The clerk snapped his fingers and led the way into the marshals’ wing. Their footsteps clattered down long stone corridors as they took one turn after another, eventually stopping outside a set of dormitories. Each room was split into five partial divisions, each section having a bed, a desk and a set of shelves. A range of equipment was piled on each bed – hooded cloaks, shirts, trousers and sturdy boots, a small hunting knife, a leather satchel, and an oil lantern Aedan recognised as a kind of dark lantern. It had panels that could be flapped closed, directing or shutting off the light – perfect for studying after the others had turned in. Also perfect for secret explorations after dark.
The furnishings were rough, like what might be expected in a logger’s cabin, imparting a rugged charm that was almost homely. Names had been assigned and Aedan found himself nearest to the door again, sharing a room with Peashot, Vayle, Lorrimer and one other he had not met.
“You may explore if you wish,” the clerk said, “but I would recommend a very good night’s sleep before tomorrow. If you don’t take my advice you will be sorrier than you can imagine.”
Once he left them, the unanimous decision was to be sorrier than they could imagine.
In Aedan’s dorm, the air was charged with excitement. “You think the rumours are true?” asked Lorrimer. Everyone looked at the tall boy with the big hands, big feet, enormous ears, and little but sinew linking everything, as if he had been clamped at those points and stretched. His quivering voice underscored a general impression of frailty. Aedan wondered how he had made it through the obstacles of the first elimination. “The ones about the building going down underground, I mean,” Lorrimer added, his big ears blushing at the attention he had drawn to himself.
“I’m for finding out,” said Aedan, with a tentative glance at the others. “How about we start with that?”
“I doubt they would want us to discover such secrets. That would be looking for trouble.” It was Vayle, slouched lazily on his bed with a detached look in his eyes, a look that only faintly betrayed constant, calculating thought. Aedan was glad, but not in the least surprised to see he had made it through.
The mention of trouble sat Lorrimer down on his bed as firmly as if he had been pushed. Peashot, however, popped off his.
“Fine by me,” he said, slipping a tube up his sleeve.
“Um … Hadley?” Aedan ventured.
The large boy at the far end was going through his equipment. He had the look of a supreme athlete, and no fool either. He raised his head. “So you’re in charge?”
Aedan’s mouth dropped open and he was about to say that he had no such ideas, but Peashot’s tongue was quicker.
“Yeah, he’s in charge. You want to start trouble?”
“Maybe,” Hadley said, standing up and advancing on them with an easy smile. He was big. He looked older than the rest of them by at least a year.
Peashot stepped forward too, and for the first time Aedan guessed why the little boy’s nose had such an odd, flattened shape, like he’d spent the past dozen years using it to hammer nails or ram billy goats. He raised his fists.
Aedan groaned. This was the worst way to begin.
The distance closed with Hadley’s long strides. “But unlike you,” he said, pushing past and dropping a big hand on Peashot’s head, “I need a decent reason to fight. Maybe we’ll find one later. Come along lads. There’s nothing I hate like dawdling.” He stood at the door and motioned them through.
Nobody argued with him, nobody resisted, though Lorrimer slipped past very quickly and Peashot’s dark glare retained all its menace. Aedan had been desperately hoping that he would make real friends in his dorm. This Hadley worried him, made him nervous. The boy’s confidence was almost unnatural.
It was an uneasy group that filed out into the corridor.
As they passed the other dorms, another boy flew out from one of them and barged into their midst, glancing repeatedly behind him.
“Hey!” he said, his voice shaking strangely. “You going axporing?”
“What?” said Hadley.
“Think he means exploring,” Vayle suggested.
“Yes, sorry,” said the boy. “Thirnish are not my main language. Saying things through the river.”
“You’re Orunean, aren’t you?” Aedan asked. He had heard that there was a kind of military exchange between the sister nations of Orunea and Thirna.
“Yes, how you know?”
“Only Orunean foreigners would be allowed to be soldiers or marshals here. Also, through the river – in Orunean it means mixed up. Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that in Thirnish. But, yes, we are going exploring. Want to come along?”
“Yes, thank you. There is a belly on my dorm, he more older and also bigger, and making us to clean his things. When I don’t have a cloth for the cleaning of shoes he tell me to lack them.”
“I think it’s a bully who wants his shoes licked,” said Vayle.
It was obvious that the new boy was recovering from the verge of tears. The edges of his mouth trembled, and the forced smile looked as though it was about to collapse.
Something had been building in Aedan as he listened, and now it erupted. Without waiting for another word, he spun around, flung the nearby door open and marched into the dorm. A thickset, heavy-limbed boy was standing over three of his roommates who were busy brushing and polishing various items. Aedan’s fury grew. He would get a sure beating if he picked a fight with someone this size, but he was too angry to care. As he stepped forward a big hand dropped on his shoulder. He turned to see Hadley looking down at him.
“Me first,” Hadley said, knocking Aedan off his stride and shoving past. The scrubbers and polishers on the floor looked up at the heavy steps. “Out!” Hadley shouted.
They jumped to their feet and scurried from the room. Aedan heard the rest of his dorm gather in the doorway behind him.
