The Eight Walls of Rogar: An Epic Fantasy Adventure Series! (The Lost Kingdoms of Laotswend Trilogy--Book One)

by Woodward, William

  The man in the burgundy robe whirled, looked straight into the keyhole, and headed for the door. “Who dares invade my study?” he rasped.

  Gaven felt his heart begin to race, fluttering and stumbling about like a bird with a broken wing, the rhythm becoming dangerously erratic. There was a sudden pressure on his chest, stealing his breath. He tried with all his will to break eye contact, but could not. Just before the man reached the door, the image shifted and Gaven fell back.

  “What happened?” Andaris asked, helping him to sit up.

  “I saw someone,” Gaven wheezed, “and he saw me, too. I don’t know who he was, but…. Oh wait. Yes I do! It was the man from the painting, Andaris. The one in the burgundy robe. Except…instead of young he…he was ancient.”

  “But how’s that possible? How could he still be alive?”

  Gaven rubbed his aching chest, feeling like he’d been trading hits with a troll. ”I don’t know, but I know I don’t want to see him again. I swear he could have killed me, would have killed me, if the image hadn’t shifted. Just a few more seconds and….”

  “And you’re sure it was him?”

  “As sure as I’m sitting here, talking to you. I could tell by the eyes. The flesh was withered, but the eyes…they were the same.”

  Andaris peered down the hall in the direction of the portrait. “I wonder who he is? Or was? Can these doorways travel through time, as well?”

  “I’d just as soon never find out who he is, was, or will be. There are dark deeds behind this. Mark my words.”

  “So what now?” asked Andaris. “Do we keep trying to use it, or do we move on?”

  “I’m not sure,” Gaven replied. “Even if we can figure out how it operates, I’m not sure it’s worth the risk. I could try picking the lock, but as far as I can tell there’s no mechanism in there. Could be some combination that involves touching these symbols in a certain order. Could be a word or phrase that has to be uttered in just the right way.” He grimaced. “Could be almost anything.”

  “See if something happens when you touch that,” Andaris said, pointing to the center of the door, into which was carved one large rune encircled by four rings of smaller runes.

  Skeptical, Gaven nodded and laid his palm against the center rune, first with his fingers apart and then together. “I kind of doubt this—”

  A light jingling filled the air and, with a flash of blue light, the area within the first circle lit.

  “How’d you do that?” Andaris asked.

  Gaven shook his head, looking at his palm as though he’d never seen it before.

  The second circle lit.

  Gaven turned to Andaris with wide eyes. “What if I didn’t? What if it’s him?”

  The third circle lit.

  Andaris glanced down the hall, ready to bolt.

  “No,” Gaven said. “I don’t think that would do any good. If it’s him, he’d catch us before we found our way back to the water. I’m sure of it.”

  The fourth circle lit.

  “Then what?” asked Andaris.

  “We could try wedging it shut,” replied Gaven, “but that would only work if it opens outward.”

  With a resounding chime, the glow spread beyond the fourth ring, burning off the dust and cobwebs as it went. By the sixth chime, the entire door glowed blue.

  “Come on!” Gaven cried. “Help me hold it!”

  Following the big man’s lead, Andaris put his hands against the door and pushed with all his might. A tingling sensation ran up his arms as, to his utter dismay, the surface of the door became insubstantial and began to swirl in a counterclockwise motion. He tried in vain to pull away. The swirling picked up speed, going faster and faster, drawing him in by inches. Within seconds, he could no longer see his elbows. And then, all at once, he was inside.

  Andaris found himself floating in blackness, suspended in a void absent of both light and sound. He opened his mouth to call for Gaven, but no words came out. He felt around with his arms, but found only air. Where am I? he wondered.

  He had the sense that he was moving forward. There was, however, no physical evidence to support this. For all he knew, he was hovering in place, caught between points in time and space. What if I stay like this forever? he thought. What if I’m dead and this is the afterlife? I don’t feel dead. Though how am I to know what it should feel like?

