Their lanterns illuminated a relatively large room with shelves lining the walls and a worktable with a few chairs. From the way the books and the odd collection of items were stacked on the tables and around the room, it was clear someone had already mined the library for information and then used every surface for the magical items gathered above. On one table lay four cloth sacks filled to the brim.
“Lynge and Geddy brought Connor and Penhallow down here to help you find those disks that you needed to bring back the magic,” Dillon said with a look toward Blaine. “I’m not sure what else they took with them, or whether it was helpful, but I’ll bet those sacks are full of the items they wanted to come back for.”
Blaine could guess. Lanyon Penhallow was a talishte, an immortal vampire who had existed for centuries. Bevin Connor, once the assistant to Lord Garnoc before the Cataclysm, had become Penhallow’s mortal servant. Both Connor and Penhallow had tracked down several of the obsidian disks that played an important role in helping Blaine restore the magic at Valshoa and bind it once more to the will of men. If Penhallow had gone to the trouble of gathering and safeguarding other artifacts, Blaine was willing to believe they were valuable enough to be worth the risk to retrieve them.
“Let’s see what we have,” Xaffert said, pushing past Blaine toward a cloth bundle on the nearest table.
“These crypts are full of old power,” Dagur said. “Maybe, since the magic remains rather brittle, we might be safest handling the items as little as possible.” Balding and thin, perhaps in his fourth decade, Dagur looked more like a tavern master than a scholar, clad as he was in a serviceable woolen jacket, homespun trews, and sturdy boots.
Xaffert fixed his colleague with a glare. “I’m not going to let a few ghosts send me screaming,” he said with a sniff. “We’re better served knowing what Lord Penhallow and Alrik thought valuable enough to hide down here. That way, if we run into difficulties on the way back, we know what tools are at our disposal.”
“I agree with Dagur,” Zaryae said. “Even if the artifacts still work as they were intended, using them down here might attract unwanted attention.”
Xaffert’s contempt was clear in his face. “That’s probably prudent for you. What magic you have is untrained. Dagur and I are scholars and adepts, formally educated in the magic arts by the most powerful mages of our era. We’re quite well prepared to handle whatever arises.”
Blaine was not so sure that Dagur agreed with the older mage. Dagur remained a pace back from the table, and seemed happy to allow Xaffert to take the items out of the sacks as he surveyed the other items in the room.
“Take a look if you have to, but don’t spend all day doing it,” Piran grumbled. “I want to get aboveground.”
Xaffert examined the items from one of the sacks. Blaine stayed back a bit, as did the others, but from what he could see, the magical artifacts did not appear unusual. Half a dozen pieces now lay on the table: a silver chalice, a flat piece of burnished wood carved with sigils, a white-handled boline knife with a curved blade, a dark scrying mirror, a lavishly engraved bell, and a stone censer with carvings. By the lantern light, they looked quite ordinary.
“I find nothing wrong with these pieces, nothing at all,” Xaffert announced after a few moments. “In fact, I suspect that such basic tools cannot be subverted even by broken magic. It will be a pleasure to have these fine items in our study.”
“Just put the bloody things back in the sack and let’s get going,” Piran said. “We’ve been down here long enough already.”
Zaryae hung back. “The items may have been altered,” she said. “We must be careful.”
Dagur carefully gathered up the few small items that had spilled from the sacks. Even with the small amount of magic Blaine possessed, he could feel the jangle of power from the items in the room. Yet to him, the magic felt… out of kilter, like a painting hung askew. Piran, with no magic at all, kept his knife and sword at the ready, watching the door to the hallway.
It seemed to Blaine that the shadows crowded more closely around them as they retreated to the corridor. Several times, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of motion, only to find nothing when he looked again. Blaine was on edge, and he wondered if the rest of his companions felt the same worrisome tingle in the air, which had grown icy cold.
“What in Raka is that?” Piran growled. Blue-green orbs of light bounced and bobbed, hurtling down the corridor toward the central rotunda, where several corridors led into a larger, open area. The sound of running footsteps echoed from the rock walls. Almstedt moved to stand in the doorway, and beckoned them to come.
