“What was that for?” he turned on her angrily and balled his fist once more.
Layna didn't bother to try and explain, his current level of anger making him irrational, but simply grabbed hold of him and willed her double vision onto him in a desperate attempt to stave off the attack that would next be aimed towards her.
His anger seemed to melt away as the truth of the room hit him, and he stared at her wide-eyed. “How did you do that?” he asked, and then interrupted himself, “Oh Gods, did I hurt you?”
Layna shrugged it off, though the spot was still tender, and he gave her a contrite look but said nothing else. The eerie quality of these hallways was getting to them both. Illusions that tricked both your senses and your thoughts were difficult to contend with.
They passed to the next section silently and exchanged a puzzled look as the room became suddenly quiet, in stark contrast to the cacophony of insults they had just left.
The hall was lined with mirrors of every shape. Some were tall and thin, lined with gems and jewels worth more than Layna could hope to ever have. Then there were plain mirrors, rusting brass frames with cracked glass, and warped mirrors that would change your appearance as you walked past.
Gryffon let out a sigh and moved forward, and Layna once again followed behind. She nervously looked around with her double vision again, and this time saw no indication of foul play, but did not feel any better. In their short visit here, Layna had learned that not seeing the danger only meant that it was that much more dangerous. It was highly unlikely that the mastermind, or masterminds, that had made this place had put four rooms with unimaginable and cruel torturous traps only to be followed by a harmless row of mirrors.
Layna looked around them as they walked and her reflection caught her eye. She paused to admire the way that the fabric clung to her figure, and as she looked she had to admit that it was quite a nice figure too. She turned to face the mirror, posing in front of it to see the outfit from different views. It definitely was not the most flattering, her skin tone and hair really would be complimented by a maroon...she gasped delightedly as right as she had the thought, her reflection suddenly changed to show her in a beautiful maroon evening gown. She happily thought how much better it would look with earrings and a necklace to match, and these too appeared. She smiled at herself in the mirror and found herself drawn into her deep blue eyes, how mysterious and lovely they looked.
“Hey, take a look at this,” Gryffon's voice drifted into her reverie and she raised a hand as if to wave away a pesky insect. She twisted her body so that she could see the perfect curve of her-
“Layna!” a voice shouted in her ear. She jumped backwards, cutting off her view from the mirror.
“What already, why are you yelling at me?”
“I've been trying to get your attention for the last two minutes,” Gryffon told her irritably, “and you've just been standing here drooling over yourself in the mirror. Come take a look at this,” he took hold of her hand, and led her towards the end of the hallway.
Layna glanced longingly at the mirrors as they passed, yearning to stand in front of them to watch her reflection once more. She sighed as they passed each one, but Gryffon only quickened his pace and firmed up his grip on her. He pointed at the end of the hall, and Layna wrenched her gaze from the mirrors to follow his pointing finger.
The last mirror, the largest in the hall, showed an image of a very handsome young man sitting with his head in his hands, gazing into the mirror in open admiration of himself. Layna snorted at his vanity, but then blushed, realizing that she had been guilty of the same only moments ago. Shame turned to another emotion and a chill went down her back as she finally really looked at the figure before the mirror.
The handsome image was not a reflection of the man before it, but rather was what the reflection must have looked like when the man first sat down in front of it. By the looks of the skeleton draped in rags before it, that was quite some time ago.
“I guess that's how this room gets you.” Gryffon gave her a knowing look and Layna blushed again, following him to the next room.
Her guilt grew and Layna found herself wondering why Gryffon had not been affected by the mirrors while she had. Or the room with the food. Gryffon was so good at everything and was so sure of himself all the time, it just wasn't fair. Why can't I be strong like him? He kept glancing back at her with an odd look on his face until Layna finally stopped short as he glanced back for the tenth time, and she asked “What?”
He stopped, and turned to face her. “I was just wondering how you were able to make me 'see' what you see with your mage sight. It doesn't seem fair that I have been working with magic my whole life and can't do half the things that you are capable of.”
“Well, it's not fair that you got to work with magic your whole life. I've spent my whole life trying to make ends meet.”
“It's so unfair that just because you're beautiful you get people to do things for you.”
“It's not fair that just because you are a man and a noble you get more respect.”
“I wish I were you!”
“I wish I were you!”
They made this last comment in unison, and the reverberations in the hallway echoed in the empty alcoves. They stared at each other for a long moment before either spoke.
“I think,” Layna whispered slowly, “That perhaps we should continue on. I don't know about you, but I have the incredible urge to go on and on about how much better you have things, but something inside me is screaming that we need to leave.”
“I agree,” Gryffon agreed tightly, and he turned on his heel to once more lead the way out of the room.
Layna breathed a sigh of relief as they passed through the next veil and the overwhelming jealously she had felt eased. The room on the other side was filled with armchairs of every shape and size. Layna had never seen so many comfortable looking seats, not even in the very expensive household of the Lady Jezebel.
