by P. D. Kalnay
“I sense no ill will, but we’d be fools to extend unnecessary trust.”
Chapter 30 – Prisoners of Anukdun
Ivy and I made dinner for the three of us that night. We planned to sneak out well before midnight and make our way to the dungeons—an hour’s brisk walk from Dula’s rooms. Dula normally went to sleep early, but he was unusually chatty that evening, which didn’t fit with our plans. Just as I began to worry, he suddenly slumped over, fast asleep in his chair. The people of Valanse have a distinctive whistling snore, due to the shape of their mouths.
“That was lucky,” I whispered.
“Luck played no part in it.” Ivy didn’t bother to whisper. “I cast weariness upon him so we could leave.”
“You enchanted him?”
“A discourtesy I shall apologise for, but it’s harmless enough. He’ll wake by noon tomorrow, if left undisturbed.”
“Can you knock anybody out cold?”
“It depends on the person. Some are more susceptible than others. Valaneese have little in the way of magical abilities or defences, and he was tired already. A more alert person would pose a greater challenge. We must hurry if we are to reach the dungeons in time.”
I gathered the sword from our room, and we raced through the library.
***
I hoped we’d make it to the dungeons unnoticed in the largely empty complex, but luck or fate or something else was against us. A stern command brought us to a standstill, halfway there.
“You two, come over here,” shouted a tall, lean winathen man. “You’re late.”
He wore the same robes as the Supreme Scholar if in a size ten times bigger. I was still no judge of ages, especially with fae, who seemed to stay youthful for many centuries and then wrinkle up suddenly, but he wasn’t young. The man came complete with standard winathen pale blond hair, glacial eyes, and surly attitude. He was also the first armed person I’d seen in the library, not counting the gollen. A long, slender sword was belted over his robes like an afterthought. Something in his graceful movements, and the way he carried the sword, told me he could use it. I wondered if we’d been caught before even getting started with our nefarious plan.
“Late?” Ivy asked.
“Assignments were given out, and posts taken up, hours ago.”
I had no idea what he was talking about.
“We’re new to the library,” I said.
“I’m not interested in excuses.” The man glared at us. “All in residence, with the skills to do so, stand guard during the alignment. The first hours are the most critical.”
“Why?” Ivy asked.
“Young people—always keen to shirk responsibilities and only concerned with your own pursuits. I won’t have any complaining, and certainly not about a chore that only arises every seven hundred years! You appear capable enough. Go to the dungeons and aid the Supreme Scholar.”
“The dungeons?” I asked, confused.
“Did I stutter, boy? The dungeons—hurry; the gollen will go dormant in a matter of minutes. Can you imagine if the wyrm Fathrean had attacked Anukdun during an alignment? This would be a very different place.”
Ivy pulled me into motion again before I could ask another question. We were on the main level with the bridges and outer gates, and she didn’t speak until we’d made it to the wide descending ramp.
“Did you understand any of that?” I asked.
“I understood that we were being ordered to the same place we meant to go.” Ivy said. “And that it is less protected than before. By the sounds of it, the guards may be asleep.”
The same squad of gollen stood at the base of the ramp, and they didn’t move when we approached, but the Supreme Scholar stepped out from behind a stony leg to challenge us. He stood no higher than the middle of my thigh, had a face like a malformed potato, and was older than old. The tiny scholar didn’t look very intimidating. Then he raised his short crystalline staff, and the enchantments in the staff channelled and gathered heat from deep in the earth until it shone cheery red in his wrinkled little hand. The enchantments weren’t petrathen, but they worked on principles I instinctively understood.
There was enough energy in the staff to burn us to ashes.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
Without my shield I didn’t think we’d survive what his staff could dish out.
“The guy upstairs ordered us here,” I said. “He told us to help you guard the dungeons.”
“Arenal?” he asked.
“I don’t know his name. He wasn’t all that chatty. We don’t even know what’s happening.”
“Humph. His name is Arenal Calmborn Ralal and he is the Sargent at Arms, charged with the security of Anukdun.” The fire dissipated from the staff. “I may have forgotten to tell him of you and your unusual circumstances. I’ve been busy. Speaking of which, you are now in charge of guarding the lowest gate.”
He hooked a thumb at the doors behind him.
“You’re leaving us in charge of the dungeons?” I asked.
I only realised how stupid it was to question our good fortune after the words left my mouth. Beside me, Ivy sighed.
“There are more critical places for me to guard, with the library short-staffed. Only the joint will of the council can open this gate, and unlike these fellows,” he rapped the nearest gollen with his staff, “the gate’s enchantments are not reliant on a moon. Stay here until you’re relieved by the morning shift. It won’t be an issue, but—allow none to pass.”
I nodded, and we watched him hobble up the ramp and disappear from sight. He was old and had short legs, so there was waiting involved. Ivy touched the nearest gollen to no response.
“The enchantments appear dormant,” she said. “Unless, this in an elaborate ruse.”
“A ruse?”
“To discover our intentions here.”
I tapped on a gollen’s chest with my knuckles, “From what I learned of moonstone, any enchantments that make use of it depend on the phases of the moon. Maybe these guys need recharging every seven hundred years.”
