Once he was out of her way, busy with his own misfortunes, she could concentrate her full energies on the King. He was the last obstacle in her path now, and Devon had just brought her the key to bringing him down as well. There was simply no conceivable way that she would not get what she wanted. The blood in the King's veins may be tainted and untrue, but hers was pure and royal, and she could see a path clearly now, bringing her straight to the throne.
CHAPTER 33
“What's the matter,” Gryffon asked her when Layna halted her movement behind him.
She hesitated before answering. “I have this disturbing, nightmarish feeling like I've been here before.”
Gryffon glanced around at the abandoned hallways. “These kinds of places can do that to you. Come on, don't worry about it.”
Layna couldn't shake the awful feeling that easily, but she resumed her motion regardless.
They moved through the narrow passageway, deeper into the depths of the castle. The castle reeked of musky fumes, and Layna found it difficult to breathe. The more Layna saw, the more convinced she was that it really was familiar.
They had to squeeze through one set of gates which someone had physically pried open, and the second set looked like it had been melted away. As they came to the end of the passageway and through a hulking metal door, they came out into a large open area.
Layna's throat tightened as she surveyed the room. Numerous torture devices – some of which she recognized as racks and feet smashers – filled the room, along with various shelves of heinous implements. The tools ranged from common knives with wicked serrated edges, to elaborate contraptions that someone with a truly sick mind must have thought up. There were also several weird-looking objects that she couldn't even begin to imagine a use for, and had no desire to try. It looked like some of the weaponry had been taken, as there were several empty holders, and Layna was sickened by the looters' greed. This apparent torture area was in a semi-circle shape and hallways spread out from it. By the looks of it, each hallway led to a section of holding cells.
Gryffon grabbed a set of keys that miraculously still hung on a peg, and led the way down the passageway to the right. The ceilings were claustrophobically low and Layna's mind kept playing tricks on her, making her think that she could hear someone moaning in the cells. The first couple that they passed were empty, but shackles lined their walls ominously and Layna was reminded of the cell she and Gryffon had both occupied recently. Even it seemed spacious and homey compared to these.
They made their way grimly and methodically down the passageways, and found that they were arranged like a wagon wheel around the central torture chamber. The original passageway they had come down was the only apparent way to the surface. Some of the cells held the ragged remains of their previous occupants. Most just had scattered bones, gnawed on by the rats that still skittered around, not at all made nervous by the light from the mage globes. Every time she met one of their beady little eyes, Layna shivered.
They searched the whole dungeon, and Layna forced herself to look into each of the cells for any clues. Other than the vile evidence of atrocities long past, she could see no sign of any runes or any indication that the mark on her neck corresponded to anything from the Dark King's castle.
They walked slowly along the final passageway and came out into the torture chamber once more. Gryffon stood there for a moment, biting his lip. “There has to be something that we're missing.” Layna felt that odd tug of familiarity again and looked back up the passageway they had just come down with the urge to go and look in the last cell once more. “That's it!” exclaimed Gryffon triumphantly. “Look here, there should be another passageway right here between the one we just came down and the doorway. Following the pattern of the rest there is plenty of room, so unless it's not there because something else is...” He started back down the passageway with Layna in tow. They came to the last cell that Layna had been wondering about, and Gryffon stepped inside. Layna winced, but followed. “Well, would you look at that,” Gryffon said.
Layna glanced from the wall he was staring at back at Gryffon. “What is it?”
“Doesn't this wall seem awfully well-preserved to you?” he asked. Layna took a closer look, and this time did notice that whilst the walls of the other cells had shown cracks and moss, this one looked as though it could have been built yesterday. Gryffon started running his hands along it, studying its surface for a lever or other means of entrance. He muttered to himself.
Layna walked to the far left corner and had a flash of déjà-vu. She glanced behind her, noting that from here it was impossible to see into any other cells. She reached up a hand to feel at the wall, and it passed straight through. “Gryffon,” she said shortly.
He looked up at her, and brightened at her discovery. “Well, what are you waiting for?” he asked her in a gently teasing tone. His cheeriness seemed so out of place.
She took a deep breath before sending her mage light through the illusion, and then stepped through the stone wall herself. She gasped as she passed through the other side, and hurriedly moved out of the way so that Gryffon could come through. To the left, where the last branch in the wagon wheel pattern that Gryffon had pointed out would have been, was a huge storage room, and it was filled to the brim. Obviously the looters had not thought to try walking through the cell walls. To the right was another hallway, this time lined with actual doors instead of cell bars. In an unspoken agreement, Gryffon and Layna took a left to look at the storage room before tackling the hallway. Layna could not believe her eyes as they scrutinized its contents.
It held piles of people's belongings: remnants of clothing, shoes, and jewelry. The piles were taller than Layna. She could only imagine how many people it would take to collect that many of any of those things. The room came to a point, and at the skinny end there was a large desk which held an open book.
