other, but Angus hung back and waited until last. If this whole Phoenix Throne myth was real and the Camerons belonged to an ancient magical realm unknown to the real world, that explained Fergus’s strange behavior.
Fergus inherited this paranormal ability to see the magic when others couldn’t. It passed down through the generations. The Camerons took their birthright with them when the witch banished them from the castle. No one could stop Fergus seeing things beyond the reach of human sight.
Fergus arrived at the window. He stuck his head through the open casement and looked down. He snapped out of his trance and called back to Angus. “It’s ‘ere.”
Jamie reached him. Then Callum. Angus started across the floor. He watched four other men cross it before him, and he recognized a pattern. A tortoise-shell pattern in dark green and black colored the stones on which Fergus stepped. Angus picked his way across the room with no trouble and joined his comrades at the window.
When he looked out the window, he beheld another precarious wooden platform fixed to the outer castle wall. It ran along the tower’s curved exterior, and another wooden stairway cut upward toward the bell tower. This had to be the way to the croft.
Fergus didn’t wait to ask for permission. He sheathed his blade and swung his leg out the window. He hopped down to the platform and set off up the stairs. The whole structure swayed under his weight, but he didn’t hesitate or glance back.
One by one, the others copied him. When his turn came, Angus jumped down and set off after them. If Fergus believed it was safe, it must be.
This stairway circled the tower until it came to a different window. Fergus hopped back inside, and this time, he didn’t bother to choose his footfalls. He strode straight across the room and through the door into a different hallway. He waited there until Angus caught up.
Angus peered into his face. “Awricht, mon?”
Fergus blushed. “Awricht.”
He didn’t move until Angus waved his hand down the hall. “On ye go, lad.�
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Fergus turned away to hide his glowing cheeks. Since when did his much older brother tell him to take the lead? Callum raised his eyebrows, but Angus only smiled. If Fergus knew where to go, he better show them. He had powers and abilities not even Angus could match.
Angus thanked the stars someone in this party had some magical power. Just maybe Fergus could show them something that could shed some light on this mystery.
Fergus headed off down the hall. He cocked his head at certain doors, shook it, and passed on. He stopped so suddenly Jamie bumped into him more than once. Jamie cursed him and shoved him forward. “Ye jobby ‘agus!”
The third time Fergus stopped, he veered aside and opened a door. “This way.”
The door communicated with another plain room, but Fergus entered it and approached one of the myriad tapestries hanging on the wall. He flung it aside to reveal yet another door. This time when he opened it, they all saw another flight of stairs rising into the dark.
He trotted up the steps, and when Angus entered the shaft, the tapestry fell behind him to cut off all light. Four sets of pounding feet guided him upward into the pitch black. He took a firm grip on himself. The book told him to find the bell tower croft in the event the magical mirror got broken. Carmen broke it, so they better go there.
Up ahead, a curved window of light shot down the stairs where Fergus exited into daylight again. Angus’s heart quickened. This was it. He only hoped Fergus was right.
He stepped up onto a hollow wooden floor where the others waited. One glance around told him Fergus didn’t make any mistake. They all crowded into a tiny chamber barely big enough to hold them. A low, crude bed sat against one wall. A table and a single chair sat against the other.
A thick hemp rope hung down from above, and it ran straight up under the massive iron dome of the bell. The clapper hung silent, and the rope dangled through a hole in the floor down a shaft a hundred feet deep.
The bell ringer, or anybody else who entered this croft, had to walk around that hole to get from the bed to the table or to the door. One wrong step, and he would plunge to his death.
The comrades exchanged glances. They found the bell tower croft. Now what? Fergus waved toward the bed. “Ye tak’ a look, Angus, mon. Ye’re the eldest.”
The others drew back. They wanted Angus to look and see whatever waited for them under the bell ringer’s bed. What treasure did the book promise him if he looked?
He picked his steps with care around that hole and planted his feet next to the bed. A handsewn quilt covered a pile of clean straw. That was the bed. Angus studied it. Was the treasure buried in the straw?
Then he noticed a curious knothole in the wooden board around the straw. The boards held the straw in place in a solid square, but that knothole looked like no knothole Angus ever saw before. Nothing in this castle happened by accident. A knothole like that wouldn’t just appear in the bell ringer’s bed when the book spoke of treasure buried beneath it
He bent down and put his hand into the knothole. He pulled, and the whole bed came loose in his hand. Those boards fixed to a section of the floor, and when he lifted them, the floor yawned open into a shadowy space underneath.
Angus took one look, and his heart sank. Another flight of stairs dropped away at his feet. He almost put the bed back before Fergus stepped forward. “This is it.”
“What is?” Angus asked.
“The treasure,” Fergus replied. “It mun’ be down there somewhere.”
Fergus peered into the gloom, but he didn’t enter. He straightened up. “Ye mun’ go down, Angus. Ye mun’ go down alane.”
Angus stared at his brother, but when he glanced around, he saw the same awed certainty on all their faces. Whatever he might find down there, it was all his. They didn’t want to see this. It belonged to the King alone, and that was him.
None of them would go with him. If he wanted to find out what was down there, he was on his own. His hand flew to his sword hilt, but he didn’t draw it. Whatever waited for him down there, he couldn’t fight it with a sword. If being King of this strange realm didn’t earn him the right to the treasure, nothing else would.
