Quick lifted a finger on his mouth, a gesture that made Nuuk silence himself.
“Time is of essence, Nuuk…” the older imp paused with one hand on his chin in the attempt of rephrasing his words, “…last night you shouldn’t have used magic to talk to me. Felduror was already alerted that someone was around, and wielding magic was all he needed to find you.”
Could it be that what he was saying was the truth? Nuuk weighed his concerns, still failing to remember anything at all.
Quick let the magic, golden ink fade before he continued, “I knew you’d be in grave danger and, since a spell has been wielded already, and your presence compromised, I’ve used a bit of spell myself too.”
“What spell did you use?” asked Nuuk.
Quick gulped nervously, fixing the grey floor he was facing. “I’ve put a muddle-spell on your mind so you won’t be able to remember the past clearly. This way, at least, you have won yourself a couple of days. That’s why you are still alive!” he finished his sparkling sentence of words.
Nuuk could not believe what he read. He shifted with pain closer to the floor, re-checking the phrase. Although it was quite readable, he failed to grasp its meaning.
“So it’s because of you that I can’t remember anything?” His sharp voice surprised both of them.
The older imp flinched in fear, pushing slightly with his heels on the floor, lifting the elbow of his free hand in an instinctive gesture of protection.
The sight of the old imp’s reaction made Nuuk feel bad for allowing himself to be senselessly so mean and tried to calm his ire.
Seemingly, Quick realised that Nuuk’s reaction had been a natural and unwanted rush of anger, and he took his time to write on, “It’ll go away very soon. That’s why I came here to visit you and not without taking any risks. I want to make sure that once you remember, you’ll be ready to do whatever it takes to stay alive!”
Nuuk sighed. He esteemed and appreciated the effort the old imp was taking in trying to convey what would have taken less than half the effort had he had a tongue to speak with. He was feeling even worse for his outburst now. Whatever he had done to be locked up, he knew for sure it couldn’t have possibly been this creature’s fault. Bent upon his thin and badly-fed body, the sight of the old imp only made his heart shrink and ache with unhappiness as it delivered fresh memories of his own youth in Grora.
“I am sorry! It is not your fault I’m here!” he admitted almost tearfully.
Quick smiled and wrote, “I do need to leave before my master realises I’m missing. I will return if I get a chance.”
Then he lifted himself briskly, hid the magic pen under his ragged cloth and picked the candle and the empty platter from the floor. With another look at Nuuk, and a wan smile in the corner of his mouth, he left.
The candid smile sparked hope in Nuuk’s heart. And, perhaps because of the food or the sincerity in his fellow Iprorim’s eyes, he soon started to remember.
The Rescue
Lorian / Felduror
“I can do this!” I encouraged myself with some effort while I pushed my hand at a loose rock, that had probably once served as a step.
Once sure I would not fall down, I pulled my strengths about me and propped my weight on my right arm, preparing to attempt a vertical leap that would see me closer to a small opening in the ceiling. From there, I would only have to move a single flat rock and then I’d be on to the next level, through the ceiling. Being several feet above ground level, did make me quite nervous, especially when having to climb the ancient cave’s walls barehanded, without any ladders, ropes or proper stones that could support my weight.
Naghnatë was attentively watching me from below. We both knew she was not concerned for my safety, not entirely – more than once she insisted I be as silent as possible and to make sure I left everything as I found it; it was of critical importance to keep my passage as undisturbed as possible.
And so, when the short break had replenished the strength I required to swoop at the ceiling, I looked at her and indicated my promptness. She saluted me with a brief wave of her hand and watched me move the rock-cover and enter through the small, secret aperture. To my surprise, that did not denote the hardest part of my climb.
She was already gone when I peeked back at the cavern floor from the other side and, with determination, I turned my entire concentration on fixing the slab into its initial position without too much noise.