“Is that a guess?”
“Yes,” I said, “but I think it’s a good one. That’s why they kick out the regular staff and lock up for the alignment—because the place is undefended.”
“And why the oracle told us to come here tonight?”
“Exactly.”
“We must still pass this gate,” Ivy said.
She pushed and pulled a thick iron handle to no effect. The doors were covered in an intricate World Tree pattern worked in various metals. Words from the Titan’s tongue were inscribed across them. They were like the doors securing Marielain’s workshop and equally impenetrable, but these were far older. I let my senses flow into the doors and took measure of the enchantments holding them shut. Unlike Marielain’s doors, five separate layers of permission were required to open them—presumably, one for each council member.
After my examination, I couldn’t help laughing.
“What is so humorous?” Ivy asked. “We don’t know if the gollen will sleep for the entire alignment or only now at the beginning.”
“Someone left gum in the lock,” I said.
“What does that mean?”
“The enchantments have been tampered with, allowing one other person, besides those with the right, to open the doors.”
“How does that help us?” Ivy asked.
“Because Marielain Blackhammer was a jerk who didn’t think rules applied to him.”
“You mean–”
I cut Ivy off by pushing a door open, and then I waved her through with a grin. Things looked good.
The topmost level of the dungeons didn’t appear ominous at all, though the place was bigger than I’d imagined. Not being constrained by the river, the dungeons beneath Anukdun spread wider than the library complex above, forming a warren of subterranean tunnels and halls. Some were natural and others were carved from the rock. Water had dripped here and there to form stalactites and
stalagmites. They provided the only decoration.
The best thing I could say about the top levels of the dungeon was that they weren’t dark. The same lamps that lit the library lined the walls. Somebody had made a whole crapload of the cylindrical lights—not that I was complaining.
Countless rooms full of stuff filled the upper levels. By stuff I mean that all kinds of bizarre and ordinary looking items were gathered and stored there. The sheer volume meant that those items were piled high in places. Many were accessible and lay on shelves, but as many more were locked tight. Thick doors, locked with conventional locks, sealed them off, but each door had a slit to look through. I didn’t need Ivy’s warning that the items inside those rooms were dangerous. Most of the storerooms had a single lamp on the ceiling revealing the contents. It would take a hundred thick catalogues to list the things I saw through the peep holes, so I won’t even try.
A handful of the doorways were sealed with stone, strengthened by reinforcing enchantments within the masonry. One such sealed room held only a single book, wrapped in tooled crimson leather and black tarnished silver fittings. It rested on a pedestal, and a dozen lamps mounted on stands surrounded it. The sight of the book made me uneasy, and I knew that the lamps weren’t there for reading, but to make sure that no shadow could ever touch the tome.
More disturbing and mysterious items filled other rooms along our path. They weren’t what we’d come for.
“How will we find him?” Ivy asked when we’d peeked into the bazilienth room.
“Can you sense anything?” I asked back.
“No, my abilities are hindered by the binding enchantments down here. I can only say that I believe many somethings are alive deep beneath us. Do your instincts tell you anything?”
They did. The longer we’d been in there the more certain I’d become.
“I can sense something… below us. I think it’s a long way below us.”
“Then we must seek the downward paths,” Ivy said.
The way forward and down was easily found. The main hallway was a continuation of the ramp leading from the library to the dungeon. That same spiral widened as it descended, and we stayed on the main track. Side passages and doorways thinned out the further down we went. Eventually, only bare stone, interrupted by occasional doors, marked the way forward.
As we reached the end of the wall lamps, we heard the first screams. Silver bars, driven into the stone of ceiling and floor, spanned the wide hallway, and utter darkness lay beyond the bars. Thankfully, a row of lanterns hung from hooks along the last stretch of wall. They were just more of the luminescent glass tubes with convenient carrying handles attached. It would have taken a lot of nerve to continue without them.
We passed through a silver gate that had no physical locks, but an electric tingle ran across my skin at the threshold and made me shiver. Every inch of the silver bars was inscribed with enchantments, whose purposes I couldn’t determine.
“I think we’re going into the bad part now,” I said.
“Yes.”
The lanterns lit the area around us out to a thirty foot radius, and the rest of our world became darkness. I stopped to look through the next peephole we passed, cut into a cell door that would have been the right size for a barn. The cell was dark, so I moved the lantern in front of me to shine light inside. I immediately regretted it. Something enormous stirred across the room and charged the door. My brief glimpse of the creature most reminded me of a crab. I only saw part of it as a long claw swung towards my face.
I jumped back in fright, but there was no real danger. The claw made a deafening boom as it struck the door, and my ears rang. The monster was powerful, but not powerful enough to escape its prison—which was lucky for me.
“Jack, don’t cause unnecessary trouble,” Ivy said.
I was about to say that I hadn’t, when countless wails, cries, and the worst of all, frantic begging—both comprehensible and incomprehensible—filled the air. Ivy gave me a frightened version of her you’re-a-moron look. I didn’t peek in any more of the cells as we walked; what I heard was more than enough. Gradually, the noise quieted, but that only made it worse, and when I picked up my pace, Ivy didn’t complain.
