by R. J. Grieve
Hastily, the two men tumbled down the staircase to find Sareth awaiting them at the bottom. The other three were nowhere in sight.
Without preamble, she said abruptly: “Bethro says he had a vision that showed him another, secret way out of the castle.”
The two men gaped at her. “What!” thundered Vesarion disbelievingly. “He’s leading us into the depths of this fortress on the strength of one of his stupid daydreams!”
He had no time to vent his anger any further, because several pairs of nailed boots could be heard clattering down the stairs.
He shed his pack and gave it to Sareth.
“Find out where this leads to. We’ll try and hold them here for a while.”
She took her brother’s pack as well, and set off in pursuit of Bethro.
When the leading Turog descended the last turn of the staircase, it got more than it bargained for. Eimer, wound up like a spring with tension, leaped at it and striking aside its curved sword, avoided its armoured torso and instead managed to thrust his sword deep into its thigh. Caught totally by surprise by the fact that its fleeing prey had turned, it shot backwards with a roar of pain, cannoning into those descending behind it. To Eimer’s great satisfaction, there were sounds of weapons and armour colliding all up the staircase. He gave Vesarion a boyish grin of delight before plunging up the stairs to follow up his advantage.
As there wasn’t room for both of them in the narrow aperture, Vesarion was forced to curb his young friend’s enthusiasm by reaching up, grabbing a handful of his leather jerkin and pulling him back down again.
Eimer fell the last four steps in an ungainly heap.
“What are you doing, Vesarion? I was winning!” he complained.
“Sometimes, Eimer,” said Vesarion with a wry grin, “you make me feel very old. Now, let’s get out of here before they regroup.”
“The wounded one in front is refusing to come down again, and he’s blocking the way for the others. It’s now or never to find out if Bethro knows what he’s doing.”
Swords still drawn, they sprinted along the dark passage, past barred doors leading to tiny, cramped cells that they had no time to investigate. The dozens of doors merely flashed past them as they ran, until they reached a heavy oak door at the end.
Two paces into the room and they realised that all their worst fears had come true – it was a dead end.
Vesarion rounded in fury on the white-faced librarian. “What have you done, you fool?”
But a snarl from the passage made him spin round and slam the heavy oak door shut. This time he was in luck, for two hefty bolts were attached to the top and bottom of the door and in an instant were shot home.
A weak light filtered into the bare stone chamber from above. High in the ceiling, far out of reach, a metal grille permitted a meagre amount of daylight to seep through.
A heavy, jarring thud rattled the door, informing the occupants of the room that the Red Turog had arrived.
Even Eimer, normally the most easy-going of men, was consumed with wrath at Bethro.
“This room is a snare!” he stormed at the quaking librarian. “What possessed you to lead us all in here on the basis of some stupid dream? What’s the matter with you? Do you want to die? It’s only a matter of time before the Turog break down this door!”
As if to emphasise his point, another heavy thump hit the door.
Iska, who had not been taking part in berating Bethro, but had been prowling around the room, examining it minutely, now spoke up: “I think it’s possible that Bethro may be right. I mean, why are the bolts on the inside of the door? All the other cells we passed had the bolts on the outside to keep the occupants confined. So why is this one different? Also, the coiled serpent is the symbol of Parth and my people have always had a predilection for secret passages and tunnels. Do you remember how I told you that as a child I ran wild in the city, going where I was not supposed to go? Well that was only made possible because the city is riddled with passages and a network of storm drains that allowed me to go unseen wherever I wished. Perhaps this,” said she, indicating the snake, “is more of the same.”
Bethro was in the grip of a deluge of belated guilt and self-doubt. “It’s no use,” he wailed, “I’ve pushed the snake’s nose until my fingers are sore, just like I did in my dream – but nothing happened! It just won’t budge!”
