The Mages of Bennamore

by Pauline M. Ross

  “Shut up, all of you!” Mal shouted. “Let Fen decide.”

  “Why her?” Hestaria said. “What right does she have—?”

  “She knows about tunnels like these,” he said, quietly.

  I wished I could read the signs on the walls, but in this case there was only left or right, and the decision was a simple one.

  “There are only two choices,” I said. “That way is north, so—”

  “How do you know that?” Hestaria again. Mages were clearly not used to being told what to do.

  It was Mal who answered. “From the sun in the chamber we’ve just left. It’s early morning, so the sun came from the east.” He spoke with deliberate patience, as if talking to a child, and Hestaria subsided.

  “South will take us towards the harbour, so we’ll go that way,” I said. “Lady Mage, will you lead the way, if you please?”

  With a grunt, she squeezed past everyone to the front of the group.

  As everyone wriggled into line, I called out, “No talking, please, and stop if you come to any doors or side passages.”

  We shuffled along at a slow pace, Hestaria’s glow ball bobbing along at the front, with Mal beside her. I stayed a few paces behind them, and a long tail followed us. The passage was level underfoot and dry, broad enough for two or three people to walk abreast in comfort. The walls were solid rock, but smoothly curved and the air was fresh, although heavy with dust. Great spiders’ webs hung across our path, and after a while Mal took the lead to brush them aside. Given the lack of maintenance from the Holder, we’d be lucky not to encounter a cave-in.

  Not far down the tunnel, there was a stair leading downwards, then after a short stretch, upwards again. I guessed we were passing under some barrier – the base of the Hold’s outer wall, perhaps, another tunnel or an underground river. Then, worryingly, the tunnel turned right and continued more or less straight. West. That was interesting.

  We walked for hours, or so it felt. None of us had eaten, and the last dregs of water had been used up in the few water flasks we’d thought to bring. My clever plan to emerge before people were about was in pieces. The tail straggling behind the glow ball became more and more strung out. The passage dipped downwards for some distance, then flat again, with water dripping from the roof.

  “Are we under the river?” Mal whispered.

  I nodded. Where were we going? This was taking us away from the harbour and towards the western side of town, the black town. I couldn’t imagine a safe point for us to emerge amongst the hovels and dilapidated cottages of the poorest workers. The tunnel took an upward turn again and levelled out, but the drips became rivulets running down the walls, and in places cracks showed.

  We stopped for a rest, and Mal used his healing powers on three of the frailest members of the group, but we were all exhausted and scared. Yet we had to keep going. There were no side tunnels, no exits, no choices. The prospect of turning back to the Hold and trying to find another way out was even worse than this.

  We struggled to our feet again and dragged ourselves onwards. Within a few minutes there was a change: the tunnel turned again from west to south. It was the direction I’d originally wanted to take, but we were now too far west. This tunnel couldn’t possibly take us to the harbour. At best we were beyond the promontory and would emerge in a fishing village. At worst, we were walking lengthwise down the promontory itself, and heading for the rocks at the far end, and the sea.

  We stopped again for a rest. No one spoke, for there was nothing to say. The tunnel had to lead somewhere, but none of us could guess where. Worse, the cracks in the walls were more frequent, and in places we’d had to scramble over partial rock falls.

  There was no point in sitting too long, though. We had to get out, and soon, or we were all finished. We trudged on, and shortly it seemed as if our luck was turning, for the tunnel shifted direction again. Were we now going west again? It was hard to tell after so long underground.

  But then it all came to grief. Another rockfall, and this one was much larger, blocking the whole passage.

  We had reached the end of the tunnel.

  23: A Discovery

  We were too exhausted to decide what to do. Mal gave everyone a short burst of magic, which improved the mood, but he had to be careful not to exhaust the jade belt. We had no way of knowing what help we might need before we escaped these interminable tunnels. We would escape, I was determined of that. Whatever it took, even if we had to dig ourselves out of this hole one rock at a time.