***
I can’t speak for Ivy, but the long walk through the lower dungeons of Anukdun constituted the most frightening experience of my life. None of that fear came from the darkness or being underground, surrounded by rock. Those things actually provided me a small relief from the terror, along with Ivy’s company. I’d have given anything to have my hammer in hand, but going back for it wasn’t a choice.
My fear made no sense. Everything down there was locked up tight, and, from what I’d learned, some of those people or things had been locked away so far in the past that even the library had no records of who or what they were. Prisoners of Anukdun had no sentences or hope of parole, and they didn’t just throw away the keys—they destroyed them.
Ivy’s lantern trembled in her hand casting a wavering light on the walls. I didn’t need to ask what was wrong. Even though I had none of Ivy’s ability to sense life or auras, I could feel many of the prisoners we passed. I felt hatred so deep it made me hunch my shoulders and lean forward like I pushed through strong winds. The second most common emotion I felt was hunger. Those prisoners hungered to a degree I’d never imagined possible. I was certain that hunger had led to madness in the long distant past.
Each cell door was unique, intricate, and beautifully crafted. I probed the first few and found that while all held enchantments; they were very different in nature. I gradually withdrew into myself to block out the surrounding unpleasantness, but near the bottom I paused at a door of carved stone, tall enough for a modest giant to walk through. Something about that door intrigued me, and I let my senses flow into enchantments that not only held the door tightly shut, but also meshed with others in the rock of the large cell behind, creating an impressive barrier.
Those enchantments were petrathen, and while each was new to me, I understood what they did. The enchantments were so fascinating that I couldn’t look away…
My world rocked to the side. Someone had just slapped my face. Then it rocked the other way with Ivy’s second slap.
“Jack! What are you doing?”
What was I doing?
The answer came in a flash: I’d been disabling the locks on the door without realising it! One more and I’d have opened the door. Thankfully, the rest reset when Ivy stopped me.
Why would I do that?
“You must focus your will to keep the voices from your mind,” Ivy said.
“Voices?”
“Yes, the wards of this place dampen them. They pose no great threat unless you allow them in.”
A gravelly, whispered voice came from the other side of the door, “So close… so close…”
“I should have warned you to shut your mind to them,” Ivy said. “I still sometimes forget the things you don’t know.”
Other voices assailed my mind as we walked, but now that I was aware of them it became easy to push the voices back. It was like seeing the hidden image in a picture or learning the secret of an illusion. Once you see, it you can’t unsee it.
It took hours of walking to reach bottom, although it was hard to judge time in the darkness, and it felt more like years.
Chapter 31 – Stormshadow
A dark doorway waited at the end of our terrifying stroll like an open mouth ready to swallow us whole. Our lanterns provided enough light to navigate the tunnels, but nowhere near enough to despookify the place. The only thing that might have made the lowest level of the dungeons creepier would have been flickering torches. I felt a moment of terror at the thought of the lanterns dying.
“That must be it,” I said.
I sensed something familiar up ahead.
“There’s nowhere else to go.” Ivy agreed.
The doorway opened onto a vast cavern. I assumed it was vast, since the lanterns weren’t powerful eno
ugh to expose the sides, floor, or ceiling—purest darkness surrounded us. I figured I might have jinxed us by assuming the place had no creepiness left to give. A narrow stone walkway provided the only path forward. It was wide enough for two, but in the absence of handrails we walked single file.
The cage hung a long distance away from the entrance near what I guessed was the middle of the cavern. It was a bronze sphere, surrounded by dragons worked in relief, stretched maybe twenty feet across, and hung from chains that vanished into the darkness. Each link was as thick as my arm. The walkway widened at the end, allowing us to comfortably stand side by side. It also stopped short of the sphere, leaving a dark, empty drop.
We shared a nervous glance before a voice spoke from inside the strange prison.
“I’ve waited a long time for you to return, Smith.”
The voice was silky smooth—the words caressed my eardrums, and for a moment I felt sympathy for the speaker’s plight. That feeling vanished so suddenly that I thought I might have imagined it.
“Such behaviour won’t be tolerated,” Ivy said.
She sounded deadly serious, and though her necklace glowed dimly, it seemed bright in the dark cavern.
“Bring your pet to heal if you wish to converse.”
The earlier smoothness vanished from the voice. It was the same voice, and yet where the first words had sounded melodious—they now sounded menacing.
“He attempted to glamour you with his words,” Ivy told me, and then she turned back to the cage. “Why wouldn’t you treat with Sirean Silver Mantle?”
“Many reasons, little fae,” the voice said. “The first being… I hate her. I will hate her to my last breath and beyond. I hate the silver dragon most of all—not counting you, of course, Smith.”
I studied the metal sphere with my eyes and my sixth sense. It was mostly solid except for the dark hole from which the voice came, and was filled with a complex mechanism. The enchantments throughout were impossibly intricate, and I didn’t have the slightest clue how most of them worked.
“If you hate him so much,” Ivy continued, “why did you insist that Jakalain travel here?”