Iska crossed to the snake and began running her hands over the head projecting from the wall. As her hands travelled downwards over the exposed fangs, she felt, ever so slightly, a tiny movement in the right fang. Grasping it firmly, and watched intensely by five pairs of eyes, she twisted it. It turned though ninety degrees but once again, nothing happened.
Bethro who had been holding his breath, let it out with a whoosh. “We’re all going to die in here!” he howled, abandoning Bethro the Hero.
The others ignored him but continued watching Iska, who had crossed to the huge stone disc set into the wall upon which the snake’s body was carved. Grasping the raised outer coil, she pushed hard.
“Help me!” she commanded.
Everyone, even the afflicted Hero, heaved with all their collective might against the outer coil. Suddenly, with a slight jerk, it began to pivot. Keeping up the pressure, they slowly forced the ancient stone to move. It made a grinding, trundling noise as it rotated slowly open to reveal a dark tunnel beyond.
Thump! Went the door again.
Eimer peered in. “It’s as dark as hell in there. We are going to need some light.”
“I have some candles,” Sareth unexpectedly said. “The Keeper placed them in my pack and I couldn’t think why until now.”
Thump!
“They won’t light with steel alone. I’ll light some kindling,” Vesarion offered. But before his hand could even move towards his pack, without a word, Gorm produced the little sliver box from his pouch and glumly held it out to him.
Realising that it was no time for recriminations, Vesarion bit back words of reproof and taking it from him, began to strike flint against steel beside the kindling.
Just as the first tiny flame began to flicker, something hit the door with such a crash that it jumped on its hinges and something metallic flew off it and hit the wall.
“Here,” said Sareth, hastily handing him three candles.
Vesarion swiftly lit them and bundled his companions towards the waiting blackness of the tunnel.
Another crash hit the door and part of one of the bolts shot off.
When they were all inside, Vesarion ordered them to help him close the snake door.
“But we don’t know where this tunnel goes!” objected Bethro in a panicky voice.
“Well you brought us here,” Eimer replied acidly, grimly heaving against the door. “Besides, it’s not as if we have a choice.”
The door swung back into place just as with an explosion of shattering wood, the Red Turog were precipitated into the room.
Taking a candle from Sareth, Vesarion examined the back of the door and discovered some sort of latch. Borrowing Eimer’s hunting knife, he jammed the handle under the mechanism to prevent it being opened from the other side.
They all stood in silence within the intimate glow of the three candles, watching steadfastly the back of the snake door, waiting to hear the sound of the Red Turog attacking it. But nothing happened. The minutes passed in total silence.
Finally, Sareth concluded: “They must not have seen us go through – that will be a puzzle for them! A room with no doors or windows, and yet the prey have gone!”
Vesarion released a pent-up sigh of relief and sheathed his sword. “Right,” he said, in the manner of one who has come to a decision. “Time to see where this goes.”
But when they turned from the door, they were in for a surprise.
Ahead of them lay not a dark tunnel of stone, as they had supposed, but a passageway made entirely out of ice. The light of the candles illuminated smooth white walls that glistened and sparkled, casting b
ack the feeble light and magnifying it. As they began to move along the passage, more wonders appeared. Fantastic formations made of ice – slender cones arising from the floor, mirrored by counterparts descending from the ceiling that hung so low that the travellers had to duck under them. Occasionally, the two met to form fragile pillars, that transformed from milky-white to delicate shades of green, blue and aquamarine when touched by the light, as if by alchemy.
The cold was intense. An irresistible force working its way through every layer of clothing; through the soles of their boots until they could no longer feel their toes, through fur-lined gloves until fingers were numbed.
Like the castle, the ice passages were possessed by an intense silence that pressed against their ears, relieved only by the sound of their footsteps. It was so quiet that the soft sound of their breathing could be heard, as it misted in the frozen air. Sometimes, the passage was narrow, forcing them to go in single file, but at others, it widened into impressive avenues of ice pillars, glittering with cold beauty, refracting the light with the brilliance of a thousand crystals.