“Something that isn’t ‘in’ Raka or the Sea of Souls anymore,” Kestel murmured, daggers raised. “And there are a lot of them, blocking the way back to Almstedt’s crypt.”
The orbs stretched into thin tendrils of light that swirled and shifted, taking on the forms of men, until two spectral armies faced off against each other in the wide chamber. Battle cries rang out as the ghostly soldiers hurtled toward each other, swords and axes raised, colliding with the muffled clang of armor. The combatants might be long dead, but the battle that played out in front of them was as fierce as any waged by living men.
Almstedt’s ghost stopped, barring them from approaching the fight. His raised sword made it clear that Almstedt intended to stand his ground. Going back the way they came was not an option.
“I was afraid of this,” Piran muttered. “Now what?”
“Dillon—any chance the entrance you and Alrik used to bring the items here is still open?” Blaine asked.
“The upper level where we entered has completely collapsed.”
“There’s got to be another way out,” Blaine said. He looked to Kestel. “How about you? You’re the spy. Any great ideas?”
“I heard rumors about secret passageways to the crypts, but I never personally found any,” she replied. “I didn’t know about the one we used to enter. As for others, even if we found them, are they passable, given how badly the castle was damaged?”
“Let’s see what we can find, and worry about the rest later,” Blaine said. “Gather up the sacks and whatever items Zaryae and Dagur thought worthy—let’s get moving.” Xaffert, Dagur, Dillon, and Zaryae gingerly loaded the artifacts into the satchels they had brought, leaving the others free to wield their swords if necessary.
Eager to move away from the spectral battle, Blaine and Piran headed in the opposite direction, back toward the vaults closer to the castle. Their lanterns barely lit their way in the gloom. Doorways opened on either side of the corridor, only to lead into crypts like Almstedt’s.
Finally, the corridor widened into another large rotunda filled with catafalques, some ancient and some much newer. The lanterns illuminated the figure that lay carved in marble atop the nearest tomb, and Kestel gasped. “Look,” she whispered, pointing. “It’s King Merrill.”
Merrill had been the king since before Blaine was born, and it was he who exiled them. But Merrill had probably never imagined that he would be the last king of Donderath, or that in his reign, the kingdom would burn, its magic would fail, and the people of an entire Continent would be reduced to desperate subsistence.
“We’ve got company,” Piran said in a low voice.
Blaine looked up to see a young man standing just beyond the torchlight. The man beckoned urgently even as the sounds of battle seemed to close in. Xaffert and Dagur started forward, but Blaine threw out a warning arm to halt them. “Wait. We don’t know whose side he’s on.”
Dillon maneuvered forward. “Yes we do,” he said triumphantly. “That’s Geddy. Thank the gods, it’s Geddy.” He turned to the others. “Seneschal Lynge’s assistant. He died down here. Now he’s come to help us.”
Blaine met Piran’s gaze and shrugged. Caught between threatening specters and a ghostly guide, they had little choice. “Let’s hope he knows where we’re going, because those ghost soldiers are getting closer,” Blaine said. “Follow Geddy
.”
Geddy’s ghost moved so quickly they were forced to run to keep him in sight. The ghost was tall and angular, with lank dark hair, all slender arms and legs, and although Blaine searched his memories, he could not recall having seen the young man at the castle. He hoped that they had read the ghost’s intentions correctly, and that he meant to get them to safety.
Geddy led them through the maze of corridors with confidence, while Blaine struggled to remember their course. The ground was rising under their feet, and they were moving in the right direction to be inside the castle, or at least the bailey walls.
The clang of metal against rock clattered through the empty corridors. Xaffert stood swearing over a jumble of artifacts that had spilled from his satchel. “Pick those things up and be quiet about it!” Blaine snapped.
“You’re loud enough to wake the dead, and down here, that’s a bad thing,” Piran muttered.
