Aster Wood and the Lost Maps of Almara (Book 1)

by Cantwell, J. B.

  I dressed in the old clothing and packed my own clothes into the pack. Kiron had taken a file to my boots to make them look less noticeable; they weren’t of the sort that a poor boy would wear in Stonemore, where the kids were lucky if they had shoes at all. I lay on the shabby floor of the forgotten room and stared up at the ceiling. Only a thin sliver of moonlight crept in through a thick crack in the stone wall. My fingers studied the grooves in the stone link in my pocket.

  I was buzzing with nerves. The silence that came from Kiron’s side of the room told me he was also awake, but we didn’t speak. I don’t know how many hours we both lay there with our eyes wide, and I’m not sure if I ever slept, but after an eternity of running the plan over and over in my mind, he finally rose. It was time.

  No light came into the room any longer. The moon had set hours ago and it was too early for the sun to make an appearance. We both put on our boots, and I handed him the backpack before vanishing it. Then we crept through the alleyways into the city beyond. Kiron peered out into the deserted street. Then, satisfied that it was empty, we slipped out into the night of Stonemore.

  Nobody was out. I was shaking with nerves, but the cold air was invigorating. I breathed deeply, trying to stay calm, and my hopes rose that what I was about to attempt might be possible.

  We silently made our way through the square, sticking to the shadowy edges, to the closest avenue. I looked across the space towards Chapman’s little shop, hoping to see the flickering candle, but the windows were dark. We slinked around the corner, leaving the square, and found with relief that it was also deserted. Kiron walked with me only the distance of a few of the buildings before he stopped and pulled me into the alcove of a butcher shop. Large hides of beef hung looming in the dark window as he turned to me and quietly spoke.

  He placed one hand on each of my shoulders and looked me square in the eye. “Be careful. I’ll watch for ya, help ya if I can.”

  This was it.

  I nodded, breaking the gaze he held with me and looking over towards the door.

  “I’ll see you when I’m out,” I said, my heart pounding.

  My eyes met his once more. I nodded again, and then turned. As I stepped out of the cover of the butcher shop, he whispered behind me

  “Good luck.”

  I dashed across the street to the single door that had light flickering behind it. When I turned back, he had disappeared, hidden well in the shadows. I reached for the handle and, just as expected, it turned easily. The door was easily eight feet high and six inches thick, and would have been impossible to open had the hinges not been so well oiled. Crossing the threshold I carefully closed the enormous door behind me, which thudded shut with an awful sound of finality. Perhaps those breaths I had taken outside just now would be the last fresh air I would taste.

  A man sat slumped in a chair, and he jolted awake at the thump of the door. He looked me up and down, grumbling, and then waved his hand toward the back of the room. A torch lit staircase spiraled downward. His eyes were already closed again, so I snuck past, trying not to jostle him. As I approached the staircase I heard a harsh snore come from the man, already back asleep. As I began to descend I steadied myself along the rock walls that twisted their way deeper and deeper into the earth. It seemed to go on for two, maybe three stories, dizzying me as I walked. Finally I reached the bottom, where an iron gate blocked my way into the passage beyond. Here was where I was to announce myself to the keeper, but he was nowhere to be seen. Concerned, I tentatively called out, “Hello?”

  Nothing happened. My eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light. The passage ahead was cut through cells that ran along either side. Empty cells. This place didn’t look anything like the map Chapman had shown me. There was no treasure hold anywhere, for one, and the shape of the chamber wasn’t right at all. On the map all of the cells had been situated around the hold, but this room was laid out as a long rectangle, not a square.

  I froze. This was not the place we had planned for. Had Chapman given me a false map? Maybe Kiron had been right about him all along. Should I go back? Maybe we should rework the plan, find out more details about what I might face under the city. My breathing quickened as I imagined myself trapped behind the bars of one of those cells. It was too dangerous a plan to do it with flawed information.

  I was just starting to back up, to turn and head up the stairs, when I heard it.

