Haven (War of the Princes)

by A. R. Ivanovich

  “It better not,” I shouted down. The last thing I needed before school was caramelized peach in my hair.

  He really was a cute kid, my parents’ pride and joy. I wasn’t exactly jealous of him, I loved the little guy. My dad was thrilled that he had a son, and Mom deserved to have a child of her own. I guess I just felt left out. They were the perfect little family and I was a leftover from a broken life.

  The way I was thinking was unfair, I knew that they loved me and that I shouldn’t be so self-loathing, but my bad day justified it. Everything seemed worse than it was.

  Getting to my small room, I dropped my sopping wet jacket beside my desk and flopped onto the pile of cloud shaped pillows on my bed. One by one, I threw them against the wall until my arms were tired.

  I realized after it was too late that I was still soaked from my leap into the lake. Now the sheets and blankets on my bed were wet too. In that moment it struck me that my family hadn’t found it odd that I was fully clothed and drenched from head to toe.

  I put on a sleeveless white linen nightgown, sat in my desk chair and used the mirror to help me braid my long black hair. As usual, I tried to ignore the light spattering of freckles that marred my cheeks. I was the only person in the family with them. They were like a big, bright flag reminding me of why I was different. Thanks for nothing, Mother.

  Like I would often do, I pulled a square of clay from my drawer and began molding it into a fat little bird. This one looked like a partridge. I had dozens of them on my desk. There were herons and hawks, sparrows and crows, cardinals and owls, all with little sticks for feet. I guess you could say it was my hobby, just a little quirk that almost no one knew about. My real mother had made me one before she left. It was a hen. I wasn’t making them for her, I just enjoyed it.

  I caught the movement of a tear rolling down my cheek in the mirror and glared at it as though it was my mortal enemy. People like Calvin and my Mother didn’t deserve tears.

  Taking a deep breath I wiped my red eyes, put the new little bird aside and forced myself to finish my homework assignments. I thought about going to sleep straight away, but it would only speed me toward the agony of tomorrow. I needed a distraction, something to keep me going.

  I drummed my fingers on the cover of The Settling of Rivermarch.

  There was a world outside of Haven Valley that no one had seen in seven hundred years, a world that no one thought to document as they fled into the Valley and destroyed the only opening. Calvin’s lies were no match for such a vast box of secrets.

  Biting the bottom of my lip, I considered the idea of looking for a way out of Haven Valley. My knack for finding things might help me, but how well would my luck hold up to something as huge as this?

  It wasn’t like I’d go out, anyway. I’d just find the way out if there was one. It was just simple curiosity. My mind was made up.

  In a sudden rush, I threw on some pants, pulled on a pair of elbow-length, purple, fingerless gloves, and flung a hooded coat over my nighty. My boots were missing. It didn’t take me long to find them. In fact it took me just as long to find them as it would have taken if I knew where they were all along. That gave me heart. If there was a path out of Haven Valley, I would find it.

  Digging through my closet I grabbed my leather satchel and an old, round, rusty iron lantern. It may not have been state of the art, but it was the only one I had that was small enough to carry comfortably, and it fit in my pack.

  Silent as a shadow, I crept out of my room into the dark hallway just to run face first into my dad. I almost had a heart attack.

  “Good night Bug,” he said, kissing me on the forehead, completely unperturbed by the fact that I was sneaking around the house, wearing a nighty, mismatched with outwear and a round lantern peeking out of my open satchel. “Don’t be late for school tomorrow. But if you are, I can tell them you were sick. Diarrhea this time, just so we both have our facts straight.”

  “Dad!” I objected. Sometimes I wished he’d yell at me and send me to my room for a change.

  “Well, Bug, there are only so many times a person can have the stomach flu,” he said, wandering down the hall to his room.

  I sighed, descended the stairs to the kitchen, and packed some bandages, matches, a spare pocket watch, a bottle of water, and three wrapped sandwiches that Mom had made for tomorrow. She always kept extras fresh and ready at hand.