“Well, don’t just stand there—lend a hand!” Xaffert waved a hand at Dagur, whose expression made it clear he had no desire to handle the artifacts before their power was known. Reluctantly, Dagur withdrew a pair of gloves from his belt and gingerly helped place the objects once more into Xaffert’s satchel. Geddy’s ghost stood a little farther down the corridor, gesturing for them to hurry.
“Move faster, gents. Our guide’s a mite frantic for us to get going,” Piran urged. After a few more moments and another crash as Xaffert turned too quickly and his satchel hit the wall, Zaryae strode up to Xaffert. She pulled his bag away from him roughly enough to send his hat flying.
“By Torven’s horns! Just give it to me,” she demanded. “You’re a disaster.” Xaffert’s protests were muted enough for Blaine to decide that the mage was quite happy having someone else carry the burden.
They had barely gone a dozen steps before Geddy’s ghost stopped beside a catafalque. He pointed toward the raised marble tomb, pantomiming moving its heavy carved lid aside.
“What’s he want us to do, climb in?” Piran’s skepticism was clear in his voice.
“I think that’s exactly what he means,” Kestel said. “Come on, get to it.”
Blaine, Piran, and Dillon set their shoulders to the heavy marble, and Blaine was surprised when it moved easily. He lifted his lantern and peered inside, expecting to see dry bones and rotted finery. Instead, he found stairs descending into darkness.
“In we go,” he said, stepping aside to allow Kestel and Zaryae to enter first.
“You expect me to climb into a crypt?” Xaffert huffed.
“You can do what you want,” Dillon said. “I’m saving my skin.”
Dagur pushed past Xaffert toward the escape route. “I don’t have a problem with it, actually,” he said. “Honestly, Xaffert, come along.”
“We’re not waiting on you,” Blaine warned. “Are you coming?”
Muttering, Xaffert followed the others. Piran waved Blaine on ahead of him.
Blaine paused in front of Geddy’s spirit. Up close, he could see the dark stains on the young man’s clothing where a sword had dealt a deathblow. “Thank you,” he said. Geddy inclined his head, then gestured toward the catafalque. Blaine climbed inside with Piran right behind him.
Behind them, Blaine heard the thud of boots on the stone floor and the clash of swords. A blue-white light flared, blindingly bright in the gloom of the crypt.
“Help me close this before the ghosts catch up.” Blaine nodded toward the handles carved in the bottom of the heavy lid. Together, he and Piran wrested the lid shut, sealing their spectral pursuers behind them.
“Let’s hope those ghosts can’t walk through walls,” Piran said, casting a wary glance overhead. He looked around. “Did anyone notice that Geddy didn’t come down with us?”
The catafalque steps led down to a narrow passage. A little maneuvering allowed Piran and Blaine to go first, with the mages taking up the rear.
Dillon, just behind Blaine, held his lantern aloft. “I think I know where this leads,” he said. “And besides, there’s only one way to go.”
They ran along the passageway, stumbling on the uneven floor. The bulky satchels of artifacts were an encumbrance, but too many lives had been lost protecting the items for Blaine to be willing to leave them behind. He ran, expecting any moment to feel a ghostly sword in his back. But the noise of battle receded as they got farther from the crypts, replaced by the sound of their labored breathing.
After a few hundred steps, the passage came to an abrupt end, facing a stone wall with jutting stones offering a ladder upward. “Do you know where we’ll come out?” Blaine asked.
Dillon looked uncertain. “Maybe. Late one night, I saw Sir Alrik in the hallway by the exchequer’s office. I had to go in the same direction, and when I turned the corner, he was gone. All the doors were locked and the hallway ended in a storage room, so he shouldn’t have been able to disappear like that.” He paused. “I think there’s a panel, somewhere in that corridor, that opens into a hidden passage.”
“Yeah, but there’s no telling whether it’s this hidden passage,” Piran said.
“Or whether we’re coming up under a portion of the castle that’s collapsed,” Blaine added.
“We’ll know soon enough,” Kestel said from behind him. “Just climb.”
A dark landing at the top of the ladder ended in a blank wooden wall. Dillon edged to the front, and he began to run his hands over the wood. A quiet snick of a latch opening brought a smile of triumph. “Got it,” he said, and pushed on the door.