  Directly ahead of him, appeared a pinprick of light. As he watched, it grew larger. Either he was moving towards it, or it was moving towards him, he couldn’t say which. Soon he was close enough to see that it was a door, a blue door—its surface swirling in a clockwise motion. When he was within a hundred feet or so of the door, he began to pick up speed. He closed his eyes right before he hit and, “whoosh”, shot through and landed with a thud on the other side.

  When he opened his eyes, the side of his face was pressed against a green and gold striped rug. He sat up and looked back, but the door was gone. He was in a small room with cherrywood paneling. In the middle of the room was a large, four-posted bed, the drapes of which were pulled shut. The room looked very similar to the one they’d seen through the keyhole. There was a chest at the foot of the bed, a wardrobe, a table with an ivory-handled hairbrush on it, a mirror—all the same…yet different. What is it? he asked himself.

  Then he had it. The bedroom they’d seen through the keyhole had been covered in dust, and the drapes on the bed had been hanging in tatters. Same room, but different time, he realized. Does that mean I’ve arrived in Rogar years before the shapeling attack, or did the image beyond the keyhole show the future?

  He stood and walked to the foot of the bed. The first thing to do was to find out if he was in here alone, then try to determine where and when he was. Making as little noise as possible, he reached out and pulled open the drapes.

  Two eyes stared back at him—the button eyes of a child’s doll—a doll with blonde hair and a bright yellow dress. He let the drapes close, then whirled about as a seam of light appeared in the air to his right. The big man flew headfirst through this seam and landed in a heap on the green and gold striped rug. Gaven looked back. The opening, of course, had once again winked out of existence.

  Andaris helped him to his feet.

  Gaven nodded his thanks, walked to the door next to the wardrobe, and jerked it open.

  “Unbelievable!” he said.

  “What?” asked Andaris.

  Gaven shook his head and stepped to the side. Instead of a way out, the doorway led into a small closet with four shelves, atop which lay an assortment of clean, neatly folded sheets and blankets. “A closet,” Gaven said. “What in the blazes is going on here? This is the only door in the room. Unless….” He turned around, stomped back to where the seam of light had been, and ran his hands through the air. “Surely that wasn’t the only way into this place. There must be some hidden door or something. I mean…the lamp is still burning, and there’s steam rising from the water in that basin. Someone was just in here.”

  Andaris stepped into the closet and started knocking against the back wall. “Sounds solid to me,” he reported.

  Gaven pulled out his hunting knife and began tapping its hilt against the cherrywood paneling. “I’ll make my own door if I have to!” he yelled.

  Andaris opened the wardrobe, which was full of little girl dresses hanging on brass hooks, then walked to the chest. Gaven turned over the mattresses and started banging against the floorboards with his sword. Andaris kneeled before the chest, turned the golden key to the right, and pulled up the lid.

  “Find anything?” Gaven asked. “Cause if not, I swear…I’m about to start tearing this place apart!”

  “There’s a ladder,” Andaris said.

  “What?” Gaven asked.

  “A ladder,” Andaris repeated, “going straight down.”

  Gaven walked to the table, picked up the lamp, and brought it to the chest.

  Andaris moved out of his way.

  Gaven bent over and lower
ed the lamp into the hole. “It goes down ten feet or so,” he said, “to a cobblestone tunnel.”

  “So why would someone have their kid’s room off by itself like this?” asked Andaris.

  “Who knows,” Gaven replied. “Like I keep telling you, I don’t understand why people do half of what they do, and I don’t want to understand. Now here, hold this.”

  Andaris took the lamp from him. Gaven climbed into the hole. As soon as the big man had a good grip on the ladder, Andaris handed down the lamp.

  When Gaven reached the bottom he said, “It’s only a few feet long. There’s another ladder at the other end. Stay there while I check it out.”

  Andaris did as instructed, listening to Gaven’s fading footsteps, peering about with surprising trepidation as the room grew dark. There was something about the place that put him on edge—that made his teeth itch. A moment later, he heard the sound of a door being opened.

  “What do you see?” called Andaris.

  “It’s a trapdoor,” Gaven answered. “Be right back. I’m gonna climb up and have a look see.”