  It was best to be prepared. There was a very strong chance I’d be traveling quite a distance, not that I planned on going all the way tonight. The foothills alone were a good two hour ride away.

  Making my way down to the bottom floor, I tacked up Grendel, our grouchy piebald gelding with mismatched eyes. Molly, our sorrel mare, whickered lazily, probably grateful I wasn’t taking her out at this dark hour.

  I mounted Grendel, who grunted noisily as he always did, and we made our way out onto the dimly lit street.

  The clouds had sunk lower, so much closer to Rivermarch’s stacked cottages than they had been when I was outside, little over an hour ago. The street lamps that hung from their crooked poles rocked ever so slightly in the lazy breeze. Their glow was dim and they were spread far enough apart that one could still see the stars on a clear night. The way was lit brightly enough for Grendel to see, and that was all that mattered.

  Light spilled out of some houses, while others remained dark, and I could hear laughter and music wafting out of a Pub on a far-away corner. Any peace officers or constables on duty would be joking and gossiping at the station. If you saw an officer patrolling the street at this time of night, he was probably looking for a beer. For a girl riding alone on the streets, there was no reason for fear and it didn’t even occur to me to be worried.

  “If there is a nearby passage to the outside world, where are you?” I said aloud, as if speaking to a ghost. Asking questions wouldn’t make a difference, there wouldn’t be any kind of reply or enlightened picture of where to go. I just went, and it usually ended with me finding something.

  Little drops of rain pattered on my hair. Rain in Haven Valley was a lot like my father’s temper: mild and unthreatening. At its fiercest, it was little more than a heavy drizzle. I pulled up my hood anyway and smiled. I loved the rain.

  Grendel trundled down Market Street, over a bridge beside Plumwedge Watermill, through Falwich Gardens and Dallon Square, and even had to trot very quickly through Mayor Fasteer’s back lawn. Just when I thought that I’d be on my way to the main road leading out of the city to the Mountains, or one of the other towns, I turned, just because I knew that I should.

  Bewildered at the odd direction of my own path, I rode past Garth Greywater’s old vineyard. I knew this route would take me beyond the town’s graveyard. What I didn’t expect was my sudden desire to cross under its gate.

  “You have to be kidding me,” I mumbled. Grendel grunted, maybe in agreement.

  Haven Valley might be a safe place to live, but that didn’t mean we didn’t have nightmares, believe in monsters as children, or have a healthy fear of dead people in the dark.

  I thought maybe we’d wend our way through and come out on the street on the other side. Maybe I was hoping, but it didn’t do me much good. I rode Grendel down the narrow cobblestone pathway that cut through rows of tombstones and angel statues. The trees here were limp and dreary, the flowers clustering around the graves were dead or colorless in the near dark, and stream-fed ponds were stagnant and overgrown.

  Grendel’s hooves clattered over a short bridge and momentarily interrupted the chorus of toads in the murky waters below.

  My skin prickled at the sound of critters rustling in the tree branches, just out of reach of the light from the sparse lampposts. Traveling out there alone was too much for my imagination to handle gracefully. I startled at the slightest provocation, expecting to see ghosts or ghouls drifting from their resting places at any moment.

  We came to a halt in the center of the cemetery, surrounded by lesser tombs, facing Rivermarch’
s Mausoleum. It was a building constructed entirely of the hardest white stone. There were no windows or doors. It was well known as the oldest section of the graveyard, and because there was no way in or out, there was no proof that it was actually a Mausoleum; none aside from the bold etchings that framed each wall reading, “HOUSE OF THE SLUMBERING DEAD.” It wasn’t a great mystery why no one had found a way inside.

  Suddenly my desire to find a path to the outside world was as damp as my hood.

  Grendel stamped a hoof and shocked me back into focus.

  It occurred to me then that as far as I knew, no one had ever looked for what I was looking for. Curiosity reinforced my resolve.

  I dismounted, leading Grendel beneath the shelter of a gazebo beside the Mausoleum and left him happily nibbling overgrown flowers.