She took a step into the room, and suddenly realized just how tired she was, and how inviting the chairs really were. We have been working awfully hard lately, we certainly deserve a chance to rest for just a bit.
She took a seat next to Gryffon in one of the armchairs that the alcoves provided. Lazily she wondered if perhaps she should have checked to see if these were trapped as well. But she didn't really feel like doing it. She opened her mouth to comment to Gryffon about how comfortable the chairs were, but closed it again. It really just didn't seem worth the effort, so she didn't bother.
The little voice in the back of her head was screaming at her once more that something was very wrong here, but she just couldn't muster the energy to concentrate on what it could possibly be. She relaxed a little farther into the plush chair.
With great effort she glanced at Gryffon, and saw that he too was leaning back very comfortably. He looked as though he was about to take a nap, and she thought that seemed like a good idea. Layna was distinctly aware of just how tired she was; they had gotten up very early this morning for something. She couldn't remember and didn't care to try and think about what for, but she was very exhausted. She closed her tired eyes, letting the embrace of sleep close in around her.
CHAPTER 34
Jezebel sniffed her disdain at having to lift her skirts and soil her new shoes in the dank caverns of the ruins. She'd have to go buy three more pairs just to make up for the indignity.
The King was ahead of her, snaking through the maze of caves like he lived there. She gave another sniff, he was certainly showing the true colors of his non-royal blood; no one of true breeding would find themselves caught dead in here. She had debated revealing what she knew about his past to him, but his close-minded obsession with finding whoever this person was distracting him from everything else. She had decided to save the morsel for when he would properly digest it.
She was still insatiably curious why the King was so hell-bent on coming all the way here. He was offering up no insight for
her, and his actions were just as baffling.
They had arrived in Dunlop earlier that day, and the King had had a secret meeting with two men in black hooded cloaks. He had not required her attendance at this meeting, so Jezebel had taken the chance to have a look around.
The Dark King's castle had, of course, been easy to locate being the vast structure that it was, and Jezebel was awed by the sheer power that had gone into the making of it. She would have loved to have spent the day exploring. However, she had put aside her desire to search the fortress, and had spent the day looking for her two little problems instead. She was determined to find them while she was here so they could be properly dealt with.
She had gotten information that the two had indeed stayed at the Phoenix Inn last night, but no one would tell her where they were headed today. Before she could look further into it, the King had returned and asked that she accompany him. Then the same two men with whom he’d had the meeting led them to the sacred entrance, as they called it.
Jezebel called it a cave. A dank, slimy, smelly cave.
Jezebel had no doubt that these two men were members of the Order, and she was once again impressed despite herself at the reach of the organization. She didn't know exactly what the King hoped to find in whatever place it was that this secret entrance led to, or what the Order would have to do with the person he was after. He had not even asked around in town for this girl he was supposedly looking for. Jezebel half wondered if the story about finding the girl had just been his excuse to come here and look through the old ruins himself. But the King didn't need an excuse to do anything, so why bother?
She had at first been furious when the King interrupted her own search by insisting that she come along on this mission of his, tramping around in the forest to find a cave. But she was becoming more and more curious to see if it really was some secret entrance as the cloaked men had claimed. Perhaps it was an entrance into one of the old ruins where there might be some relic left behind. If so, she supposed perhaps it was worth putting off her search for the two miscreants for a few hours longer.
The trek through the woods had been tedious, but the cavern itself was mystifying: There were runes along the walls, some of which Jezebel recognized from her book, and many new ones which she tried to commit to memory for later research. It was intriguing, leading her to the small hope that maybe it would be worth the discomfort after all. Perhaps I'll find a book about a new torture that I can inflict upon the two renegades. Wouldn't that be wonderful.
The hounds formed a single-file line behind her, and she smiled at their obedience. Soon she would have the whole country in the palm of her hand, just like the hounds.
Jezebel tripped over a loose rock, and she brought her attention back to watching her step. There had better be something worth her time in here after all this.
The King wound around the corridors with an ease that made Jezebel suspicious. He stopped before a door and moved his hands over the runes in a specific pattern.
The door rumbled and opened before him and Jezebel raised a brow. It certainly looks as though he's been here before. Her regard for him was raised another notch despite herself, and she couldn't help but be impressed by his advances in gaining access to such a long-held secret place; if, in fact, it was that place. Her respect was slightly tarnished by the fact that it still was a disgusting cave, however.
“What is this place?” she asked, half expecting him not to answer.
“The entrance to the tomb of the Dark King,” he replied to her surprise, and she shivered excitedly. Perhaps there was truth to the hooded men’s claim after all. The power that must be held in there!
It was said that when the Bloodguard stole his body and reburied the King in the secret tomb, that they buried with him the books that had been saved from the fires. When they had prepared his body for his eventual reincarnation, they included with his remains everything he would need upon his return. And unlike the looted ruins on the outside, the tomb had never before been breached, or in fact even found. If it really was the tomb…Jezebel stopped worrying about her shoes, and walked faster.
