by Bruce Blake
The distress in his chest grew into a great weight pressing on him, as though the water above weighed more than a block of stone. Without intending to, he opened his mouth and let water in past his lips, and what he expected to be his last thought entered his mind.
In a family of warriors, statesmen and kings, I die trapped at the bottom of a slow-running river.
The muscles in his legs ached, the air in his chest burned, and the prince ceased struggling. With life moments from ending, he saw little dignity in the manner of his death, so he thought to at least find a shred for himself in how he acted. He let himself fall, head resting on the silty bottom, awaiting his end.
Something touched his leg and, at first, he thought it the product of his air-starved mind, but then it came again, grabbing and insistent. Teryk raised his head a few inches to peer through the bars and saw Danya, her long hair floating out around her head like a halo. Her expression appeared taut with concern and reflected the desperation he’d already given in to.
She grabbed his ankles and swung herself around, put her feet against the bars, and pulled. The prince shifted, the horizontal bar scraping his chest, the rocky river bottom abrading his back. He gritted his teeth hard against the pain as rocks and metal dug into his flesh, grated against bone.
His shoulders wrenched through and the bar caught under his chin. A gulp of water entered his throat and he fought to keep from gagging even as he twisted his head to the side. Danya gave another stiff tug and pulled him free of his underwater deathtrap.
The prince knew he should kick his legs, stroke with his arms, but his limp and useless body refused to obey, his muscles spent and begging for air. His sister came to his rescue again, snagging him under one arm and pushing hard against the river bottom with both feet, launching them toward the surface.
Teryk tilted his head back, watching out for the water’s surface above, praying they’d reach it before he was no longer able to keep his lungs from drawing a watery breath and pulling death into his chest.
A moment later, they broke through. The prince gasped and sputtered, coughed water out of his lungs and struggled to replace it with air flavored by must and mold, but tasting better than any breath he’d taken in his life since his first.
Danya held him up, ensuring his head stayed out of the water, and hammered him on the back with the heel of her hand. A minute later, he drew labored breaths and wished she’d stop hitting him.
“Stop,” he gasped, grimacing at the pain from the scrapes left by the river bottom. “Stop. I. Can. Breathe.”
Danya did and relaxed her grip. Teryk’s chin dipped below the water and an instant of panic flashed through him, but his exhausted limbs began working again, stroking hard enough to keep his head above water.
“You scared the life out of me,” Danya said, and Teryk read in her expression that she meant it.
“Scared you?” he said, then stopped to cough. “I thought that was the end of me.”
“What were you thinking, playing around like that?”
“I was stuck,” he exclaimed, incredulous. “I couldn’t get through.”
“Don’t ever do that to me again.” She slapped his chest, splashing water into his face. The prince jerked his head away, hacking and gasping again, though his throat drew breath.
“I have to get out of here,” he wheezed between coughs.
His sister reacted to the desperation in his voice, grabbing his arm and towing him toward the side of the canal cutting beneath the castle.
The channel through which the river ran was carved of the same stone as the castle itself, set in place with the building of the stronghold. On either side, a ledge followed along beside the river; why they’d been built, Teryk didn’t know—he’d never heard of them being used—but today, he thanked the builders for creating them.
He threw both arms up onto the ledge and rested on his elbows, swallowing great gulps of air. After a minute, his light-headedness passed but the pain of the scrapes on his chest and back remained.
“Help me out,” he said over his shoulder to Danya treading water at his side.
She put her hand into his armpit and pushed, her fingers digging into his flesh, and the prince wondered if she might have meant it as punishment for scaring her. He leaned against the edge, pushing with his arms, feet seeking purchase on the slimy side of the rock channel. After a few seconds of ungraceful struggle, he heaved himself up to sit on the edge, legs dangling in the water. Danya looked up at him from the river.
“What now?” she asked.
Teryk shook his head. “I’m not swimming.” Truthfully, he thought he might never swim again.
“How will you get out then?”
The prince filled his lungs with a shaky breath and peered into the darkness where the river ran deeper into the castle, the canal forcing it into an unnatural straight path. They’d once followed it all the way until they discovered another set of bars where the river exited the castle on the seaward side, then flowed through the inner city until it reached the shore. On that occasion, they hadn’t been searching for another way to exit the channel, nor had they seen one.
“There must be another way.”
“Why would there be?”
“I don’t know. There just has to.” Teryk touched his fingers to the scrape on his chest, sucked a quick, pained inhalation between his teeth, then inspected the blood on the tips of his fingers. What excuse could he give Trenan to explain his wounds? “The cleaners must have a way to get in and out in case something gets through the bars and gets caught.”
“Like us.”
“Yeah,” Teryk conceded. “Like us.”
Danya pushed away from the wall, gliding out into the middle of the river. Teryk saw his sister’s outline beneath the water in the light shining through the bars, her arms spread at her side, head back, hair arrayed around her. She floated for a short time, then righted herself.
“We’ve been up and down the tunnel. There’s no other way.”