Once concluded, I could inspect the different kind of darkness that surrounded me. I was above the cave now, inside a narrow passage between raw dark rock walls; a fissure in the heart of the mountain that slit it right across. There were small signs of tools being used to shape it, probably in an attempt to enlarge the passageway, yet even to me it seemed poorly executed. I blamed it on the nature of the rock which felt as hard as the iron under my palm’s inspection. The slit allowed the mountain’s sides to converge high above me, higher than I could see, and where they met, they did not completely connect. This allowed daylight to bounce all around with some intensity and made it possible for me to appreciate its size. I could tell it was quite long, however I could not tell if I stood in the middle of it or to its sides.
Right-side then, I recalled the witch’s instruction, while slowly walking through the man-sized tunnel.
I kept brushing my right hand at the wall, palpating the surprisingly sharp and smooth texture – the gesture was more an encouragement to cast away the insecurity the dark space conveyed, rather than my desire to feel bare rock. If anyone or anything lived in such a place, or if it was used sporadically as a passageway, I could not tell. The wet, muddy floor seemed without a trace of footprints of any sort and the strong iron-scented air appeared undisturbed. Every sound was subdued by the enormous walls and few, if none, external noises could be perceived from inside. The only thing that visibly altered, was the daylight’s brightness, flickering playfully and worryingly at the same time whenever a cloud shadowed the sun.
My steps echoed weakly in the small slit-passage and I continued more confidently ahead, thinking back to what the witch told me to look for. She insisted it would be straight-forward and easy and before the end of the narrow passage, I would find another aperture on my left which would lead me into the cellars of the castle.
And she was right; another hundred steps or so ahead, a sharp protuberance on the left side was hiding a smaller aperture that distanced me of no more than two feet from the cellars’ manmade-wall. Through the two-feet thickness of the mountain’s side, the light allowed me to count as many as four big square-rocks in their entirety and few smaller corners of those that continued behind the rock. Though the narrowness of the space forced me to crouch to reach my goal.
Just as she mentioned, the stone on the bottom-right was of a darker shade than the rest. I knelt and carefully knocked on it to confirm her theory, smiling broadly when I heard the odd, hollow sound in return.
The entry, she had called what I was pulling out now; a square block of fake rock that was easily removed.
The curious boulder was light as a pillow.
Had I been afraid of spiders, I would have easily let out a scream, as a furry-legged creature crawled hastily over the back of my left hand and jumped to safety into the darkness of another fissure. I was too slow to hiss about it and that was my luck; any noisy reaction could have been disastrous.
A foul smell exuded from within the walls, its stink making me move away from the course of the drift, which escaped the basements through the hole I had made. I propped myself against the other solid rocks, carefully listening for any unwanted sounds and calmed my breathing.
When my nose allowed my body to continue, I crawled inside halfway and checked where I was and what I could see. Having established that nobody was there, I crawled the rest of the way in and repositioned the sham rock in its place with as much attention as I could.
I was now in a wider room that had four tall, tarnished metal-cages with rusty ch
ains and manacles of various sizes descending from the ceilings. All of a sudden, the damp smell acquired a different significance, its bitter taste compelling me once again to think of it as the reek of death. Tortured creatures of who-knows what kind had been kept there for the last moments of their miserable lives trying to escape the indissoluble grasp of their executioner.
The image of Nuuk’s face fluttered in my mind and I dared not entertain the thought of him being tortured. More than a prison it seemed to be an abandoned execution room; luckily, one that hadn’t been used in a long time. The place was brimming with cobwebs that garnished every corner of the room and every tool and instrument that had been forgotten inside the damp space. Even the rusty metal-bars that formed the walls of the cages were randomly patterned with dense webs that collected cocoons of dead insects.
Just like we use to hang the sausages back home, I thought as I slowly moved across between the cages. And not only insects! I noticed with repugnance that one of the biggest cobwebs, contained a dried-out bat.
After a quick walkthrough of the entire space, enough to memorise the precise location of my escape, I found my way out of the room with catlike steps. The fact that there was one single, broken door, made me realise I was possibly in the last room of the lowest levels.
