by David Gross
He searched briefly for a sliding panel that might reveal a peephole. There were many such devices in his Stormweather, some of which had proven quite useful in spying on those who awaited his arrival before a trade meeting. Thamalon felt utterly no guilt in the subterfuge, which he assumed his competitors also employed. To his way of thinking, anyone so foolish as to discuss trade secrets in his rival’s home deserved what he got.
Unfortunately, Thamalon had found precious few spy holes in the monstrous reflection of Stormweather Towers. Perhaps they were simply impractical in walls more often constructed of granite than of wood. Or maybe, Thamalon thought, the Sorcerer had other means of spying on his guests.
Thamalon felt exposed. He wondered whether the Sorcerer was even then observing his guest’s ostensibly clandestine explorations.
He put his faith in the hope that the Sorcerer’s resumption of his hunt would keep him sufficiently distracted throughout the afternoon. The man had already brought down two of the great skwalos, but Thamalon’s dwarf friends had told him to expect no fewer than six catches before the Sorcerer gave up his slaughter. If catching them was as demanding as the contest Thamalon had witnessed the night before, he felt reasonably sure the distraction would prevent the Sorcerer from scrying through a basin like the one Lady Malaika used to observe his hunting.
Satisfied that the room beyond was unoccupied, Thamalon raised the brass latch and eased the door open a few inches. The room was bare of furnishings, and Thamalon realized it was a continuance of the secret corridors of Castle Stormweather. Inside he found two more latched doorways and a spiral staircase descending below the ground floor.
At last, Thamalon thought.
He’d been hunting for a passage down to the wine cellars, and to the chamber below.
The Ineffable Vault.
He’d not yet decided what to do when he reached the forbidden chamber. He’d questioned Lady Malaika on its function, but she claimed to know its powers only because the Sorcerer had told her of them long ago, when they were young and shared all their secrets. She had no first-hand knowledge, and no further advice except to caution Thamalon against detection.
That was superfluous advice.
The stairs led to another chamber on what Thamalon judged must be the level of the cellars. The Vault was at least another twenty feet down, yet the stairs descended no farther. He found another door, listened for voices, and carefully went through.
Thus he continued through the cellar level of the castle until at last he heard the sound of human voices.
Screaming.
His first instinct was to retreat. After his initial panic, Thamalon realized that there were other kinds of places traditionally lodged underground. Aside from treasure vaults and wine cellars, after all, there were dungeons.
The Stormweather in which he’d grown up had included such a place. Its six cold cells were reserved for drunks and brawlers among his father’s guard. Thamalon smiled at the memory of his own brother’s brief incarceration in the dungeon. Perivel had staggered down to the prison to impress a couple of wenches he’d lured home. The big man was drunker than he realized, for the doxies locked him into one of the cells and demanded he pay bail to be released. Once he handed over the last of his coin, the women blew him a pair of kisses before running back out to spend their new bounty. Luckily for Perivel, Thamalon had been the first to hear his hoarse bellowing the following evening. Had their father discovered how easily his eldest son had allowed himself to be tricked, he might have left him in the cell for another tenday.
When Thamalon rebuilt Stormweather Towers years after the rest of the Old Chauncel razed the original, he saw no reason to restore the dungeon. Any offense worthy of confinement called for dismissal, in his opinion. Anything less could be left to the discretion of the captain of the guard.
Thamalon never thought his father cruel for using the cells—his dungeon was simply a prison. No one ever suffered more than mild privation and bland food in the dungeons of Stormweather Towers.
Not so in the castle.
The sounds Thamalon heard through the walls were a melody of pain. The staccato cracks that punctuated the screams could be only the rhythm of the lash. Thamalon had heard such sounds before, in public punishments for crimes of property and contract. Witnessing those that crossed on Uskevren business was his repellent duty. Unlike some of his peers, he had never developed a taste for human suffering, however deserved.
Revulsion wrestled with his curiosity. As was becoming typical for him, wonder prevailed. Thamalon moved slowly toward the horrid sounds.
He came to an alcove much like an opera box with four chairs situated on steps before three shuttered windows. The sounds of torture came from beyond the louvered panels.
Thamalon tried to swallow away the disgusting taste that came to his mouth as he considered the implications of the viewing box.
He knew he should leave immediately, but he felt the compulsion of one who passes a horrible spectacle in the street and cannot resist turning to watch it. Thamalon lifted one band of the shutters just enough for a peek into the yawning maw of the Abyss.
The Sorcerer’s dungeon was the size of Talbot’s playhouse. Like the Wide Realms, it was a circular structure with stepped rings descending to a central platform. Dozens of cells surrounded the theater in stacks five high. Inside more than half of them lay dirty, naked humans and elves. Five or six more prisoners hung limply in spiked cages dangling from the ceiling.
The torturers were brawny men wearing red cowls over their heads. They moved methodically among the screams, like battlefield surgeons undaunted by the chaos around them. One drew the lash over the red back of an elf chained to a bloody frame. Another pressed a glowing brand shaped like a lightning bolt into the armpit of another big man—perhaps a recalcitrant member of the Vermilion Guard. Two more turned the wheels on a rack that stretched an elf until his shoulders popped out of their sockets. The elf didn’t move or speak. Thamalon guessed he was already dead.
