The City Under the Mountain (The Seven Signs Book 4)

by D. W. Hawkins

  Dormael turned his attention on the table. “I wonder what function it served.”

  “Seems an awful lot of trouble for religious services.” D’Jenn let one of his rare, interested smiles crack his face. “Whatever magics were written into this table, they obviously served a purpose. This room is the first one beneath the control room above. Maybe this was meant as a briefing room—”

  “Like the War Room at the Conlave,” Dormael said.

  “Aye.” D’Jenn nodded. “It could be that the mask is just a standard. I wish I had read more on old religions before being Coined as an outlaw. If nothing else, I’ll miss the Archive.”

  Just like that, they were off. Sometimes the two of them could go on for an eternity about the most boring things. Bethany loved to hear stories about old battles and the history of magic, but whenever her father and D’Jenn got to bandying about technical aspects of this-or-that dusty something-or-other, Bethany found her mind wandering.

  Didn’t want to come down here in the first place. The shadows in the corners of the room beckoned with menace. Bethany tried to ignore them.

  Did it follow me down here? Does it have more power in the dark?

  Bethany forced herself to stare into one of the darkened corners, the farthest from where her friends were standing. The room was shaped like a giant rectangle, with three rows of stone benches sticking up from the floor. The platform with the strange mask stood at the head of the room, between the corridors leading in and out. Complicated, twisting designs were carved into the walls and along the base of the floor, creating an eye-blurring effect that tugged at Bethany’s magic.

  Shadows cast by the two magical lights pooled in the farthest corner. Bethany stared into them, daring the darkness to come out and say hello. She knew the thing was in there—she had seen it from the corner of her eye. She couldn’t pry it out from the darkness, but she could feel its presence there. Her jaw hurt as she ground her teeth.

  “What are you staring at, little girl?” Shawna stepped up behind her.

  “Nothing.” Bethany shrugged. “I just don’t like it down here.”

  “Are you alright? You’ve been acting strange lately.”

  “I haven’t been acting strange.” Shawna must have noticed something. Had she seen the girl in her shadow?

  Does she know, somehow?

  “No?” Shawna sniffed. “Bethany, you know I sleep within arms reach of you. I’ve heard you whimpering in your sleep. Whispering under your blankets, too.”

  “I wasn’t doing that.” Bethany scowled at the corner as her voice shook.

  “Your father’s heard it,” Shawna said. “He’s mentioned it to me, you know. He’s worried about you.”

  Bethany felt a spike of anger. Why was everyone always asking her so many questions? She thought about what Shawna said—your father’s heard it, he’s mentioned it to me. Now that Shawna was kissing Dormael every night, she felt like she could come and tell Bethany what to do.

  “I wasn’t doing any of those things.” Bethany raised her chin. She tried to mimic D’Jenn’s icy scowl. “And I wasn’t scowling at the shadows. I was listening with my Kai.”

  “Oh?” Shawna raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  “That’s right.” Bethany drew herself up. “I’m trying to figure it out.”

  “Figure what out?”

  “I don’t know.” Bethany huffed a frustrated breath turned to walk away. “I just want out of this place.”

  She retreated to the other end of the room, pretending to look at the designs in the wall. She felt Shawna’s eyes on her while Dormael and D’Jenn argued about the use for the table. Bethany took a deep breath and let it out, trying to banish the anxiety in her chest.

  Her eyes darted into every corner, raised whenever one of the floating lights shifted. She kept track of her own shadow, watching for any signs of mischief. None presented themselves, but she still didn’t trust it.

  Once Dormael and D’Jenn were satisfied, they called her to follow them deeper into the complex. Bethany went, though she made her feelings known by stomping her feet. No one noticed.

  The corridor leading down was much the same as the others. It was circular, with a thick vein of curved stone running down the center of the ceiling. It made Bethany think of the inside of a fearsome creature, as if they were walking down its long, curved throat. Perhaps they’d find other people who had been eaten at the bottom of the tunnel.

  “The spell is active beyond here,” Dormael said, breaking a long silence. “We’ll get to see it in action.”