A debate soon began to rage between Bethro and Iska as to whether the passage was natural or man-made. Iska insisted that her people were, once again, demonstrating their skill in constructing tunnels, and Bethro, equally insistently – and a shade patronisingly – poured scorn on that idea, declaring that they had only made use of what nature had already provided.
Much to Iska’s annoyance, the librarian, who had been somewhat squashed since the incident with the snake door, was rapidly recovering all his usual pomposity. This was largely due to the fact that he had managed to wring an apology from Eimer. He had gone about it in his usual fashion. They had not progressed six paces into the tunnel when he cleared his throat in the ostentatious manner of someone who wants to be noticed.
“Ahem,” he coughed.
Finding that no one paid any heed, he tried again, only louder. “A-HEM!”
Vesarion, who guessed what was coming, wisely did not respond, but Eimer fell right into the trap as easily as a ripe plum falling from a tree in summer.
“What?” he demanded irritably.
“Not a silly daydream then?” warbled Bethro smugly. “Not a dead end? Not a trap? Perhaps an apology is in order, young man.”
Sareth, highly amused, murmured to her brother: “Let’s see you get out of that one.”
The Prince, knowing that he was cornered, conceded the point with bad grace.
“All right, Bethro, you win. I’m sorry I doubted you.” Then brightening, he added: “Now let’s see if you can get an apology out of Vesarion!”
A voice echoed back along the tunnel, in tones rendered sepulchral by the confined space. “He’d better not try.”
However, Bethro’s sense of self-righteousness was cut short when they encountered something that supported Iska’s side of the argument – a flight of steps cut with precision into the ice.
“I suppose nature did this?” she asked innocently, and got a scowl in return.
It proved to be the first of many such flights. About fifty steep, slippery steps led to a short gallery whose walls were decorated with rippling flows in the ice, suggesting that it had melted a little and re-frozen at some stage. The far end of the gallery presented them with yet more steps – and so it continued. Steps leading to galleries, galleries leading to steps, for hour after hour.
When they halted for some food, Vesarion approached Sareth and said in an undertone: “How many candles have you left?”
“Three,” she said briefly, already aware of the reason he asked.
“From here on, I think we should light only one at a time, because we have no idea how long we will be in this passage. From our direction and from the fact that we keep ascending, I am hoping this tunnel goes right through one of the peaks and emerges on the far side of the mountain, facing towards Adamant. However, that’s only a guess. I am assuming this passage has not been used in many years and wherever it went originally, it could now be blocked or otherwise rendered impassable.”
When he moved away, Iska, who had been listening, came to Sareth and said: “I see he still carries the weight of the world on his shoulders.”
“I’m afraid so. We are all equally in this together but somehow he cannot rid himself of the idea that it is his responsibility to keep us all safe. And yet, I see a change in him recently. The aloofness that I saw in Addania has gone and I see once more the warmth returning that I saw so clearly years ago. It’s just nice to see him exhibit some emotion – even if it’s just losing his temper with Bethro.”
Iska laughed. “I can sympathise with him. Bethro could provoke a dead man. Besides, a sense of responsibility could hardly be described as a vice. Yet I begin to understand what you mean. He is not, in essence, a cold man, but he assumes a veneer that is intended to keep others at a distance. It’s almost as if he wants the world to know only as much of himself as he is prepared to share – and that’s not very much. But the veneer grows thin, Sareth, I see it with every passing day, so do not despair.” For a moment she was tempted to say more. To draw Sareth’s attention to how solicitous Vesarion had been towards her when she had been ill, but feeling such comments were still premature, she contented herself by adding, with a touch of mischief: “Not that he has any intention of apologising to Bethro, for all of it.”
“No. He was perfectly ready to murder Bethro. He’s not the sort of person to place much reliance on dreams.”
“There was something about that fortress that encouraged nightmares,” observed Iska feelingly. “While Bethro was being pursued by fire sprites, I was dreaming that I was being pursued by my irate half-brother screaming ‘traitor’ at me.”