  I wondered what rumpus our disappearance had caused, back at the Hold. I smiled to think of Commander Kestimar having to explain it to – well, who was he taking orders from? Ish? My heart turned over at the idea. Surely my Ish, the man I loved, the man who – I was sure – still loved me, would never countenance tossing me into that cesspit, injured and untended? He couldn’t possibly be so indifferent to my fate.

  His wife, then. Jealous, perhaps. Yes, that must be it. Wasn’t that her perfume I’d detected, just before someone hit me? Then her tame Commander had taken me off to that hideous place, while she told Ish – what? What could she possibly tell him that would convince him not to go looking for me? Wouldn’t he insist on seeing me for himself? No matter which way I looked at it, I couldn’t make Ish innocent. But once I got free of this nightmare underground world, I’d find out. I had to know what was in his head.

  We spread ourselves out down the tunnel and settled down for a longer rest. The sailors lay down and went to sleep. A couple of younger men, no more than boys, who seemed to be brothers, whispered together. I curled up in Mal’s arms, and Hestaria, after a moment’s indecision, sat herself on the other side of him. I had some sympathy, actually, since she knew no one else. The glow ball winked out of existence, and we were in the dark.

  “So why can’t you make those glow balls?” I asked Mal.

  “Can’t control the power. It’s a very delicate use of magic. I can shoot flames across a room, but a soft glowing ball of light is beyond me. Lenya can do a very nice one, though.”

  From behind Mal’s back, Hestaria snorted. “Lenya too? What were you two thinking?”

  “That it might be a useful trick in a foreign country with only two mages to hand, and one of those unpredictable. And that it might be fun.”

  “Fun!” Another snort. “Magic is not a game, Malloran.”