He let out a shaky breath and turned toward the stairs. One last flight of stairs. That’s all he had to face, and he would find the answer.
He crouched low to stoop under the bed. A few steps down, and he could stand upright. He would give anything for a candle. The stairs kept descending farther into the dark until he could no longer see the square opening where his brothers looked down after him.
He kept going. He trailed his hand against the wall to guide his way, but after a few more minutes, he noticed a light growing larger down below him. He quickened his steps. It definitely got bigger, the farther he went, until he found a long chamber lit up by windows in the ceiling. Daylight streamed in and reflected off the white marble walls to make the place cheerful.
He paused at the base of the stairs to take in the sight. He never saw anything like this for grandeur. The white marble walls, floor and ceiling shone brighter than the brightest day. Silver flecks embedded in the stone glistened in the brilliant glow. The chamber resembled the closest thing to heaven Angus could imagine.
All around the outer walls, shelves stood out from the marble slabs at eye level. Ornate vessels sat on each shelf, all around the room. Just inside that outer ring stood several pedestals bearing the white marble statues of maidens. Their glorious tresses hung down over their gowns, and their carved features displayed every enticing feature.
Angus stepped forward in awed silence. He studied each decoration in turn, but he couldn’t understand them. He traversed the whole room. What did they mean? What did these maidens represent? Were they the treasure he was supposed to find?
He walked to the far end of the room. Each maiden struck him as more beautiful than the last, but something in their features left him empty. They weren’t real. No real woman could be that beautiful.
For all their flowing locks and beautiful faces, not one was as beautiful as Carmen. She might be a little rough around the edges. She might dress like a boy, but she had something undefinable these goddesses would never have. She was real. She responded to touch and speech. She got mad and happy at the right moments. She grieved over Robbie the way Angus did. She felt.
While he stood there pondering it all, his eye happened to land on a perfect rose bud trailing from one of the statues’ hands. The minute he noticed it, he noticed each of these maidens held a different flower. One held a rose, another a daffodil, and yet another held a sprig of lavender.
Angus’s mind raced. He dove into his sporran for the book. He almost tore the pages out in his haste to find the right passage.
Beyond the Phoenix Throne lies the King asleep in his grave.
Around him dwell the ten maidens clad all in white.
Daisies, roses, asters, paperwhites,
The thistle grows wild and free far away,
Never taken or plucked for the long feast table.
Only the King can command her to grow in the hallowed halls….
Of course! The ten maidens, the ten flowers, and the thistle growing wild and free far away. He took another long look around the chamber. Even before he approached those vessels standing on their shelves, he already understood. They were burial urns. This must be the burial chamber of Kings past.
He squinted at the first urn. Clear lettering engraved on the side read the words, Alfred McLachlan. He strolled down the line of urns and read name after name. Daniel McLachlan. William McLachlan. All the McLachlans stood together in a row until he came to the last one: Lachlan Macray.
He searched the whole cavern until he found what he was looking for: Adam Cameron, Joseph Cameron, James Cameron, and last of all Andrew Cameron. Angus stood still in front of the urn. This was the burial place of his great-grandfather, the last King to sit on the Phoenix Throne.
Was this the treasure he was supposed to find under the bell ringer’s bed? S
ome treasure. He gave the chamber one more sweeping glance. Would he, Angus, get buried here, too? Not likely, unless he found a way to break the curse.
If he was ever going to break it, he had to accept this treasure. Maybe Andrew’s urn held some magical power he didn’t know about. Maybe he could sprinkle the ashes over the witch’s head and she would shrink into a harmless little mouse for the cat to eat.
Angus indulged in a wry smile, but now was no time for jokes. His brothers and Ewan waited for him at the top of those stairs, and they weren’t getting any closer to the witch waiting around for him.
He took a step forward and seized the urn by the neck. He lifted it out of its place. Just at the moment he started to turn away once more, the sunlight streaming down from overhead struck something gleaming blood red on the shelf where the urn once sat. Angus stared down at the biggest ruby he ever beheld in his life.
Not that he was in the habit of seeing huge precious stones. In fact, he never saw any ruby before, not even a small one. This one, though—it gleamed out of his dreams. It filled his whole palm when he picked it up, and it cast a mesmerizing aura over him. This was it. This was the treasure. He never doubted that for an instant.
He could stare down into its depths forever, but he had to get moving. He slipped the ruby into his sporran and replaced Andrew’s urn where he found it. He let his fingers trace down the curved sides, and he sent a silent thank you to his dead ancestor for giving him the treasure.
That ruby radiated its power into Angus’s blood. He was King. The ruby made him King more than any bloodline ever could. The man who held that ruby would rule, and no mistake. That ruby would defeat the witch—nothing else. Swords, monsters, and fire couldn’t do it. Only the ruby mattered, and only the true King could wield it.
He climbed back up the stairs more slowly than he descended them. He thought the whole matter over. Only one detail remained uncertain in his mind. What was the Phoenix Tribute the King had to pay to ascend the throne? What if he couldn’t pay it—or wouldn’t pay it?
Ghost Clan_A Scottish Highlander Time Travel Romance Page 14