  Andaris heard the heels of Gaven’s boots clomping across a wooden floor. Then, from the other side of the wall, there came a loud knocking. “Can you hear me?” asked Gaven, his voice muffled.

  “Barely. But yes, I can hear you. What do you see?”

  “It’s someone’s house. The place is a mess. Looks like they left in a hurry. All the furniture and stuff is still here. Hold on while I take a look out the window.”

  Andaris heard him cross the floor, pause, and then come back.

  “I recognize the street below,” Gaven said, sounding excited. “We’re in Rogar proper, and only about a thirty minute jog from the keep!”

  “I’ll be right up!” Andaris shouted.

  “Do you need me to bring the light?” Gaven asked.

  “Just hang it down the opening,” Andaris answered.

  “On my way,” said Gaven.

  Feeling a flutter of relief, Andaris climbed into the hole, stepped onto the ladder, and began to climb down. By the time he was halfway to the tunnel floor, Gaven was at the other end of the tunnel with the lamp. When he reached the floor, the lid of the chest slammed shut. He heard it lock, and then what sounded like child’s laughter coming from the other side.

  “Who’s up there?” he called.

  “Who are you talking to?” asked Gaven.

  “I heard someone,” said Andaris. “Someone shut the chest and started laughing. It sounds like…a little girl.”

  “There was no one in there, Andaris. If there’s someone in there now, they either entered the same way we did…or they’re a ghost. Either way, I’d say we need to keep moving.”

  “But what if there’s another hidden door?” Andaris asked. “What about the lamp and the water?”

  “Even if there is,” said Gaven, “we can’t take the chance. You called out and no one answered. You think some abandoned little girl would sit up there by herself, giggling in the dark?”

  Andaris looked at the closed lid, felt the hair rise on the back of his neck, and hurried to the other end of the tunnel. “I felt someone watching me,” he told Gaven as he climbed out. “Through one of the cracks in the lid.”

  Gaven helped him up.

  “Thanks,” Andaris said.

  Child’s laughter echoed down the tunnel.

  They looked into the hole, looked at each other, and rushed out the front door into the street.

  About half an hour later, to the high ringing of trumpets, they jogged into the courtyard, coming to a stop in the shadow of the inner wall.

  Gaven turned to Andaris. “You don’t have to fight,” he told him. “This isn’t your home. No need to prove anything to me. I know you’re not a coward.”

  Andaris peered up at the line of men standing resolute on the wall, felt his blood surge with each trumpet blast, and then gave Gaven a grin.

  The big man grinned back and, together, they ran up the steps to join in the fray.

  As they neared the top, they heard the clashing of weapons and harsh, angry shouts of men locked in combat. When they bounded up the last step, they stopped and stared, struck by the desperateness of what they saw. A thin line of determined soldiers was all that stood between the Lost One and the fertile, open countryside to the east. Gaven and Andaris ran to the center of the wall, to where the fighting was most intense.

  Gaven stabbed an antler-headed creature through the throat an instant before its rusted axe would have hacked into Andaris’ waist. “Stay behind me!” he yelled. “I don’t want you dying up here!” The next shapeling in line approached with more caution, walking with an awkward, shuffling kind of gait. It was nine feet tall if it was an inch, wearing a leather tunic over thick red fur, the sides of which had been ripped apart to accommodate its bulk.

  The fiend probably took it off some poor farmer, Andaris thought.

  Gaven brought his sword vertical and assumed a defensive stance.

  The shapeling’s blocky mouth opened wider than should have been possible, revealing row after row of jagged teeth.

  “Come on!” Gaven yelled.

  The shapeling raised its spiked club and snarled. Gaven took a step forward and slashed his sword through the air. The shapeling swung the club across its body, from top right to bottom left. Gaven parried the swing, dancing nimbly to the side. The shapeling lunged past Gaven and went for Andaris. Andaris brought his sword up just as its club was descending. The force of the blow drove him to the ground, the flat of his own blade smacking hard against his forehead. He rolled to the side, jumped to his feet…and then was swallowed by darkness.