“We’ve only done it in the water.” The prince struggled to his feet, wincing at the knot still gripping his calf. He got himself upright and found the ledge wide enough for one man, and no wider. “We can try along the sides.”
His toes squelched in damp, slippery moss that climbed out of the water, across the ledge, and part way up the wall. In the dim light, it appeared black, though he assumed it was actually green. He hoped it was—black moss was poisonous enough to cause an itchy, stinging rash, and the scrapes already gave him enough to explain.
“You try,” Danya said with a stroke of her arms taking her deeper into the tunnel. “I’m not the one stuck in here.”
***
With the half-moon of the tunnel entrance reduced to a distant glow, absolute darkness surrounded Teryk and Danya as they inched their way along the channel.
Treacherous footing slowed the prince’s pace, and the narrowness of the path forced his pained back against the side, arms spread out beside him as he tried to avoid slipping off and back into the water. He didn’t want to be in the river again any time soon. His thighs and calves ached and Danya splashed along beside him; he called out to her occasionally to ensure she didn’t get too far ahead. Given a choice, he’d have turned around and gone home, but trying the space under the grate again struck him as a poor option.
“Trenan will be looking for us soon,” Danya said, her disembodied voice floating out of the river in the darkness.
“I know.”
“Do you think he’ll look here?”
“Eventually. It’s been a long time since he pulled us out of the river.”
Teryk crept along, the wet, slick moss squelching between his toes and on the soles of his feet. Three times he’d slipped but kept his feet under him each time, heart pounding hard in his chest.
The river rushed past, but the air in the tunnel stood stagnant around them. The loamy odor of moss and the rank scent of old mold sat upon it, sticking to the inside of the princ
e’s nostrils, making his nose itch for fresh air, a breeze. But they’d find neither down here, and it soon struck him that the place’s stink reminded him of a graveyard. The thought caused a shiver.
Teryk took another step, another, each one chipping away the hope they’d find an alternative way out, each one forcing a sliver of fear into his chest that he’d have to brave the water again, struggle his way under the bars.
We know it’s tight. Danya will help me this time.
Though her help might get him through, it wouldn’t assuage his already bruised ego. If they found an alternate exit, at least he might retain some semblance of manhood, in his own eyes, if not in his sister’s.
“Find anything yet?” Danya called.
“No.”
He shuffled along four more paces when the wall disappeared from under his leading hand.
“Wait.”
He stopped and his sister, swimming a short distance in front of him, splashed around to return to the sound of his voice.
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure. Hold on.”
Teryk slid along, arm extended. His wrist passed over into the open space, his forearm. No air wafted out of it, no breeze or sound of running water beyond that of the river. His shoulder was even with the place where the wall ended before his fingers found it continuing—an opening as wide as the length of his arm.
“I think it’s a doorway,” he said over his shoulder. Danya stroked her way to the side to lean on the ledge near his feet
“Is it locked?”
“Hold on. I don’t know.”
The prince maneuvered himself in front of the opening, facing it, one hand on either side. A moment of vertigo overtook him as he stood there, not knowing what lay before him in the dark. He jammed his hands hard against the wall’s edges, using them to find his balance. When the unsteadiness passed, he drew a deliberate breath, held it a second, and let it go. Recovered, he moved his hand from the wall and reached out into the darkness, moving with slow care to avoid cramming his fingers against something unseen.
Or something dangerous.
He worked his lower jaw side to side, grinding his back teeth as the tips of his fingers inched forward, searching.
“What is it?”
Danya’s voice startled him and made him jump. He huffed an exasperated breath and glared over his shoulder, meaning to admonish her, but the dark kept her from his sight. That meant she didn’t see him, either—the way she’d startled him or the fear on his face.
“Not sure yet,” he said between clenched teeth. He edged his hand farther into the gloom.
His fingers touched wood.
“Wait. I’ve got something.”
Touching a recognizable surface gave Teryk courage to move with more confidence. He dragged his hand around the outside of the door, the pads of his fingertips tracing the rough grain of ancient wood and finding rusted iron strappings running across it near the top and bottom. To the right, his hand touched a metal ring.
“It’s a door, all right.”
“Help me up, then.”
“Let me try it first,” Teryk said.
He grabbed the ring and lifted it with the teeth-rattling squeak of metal rarely moved. The sound echoed along the tunnel, making him flinch until he remembered they were the only ones near enough to hear.
Unless someone lurked on the other side of the door.
Teryk waited a few seconds for any reaction to the sound, but none came. He gripped the ring firmly and pulled; it didn’t move. He pushed with the same result.
In the dark, he had no way to discern whether to push or pull to open the door. If he saw the hinges, he’d know, but they were as invisible to him as his sister leaning on the ledge near his feet. He’d have to feel them.
With one hand still on the ring, Teryk reached out with the other and ran his fingers along the left edge from top to bottom. He touched nothing but wood door and stone wall.
“The hinges are inside,” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll have to push.”
“Push then. I’m getting cold.”