  Allen grumbled something under his breath. “That’s not as exciting as you make it sound.”

  “Let’s keep on our guard,” D’Jenn said. “Nobody touch anything—that goes for your magic, too, little one.”

  Bethany nodded. “Alright.”

  Despite the warning, Bethany opened her Kai and listened as they descended. The tunnel spiraled toward the center of the mountain, bringing them closer to the hum resonating through Bethany’s Kai. It sounded like the dying note of a distant bell had been frozen and hidden underwater. Bethany took hold of Dormael’s belt and closed her eyes, allowing herself to be led as she focused on the distant sound with her Kai.

  It almost feels like a—

  Bethany ran face-first into Dormael’s back as he stopped, tripping. She brushed herself off and scowled up at him, but he was staring into the room beyond the corridor. Bethany turned to get a look for herself.

  There was a pathway in the chamber beyond the tunnel, polished flat and cut with more of the glyphs they’d seen above. Some of the symbols were emitting a low, pleasant light, illuminating the borders of the path in glowing, complex lines. Another source of light was flickering from somewhere above, showing Bethany flashes of the room beyond.

  Dormael cleared his throat. “I can’t sense anything dangerous.”

  “Doesn’t mean it’s not there,” D’Jenn said.

  “How would you know?” Allen smirked at D’Jenn. “You couldn’t even figure out how to open the door.”

  “True.” Shawna gave them a wide grin. “I did that.”

  “I’m sure the gods marked it down in their book, if they have one.” D’Jenn peered into the room ahead. “Let’s go.”

  “Stay close, little one.” Dormael squeezed Bethany’s shoulder. “Let’s go have a look.”

  Bethany followed him through the circular portal and into the chamber, being careful not to step on one of the symbols. She looked to the ceiling, to the source of the flickering light, and found another set of glyphs overhead—a complex design stretching from one end of the room to the other. Energy flashed through them, making them burn to life before sputtering out. Each flicker touched her Kai with silver fingers, tickling her senses.

  It made her nose itch.

  The pathway was wide enough for everyone to walk shoulder-to-shoulder, though Allen and Shawna kept behind Dormael and D’Jenn. Bethany was dragged along between the four of them, Dormael’s hand wrapped in the shoulder of her cloak. She tapped on his hand, prompting him to let go. He ruffled her head as he did, not even bothering to look down.

  “Stay close,” he said, peering at their surroundings.

  “Don’t worry.” She patted him on the side to reassure him—sometimes he needed that—and rearranged her hair. She hated when it fell into her eyes.

  The chamber was huge. The flickering glyph-lights were far overhead, and the size of the symbol, along with its eye-twisting design, made it difficult to tell if the ceiling was flat or curved. Bethany squinted at it for a few moments, but couldn’t decide which.

  The best thing about the chamber, though, was the buildings.

  Bethany once had a dream about rats building their own little cities inside the walls of human cities. In the dream, there had been a rat king and queen, and little rat knights holding rat-sized swords. She couldn’t remember much about the specifics, but if rats were the size of people and could build cities underground, she thoug
ht it might look something like this.

  Well, maybe not like this. Rats were dirty, after all. They didn’t have the fingers to carve those fancy designs.

  Four structures sat in the giant chamber, at least as far as Bethany could see. The buildings were square, with sharp corners and windows arranged in neat lines. The doors were circular—like all of them so far—but were larger than the ones connecting to the tunnels above. The walls were made of seamless rock, as if the structures had grown from the surrounding stone, or been carved out from the inside. Through the open doorways, Bethany could see only shadows.

  She avoided looking into them.

  In the center of the chamber stood a large pair of statues. They were so lifelike, so smooth and detailed, that Bethany expected the figures to turn and begin speaking. Bethany smiled for the first time since coming inside.

  The statues were a man and woman standing together, each with a single arm wrapped around the other. It struck Bethany as a loving sort of embrace, the way a man might stand with his wife. They held each other so close that the folds of their simple robes wrinkled against the hug. The two of them were staring off in separate directions, each with a blank, resolute expression. The man held some kind of rod in his other hand—maybe a scepter, like a priest would carry. The woman clutched a sword.