  A groan erupted from the farthest cell down the corridor on the left. It was followed by the sound of someone rummaging around, knocking things over, and then the thwack and accompanying cry of pain that I could only guess came from bashing a toe against something hard.

  “Arrgghh!!!” came the angry voice.

  And then he was out of the cell, glaring at me down the long hallway. There wasn’t time. He would see me fleeing and call the guard. I had to stay.

  He limped towards me, cursing as he walked. As he neared I could see that he was dressed from head to foot in gray rags. They hung off his bony frame and dragged along the dirty ground as he approached. His hair, gray and tangled, hung limply on his shoulders. His cheeks were ruddy and pockmarked, a large bruise running down one side of his face, and his nose crooked from a break that had never been set. His scent moved ahead of him and hit me before he made it to the gate; liquor and a long unwashed body.

  “And who,” he glared and looked me up and down, “are you?”

  I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I was so intimidated by this disgusting man that I failed to speak quickly enough for his taste. Quick as a cat his hand flashed out through the bars and grabbed the top of my left ear. He yanked it down hard, and my head followed his agonizing grip until he had brought my forehead to rest on the cold steel of the gate. I squirmed in pain and tried not to cry out. Calder hadn’t been kidding. No wonder children were so frightened of this man.

  “I said,” he growled his breath into my face, “who…are…you?”

  This time I spoke quickly, anxious to persuade him to release me. “My name is Deen, sir. I am here to replace Calder.”

  “Deen? Deen what?” he sneered. “What is your surname, boy?”

  “I—” I stumbled, grasping for the right answer. “I have no surname, sir. No father.”

  At this he released me, seemingly satisfied with this response. This was part of the plan I had worked out with Kiron. It made my whole disguise more believable to the keeper. Of course I would have no father. I was just a poor boy from the town, forced to help feed my family by working in this place in the dead of night.

  My hand rubbed the now throbbing ear he had held, but I tried not to look too pathetic. He glared at me as his hands fumbled through hidden pockets in his…were they pants? It was a sort of robe, I decided. Maybe once it had been a sleeping gown made from rough linen, but once he had put it on, it looked as if he had never taken it off again. Years of liquor and darkness down here seemed to have made things like cleanliness unnecessary to him.

  At last he found what he was looking for, and his bony fingers pulled out from the depths of the gown a long, black skeleton key. He roughly jammed the key into the large hole along the side of the door and turned it with a grunt. A loud clang came from the lock as it disengaged, and he opened the gate and beckoned me inside.

  “Thank you, sir,” I said, taking care to be as polite as possible. I never wanted this man to have reason to touch me again. I stood at attention as he locked the gate, wary of walking on ahead, until he turned and shuffled back down the hallway. I took one last glance at what appeared to be the only escape from this place, and then I followed.

  At the end of the hallway he led me into the cell he had emerged from. A pile of blankets lay on the floor, two bottles, one empty, one half full, and a chamber pot. Thankfully, the chamber pot was empty.

  I was surprised when he pushed against what looked like a solid wall, but turned out to be another doorway. He ambled through it and I soon found myself in a large square room as big as a gymnasium.<
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  This was the room we had seen on Chapman’s map! Relief flooded through me as I identified one of the two doorways we had seen on the schematic; I was standing now in the second, and the other was directly opposite me. In the center of the room was an enormous cage lit on all sides with torches, the only light source in the place, and what lay inside it took my breath away.

  Treasure.

  But it was unlike the treasure I had seen in books or movies. In them, the treasure was always gold, shining like fire contained in metal. But here, long, thin stacks of silver coins lined the walls of the cage. I had forgotten about the strange absence of gold in the Fold, and it was strange to witness riches that cast off such cool light.