  As I paced around the doorless, windowless structure, I found myself wishing I wasn’t quite so good at finding things. My own cowardly sentiment wasn’t enough to stop me from crawling into the bushes beside one wall.

  My discovery was a gaping, wide hole that tunneled under the wall. I’d seen burrows like this before, and they always belonged to badgers.

  “What am I doing?” I asked myself, lighting my little round lantern with trembling hands.

  Peeking back through the bushes, I saw Grendel, contentedly munching flowers, completely neutral to the fact that his rider was about to climb into the oldest tomb in Rivermarch.

  I took a deep breath of fresh air and hoped the badgers that created this passage weren’t home.

  Chapter 6: Inside

  Just as I’d hoped, the burrow was a short tunnel that dipped under the wall and up through crumbled floor tiles within the mausoleum. Lucky for me it was so wide. I was able to scoot right through without much trouble, avoiding a branch tunnel that probably led to the badger’s actual den.

  I resurfaced on the other side coughing and wishing it hadn’t been raining. My clothes were covered in dirt and mud. I did my best to dust myself off and wipe my eyes, then held up the lantern high to get a better look around.

  The air was close and stale like nothing I’d breathed before.

  The inside was mostly unadorned, and square, with a very high, cobweb clouded ceiling. It was just what you would have imagined if you were standing on the outside, only there were no coffins. On the far side of the room, a patch of darkness on the floor consumed the dim light of my lantern. When I’d peered at it long enough, I realized its shadows hid a stairwell leading down. My heart beat faster.

  Pacing, I bit my knuckles and fretted, staring at the ominous black passage through the floor that was my only way forward. My courage waned. Wasn’t it enough that I was here... alone? I backed up and bumped against the wall behind me. Something crunched under my heel. A chill washed down my spine like someone spilled a bucket of ice cold water on my back. It was a rodent skeleton, our friend badger’s meal.

  The thick walls and ceiling were oppressive, like a great, square monster of stone, poised to smother me. I loathed feeling trapped. There were no windows, no doors, only that badger hole to let me out. My breathing was getting out of hand, and I had to struggle not to hyperventilate as I peered down at the staircase.

  Was the blackness getting closer? I couldn’t tell. Was it oozing its way nearer, ready to lash me into its deep shadow and drag me down the stairwell? Forcing myself to blink, I concentrated on taking slow, deep breaths.

  “Get a grip Katelyn,” I told myself aloud. “You aren’t some kid who’s afraid of the dark. You’ve explored every inch of Rivermarch… except for this.”

  The sound of my own voice comforted me, and made me feel a little less alone.

  “One step in front of the other,” I muttered, shuffling toward the stairs and the sinister darkness that pooled there.

  When I reached them, I held my lantern out. My light trickled down the cracked stone steps and stopped at a wall where the stairwell turned.

  “Just down some stairs,” I said to myself, trying to make my voice confident. Reaching the wall was my goal, I could make it that far. The longer I hesitated to descend, the more I felt like my back was exposed to the rest of the room. It would be so easy for something to attack me from behind. All it would take was a simple push and I’d go crashing down the stairs to an early grave.

  At least no one would have to bury me. My chuckle was nervous and shallow.

  After four measured breaths, I stepped cautiously down, then leaned against the wall and let the stone comfort me. Nothing could sneak up behind me. I glanced at the two crooks of stairs, one leading back up, the other further into the deep darkness. I fought the overwhelming urge to want to run all the way home to my bed and throw myself under the covers.

  “Down the stairs,” I repeated to myself, and resolved to follow my directional instinct. This was the way. No one had ever done this before. I couldn’t turn back now.

  I reached the bottom, infinitely grateful for my little lantern. Slinking against another wall, I was acutely aware of how much stone hunched lowly over my head and how tiny my only escape route was. I took a moment to wipe the sweat off my brow and catch my breath.

  I hadn’t realized I was truly claustrophobic until that moment.

  I began to sing quietly to calm my slamming heart, stepping away from the security of the wall to finally look at where I was.