“Busy?” Hadley asked the remaining boy.
“As if you can’t see for yourself.”
“Yes, I can see, and I’m not sorry for interrupting. I’m Hadley. You are?”
The big-limbed boy looked like he wanted to avoid an answer, but Hadley’s eyes bored into him. “Warton,” he said.
“Warton, is this the kind of marshal you are going to be?”
“This is my dorm, fat-head. Who do you think you are to come in here and lecture me?”
“Lecture? I’m here to knock your teeth out, that is, if you’re going to carry on like this. What’s it going to be? You choose. Teeth or no teeth?” Hadley’s knuckles clicked as his heavy fists rose in front of him.
“You’re a coward. You threaten me two on one.”
“Three,” said Peashot, sounding annoyed at having been overlooked.
“Four,” said Vayle, stepping beside Peashot, narrowing his eyes and looking equally dangerous.
Lorrimer hovered at the back and said nothing, only trembled a little.
Aedan felt a sudden respect for these grim-faced roommates of his. He turned back to Warton. “We’re all here because we’re angry, not scared. Anyway, do you really think Hadley needs help?”
Warton glanced back at Hadley who did not look like he needed help. And Warton did not appear quite so threatening anymore. He swallowed and took a step back.
“Well?” Hadley advanced two steps, closing the distance to something uncomfortable.
“Fine,” Warton said, turning and walking away. “Now leave me alone.”
As they left the room, Hadley punched the door – a solid thud. It flew away from his fist and slammed with a crash. The other boys edged away.
Aedan summoned the courage and asked, “Would you have hit him?”
“Was planning to. He spoiled it by backing down.”
“I – I’m glad you stopped me – I was too angry to talk. I would have just swung at him without talking. Probably would have got caned for it later.”
Hadley glanced across and smiled. “My father always tells me I’m as pushy as
an avalanche, but it looks like you’re a bit of an avalanche yourself when your blood hots up. I think we’ll get on.” This was followed by a heavy back clap.
Aedan grinned and hoped it would be so.
The corridors were high and broad, lavishly decorated with paintings and artefacts that looked as old as the walls themselves. The little group bumbled their way through the passages and rooms of the ground floor, the stairs being locked. They discovered several interesting nooks, a kitchen, mess halls, the dorms of older apprentices, classes, and a large number of offices. All in all, it turned out to be a slightly disappointing tour.
There was only one room that had aroused curiosity. It was a large space in the centre of the building, filled with statues of past governors, mayors and chief marshals. In the middle was an open area, like an indoor courtyard, with a large stone feature that stood about twelve feet high and measured as much across each of its six finely engraved faces. Aedan thought it might be a good idea to climb on top, but there was no hold to be found on the surfaces. When sighs and huffs of boredom began to fill the room, they drifted back to the dorm, annoyed at having been unable to reach another level, above or below. The boys from the other dorms had mostly retired for the evening.
“Now that was exciting,” Peashot grumbled. “I don’t know how I’ll sleep.”
“It was educational,” offered Vayle, “I’d always wondered if the original mayor of Castath looked as foreign as the histories suggest. Did any of you notice the clearly Orunean nose?”
“Oh yes,” said Peashot. “It was my lifelong dream to study the snout of a long-dead fat man. What’s with this place? Statues, paintings, pretty hallways … Marshals seem to have bog-rotten taste in design.”
“Don’t seem to have much sense in architecture either,” added Aedan. “Who puts a stupid feature like that in a perfectly good room? The thing wastes so much space.” Suddenly he stopped. The others turned and looked at him. “It’s not a feature,” he said. “Come on!”
In a riot of confusion and curiosity, they raced after him into the large room. Aedan ran up to the central structure and began tapping the surfaces. They were solid. His expression fell slightly.
“What are you doing?” Peashot asked.
“I think it conceals an entrance,” Aedan said. He stepped back and looked up. “There must be something here that we are just not seeing. The boys began pacing around, inspecting everything – floor, statues, furniture, and a mouse that found its retreat blocked and darted between shoes until it reached a drape that it scaled without any apparent loss of speed.
Lorrimer’s attention soon drifted and he lounged against a statue. It was a large bronze head wearing an expression so fierce that the contrast between the lounger and his support could not have been greater. The statue seemed about to spark into life and raise a storm at the insolent boy.
“How’s that going to help?” Peashot demanded, stopping in front of Lorrimer who was pulling abstractedly on one of his large ears.
“Huh?”
“Wake up and make yourself useful. How about you just reach up for the top of that thing and we’ll climb you. Lorrimer the Ladderboy. We could call you Lads for short.”
“How about we throw you up with a rope. You’re about the right size for a grappling hook.”
Peashot had already slipped the tube from his sleeve when Aedan’s voice rang out.
“Here! Come help.”
Aedan was standing in front of a coiled mass of stringy draping.
“What are you doing?” asked Peashot, running up.
“Getting us into trouble, that’s for sure,” said Vayle, more to himself than anyone in particular.
“I think these are ropes, not drapes. See the long panels of wooden slats holding the paintings – I think these ropes lower the slats down so they form a ramp from here to the top of that feature.” The boys measured the distance with their eyes and slowly all nodded.