The prince leaned into the door, putting more weight on it as his sister’s prompting made him forget the potential danger awaiting on the other side. It didn’t budge, so he put his shoulder against it and pushed, a grunt escaping his throat. It didn’t move.
“It’s no use,” he said.
“Very well,” Danya said with a splash. “Do you want to climb back in the water and swim to the grate, or would you prefer to walk?”
He didn’t need to see her face to know a teasing smile tilted her lips as she spoke the words. She’d teased him enough times for him to picture it in his mind—the one smile of hers he hated.
“Fine. Get up here and help.”
“Give me a hand out.”
He reached out, groping the air in the dark until their fingers touched. They locked hands and he pulled while she levered herself out of the water. A few seconds later, she stood on the ledge beside him, the sound of water dripping from her hair and underclothes adding to the sound of the river sliding by.
“It should be wide enough for both of us,” he said, his hand on her arm to guide her into the doorway.
Danya squirmed her way in beside him and they both leaned their shoulders against the door, facing each other. Water dripped off her onto his toes.
“This is exciting, isn’t it?” she said and her breath touched his face, though he still didn’t see her, even standing so close.
“Sure,” he said.
He’d never shared his sister’s sense of adventure; it had been she who suggested swimming under the grate the first time they did it, and her idea to come back this time. If he put thought to it, every time they’d done anything—and every time they’d caught hell from Trenan—it had been her idea, her desire, her dare.
“Shall we go on three?” she suggested.
Teryk moved his jaw back and forth. “Three. I’ll count. One...two...three.”
They pushed together, straining and grunting, and the door moved by the thickness of a fingernail; or maybe it didn’t.
“It won’t open,” Teryk said, his heart beating faster at the prospect of diving into the river again and swimming to the grate.
“No, no. It moved a little, I’m sure of it.” Danya’s voice carried the familiar, excited tone it took on when she thought adventure loomed. “Try again.”
Teryk huffed a breath, aware of the exhaustion filling his limbs, the burning in his muscles from his underwater struggle and the tension of maintaining his footing on the slippery ledge. His shoulders sagged, but then he remembered Danya stood close by him and he didn’t want his sister to realize his feeling of defeat. He stood straight and nodded in the dark.
“Right. You count this time so I can put all my energy into pushing.”
She tittered and he ground his teeth, then she counted backward from three, to be different from him.
“Three...two...one.”
They pushed and the door shifted modestly but noticeably behind their weight.
“Once more,” Teryk said, and they pushed again.
The door swung inward, hinges shrieking with the high-pitched squeal of a tormented soul, and the siblings stumbled through into the room beyond.
After spending their journey along the passage in darkness, the first and most obvious thing they should have noticed was the light. It shone down from high above, illuminating the entire room with four pillars of light that danced and swayed with the billow of dust thrown up by the movement of the door. Instead, the room itself captured their attention.
The ceiling soared high overhead, higher than any room in the castle, including the throne room and the great hall, and the prince and princess had been in all of them. All save this one. Veins of white shot through the red marble walls unadorned by the paintings and tapestries on display in every other corner of Draekfarren castle. A line of gray and black flecked granite pillars marched along each wall,
reaching all the way to the ceiling above, and beside each pillar stood a suit of armor.
“Where are we?” Danya whispered. The room took her small words and threw them around against the walls and up to heights, echoing them back and forth until they disappeared.
“I don’t know.”
The prince stepped fully into the room, tilted his head back to search the ceiling. No torches cast light from above, no lanterns, candles or tapers, so he presumed the illumination must be sunlight, directed into chamber by some system of hidden mirrors. The ceiling itself bore no decoration.
Three short stairs led down to the floor, and Teryk traversed them with care, worried a trap might be sprung by their footsteps and catch them, and he’d already been caught in one trap too many on this day. Danya skipped down the steps and past him, her head thrown back and arms held out to the sides as she turned a circle throwing more dust into the air to dance across the beams of light.
“It’s spectacular,” she cried.
“Sshhh. Stop it. Come back here.”
As usual, she didn’t listen to her older brother, and Teryk found himself chasing her, his gaze trailing off to the suits of armor lining the walls by the pillars. He slowed to a stop, catching his sister by the arm as he stared at the armor.
“Do you know who they belonged to?” she asked.
“No. They’re not familiar. They don’t belong to any of the kings of Northward.”
He tiptoed across the concourse, Danya in tow, and approached a suit of armor fashioned of red enamel with silver highlights. Long, curved horns protruded from the helmet in a manner unlike any helm Teryk had ever seen.
“They’re ceremonial,” he said. “No one could wear something like this in battle.”
“Except giants, maybe.”
As he leaned his head back to stare up at the helm’s face plate, Teryk realized the true size of the armor. Standing in the doorway, the huge room made the suits appear small, but anything would when compared to the massive columns. Teryk himself stood twenty-four handspans, and the top of this armor’s helmet towered another ten higher than him. The horns added at least another six beyond that.