They rounded a corner, and Jezebel almost ran into the King, who had stopped dead in front of her. Jezebel rolled her eyes and stepped carefully around him so that she could get into the room and see why he had stopped. The passageway disappeared behind her as the hounds slipped through, shimmering into a very real illusion of solid rock, and Jezebel peered around the room.
It was a large cavern with two doors on opposite sides of the room – or rather one door and one now-solid rock pathway – and one large doorway to their left. Large stalactites hung down from the huge ceiling, though the rest of the cave was polished smooth.
The one main door was magnificent, and Jezebel's breath caught in her throat. Surely that is the entrance to the tomb of a King! I am so close to knowledge that would help to let me take my rightful place in the world: On the top!
She started towards the door eagerly, but was struck speechless as the door opposite them opened and the King spoke.
“Ah, there you are, my dear.”
*
Layna was lying in the middle of a flowery meadow, the wind gently blowing over her as it blew puffs of dandelion seeds across the clearing. She had not a care in the world, and she marveled at how peaceful it was here. She couldn't remember how she had gotten here, or where here was. But it was like Gamoland, the utopia where one would spend the afterlife and that which was home to the Gods.
It really was too much effort to think too hard anyway, better just to watch the clouds passing. As she blinked sleepily, observing the clouds take on new shapes as they floated lazily across the sky, one of them formed a rather dragon-like figure.
As she watched, Layna swore it seemed to coalesce into a dense form and actually swoop down towards her. Dragons were the physical manifestations of the Three, though this one seemed to be a smaller version of the dragon gods.
All that thinking hurt Layna's head, and she closed her eyes a moment to clear her mind. When she opened them she saw that the dragon had separated from the rest of the clouds, and was practically on top of her. She had plenty of time to get out of the way, but she just didn't feel like moving. She simply watched it descend towards her with a lazy curiosity.
It landed next to her, and Layna had the urge to reach out and touch it, but her hand felt so heavy. It was a beautiful creature, scales like opals with rainbows caught inside. It was primarily black in color but seemed to be every other color at the same time as it shifted and the sunlight hit it in different directions. Layna smiled inwardly, though it was too much effort to actually move the muscles in her face to show it outwardly, and thought how wonderful this new addition to her heaven was.
“WAKE!” shouted a piercing voice in her mind, echoing through her skull.
A sharp pain stabbed through her euphoric state, and Layna realized that the dragon had bitten her in the arm as well. Her other arm flew to cover the bite, and she backed up hastily from the creature.
She jerked awake and fell out of the chair in her flailing. She looked around her, and blinked to take in the reality of the room. She was horrified to see that many of the chairs held skeletons in various stages of decay, and with one eye closed in apprehension of what she might find, she looked behind her at the chair she had just occupied.
She let out a little scream at the sight of the pile of bones she had just been sitting in and frantically brushed off her clothing.
Gryffon snorted awake and looked around with the same sense of horror that Layna felt. He quickly removed himself from the chair, and came to stand next to her while they surveyed the room.
“I hope that there aren't any more of these rooms,” Layna whispered.
“Me too,” answered Gryffon sincerely. He glanced back at her and furrowed his brow. “You're bleeding.” Layna followed his pointing finger and raised her arm to see four tiny droplets of blood welling up from her forearm.
&n
bsp; She probed at the offending wound, and decided it wasn't anything to worry about, though something about it nagged at her. “It's nothing, just a little scratch. Are we ready to move on?”
They made their way to the end of the hallway and came up against a door rather than the curtains of veils they had been passing through. Gryffon cautiously reached for the handle and jiggled it, but it was locked.
“Well, at least this probably means we're done with the hallway. What now?” Layna asked.
“Maybe I can pick the lock.” Gryffon dug in his pockets for a kit full of long thin pieces of metal in different sizes. Layna gave him a suspicious look as he pulled it out, but he simply grinned at her and she couldn't help but smile back, shaking her head.
While he worked, sputtering to himself through the pick he held in his teeth, Layna examined the door. It was a large wooden slab, stained a deep maroon in an arch shape. Around the edge were more of the runes, carved into the wooden frame and painted black. Layna recognized the one from her neck on the very top of the arch and she once more stroked her own mark.
As she stared at it, she suddenly felt as though she knew what to do. She stepped forward, and placed her hands over several of the different runes in a pattern her hand seemed to know. A soft 'click' sounded as the lock snapped into place.
Gryffon made a satisfied grunt. “Nothing to it,” he said and he stepped back to admire the unlocked door, unaware of her movements. He glanced back at her, expecting her congratulations, and asked, “What's wrong, you look white as a ghost.”
“Nothing, I-” Layna shook her head negatively. “Nothing. Nice job.” A chill had found its way into her spine and was slowly working its way through her entire body. Somehow she had known how to open the door, a door in a place that tried to kill you every step of the way. A door in the middle of the Dark King's secret lair. What is going on with me?
Unleashed Fury (BloodRunes: Book 1) Page 30