  “Male and female,” D’Jenn said, “like the mask upstairs.”

  “There weren’t any stairs.” Allen stared at the statues.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “A scepter and a sword.” Dormael touched the base of the statue. “What did this mean to them? Was it a god-figure, or just something important in their mythology? Who were these people?”

  Bethany sighed and ventured away, retreating from the inevitable back-and-forth. She gazed at the faces of the statues. Their expressions were determined, as if they faced all the world and only had each other. Something about that made Bethany smile.

  The man’s robe was whole and neat, and carved to look as if it was caught in a breeze. The woman’s clothing was similar, but tattered and wild, as if she had crawled from a pile of burning rubble. Even standing at a distance, Bethany could make out details in the woman’s hair, strands blown across her face and under her jaw. It seemed that any moment, the two of them would step down from the dais and demand to know why they were all staring like idiots.

  The jingling of metal announced her uncle’s approach before he spoke. Bethany could always tell who was behind her. She had learned the importance of that long ago.

  Allen nudged Bethany’s shoulder. “What do you think he’s saying?”

  “The statue?”

  “Aye.” Allen peered at the male’s face. “What do you think about him?”

  Bethany turned her attention on the figure. “He looks ready. He knows the end is coming, but he’s ready for it.”

  “What an odd thing for a young girl to think.” Allen patted her on the back—a little too hard, but he always did it like that. “What do you mean by “the end”?

  “I don’t know.” She opened her mouth, but hesitated. “It’s just his expression, the way he’s holding her.”

  “If I found one like that, I’d hold on to her, too.”

  Bethany punched him in the thigh. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “How do you know what I meant?”

  “I’m not stupid,” she said. “You’re the one who told me about the Kissing Disease. You’ve all got it, though. Well, except D’Jenn. I don’t think he’s as bad.”

  Allen snickered. “Can’t get anything past you, Dread Queen of the What’s-not-and-Somethings.”

  “It’s Pirate-Queen, piss goblet!” She gave him a wicked grin. “Get it right next time.”

  There was a scandalized gasp from behind them. “Bethany!”

  Before Shawna could reach the third syllable of her name, Bethany bolted to the other side of the statue. Allen laughed as Shawna demanded to know what he’d been teaching her, and Bethany couldn’t help but smile. What would Shawna say if she knew about the knives?

  What does it matter, anyway? It’s not as if she’s my mother.

  Something painful shot through Bethany’s stomach, with guilt right on its heels. A part of her felt stupid for having the guilt at all—it was the truth, in the end. What gave Shawna the right to act that way, to demand obedience from her? Bethany set her jaw and scrambled up the dais and beneath the tattered dress of the female statue. She was able to grasp one of the blowing fragments of the woman’s robe and pull herself into the space beneath. Drawing her knees to her chin, she made herself as small as possible and ignored the calls from Shawna to come out. Everyone else was laughing.

  Bethany sighed and pushed herself deeper into the hollow, trying to keep her toes from poking out. She closed her eyes, trying to quiet the anger in her chest. Why was she so angry? The guilt returned, which only made her angrier.

  When Bethany opened her eyes, something was in the hollow with her.

  Every muscle in her body was filled with cold energy, but she couldn’t move. Her heart pounded the inside of her chest, making it hard to breathe. She knew she should cry out, run away, something—but she was pinned to the spot.

  Bethany couldn’t make out the shadow, not in the way she could see a person. It’s edges were hazy, like a thick fog, but she could tell it was there. The darkness under the tattered robe was congealed where it sat, as if the shadow was made from misty oil puddled in the corner.

  Bethany opened her mouth but found her words frozen in her throat.

  The shadow moved, though Bethany couldn’t say how she knew. It emerged from the darkness like a lizard from a pool. Bethany’s heart sped up, but her arms stayed locked around her knees.

  No!