“Won’t the paintings fall off?” asked Hadley
“Not if they are meant to be lowered.”
“So what do we do?”
“Well, I think it could be heavy. If it’s just me holding the end I might shoot up to the roof while the panel comes crashing down. Once I unhook it, it’s best that we are all holding on.”
“Probably won’t make much difference what you do,” Lorrimer mumbled to Peashot.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t get that. My ears aren’t big enough for super-human hearing.”
Lorrimer turned red. He looked like he was about to stamp on a mouse.
“Everyone take hold.” Aedan released the catch and sure enough the drapes lurched up from the heap of coils on the ground. They held tight and released an arm’s length at a time. One of the long, ladder-like panels that had looked to be part of the room’s furnishings leaned inwards. It began to descend towards the central feature where it finally touched and came to rest. They let go. It was a perfect wooden ramp leading to the top of the centrepiece.
There was no order in the wild dash up the slope, curiosity driving them. When they reached the top they encountered a flat wooden surface. It was a stage. Nothing more.
“To think that we almost missed this,” said Peashot. “The others will never believe us. It actually has a wooden top. Good job Aedan. We unlocked the marshals’ great secret.”
Nobody was listening. They were watching Aedan who was moving about, stamping.
“These boards are hollow. We need to lift them.”
“But they are bolted down,” said Vayle.
“I’ll bet they are bolted into something that lifts, just holding them together. I don’t suppose anyone has any tools here.”
“Maybe me.” It was the new boy from the other dorm. He began digging in his pockets and drew out a chisel and a few sturdy nails. “I was helping with my pa today and was forgetting to empty out. He is going to be mad as spit.”
“I think you mean spitting mad,” said Vayle.
“Oh. Thank you Vayle.”
“How did you know his name?”
“I am knowing of all your names, Aedan. I am listening the whole time.”
“Impressive. We don’t know yours, though.”
“Kian.”
“Well, Kian, if you’re as good with tools as you are with your ears, perhaps you can work out how to lift this.”
Kian dropped to his hands and knees, shoved the tip of a nail and the chisel into the gaps at the end of the boards, and managed to lever the edge high enough for the others to get their hands underneath and lift. The boards were indeed secured to a beam that held them together. The whole panel was hoisted and placed to the side, revealing what Aedan had hoped to find, a stairway that led down into blackness.
“Lanterns,” he said.
They rushed back to the dorms, snatched their lanterns and returned at a sprint. The lanterns were empty so they went to the perimeter of the room which was ringed with oil-burning torches, the kind with a large iron reservoir and a stout wick. They doused two of them and tipped the oil into their lanterns, then lit their own wicks from the torches that remained burning.
With Aedan and Hadley in the lead, they stampeded back up the ramp and began to descend the stairs. The lanterns were bright but the stairway itself was made of a very dark stone that reflected little.
“Hold a moment,” Aedan said as they approached a set of marble pillars. Something shouted a warning in his mind, something he had once read in a story of a castle siege. He placed his lantern on the ground and looked at the surfaces of the steps. The step that lay between the marble pillars was different to the others. It showed no signs of wear and was covered in an undisturbed layer of dust, as if it had never been used.
“Don’t stand on this step,” he said.
“Why not?” asked Peashot. “Aren’t steps for standing on?”
“I think it’s the trigger for some kind of trap.” That produced a respectful silence. They were all careful to avoid the step and the next
two that Aedan pointed out.
The air grew colder as they descended and now held a touch of dampness.
When they reached the bottom they stepped onto a wide landing from which two corridors led. The one was broad, the other narrow and closed off with a heavy chain. Both were dark. Aedan moved a few yards into the open corridor and lit a torch mounted on the wall.
It was immediately clear in the growing light that this was architecture from another time. Large blocks of pale stone were fitted with unerring precision, forming a smooth, arching passage that led into darkness, a darkness that must have stretched away a bewildering distance judging by the deep echoes that whispered back at them. The torch that Aedan had lit was no simple device like the ones in the room above. It was cast from a clean silvery metal and engraved with intricate details of vines threading between unfamiliar creatures. Aedan led the way down the wide passage. Above him, the light of his lantern revealed a ceiling where scores of warriors were engaged in great battles and mythical beasts fought and frolicked in curious settings. The very air in here tingled with mystery.
They passed several doors on each side, but stopped when a massive, arched entrance appeared out of the darkness on their right. The tall and impressively heavy doors were slightly ajar. Aedan threw his weight against the dark wood. Nothing happened. The others drew alongside. They pushed together, and with a groan that rattled their joints, the door swung back on bucket-sized hinges. They stepped into a vestibule with equally large doors leading right and left, but they barely noticed these.
Before them, recessed into a high, arching alcove was a stone dais on which stood four marble statues. Three huge men and a young woman, hardly more than a girl, faced them. The first man held a sword, the second a spear, the third a hammer, and the young woman a bow. The first two men were large and strong, but the third was enormous – well over seven feet tall, with arms and legs broader than a boy’s torso.
“Wonder why they made him so big,” said Peashot. “He looks wrong.”
Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1) Page 23