He closed the shutter.
Perhaps there were more clues to be gleaned by spying on the place, but Thamalon could bear to see no more of it. He endorsed discipline and punishment, but this was wicked work.
The nasty taste in his mouth had trickled into his stomach. He felt queasy for a moment, then suddenly much better. Whatever guilt he’d felt about betraying the Sorcerer’s hospitality had evaporated. All that remained was a fierce desire to escape that infernal place and return home. If that meant harming the Sorcerer by opening his precious vault, then that was only added value.
CHAPTER 21
BETWEEN THE WALLS
The hairs on the back of Tamlin’s neck stood up as straight and as hard as sewing needles. He turned around to see nothing behind him but the bare wall that concealed the secret door to the cellars. Even so, he felt the strong sensation that something was coming through that passage, toward him.
The sound of picks and hammers on the stone floor resounded in the cool chamber. He briefly considered ordering the workmen to pause in their labor, but his desire to see what they would find beneath the foundation was too great. Already they’d uncovered an arc of granite stones that formed a partial archway. Inside the frame they formed, a weird blue stone plugged the gap that should have provided a passage.
He didn’t know what it was, but Tamlin knew as sure as the stars shone on a clear night that the uncovered artifact was a clue to his parents’ disappearance. He would do nothing to delay its excavation.
“Put your backs into it, men.”
Tamlin smiled in what he hoped was a beneficent manner as his men glanced up at their master. They hadn’t understood his insistence about digging up the floor, and they understood even less what they saw there.
“Tamlin?” called a voice from behind him.
Tamlin turned, but there was nothing there but the wall—and the unseen secret door within it.
“Wait,” said Tamlin. “Stop digging. Listen.”
The hammering subsided, and the voice called again.
“Tamlin? Is that you?”
The voice sounded exactly like his father’s, and it was definitely coming from behind the door.
“Talbot?” Tamlin called. “Is that you in there?”
His brother’s talent for mimicry had often amused Tamlin, even before it played a role in rescuing him from the kidnappers. Under the present circumstances, however, it was a jest in very poor taste.
“No,” replied the voice, this time more assured, as if the speaker had been initially dubious of Tamlin’s identity, “it is your father. Where are you?”
Tamlin paused before answering, “I’m in your favorite room of the house.”
Talbot would probably know the answer to his brother’s simple test, but an outsider posing as his father would not.
“The wine cellar,” he said. “Good!”
“Father! Where in the Nine Hells are you? I can barely hear you.”
“Within the walls,” he said.
“Wait,” said Tamlin. “I’ll follow your voice. You sound like you’re in … You men, go up the stairs and tell Vox to double the guard, then come back here and resume the dig.”
After the workmen had gone, Tamlin slipped through the hidden door and called, “All right, I’m in the secret passage. Where are you?”
They called back and forth, each seeking the source of the other’s voice. Thamalon heard his father’s voice more clearly, but no matter where he went, he remained alone in the secret passages.
“I think this is as close as we can come,” said Thamalon.
“I still can’t see you.”
“Well,” said Thamalon., “I think I know the reason for that.”
They exchanged their stories of the days since Thamalon disappeared from the library. Tamlin was both astonished and relieved to hear of his father’s transportation to another world, and Thamalon’s voice turned cold and hard after Tamlin reported that Shamur and Cale had also vanished.
“Let us save the details for later,” said Thamalon. “For now, the most important thing is keeping you and your siblings safe. The first thing you must do is to have yourself appointed as head of the family. I realize you may not feel entirely comfor—”
“Already done,” said Tamlin.
“What? You mean you had me declared dead?”
“Weren’t you just proposing I do exactly that?”
“Well, yes, naturally. I just didn’t expect …” The idea that Tamlin had done something before being told to do so was slow to sink in. “What I mean, son, is well done.”
“Thanks,” said Tamlin, sounding more perfunctory than grateful. He was grateful for the praise, and normally he would have beamed and crowed about it, but this was a time for business. “Unfortunately, I’m having a beggar of a time decoding those secret letters of yours. I understand that you have been rallying other families in a concerted action, but I can’t for my life figure out whether it’s to establish a new trade consortium or an attempt to marginalize our worse rivals among the Old Chauncel.”
Thamalon didn’t respond for so long that Tamlin began to think their line of communication had broken.
“Father? Are you all right?”
“That was some good work, Tamlin. Now, if you compare the letters more closely, you should note the progression of dessert items actually spells out …”
“I had only the one letter, Father. The others were stolen.”
Again, Thamalon paused before answering, though Tamlin suspected he was less surprised at his son’s competence than at the ramifications of the theft.
“That means one of our enemies got into Stormweather.”
“Or else he was already here,” suggested Tamlin. “I have identified a likely traitor among the staff. Unfortunately, he escaped with the remaining letter before we could question him.”
Thamalon sighed and said, “Then it’s good you didn’t finish decoding the letter after all. Perhaps the stolen letters will tell our enemies nothing.”
“He also stole your cipher sheet and my notes on decrypting it.”