Gryffon went to look at it, and he blew the dusk from its pages. His breath threatened to make the whole book collapse into dust itself so he refrained from touching it, but perused the open page. “Looks like a list of people with their crime and what possessions they had.” He snorted. “Most of the listings under crime are nothing of the sort. Listen to this: 'Lillith Posen; one tunic, one wedding band, one pair size 7 shoe. Jailed for buying bread from a person believed to have set foot in Treymayne.' How ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous or not, she probably died horribly for it,” put in Layna seriously.
Gryffon nodded in disgust, and they moved out of the storage room towards the hallway. Layna was filled with a sense of dread that far outweighed the initial aversion she had felt when first descending the stairs. As they opened the first doorway, Layna knew why. Runes covered the walls, which also had odd splash-like discolorations that Layna had the sinking feeling had been blood during the room's heyday. In the middle of the chamber was a table, the wood stained a deep dark red that had little to do with the original color. Shackles were affixed to the walls like in the cells, but otherwise the room was strangely empty save for the table. The table looked as though it had at one point probably had leather straps that went across it. There were remains of the metal bindings on either side.
Layna felt herself getting dizzy, and the room and the runes seemed to swim in circles around her. “I can't be in here,” she managed to choke out, and she rushed out into the hallway, gulping for air as though the room had been suffocating her.
Gryffon followed her out and put a protective hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”
She nodded numbly and let out a quick steadying breath. Gryffon took her hand, and together they walked up the hallway. They systematically opened each of the doorways and peeked inside, but did not go in any more of them. They recognized the rune that Gryffon bore on his chest, but did not see any sign of the one that Layna had. They came to the last doorway at the very end of the hall and cracked it open. This room was the same as the rest, save one difference. This one still had someone in it. Or, at
least, what was left of someone.
A delicate skeleton, barely held together, was stretched across the far wall. It was held up by shackles on the wrists, ankles and torso. Layna stepped cautiously towards it and let out a strangled cry at the agony that this poor person must have endured. There were chips of bone missing where they must have been hit so hard that they had fractured and had since fallen out. Almost every bone showed signs of having been broken and knitted back together. As Layna looked tentatively with her mage sight, she was horrified to see the extensiveness of the damage that had been inflicted upon the skeleton. Many of the wounds would normally have killed someone, but obviously the person had not been allowed to die as they showed signs of having healed before the person finally perished.
As she looked closer, she saw that there was gold trim lining the bones, holding them together. Layna knew, as she was still holding on to the power and was therefore able to, that this too had been done while the person was still living. Layna shook her head in disbelief that any human could possibly do this to another, and she wept for the woman. For a woman it was, she now knew. Through her connection with the long-dead woman's remains, Layna could still feel the ripples of pain despite so much time passing. She reached up to claw at the shackles in an effort to get the woman down.
“What are you doing?” Gryffon asked her urgently.
“I have to get her down and cremate her in a proper funeral. It will be a symbol for all of them,” she said through her tears, “for all the innocent people who suffered and died here.”
Gryffon replied by stepping forward to help her undo the shackles. She was grateful for his acceptance of her need to do this without question; she wasn’t sure that she could put into words the emotions that this place evoked in her. She felt guilty for what had happened, though it had been long before her time.
Together they very gently laid the woman on the table. Layna took off her cloak and spread it over the woman as a funeral shroud. She whispered the blessings of peace, extending her prayer to all those affected by this place. Gryffon remained silent as she stepped back and reached for the power as she had with Mila, and she very carefully set the bones on fire, focusing the power so that it was hot enough to burn them to ash. It took quite some time as Layna was determined to burn off every speck of the offending gold lace-work before starting the ritual of burning itself.
When the skeleton had disappeared, leaving only a tiny pile of dust in the vague shape of a person on the table, Layna extinguished her fire and was pleased that she had not even scorched the table.
A breeze suddenly came out of nowhere and the dust scattered off the table, disappearing into the wind.
Layna and Gryffon stood in silence for a moment before Gryffon spoke. “How is there a breeze way down here?”
“Magic,” was Layna's answer, but she followed where the ashes had blown and could feel air moving through a crack in the wall. She pressed a hand against the spot and was rewarded by a creaking as the wall slid back into itself, revealing yet another secret passage.
Once more they sent their mage lights through before them and followed behind. It was a narrow spiraling staircase lined with more runes, and Layna tried not to brush up against the walls as if even physical contact with them would contaminate her.
At the top was another door that looked as though it would slide into the indentation along the side of it to allow them to pass. Layna paused as she saw what was on the door. It was unmarred by the smaller runes, like those that completely covered the rest of the walls, but in the center of its starkly blank surface was unmistakably the symbol from her neck.
Gryffon and Layna exchanged a look and Layna raised a shaking hand to push the door aside. As she had guessed, it slid back into the wall next to it to reveal an opening. Layna thought she saw an ornately decorated room in the dim light beyond it and she stepped into the room with nervous exhilaration, hoping that it would reveal some information about the mark that labeled its door.