  When Andaris regained consciousness, he was lying on his back in a narrow cot made of canvas and wood. The square had been converted into a makeshift hospital, complete with doctors, nurses, and row after row of cots. Andaris stared at all the wounded and dying lying around him. His eyes passed over most of them without expression, then widened slightly as they caught on a familiar face. At first he couldn’t recall who the man was, then realized it was one of the soldiers who had ridden near him and Gaven during the journey from Sokerra to Rogar. He had been so exuberant, so full of life, that now he scarcely recognized him. The eyes that stared unblinking from beneath the layers of fresh bandages were haunted, the eyes of a man who’d seen too much. Andaris turned away, looking to the sky for solace, but it was as gray and dismal as everything else. Feeling a sudden weariness, he closed his eyes and drifted off.

  When next he woke, a large woman with a round face was leaning over him, tending to some claw marks on his arm. She had a kindly way about her—a maternal touch. She smiled when she saw that he was awake.

  “Name’s Molly,” she said. “That’s a pretty bump on your head.”

  Her words reminded his head to start pounding. “How long have I been asleep?” he asked, wincing as he felt of the welt above his eyes.

  “That big boulder of a man carried you down here about three hours ago,” she told him.

  “How was he?” he asked, halfway sitting up. “Was he all right?”

  “That one?” she said with a laugh. “Of all the men on the wall I think that one can take care of himself.”

  “So…he wasn’t injured?”

  She patted his arm. “No, not that I saw, dear. A bit tattered about the edges perhaps, but not injured. As far as I know, he’s up there still.”

  Andaris lay back and sighed. Once again, Gaven had saved him. He’d have to start returning the favor. The count was getting lopsided.

  “Oh my, I almost forgot,” the woman told him, putting her hand over her mouth. “I swear, my husband says my head would fall right off if it weren’t screwed on so tight, and sometimes I think he’s right. Rodan bless him, the old rascal. Well anyway, now what was I saying…oh yes, there was a man here to see you while you were unconscious.”

  “And?” Andaris asked, trying to be patient.

  “And,” she repeated in a confidential to
ne, “he was an odd one, he was. Nice enough fellow, but blind as a bat. Now what did he say his name was? Arzel, Akel, something like that.

  “Ashel?” asked Andaris, instantly alert.

  She patted his arm. “Yes, that’s right, dear. So you do know him. Good. He only arrived a couple of hours ago, he and his dog. I asked him if he wanted me to wake you. He said yes, but that I ought to let you sleep anyway, then he smiled and looked at me with those big blind eyes of his and walked away. He was a strange one all right. Eyes looked like two hard-boiled eggs. Why I—“

  “Did he say where I could find him?” Andaris interrupted.

  She nodded eagerly. “Said he would be with Princess Trilla of all people. Sounds like a good person to know if you ask me.”

  Andaris thanked her for her help and, despite a slight ringing in his ears, stood up to go tell Gaven the news. Halfway to the steps, however, he became so dizzy that he had to turn around and go back to his cot. He felt nauseated, tasting that dreaded sour tang in the back of his throat. Don’t throw up, he thought. Don’t throw up. Of course about thirty seconds later, he threw up.

  “My goodness,” Molly said, “what a mess. You poor dear. Now just lie back and I’ll clean this up.”

  “Please,” Andaris said, “would you send someone to go fetch Gaven, the man who carried me down here? Tell him it’s urgent. Tell him it’s about Ashel. Tell him….” And then once again, he was out.

  Next thing Andaris knew, a hand on his shoulder was shaking him awake.

  “Andaris. It’s me, Gaven.”

  He opened his eyes to find Gaven leaning over him with a concerned look on his face.

  “She said it was urgent, something about someone named Arzel?”

  Andaris sat up and took a deep breath. “I think you better sit down.”

  Gaven’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure you’re all right, Andaris? That bump looks pretty nasty.”

  “Not Arzel,” he corrected. “Ashel. Molly, the woman who tended my wounds said a blind man going by the name of Ashel inquired about my condition while I was unconscious. He told her to tell me he’d be with Trilla.”