It stuck, barely a hand’s width open. “It’s blocked,” Dillon said. Blaine and Piran squeezed forward and put their shoulders against the door. The first shove won an additional inch as the sound of wood grating on rock made it clear what was barring their progress. On the next push, Dagur and Dillon added their weight, shoving the door open far enough that Kestel could slip through.
“It looks like a butler’s closet,” she said, sheathing her knife and holding aloft the lantern Blaine passed to her. “There’s no one here—and it looks like no one’s been here for quite a while.” She pushed against the wooden crate that blocked the door, and managed to dislodge it, letting the door open to nearly its full span.
“Come on in,” she said with a grin as the others stepped out.
Blaine glanced around the room at the shelves that had once held neat stacks of linens for the castle housekeepers. The closet was now a ransacked mess.
“A lot of manors have hiding places—even whole hidden rooms—in case of attack,” Kestel said. “Looks like we’ve stumbled upon one of Glenreith’s secrets.”
Dillon nodded. “This is where I lost sight of Sir Alrik that night,” he said. “It doesn’t look as if anyone’s been in here, so I doubt Reese and Pollard found it.” He smiled. “What do you know? Geddy got us out.”
Piran had crossed to the pantry’s door and into the corridor, only to find their way blocked by rubble where part of the ceiling had collapsed. “We’ve got another problem,” he said with a sigh. “Since no one knows we’re here, no one’s going to come dig us out.”
“If we straighten up the things that fell, we should have room to move a lot of rock out of the way,” Kestel said. She placed the lantern on one of the shelves and then bent to pick up a stack of linens, which she thrust against Xaffert’s chest.
“Here,” she said. “Be useful. Put those on the shelves, and come back for another load.”
Xaffert stammered indignantly. “Now, see here—”
Before he could complete his outburst, Kestel dropped the linens and pressed one of her knives against the mage’s throat. “No, you see here,” she said in a dangerously pleasant voice. “Either you pull your weight and help move the rocks or we seal you back in that passage and leave you to the ghost soldiers.” Her smile was jarringly at odds with her words. “And since no one else knows about the passageway, no one will find you.”
Xaffert paled. “All right,” he said, “but I must protest your methods.”
Dillon and Zaryae moved to help get the closet’s contents back onto the shelves and out of the way. Blaine, Piran, and Dagur created a human chain, handing one stone after another into the room to be stacked against the far wall. After several candlemarks, they had cleared an opening large enough for each of them to hand out the satchels of artifacts and then wiggle through to the other side. It was nearly morning by the time they made their way back to camp.
Kestel seemed to take it all in stride and dusted herself off matter-of-factly, while Zaryae murmured a prayer to the gods. Dagur looked pale and flustered by the ordeal. Xaffert was still sulking. Piran was regaling Dillon with jokes, each one bawdier than the last. Blaine breathed a sigh of relief and turned to Xaffert and Dagur.
“Call the rest of your mages together and let’s get an idea of why Penhallow and Alrik thought these artifacts were important,” Blaine said. “I just want to know whether or not they still work and whether they’re safe to take back to Glenreith.”
“Must we work with them immediately?” Dagur asked. “My books and scrolls are at Glenreith. I’d feel safer working on them there.”
“How many times do I have to tell you that, for a mage of power, these items simply pose no danger, even with the new magic?” Xaffert said, exasperation edging his voice. He snatched one of the bags from Dillon and thrust his hand inside, coming up with the dark scrying mirror.
“I really don’t think—” Dagur began.
“Take this, for example.” Xaffert brandished the mirror like a trophy. “Perhaps you’d like to know whether our road will be clear? Let me have a look.”
Zaryae tried to intervene. “Don’t! I can feel the power—it’s all wrong.”
“Nonsense,” Xaffert said with a dismissive gesture. “That’s like saying that a hammer doesn’t work the way it used to. These are mere tools. What matters is the skill of the user.”
War of Shadows: Book Three of the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga Page 2