Her excitement deflated quickly as she looked around. She sighed. It looked as though the passageway had brought them back up to the main part of the castle, and this room was as threadbare as the rest.
Gryffon, with his greater knowledge of the castle's lay-out was able to deduce more from the threadbare room, however. “Looks like this was the King's chamber,” he commented.
Layna winced. Perhaps it was significant that her mark was on the door that led here after all. “Can we get out of here now?” she asked pleadingly, and to her relief, Gryffon agreed.
Layna stretched out in the bath house back at the Phoenix, happily letting the water lap up over her chin as she relaxed in the warm water. It felt wonderful to unwind after days on the road, and she let the heat seep into her bones. Slowly, it removed the chill from having visited the dark fortress, and Layna tried hard not to dwell on the horrible feeling she had gotten from being there. She still felt wary, as though a presence was watching her, blaming her for the awful things that had happened there, and she was glad to be gone.
As the water finally started to cool, Layna resisted the urge to use her newfound power to reheat it, and reached lazily for a towel. She took another and bound her hair, bundling it and the towel on top of her head. She wrapped the first around her torso, sliding her feet into slippers, and made her way back to the room. She opened the door to the rooms to reveal Gryffon pouring over a book, and she sighed happily. “You really should go soak out all your aches in the bath house,” she told him, “It's simply divine.”
Gryffon looked up from the book and laughed. “Perhaps I'll do just that. Getting rid of all this dirt would be an improvement too.” He did a double take at her, and suddenly grew serious. “What did you do with the charm I gave you?”
“It's right here in my pocket,” Layna said defensively. “I just took it off earlier because it was tickling my neck.”
“Put it back on,” Gryffon commanded her urgently.
Layna complied, though she was hurt at the harshness of his words. She groped through the pockets of the clothes draped over her arm and found the charm. She dropped it around her neck. “There. Happy?”
Gryffon relaxed, and seemed to sense her discomfort. “Sorry,” he apologized. “It's just that it's more than just a necklace, it's a shielding charm. When I first met you, I had the suspicion that you had talent, and a lot of it. We thought it would be best if you didn't draw attention to yourself if you did happen to discover that you were able to do magic.”
“We?” Layna demanded, her temper flaring.
Gryffon looked embarrassed answering, “I'm sorry, I couldn't tell you at first, and I happened to mention to my handlers that I might have come across a high talent. They didn't want you falling into the hands of the priests and having who-know-what happen to you so they suggested the charm. I kinda forgot about it until I suddenly noticed your bare neck tonight. I didn't mean to keep it from you or anything, really. I even added a protection charm to it too, because I…when I gave it to you I didn't think that I'd- that'd you'd be-” He sighed, and his shoulders slumped. “Will you forgive me?”
Layna glared at him for a moment, and then relented. “Alright, thank you. So what's the big deal that I took it off for a few hours?”
“Only that you're using magic now on top of having a lot of talent. You're like a beacon without it to anyone who's watching for magic-use. From what we've learned, there could be those who are, especially around here. Not to mention that mark on your neck, we don't want to alert anyone watching for that to your presence.”
“No, we certainly don't,” Layna agreed and then mused, “I thought that like with the messages you send, that any kind of magic gives off a radiant feel. How can a magic charm hide magic? And we’ve been doing magic anyway, so how is this different?”
“Well,” Gryffon explained, “First off, the magic we are working is relatively small and therefore wouldn’t necessarily attract a lot of attention. Once a talent is discovered, you’r
e body gives off a radiant ‘feel’ of magic, which is stronger the stronger the talent is. So in your case, it’s pretty apparent. The charm works to counteract this beacon of power. It still is obvious that there is magic present; it just works to disguise it. It first tries to fool someone into thinking that it is only the charm that is magic, and not the person itself. If this doesn't work, it makes it look as though you have less talent than you really do. So someone doing a cursory scan of the area or who looks at you briefly wouldn't notice, unless for some reason they try and break into the shield. A person with more talent still could do it, but it makes them think there's no reason to. Plus, the charms are done by very powerful mages back in Treymayne. I don't think that there are many here who are more powerful. Since your Dark Age there are only a select few with any real talent such as you.”
“Such as me,” Layna repeated thoughtfully.
After several days of asking around at various spots around town, they had learned quite a lot of legends regarding the hidden location, but most of it seemed to be different versions of the same thing, and none specified a location. Layna was slightly discouraged that the only real information that they had gotten was that they shouldn't even try to get in. Gryffon had been optimistic though, and seemed to think that even if no one knew where the entrance was, they still may be able to find clues by wandering the countryside. He reasoned that if there were still followers going in and out, they would have to leave some sign. The thought made Layna shiver, but she was growing more and more nervously curious the closer they got to the historic place. Especially since their visit to the castle had given them no further clues aside from the mark having been on the door between the King's chamber and the magical torture rooms. Maybe it was just a protective rune and really had nothing to do with the Dark King. Maybe.
Unleashed Fury (BloodRunes: Book 1) Page 28