  “Go to sleep, Hesta.” A long silence. “And nobody calls me Malloran. Except my mother.”

  ~~~~~

  I’d lost all account of time, so when I woke I had no idea whether it was morning or evening or any point in between. Despite sleeping on the tunnel’s stone floor, I felt better than I had for days. Perhaps some of Mal’s magic had seeped into me as we lay cuddled together.

  Hesta was up and about, her glow ball bobbing round her head, leading people back up the tunnel to a small rockfall that was convenient as a place to relieve ourselves. Then we gathered at the base of the big rockfall blocking our path.

  To my surprise, no one objected to my plan to dig our way past the rockfall. I had a reason for wanting to try, but I didn’t want to raise everyone’s hopes, so I said nothing about the metal I could detect nearby. I was concerned at the lack of food and water. We were weak already, and adding heavy labour to our burdens would bring us to our knees very fast. But having come so far, it had to be worth a try, at least.

  “Can you do anything with magic?” I asked, but Mal and Hestaria both shook their heads.

  “Moving things – no, I can’t do that,” Mal said.

  “It is possible,” Hestaria said. “But it takes too much magic. We would need ten, twenty mages for so much rock.”

  “Kael could do something, perhaps,” Mal added. “He’s amazing with all kinds of stone. He could melt it.”

  “Since he’s not here, we’ll have to do this the hard way,” I said.

  Everyone set to willingly enough. Well, everyone but Hestaria, whose job was to give us the light to work by.<
br />
  A couple of the older men, already frail, gave up pretty quickly, but the rest of us formed a long line steadily passing rocks backwards down the tunnel, taking it in turns digging at the front. The dust was evil, making our parched throats raw from coughing, but we made good progress.

  “Oy! There’s a light!” someone shouted.

  There was an excited buzz of conversation. A light! Daylight, perhaps, filtered down from the collapsed roof.

  Mal and I squeezed our way to the front, and scrambled on all fours onto the uneven pile of rubble to where the two youngest men had been shifting rocks. Even through the dust filling the tunnel like sea fog, the soft glow was visible. It was hard to tell, but it seemed to be to one side of the main tunnel. Perhaps a cavern, open to the sky?

  We dug on, with more enthusiasm, and gradually, almost imperceptibly, the glow increased and an opening appeared.

  “I can prob’ly get through there, Mis’riss,” one of the boys said, and I nodded. He and his brother both scrambled over the now reduced heap, and disappeared.

  We didn’t have to wait long.

  “ ’S a building!” they shouted, their voices echoing.

  “A building! What the—?”

  “The monument,” Tun said. “Must be. We’re way down the West Arm by now, the only building is the monument. And it glows.”

  Oh, perfect. Just what we needed. The weird tower that glows in the dark. The one that has no doors or windows. But then we don’t need to get into it. The tower is on top of the promontory, in the open. Outside this Goddess-forsaken tunnel.

  “Are you out in the open, then?” I called to the boys. “Can you see the sky?”

  “No! It’s in a cave, big one.”

  “But there’s a way out? Steps – or something?”

  “No. But – ’s amazing, Mis’riss. You gotta see it.”

  It took another hour or more of hard work before the gap was big enough for all of us to squeeze through. If Mal hadn’t been so big, we could have done it in less time, but I had visions of him getting stuck. Even then, I sent him through first. If he could make it, the rest of us would have no trouble.

  I saw at once what the boys meant. The cave was vast, with a floor completely flat, the walls smoothly curved to meet over our heads in a spherical roof. The base of the tower sat plumb in the centre, rising straight to the roof and passing through it without a visible gap. And the walls of it glowed very softly, casting an eerie light over the whole chamber.

  Everyone filed in silently, standing awestruck. I’d never seen the outside of the tower from close up, but from the harbour wall it had looked such a small, delicate thing, slender and not very tall. This tower was a monster. Mal paced it out, a hundred and sixty paces right round the perimeter, and it loomed above us, many times the height of a man just to the roof of the cave, and who could tell how much more above that?

  “Can you feel it?” Mal whispered to me, as everyone wandered around, wide-eyed.

  “Feel what?”

  “Magic. It sort of hums. I can’t quite explain it. Hesta, can you feel it?”

  She nodded. “We are both carrying vessels, so we can detect magic, but you…” She turned to me. “Surely you must be aware of it, somehow?”

  It was true, there was something in the atmosphere, but I couldn’t begin to explain it. Nothing definable.

  “I just feel – a sense of well-being.”

  Even exhausted as I was, with thirst burning me every moment and my stomach roiling from lack of food, somehow I felt well. Contented, in a bizarre way.

  No one touched the tower. The sailors, who undoubtedly had a thousand different superstitions about it, kept to the wall of the cavern. The two boys went a little nearer, but nervously. Only Mal, Hestaria and I stood close to the unnatural glow of the tower.

  “Well, pretty as it is, it cannot help us,” Hestaria said. “Nothing here is any help. There is no tunnel out of here, no way to climb up to the roof and no opening even if we could get up there. We will have to carry on digging to find the rest of the tunnel we came through, or go back to the Hold after all.”

  I looked at her in astonishment. “Or we could get out through the tower.”