  Short, wide steps terraced the huge round room gently deeper into the ground. Half-moon holes plunged into the walls, each filled with a rectangular stone slab beneath an image etched over the opening. These were graves, and the images were portraits of the dead. Men, women, old and young, and even a few children were carved into the stone. There were dozens upon dozens of them.

  What if they blinked? What if a pair of stony eyes followed me as I moved? Did their spirits still hug the remains of their bones, cradled within the long sealed coffins?

  I continued singing. It was the only thing I could do to keep my mind off of the dead. The lullaby coaxed me into a sort of numbness, steadily following the short steps down.

  Hedging along the wall, I did my best to avoid cobwebs and ignore the distinct feeling that I was getting farther and farther away from my only escape. My own shadow sent my heart racing and the sound of my boots on the dusty flagstone rang in my ears.

  A broad form climbed up the ceiling and I gasped, just to hold my light up to a curtain of webbing and another exaggerated shadow.

  I kept seeing faces staring at me in my peripheral vision, creeping closer, but they were only those carvings of the deceased.

  At the final set of steps, I thought I’d come to a dead end. My body kept moving and I found myself face to face with a very angry portrait. The old man’s face was craggy and contorted in a scowl. I stumbled backward with a start and almost dropped my lantern. It fumbled in my hands but I managed to catch it before it clattered to the floor. Finding myself down deep in the Mausoleum without a light was the worst nightmare I could imagine. I might never escape.

  I clung to the lantern with both hands and waited until they stopped shaking, mostly.

  Making sure I had a firm grip on the little thing, I raised it up again.

  The etching of the old man’s face glared at me. The hole where his granite casket should have been was empty.

  “In we go,” I joked with myself, and swallowed the lump in my throat.

  I felt nauseous. Sweat glazed my forehead.

  Again, I urged myself to press on. It took a lot of self-coaxing. I wished Ruby and Kyle were here with me, making jokes about me being terrified of scrambling into a little hole. Just a little eight-by-three-foot hole made of solid rock to encase a corpse.

  Here goes.

  I crawled inside and felt my face plastered with cobwebs. Holding my light ahead of me, I scooted along on my elbows. I could barely breathe. My overactive imagination told me that the grave compartment was getting smaller, clutching me in its rocky grip, happy to squeeze the life out of me and keep me there forever. A spide
r the size of a mouse scuttled beside me toward my legs. I finally panicked, thrashing and screaming wildly before tumbling out the other side. My knee and one arm smarted where I hit them against the rock. I’d definitely have bruises tomorrow... if I had a tomorrow.

  “What am I doing down here?” I whined piteously, balled up against the wall that I had spilled from, hugging my knees against my chest. My arms felt weak as noodles, but I lifted one up, rattling my lantern, forcing it to share its light.

  The small chamber I found myself in was hexagon shaped and contained a single granite slab. I knew exactly what it was: a coffin. What I didn’t know was why I kept getting the feeling I needed to crawl inside of it.

  Maybe I was suicidal and I just never realized it before. Maybe I was insane and my luck in finding things was really just the self-destructive invention of a lunatic.

  “We’ve come this far,” I said to no one else, making myself feel even crazier.

  I put my lantern on top of the slab, steadied my hands on one side of the lid, and got ready to push. Hopping backwards, I danced, quaking with shivers. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to see a dead body. I didn’t want to find a monster inside, or more spiders or rats. I didn’t want to know anymore. I didn’t want to know.

  For a single, terrifying instant, I was utterly alone in the secret tomb. I had always been alone, yes, but my lucky guiding force helped me along. Whatever it was that led me from place to place, object to object, was ever present, but in my instant of sincere disinterest, I severed that connection.

  I was in a strange, frightening place, alone.

  Once again, I felt like I’d come too far to let myself surrender. Closing my eyes, I imagined reaching my goal: The Outside World. Belief blossomed that I was closer to the goal that had brought me here, and so it was that invisible link that I rekindled, instead of a path to home. Being connected to a purpose again was enough to give me the strength to open the tomb. I would find my way out of Haven Valley.