by DB King
Magic! The longer he held on, the more he felt it. Whatever else Maimonides had done with his special contraption, he’d left the massive chain absolutely humming with Elemental energy. As Alec gripped the nearest link, he opened himself to his powers, absorbing some of the chain’s energy.
It was as if the chain had been waiting for him to call on it. Plates formed over the tips of his fingers and thumb, dark as obsidian and hard as steel. They covered the digits like the fingers of gloves, magnetizing his grip against the chain. Amazed, Alec tested relaxing one arm, then another. Even with all of his weight freed, the pads on his hands refused to give an inch.
This must be how mages made it up here before Maimonides built his box, Alec realized. It made sense—after all, the rickety elevator hadn’t always been there. Someone must have come up here the first time to secure the contraption, and the chain functioned as a natural energy source for mages.
With this knowledge safely tucked in the back of his mind, Alec began to climb. It wasn’t easy—he doubted most of the monks back at the Temple could have managed it, with or without the pads—but step by step, Alec managed to climb the chain like a rope. Slick sweat coated his palms, but nothing shook the grip of the magically enhanced magnets on his fingers.
He reached the floating island and tugged himself onto the grass, gasping. The pads faded from his fingers upon leaving contact with the chain, vanishing as quickly as they’d come. For a few moments he lay there, catching his breath and looking up at the sky as he fought off waves of vertigo and dizziness.
“I thought Maimondes’s box was bad,” he muttered a minute or two later as he staggered to his feet. “I’ll take a rickety old rustbucket over a climb like that, any day.”
Eleira, Alec thought, with a start. He didn’t have time to lounge on the grass and muse. She was in danger, and Alec was the only one who could save her.
It was a short run to the House of Doors. Every step increased Alec’s anxiety, as he knew another of Uriel’s pupils had made this same journey only a short time before. As he ran he pictured Eleira, steadfastly striding into the House with a look of determination on her face. No, she wouldn’t have paused thoughtfully at the threshold, arguing with herself over whether or not she was making the right choice. When Eleira decided to do something, she devoted herself to it whole-heartedly.
Alec climbed the stairs and stepped into the darkened chamber. The dome felt lighter than usual, as if someone had decided to ration an extra helping of sunlight to the cobweb spotted interior of the House of Doors. The atmosphere was oppressive, as if he was the first person to set foot in the building in a very long time.
But then, he saw the footprints. Dust caked the floor, and every few feet an indentation shone against the dark marble floor. Alec put his foot against one of them, noted the smallness of the intruder’s size compared to his. It had to be Eleira.
His gaze traveled up to the eighth floor of that strange, arcane House. According to Maimonides and Uriel, all of the portals in the House of Doors were potentially compromised—meaning all or none of them could lead to their respective realms. There was no telling what kind of monsters had taken up residence in the worlds beyond the portals—unless he stepped through, that is.
Alec sought out one door over all: the one that had whispered to him during his first visit, on the eighth level. It was just beneath the great cupola overlooking the House, right where he expected it to be.
The door was open.
A shiver passed down Alec’s spine. He was too late—Eleira had already entered the forbidden door. Frozen in his tracks, all Alec could do was stare numbly, calculating the enormity of the task before him. What could possibly lay in wait within that portal?
Just then, a whispering voice hissed against his ears. For a moment he expected Trystara, but this sound carried an even darker, more sinister tone than the demoness’s. More insistent, too.
The urge to run up the stairs and throw himself into the world beyond the door sang in Alec’s veins. Instantly, with a certainty that belied all knowledge, he knew that door had been open when Eleira reached the House of Doors. She hadn’t intended to step through it. Possibly she’d been angling for access to the second floor, or the third, only for that arcane power to tug at her heartstrings the way it’d tugged at Alec.
Like the songs of sirens, luring sailors to their doom on the rocks, the forbidden door chanted its deathly melody against Alec’s skull.
His feet began to move. He didn’t want to enter—even as the thought sent a thrill through his bloodstream—but he had to. Eleira depended on it.