“Mordrian?”
“Yes. He’s a lot older than me – actually old enough to be my father because he must be nearly forty now, so I’ve always been a bit in awe of him. He’s never actually hurt me, although he has a reputation for great cruelty. It’s just that he is one of those people, that when you look into their eyes, you just know would go to any lengths to achieve their aims.”
Sareth, more reserved than her confiding friend, did not tell her that she had also been affected by the castle’s sinister atmosphere, for she, too, had endured a nightmare.
She had dreamed that Vesarion lay in her arms and as she looked down at him, she saw that he was covered in blood. He was wearing full armour, with the exception of his helmet, and the sword of Erren-dar lay in his hand. His eyes were closed, his face deathly pale, and ruby-red blood fell in great drops from his armour onto the already red-soaked ground.
Instead, she turned away from Iska, and controlling the stab of fear that suddenly pierced her, said casually: “It was only a dream, after all, Iska. Dreams are stupid things.”
With now only one candle to light the way, the coldness and darkness closed in around them. Vesarion, in the lead, held the tiny flicker of light aloft but the extent of its reach was so limited that there were times when the only way they could proceed was for each person to hold onto the cloak of the one in front. Gorm, at the tail of the queue, fared worst, as he was in almost complete darkness. He slithered along the ice, like some sort of appendage attached to Eimer.
Finally, after they had journeyed with scarcely a break for six hours, they left the stairs and galleries behind and emerged into a place where the tunnels widened into a larger hall, replete with many ice pillars.
Sareth lit their last candle from the stump that Vesarion held, and for once, they had enough light to see the glittering hall clearly. There were so many pillars, glowing aquamarine in the candlelight, that they were like a frozen forest. Some were slender to the point of fragility and others were sturdy, as if of more ancient lineage. They were not in rows but were scattered randomly, yet they somehow contrived to look not entirely natural.
“They must have been carved out of the ice,” breathed Sareth in an awed whisper. “But why create this hall? What is its purpose?”
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nbsp; It was Gorm who supplied the answer. He had left the others and had been exploring in his usual fashion, sniffing around like a dog at an interesting tree, when he suddenly gave a cry and leaped back so violently that he slipped on the ice and fell with a thud onto his back.
“Dead people!” he cried. “Kalas thol!”
To one side of the pillared hall, half hidden by a fragile curtain of ice so thin it was almost translucent, was a row of twenty stone sarcophagi, each one elaborately carved with the snake motif. Closer inspection revealed that not one of them possessed a lid. They were all filled with ice that had frozen as clear and hard as a pane of glass, making the occupants completely visible. In each sarcophagus lay a woman, as perfectly preserved as the day she died. Most of them were young, some exceptionally beautiful with long, raven-black tresses. All were dressed in rich, flowing robes and they all wore on their brows, golden circlets in the shape of two coiled snakes that met in the centre of their foreheads.
Iska, staring at them in shock, her face almost as white as theirs, managed to stammer: “Only those women of the House of Parth who possess the gift are permitted to wear the snake coronets. But….but who are they? All the queens of Parth are buried in the old crypt in Adamant. Who are these that have been hidden away in these ice tunnels, in the very roots of the mountains?”
Bethro, who had overcome his initial fright, and was now examining the carvings on the coffins minutely, supplied the answer.
“Their names are here, inscribed in the old language,” he informed them. “This one is Samoria. It reads ‘Here lies Samoria, daughter of Parth, a traitress who betrayed her kin by adhering to the Book of Lies’.” He moved along the line to a young girl of great beauty, her dark hair spread over her shoulders, her long eyelashes resting against her pale cheek. “ ‘Here lies Evina, child of kings, who used her heritage for treason’. And, look, here’s another! ‘Here lies one whose name shall be forgotten, for she defied the Dark Prince and returned to the old ways’.”