  The shadow unfurled like a spider, arms and legs reaching from its torso. It was just visible with Bethany’s Kai singing. With her heightened senses, she could see dust gathered on the stone, and she could see the shadow. It clutched to its corner of the hollow like an insect to the underside of a leaf.

  Bethany’s first instinct was to pull in her magic and lash out against the shadow. D’Jenn’s voice spoke in the back of her mind—what do you know about this thing?—and she stopped herself. If D’Jenn heard her draw in magic, he might punish her.

  Will he stop teaching you if he finds out about the shadow?

  Bethany wanted to scream, drop from the hollow, and run. Every muscle in her body wanted to flee. Her heart pumped like she was running a foot-race.

  The shadow reached out for her.

  Bethany dropped from the hollow, a shriek trapped in her throat. She scrambled across the dais, a cold feeling crawling up her back. She knew the shadow must be right behind her, she could feel its misty fingers reaching for her clothing.

  “Bethany?” Dormael raised his spear and ran toward her. “What's wrong?”

  Weapons scraped from their scabbards as the alarm spread. Bethany rushed over to stand behind Dormael, clutching the tail of his clothing. Everyone else appeared, glancing around with tense expressions. D’Jenn's Kai sang with menace, providing a melodic counterpoint to the anxiety in Dormael's magic.

  “What is it?” Shawna glanced around the chamber. “What happened?”

  “I —” Bethany started, but the words caught in her throat. “There was…under the statue—”

  Dormael moved as soon as the words were out of her mouth, casting a magical light beneath the tattered folds of the stone woman’s dress. There was nothing—nothing they could see—under the statue, which made everyone more nervous.

  Shawna furrowed her brow and gave Bethany a searching look. “What did you see, Bethany?”

  Everyone turned to look at Bethany, making her feel pinned to the spot. The pressure of their staring eyes froze the words in her throat. Bethany tried to speak but nothing would come out.

  If you tell them, they’ll think you’re crazy. D’Jenn will stop teaching you and everyone will look at you just like this. How stu
pid to be scared of your own shadow.

  But it wasn’t hers—was it?

  Bethany’s eyes went back to the space beneath the woman’s tattered dress, now bright with Dormael’s magic. She stared for a moment, unable to look away. Had the shadow stayed where it was, or had it followed her from the darkness?

  Is it behind me right now?

  Bethany took a deep breath. “I think I got startled. I think it was just me.”

  The intensity in Shawna’s expression didn’t waver. “Are you certain, little one?”

  “I’m certain.” Bethany let out another long breath. “I’m certain.”

  “It’s alright.” Allen walked over to put a hand on her shoulder. “You probably just saw me out of the corner of your eye and got spooked. I have that effect on people.”

  “Let’s talk about your effect on people.” Shawna turned a glare in his direction. “Piss goblet, was it? I can’t imagine where she heard such a thing.”

  Allen laughed. “Oh no—that one belongs to her. She cooked it up all on her own.”

  “You seem quite pleased with yourself.”

  “I’m proud of her.” Allen met Shawna’s indignant gaze with a smile. “She’s a quick learner.”

  Shawna made a disgusted noise and opened her mouth to reply, but D’Jenn approached and put an end to the argument.

  “You can have this conversation another time,” he said. “We should find a place to rest before going deeper. One of these buildings should do.”

  Dormael nodded. “We can ward the entrance. Sleep with walls around us for a change.”

  Bethany wasn’t sure she agreed. Walls meant corners, where shadows could gather. Her eyes flashed to the space beneath the statue.

  Where did it go?

  “We’re all exhausted,” D’Jenn said. “Jumping at shadows and feeling irritable. Rest would do us all some good. There are complicated magics down here, and we can’t afford mistakes.”

  Bethany kept to herself while the others searched the buildings. Inside, the cavernous structure was divided into separate rooms, complete with a pool at the rear of the complex. Shawna was happy to have found a place to bathe. Dormael and D’Jenn talked and talked about the pool—what it might have been used for, how it was built, who had the idea, and a thousand other things. Bethany stopped listening. Her thoughts were for the shadows.