Perhaps if Maimonides had been with her, she could have been safe inside that strange portal. But the gnome was far below in the Northmund Estate, totally unaware that anything was wrong. Only Alec’s connection to the demoness Trystara let him know of Eleira’s escape.
Alec climbed the flights of stairs, panting all the way. As each flight was stationed beyond the doors on every floor, he had to trace a semi-circle to reach every level of the domed structure. Sweat beaded on his brow as he reached the eighth and highest floor, where the open door waited for him.
“This is a bad idea,” a voice whispered in his head. Trystara.
“It’s the only idea I’ve got,” Alec shot back, pausing before the door. This close to the opening, the siren song was stronger than ever. He wanted to leap through the portal like it was a waterfall in the desert.
He felt, more than heard, the demoness consider his words. “If you die,” she finally muttered, as if she’d just solved some equation, “you won’t be able to give me any more spiders. You won’t fulfill your promise!”
“You could help me, then,” Alec said, cocking his head to the side. “I’m no use to you dead, right?”
“Oh, if you’re dead then I’ll be free,” the demoness said wistfully. “But I wouldn’t want to be free in that realm. Oh no…”
“Fine then,” Alec grunted. He couldn’t count on Trystara’s help—but the demoness just might come in handy when he really needed it. He’d have to find out for himself.
Steeling himself for whatever he might find, Alec sighed deeply and jumped through the portal, entering the forbidden door.
Chapter 22
The portal sizzled like a hot griddle as Alec jumped through to the other side. Unlike the doors he’d passed through elsewhere on the House of Doors, this one had no corresponding opening on the other side—just an angry slash in the open air. Immediately he wondered how he would get back to the lobby. But before he could even think of a plan, the rent in the air slammed shut behind him, sealing him within the portal’s world.
“Oh, you’ve done it now,” Trystara whimpered inside of his skull. “This one’s bad. It’s really, really bad.”
So the demoness said. But the environment didn’t look all that hostile to Alec. He stood in a lavish bedroom, almost like the ones inside of the Northmund Estate. In fact, the whole place felt hauntingly familiar—as if a skilled architect had been asked to recreate the manor’s floor plans from a hasty series of sketches made by a guest. There was just enough difference to give Alec a sense of deep unease.
“I expected monsters,” Alec said, running his hand along the bedspread. The place looked freshly cleaned, as if a maid had only just left the room. “But I feel like I just walked right back into Archmage Diamondspear’s manor. What in the world is going on here?”
“Careful,” Trystara purred. The demoness’s voice edged toward panic. “There’s power here, Alec. Dreadful power!”
The demon’s voice stilled, leaving him with his thoughts. After a few moments, he became aware that the room wasn’t quite silent: the faint sounds of music could be heard from out in the hallway. Someone’s playing a stringed instrument, Alec thought, nudging open the bedroom door. With considerable skill.
He followed the hallway, somehow making the wrong choice at every twist and turn. It was as if he’d stepped inside the world beyond a mirror, where hi
s natural understanding of ‘left’ and ‘right’ had been reversed. He’d almost have preferred a forest or a lava-filled caldera, to be honest: at least out in the open, it was more difficult to get lost.
He finally made his way to the courtyard. The music grew louder here, until he could distinguish each elegant note of the melody played over top of the chords. A lute, perhaps, or one of the balalaikas some of the monks were known to play in their rooms at night. Only none of the monks of the Archon Temple could ever make music like this.
Outside, the courtyard was set up for a picnic. Someone had brought the long table and some chairs from the dining room out into the center. With a start, Alec realized the table didn’t just resemble the one at Northmund: it was the table. Plates of rich food covered nearly every available surface, presenting a banquet to all who wanted to partake.
Eleira, Alec noticed, relieved. She sat straight in her seat, eyes fixed forward to a point at the other end of the courtyard. Though there wasn’t a mark on her or a single tear on her fine robes, Alec got the distinct impression that something awful had happened to her.