  The keeper picked up a bucket of rags that sat next to the door to his cell and motioned for me to follow him. He ambled directly towards the center, towards the piles that lay locked behind those tightly meshed bars. As we walked, the dark outlines of prisoners hiding in shadow regarded us from every side. They did not speak or make a sound, but their hollow eyes followed each step we took as they watched us from the black of their cells.

  It was true, then. This place was full of men. I shivered. It was like being watched by a hundred ghosts. I remembered the boy from the pub and his description of the prisoners: ghouls. I shrank back from the bars.

  I was so full of adrenaline and horror as I studied the dungeons that I barely noticed when the keeper stopped at the door to the hold, and I nearly knocked into him. Catching myself mere inches from bumping him in the back, I fought down a yelp of surprise. His hands were fumbling in his pockets again, and soon emerged with a different key, this one pewter. He jiggled it into the huge lock, and it gave a loud click as it released the door. My breath grew more and more shallow, and as he opened the cage.

  Silver. Everywhere silver, draping the cage in its icy glow. Silver chalices piled up in one corner of the space, silver coins in another. On the far wall hung ornate works of art in enormous carved frames. And in the center of the square cell a pile of books stacked high on the floor.

  The keeper thrust the bucket into my hands and shoved me inside. Then, to my horror, he slammed the door and locked it, trapping me inside. He saw the look on my face and his mouth broke into a wide, green grin.

  “What, you didn’t think I’d leave you with an escape, did you, boy?” he drawled. “All this treasure and rats like you thinkin’ you can come in here and nick a coin or two. The old man ain’t so stupid as you little brats seem to think I am.”

  “But sir,” I protested, “I was told that I was here to clean the—”

  “You’re here,” he snarled, “to do what I tell ya to do. Now, the fool that came here before ya was a slob and left spots all over the cups. Cadoc,” his hands absently touched the bruise on the side of his face, “weren’t happy. You do it right, boy, or you’ll have me to answer to. Or,” he sneered, “maybe I’ll just leave ya in here until it is done right.”

  “Yes, sir,” I answered quickly. I desperately wanted him to go, both because I wanted to start my search and because he was so terrifying. I may be trapped again, but I was itching to start digging through that pile of books.

  The smile dropped from his face and he looked at me curiously. Maybe I had been too quick to answer him, or maybe he wasn’t used to getting good behavior from the boys who came down here on a normal day. But, drawn by his drink or his nest of blankets or both, he didn’t care enough to linger, and he walked back through the aisle to his cell. Once he was out of sight, I turned to the books.

  They were all larger than the one I had seen in my dream. Most of these were as big as an old-fashioned encyclopedia, but the book I had dreamed of would have fit inside my pocket. I tentatively touched the volume closest to me at the top of the pile. It was bound in the finest leather, and engravings carved the surface. I lifted it and was surprised by its substantial weight. Turning it over, I saw no sign of the golden ovals that I was looking for. Not deterred, there were at least fifty books here, I placed it carefully on the ground beside the pile and picked up the next.

  For half an hour I dug through the pile, inspecting each tome carefully for anything that indicated it had information about Almara. But I found nothing. I had been hoping that maybe the small green book would be hidden down deeper in the pile, but as I placed the last book from the very bottom to the side I sighed with frustration. What was I supposed to do now?

  “It isn’t here,” croaked a voice from the surrounding darkness. I gasped. I had been so immersed in my search that I had completely forgotten that this place was full of prisoners. And they had been silent until this moment. I squinted in the light of the treasure hold and looked out through the bars in the direction from which the voice had come. Moving closer to the edge of the cage, I was able to see more clearly into the dungeons beyond, and I was unnerved by what I saw. Down the row in both directions were ten or more sets of eyes, all trained on me.

  “He took it,” came the voice again.

  “Who took it?” I whispered to the room at large, still unsure of which set of eyes belonged to the speaker.

  “The man in black,” said the voice, and I caught a faint movement just to my left and across the way.

  “What did he take?” I whispered, looking in that direction.

  “Almara’s book of codes, of course,” he answered.