  “And how do you propose to get in there?”

  “Through the door, of course. Can’t you see it?”

  Her mouth gaped open. “Another secret door? An invisible door?”

  “Well, it’s not invisible to me. It’s solid metal.”

  When I showed them exactly where it was, Mal thought he could make out the faint outline.

  “Can you feel it? If you put your hand on it, does it feel metallic?”

  Gingerly he stretched out his hand and dabbed with one finger. “Yes! It does!” He placed his whole hand flat against the door, then both hands. “That’s amazing. I can’t see it at all, but it’s there. Hesta, why don’t you try it?”

  Without hesitation she did. “But why a metal door? Why a door that only you can see?”

  That was a good question, one I couldn’t answer.

  “Actually, there might be other doors,” Mal said excitedly. “I can see another outline here, look. And one here. They’re all round the tower. Different doors for different connections.”

  He tried one. “Wood. This one’s wood. And this – glass, I think. Very smooth. And this – shit!”

  He leapt back as if stung, shaking his hand.

  “What was that?”

  “Fire! It burned me. Gods, that hurt.” He hopped around, flicking his fingers and pressing the burned hand under his arm, until the healing magic had done its work.

  “The question is, can we open any of these doors?” Hestaria said.

  “Not the fire one!” Mal said, with feeling.

  “I should be able to open the metal one,” I said, with more confidence than I felt. I could deal with ordinary metal easily enough, but this was magical metal. It might not even be metal at all, just something masquerading as metal. If I tried something and failed, I had no idea what might happen. Magic was indeed not a game.

  Despite the coolness of the underground chamber, my palms were damp with sweat. I wiped my hands on my skirt, but that just coated them with dust.

  “What will you do, bend it?” Mal asked, examining his hand. “Like the blade of your knife?” He seemed quite unaware of my hesitation.

  I hadn’t really thought about it, but when I rested my hands, fingers spread, on the metal door, I could tell that it was very thin, as thin as paper. I closed my eyes, to focus better. The metal was quiescent under my touch, as if waiting for my command. Some metals were dull and needed effort to be persuaded to do anything at all. Some, like locks, well-oiled and used often, were eager and jumped to obey my will. Swords which had been beaten and folded scores of times were complex and beautiful. But this metal was watchful, alert. I’d never encountered anything like it.

  I willed it to melt.

  Behind me, I heard a gasp of surprise, and when I opened my eyes, the door was gone, replaced by a grey fog which shifted and swirled, hiding the room beyond. At my feet, the liquid shimmered like silver water, a shining pool. I made it flow to one side of me, then reshaped it into a solid cube.

  Hestaria bounced up to me, clapping her hands in glee. “That was astonishing! It looks quite solid now.”

  “It is.” I demonstrated by sitting on the cube.

  Mal eyed me warily, as if I might turn into a dragon and fly away at any moment.

  “The door is open, after a fashion,” he said. “Do we dare go through?”

  Hestaria tutted. “Whyever not?” And without hesitation she strode through and vanished from view.

  Mal and I exchanged glances. For once, I shared all his pessimism. We couldn’t begin to guess what lay behind the unnatural mist. This was beyond the experience of any of us.

  Hestaria’s head emerged from the fog, making us both jump.

  “Come on, what are you waiting for?” she shrieked, vanishing again just as abru
ptly.

  Mal looked at me and shrugged. Taking a deep breath, he strode through.

  I turned round. “Anyone else?”

  Their faces were a picture of abject terror, every last one of them huddled around the rubble-strewn entrance where we’d broken through to the cavern, as if prepared to flee. I couldn’t blame them – it must look like the work of Demons. Sailors were a superstitious lot.

  “If we find a way out, we’ll come and get you,” I told them. Turning back to the door, I stepped through.

  It was ice cold for a moment, as cold as mid-winter, but then I was past the fog and into the base of the tower.

  I gasped.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” Mal grinned at me. He hadn’t gone far, standing to one side of the door gazing round with awe.

  Above us, the tower soared to the clouds, it seemed, open all the way to the top. Almost the whole space, from the floor to the roof far above, was filled with shining spheres suspended in the air and gently moving in a slow, mesmerising dance, like dust motes in still air.

  “Ah, there you are at last!” Hestaria strode round from the far side of the tower, a ball in each hand. “Help yourself, they are not harmful.”

  “Hesta, you can’t possibly know that,” Mal said.

  She waved a ball under his nose, forcing him to lean back. “They are just glass, Mallaron. Pretty coloured glass.”

  Now that I was close to one, I could see the colours swirling inside it. “I’ve seen one of these before. The Holder has one in his collection. It doesn’t seem to do anything except change colour occasionally.”

  “There you are, you see! Quite harmless. Also quite pointless.”

  With a casual flick of the wrist, she tossed one back into the ever-changing pattern made by the thousands – or perhaps millions – of balls still moving aimlessly. I winced, expecting it to crash into some of the others and perhaps trigger a catastrophic set of collisions. But the ball slowed as it flew, and then, with only minor adjustments from a few balls to avoid contact, it merged seamlessly into the pattern and was instantly indistinguishable from the rest, all colour lost.