But she wasn’t alone. There was another guest: the source of the music. A strange man in purple and gray robes sat at the far end of the table, one leg propped up on the side as he played his lute. It seemed as if the man had four hands—rhythm and melody overlapped in his playstyle, notes falling like gentle rain over top of the great sweeps of a chord progression. The song tugged at Alec’s heartstrings, almost like the siren call of the door beckoning him into its realm.
The man’s strange song reached a crescendo, then ended in a slow, diminished set of notes that sounded like a heart breaking.
With a heavy sigh, he tucked the lute away and turned his attention to Alec. “Oh, another visitor. Please, young man, take a seat.”
The man gestured at the seat next to Eleira’s. Alec longed to go to her, to verify she was alright, but he remained standing for the moment. There was something seriously off about this man.
He doesn’t look like a monster, though, Alec thought. At least not like any monster I’ve ever seen. In fact, the man would have fit right at home in the Northmund Estate, among Maimonides and Uriel. He looked quite a bit like the Archmage in fact, though he had to be less than half Uriel’s age. The Diamondspear family resemblance was quite strong, and suddenly Alec wondered if he might not be looking at some distant relative of the bloodline.
“I think I’ll stand,” Alec said, glancing over at Eleira. “Is she alright?”
“Her?” The man gave Eleira a quick once-over. “She’s fine enough. You must be Alec, right? Eleira’s told me so much about you.”
He was sure she had, but less sure that she’d done it of her own free will. There was something wrong with the elf girl: she sat with all the prim, proper straightness of a debutante at a cotillion, but one of her eyes twitched fearfully. Food and drink sat before her on the table, but she neither ate nor drank—and her hands clenched and unclenched beneath the surface of the table, as if she fought off an invisible dog begging for scraps.
A smile spread across the elf girl’s face. She nodded at the seat next to hers, some of the confusion in her eyes clearing. “Alec! Have a seat—I’ve been having the most interesting conversation! This place isn’t like what Maimonides warned us about at all!”
He shouldn’t have done it. But the comeliness of Eleira’s smile disarmed him—and Trystara had been quite silent in his head ever since he’d stepped foot in the courtyard. Were Eleira not so fair, or Trystara more strident in her warnings, he might have resisted. As it was, he slipped into the chair next to hers, sizing up the plate of food and goblet of wine already set at his seat. He felt neither hungry or thirsty—instead, he met the eyes of this place’s patron.
“I never knew Uriel Diamondspear was harboring such magnificent specimens,” the man said, leaning forward. Up close, he looked even more like one of the paintings on the wall of Uriel’s manor of Diamondspears from ages past. One of the old ones, faded with time and rust. “Both of you are quite unique—yes, quite unique! I thought dear Eleira was the jewel of Uriel’s Estate, then I saw you! You can do magic without a grimoire, can’t you, Alec? Just like the Archon?”
The conversation had taken a turn Alec dreaded. Whatever this stranger intended for both of them, it couldn’t be good. “We thank you for your hospitality,” he said, as polite as could be. “Eleira and I must be getting back now. Uriel will be wondering where we’ve gone—”
“Uriel,” the man said, the corner of his mouth curling in a smirk, “is far from the Northmund Estate, whelp. He’s left that idiot Maimonides in charge. Small wonder the two of you slipped in here without him knowing.”
“I think it’s best we go,” Alec said—only to find he couldn’t rise. Invisible bands wrapped around his ankles as he sat in the chair, pinning him firmly to the seat. As he flailed, similar bonds encircled his wrists to keep them tethered to the table. Suddenly he understood the source of Eleira’s discomfort.
“Why leave?” the man chuckled. More and more, he felt like the mirror image of Uriel Diamondspear—as kindly and paternal as the Archmage himself, but with distinctly darker designs. “It’s not like the portal back to the House of Doors is open, Alec. I closed it the moment you stepped through. You and your little elf friend. What secrets Uriel Diamondspear’s been keeping! But then, that’s always been what the old fool excels at—keeping secrets…”
“Eleira!” Alec cocked his head to the side, struggling to catch the elf girl’s attention. She stared blankly at the horizon. “Help me out of this! Come on, we’ve got to get out of here!”