“Blast,” said Thamalon. “That makes it much worse.”
“Naturally,” said Tamlin, “all this would have been much easier if you’d taken me into your confidence before they got to you.”
He immediately regretted the petulant words. They were useless and childish. Before Thamalon could chide him or even apologize, though, Tamlin spared him.
“I must admit, I don’t blame you for that. I have been a bit of a gadabout, I know. Once we get you safely home, I promise I’ll be of more help.”
“Never mind that for now,” said Thamalon. “Beware the Hulorn. He must have learned at least something of our designs.”
“You meant to circumvent him on some approaching issue?”
“No,” said Thamalon. “We mean to remove him entirely.”
Tamlin whistled and said, “That is … rather a bold endeavor, wouldn’t you say? Even if the other families do not agree with him, everyone wants a figurehead through which to advance their concerns and thwart those of their rivals.”
“Agreed,” said Thamalon, “but removing this Hulorn is necessary.”
Tamlin had never really discussed Andeth Ilchammar with Thamalon, but he knew of his father’s disdain for the eccentric lord mayor of Selgaunt. Tamlin had always found the man amusing, if not truly admirable among noble society.
“For far too long,” Thamalon added, “Ilchammar’s caprice has been an impediment to the prosperity of Selgaunt. Most do not know it, but he still nurtures the blackguard who nearly put us to war with the Tangled Trees last year.”
“That wizard who offered to buy my half-sister from you last year?”
“Drakkar,” agreed Thamalon—then a beat later, he blurted, “Half-sister?”
Tamlin suppressed a chuckle. He enjoyed letting the Old Owl know he had learned a secret or two in his father’s absence. In other circumstances, he might enjoy watching him wriggle a while longer before letting him off the hook, but there would be time for that later.
“Four of your correspondents have been murdered since you vanished,” said Tamlin, returning to business. “Stellana Toemalar was the latest.”
“All the more reason to guard yourselves,” said Thamalon.
“We’ll be better prepared with you returned home,” said Tamlin. “This vault of yours must be similar to what we’re unearthing in the cellar. They must be two sides of a magical gateway.”
“But who put it there?” countered Thamalon. “If it’s buried beneath the cellar, it had to have been there since before you were born. How could our enemies have possibly placed it there?”
“You built the house on the site of the original Stormweather,” offered Tamlin.
“What are you getting at?”
“Since magic was obviously involved in your disappearance, I’ve been doing a little reading,” said Tamlin. He wasn’t yet ready to admit that he’d hoped to prove he himself had sorcerous powers. The thought seemed almost too fanciful to repeat. “I wonder about your father’s sudden display of magical power when your foes brought down the first Stormweather. What other secrets might old Aldimar have kept from you?”
“He was using wands,” said Thamalon. “He never showed any other ability to hurl spells.”
“Still, to employ such things well requires some knowledge or inherent power. Where did Aldimar get his?”
“Hmm,” considered Thamalon. “Perhaps the gold I spent on your tutors was not entirely wasted.”
“Not all of it,” agreed Tamlin. “Once we’ve finished unearthing this gate, I will have Magdon figure out how to activate the thing.”
“In the meantime,” said Thamalon, “I must find your mother and Cale.”
“No,” said Tamlin, “first we’ll get you back here, then we’ll look for them together.”
“You might be the temporary head of the household, but I am still your father, a
nd I say …” Thamalon’s voice was building to the familiar crescendo of irrefutable orders before it trailed off uncharacteristically. “Well, dark and damnation. I say you are right.”
“What?” said Tamlin.
“I said, ‘You are right.’ ”
“Careful,” said Tamlin, “if we keep agreeing people will think we’re both imposters.”
“By the same coin, you must promise me that you will place the safety of the household above my rescue.”
“Very well, but—”
“Including your brother’s.”
“Now you’re just trying to vex me …” said Tamlin, “but I agree. I shall see to Stormweather first. It’s settled then. Can you stay safely where you are?”
“Not for long, I fear,” said Thamalon, “but perhaps I can return. My host should be back from his hunt soon. I-expect he’ll go out again in the morning.”
“Judging from what you’ve told me, you’ve been away for only eight days?”
Thamalon agreed it was so.
“Fourteen have passed here since you vanished.”
It was Thamalon’s turn to whistle appreciatively.
“Why could you never pay such careful attention during our trade conferences?” he asked.
“Such dull stuff, don’t you know,” said Tamlin. “Actually,” he continued in a more serious tone, “I suspect I have a knack for this magic business after all.”
“As well you might,” said a third voice—a voice that sounded very much like Tamlin’s, “but I am not prepared to relinquish my legacy just yet.”
The passage shook, and Tamlin almost fell to the floor. He held onto the wall for support as thunder rolled through the secret passage. A flash of white light blinded him for an instant, and he heard his father shout a curse that disintegrated into a scream of agony.
“Father! What’s happening there? I just saw—”
“You were such a timid boy,” boomed the other Tamlin’s voice. “From your brother I might have expected such willful abuse of my hospitality, but from you, Thamalon, you bookworm, you coin counter—” the man’s laughter was full of mock admiration—“I expected much less.”