  “How—what—how did you—?” I spluttered.

  “It doesn’t matter how I know, what matters is that it isn’t here. And if you want it, you’re going to have to find him.”

  My heart sank.

  “Find…who?” I asked hopefully.

  “You know who, boy,” the voice snarled.

  The thought that I would have to hunt Cadoc down once I got out of here, if I ever did get out of here, almost brought me to my knees.

  “I can’t go after Cadoc,” I whispered. “Are you mad?”

  Just then a clanking noise, followed by swearing and a fit of coughing, came from down the hallway. I froze. In front of me ten pairs of eyes silently faded into blackness. Thinking fast, I grabbed a rag from the bucket, the closest piece of silver I saw, and began rubbing it with the cloth furiously.

  The clanking continued and grew louder as it drew closer. I put down the first trinket and picked up a goblet, continuing my false cleaning. The keeper was singing a drunken tune as he approached.

  Down here be

  The prisoners three

  Beneath the walks of stone

  Be you fool

  Or soldier cruel

  You’ll join them, overthrown

  As he neared the hold his song was cut short.

  “What’re you thinking you’re doin’, you idiot?” he drawled, significantly more drunk now than he had been half an hour ago. Behind him dragged a long steel chain.

  I looked up, but didn’t meet his gaze. “I’m cleaning, sir,” I said.

  “You fool!” he bellowed. “You’re cleaning the books? The books don’t need cleaning you dimwit!”

  I quickly stood up and started to stack the books, now strewn all over the cell, back into their orderly pile in the center. “I’m very sorry, sir,” I said. “I thought I was to clean everything in the room.”

  The keeper paused and looked all around, his gaze losing focus as his eyes moved over the room.

  “Idiots! All of ya are idiots!” he bellowed to the room at large. “It’s no wonder I’m feelin’ so old, stuck down here with a bunch of morons!”

  I stood still as a statue, hoping he would let it go without punishing me, seeing that I had good intentions. Or that maybe he was too drunk now to care. It seemed to be taking him a lot of effort to remain upright. He turned, grumbling, and clanked his way over to one of the cells. Through the bars he hoisted the chain, wrapping it around and around the edge of one of the cell gates and then drawing across several more of the cell doors. From his pocket he drew a large padlock, and he fastened it around the two pieces of chain and clicked it shut
.

  “There,” he mumbled. “Won’t be getting’ out now, will ya you dirty thieves!” he yelled. The keeper turned then, and shuffled his way back down the hall to his room, shouting, “Idiot!” as he went. His arrival back to his cell resulted in further crashing, and a tirade of curses echoed down the hall.

  I let out a long, slow breath. I couldn’t panic. I needed to find a way out of here. The keeper might be a drunkard, but he was still a great deal larger than I was. I would stand no chance in a fight against him without my weapons. Maybe he wouldn’t hurt me right this moment, but in a few hours when he woke from his blackout with a pounding head, I had a feeling that I would be an appealing target.

  I moved silently back over to the edge of the cage, carrying a silver cup and one of the rags with me in case the keeper returned. Pushing my face up against the steel I whispered into the darkness, “Who are you?”

  The eyes appeared once more, but none of the prisoners spoke. Then, slowly, ten men approached the bars of their cells and held out their hands one by one. Carved into the back of each hand, were the symbols of Almara I had been searching for.

  My mouth fell open. I took several steps backward and turned to look out of the bars opposite where they stood. Several more men on the other side of the dungeon held out their hands for me to see. I spun around; I was surrounded on all sides by what could only be servants of Almara, now prisoners. Above each symbol, on the soft side of their forearms, numbers were marked into their skin.

  3333-135

  3333-189

  3333-096

  And on. And on. Thick scars stuck out from where the numbers had been carved into their flesh.

  “We have all been here,” said the voice slowly, “for a long time.”

  I moved back to the side the voice had come from, and now a man stood there, clothed in rags the color of ashes, skin and bones.