“Thinking he could train new recruits to stop what’s coming,” the man said, setting his lute on the table and rising from his chair. He moved with a ponderous step, as if he didn’t relish what he was going to do but nor was he going to shrink from it. “Thinking he could use the House of Doors to accelerate their learning, cut the rest of the Academy off at the pass.” The man tilted his head back and laughed. “When he’s got his own son locked up behind one of those doors!”
For a moment, the words refused to make sense. Then the meaning struck Alec, and horror filled him. “You’re lying,” he said, his brows furrowed together. “You have to be lying!”
The young man who looked so much like Uriel Diamondspear pulled back his hood, allowing the sun to fall on his face. “No lies,” he said, chuckling darkly. “My name is Baldir Diamondspear. The great Uriel’s son.” His eyes turned to the baton sticking out of Alec’s robes, and his kindly manner evaporated. Suddenly the man’s eyes were as cold and alien as a snake’s. “And you are carrying my weapon.”
The Diamondspear! Uriel had lied when he’d told Alec it belonged to his sister. Instead, the weapon had once been in the hands of his own son—who’d been sealed inside the House of Doors? None of it made sense!
“I don’t believe that,” Alec spat, struggling against his invisible bonds. “Uriel would never do something like that to his own family!”
“Oh, son,” Baldir said, as if Alec had just told the funniest joke he’d ever heard. “You have no idea the things Uriel Diamondspear is capable of. Once that man convinces himself he’s acting for the greater good, there’s no atrocity he can’t rationalize. Your father ever tell you to go to your room, little boy?”
“I didn’t have a father,” Alec growled, reaching for the magic around him. It was no use—the shackles around his wrists and ankles caught the energy before it could enter him, siphoning away like a moat around a high tower. “I was raised by monks!”
“Same principle,” Baldir spat. “My father told me to go to my room, Alec. And he kept me there for eighteen years. You see, that’s why you keep looking around this place like you half-remember it—it’s the Northmund Estate, exactly the way it looked eighteen years ago when dear old papa threw me in here. I went to my room—but I’m not staying here.” His eyes turned as dark as coal. “There are more powerful people than Uriel
Diamondspear in the world, Alec. People who make even the Archmage tremble. You could have joined our number, but you turned us down. You won’t get a second chance.”
The contract! Alec remembered that there were three people in the courtyard with him, not two. “Trystara! Help me!”
Baldir’s brows furrowed together with mirth. “Ha! You brought the demon here? Hell, I’m killing three birds with one stone today. I was going to have to hunt that little brat back down myself once I got out of here.” The man turned around, gesturing at a shadowy alcove near the back of the courtyard. “All right, fellas, I’m ready.”
As Alec stared, straining against his bonds, three robed figures entered the courtyard. He couldn’t make out their faces beneath their thick black cloaks. They could have been ghosts, for all he knew—ghosts like the young man standing before him, lost in time within the House of Doors.
“I wish I could finish this delicious meal,” Baldir said, gesturing over the table. “I’m sure the three of us would find many interesting things to discuss. But, unfortunately, I have places to be. Father believed this House of Doors to be a perfect prison—and for eighteen years, he was right. Goodbye, Eleira. Goodbye, Alec.”
Alec writhed against the invisible shackles, trying desperately to find his feet. “You can’t just leave us here!” he protested.
Baldir stopped mid-stride, turning away from the cloaked figures. “Oh, I have no intention of doing that,” he said, laughing wickedly. “In fact, thank you for reminding me! There’s one other guest who’ll be joining you at the table tonight. One who’s been dying to meet the person responsible for killing so many of her children…”
Alec couldn’t make heads or tails of that statement. It didn’t become clear until the shadows parted and a spider the size of a small house made its way across the courtyard. Thick ropes of webbing wrapped around its eight segmented legs like body armor, its glossy black eyes blinking in complicated patterns as it fixed its gaze on the two youths sitting at the long table.