I touched Winterhorn for reassurance as I moved ahead.
When I exited the almost-collapsed door, I found myself in another room, twice the size of the previous and with double the metal cages and torturing tools. There were all sorts of weapons on the floor, reclined to the walls or hanged on the metal cages as well as on the wall racks, their woods long rotten and darkened. It was clear that it was another abandoned place of torture. The reek on this side was less harsh and, after careful inspection, I continued as per the witch’s instructions, through the middle of the room and to the door on my left.
Without a breath’s noise, I pressed my ear to the dark metal door and listened at length for any sounds that might come from the other side. When all I could hear was the soft, cadenced dripping of a distant leakage, I knew I was alone. A bit too confident I opened the door which, old as it was, emitted a terribly loud squeak. I allowed a long moment to pass before I squeezed myself through the opening.
The door opened onto a narrow set of stairs that revolved to the left and ended somewhere around forty or so steps higher. At the very top, according to Naghnatë, I would find the door that led to the common cells, in which Felduror kept his prisoners.
Though, as I made my way to the top, I felt unsure as everything she knew about the basements was from many years ago. If the structure was still the same, would I still find prisoners? The two foul rooms I passed seemed to have been unused for a long time and perhaps it was just the same for the entire floor above.
Maybe this is not a place for prisoners, I thought as I climbed the final steps and approached another door.
Another moment of stillness passed with my ear flatly pressed on the metal door. The iron felt definitely warmer up here as indeed did the air in the back of my throat and inside my lungs. I gathered I was not underground anymore and the door would reveal what the first floor of this side of the building would look like.
With a couple more draws of the tepid air, I encouraged myself to try the door’s handle, which to my surprise went all the way down, with a snapping sound. Something had broken inside the rusty casing of the lock, but luckily it was not the handle as the door slid open.
These things must be ancient!
The place appeared abandoned as if in a rush – perhaps even the prisoners themselves had escaped alive. It made sense, judging by the scattered objects and weapons that had filled the previous rooms.
I then opened the door wider and felt frustrated to see only a long corridor in front of me. On the upper right side of the wall, a couple of square windows allowed shattered-rays of daylight to penetrate the moist and dusty space. I made my way ahead with confidence, crossing the space almost entirely, before I understood that the left wall, fashioned a couple of thin, squared gaps in the stone. Had I been quicker I would have definitely missed them as they were actual doors, made of the same bricks as the walls. The sole thing that gave them away, the barely visible rectangular metal frame that delineated a fissure of their rectangular shapes. A mere coincidence that I had noticed them.
There were no handles nor knobs, only a central key hole big as my thumb. A bit higher, nestled in the middle on each of the two doors, were two small square-holes the size of half a brick. They were the cells’ sole source of light and air, and sat a bit higher than my forehead.
I had to lift myself on my toes to be able reach them. “Anyone in there?” I softly whispered through the first door’s aperture, averse to putting my fingers in the gap.
My voice died out fast on the other side; it really was a small cell.
I moved onto the other door and asked again, “Hey! Is anyone in there?”
Nothing still.
I pushed myself away from the door to glance outside from the opposite window to get some sense of orientation. I had to climb a bit higher to reach the metal bars. Once there, I pulled my entire body’s weight and was able to see outside. Unfortunately, there was not much to be seen. The window looked out onto a shadowed side of the castle where there was another windowless curved-wall. Higher still, a sort of suspended bridge connected to another section and covered the entire skyline in that spot. To my disappointment, the reflected rays of light were not coming directly from the sun, they were just mere reflections of the bright, white stonework. The unawareness of where I was, together with the lack of perspective, made the citadel appear bulkier than ever.
I wondered how did it actually look from outside and how big it was. On the other hand, I did appreciate the fresh air with its highland aroma. It made me close my eyes and draw in as much of its cleansing freshness as I could, against the throbbing muscles of my forearms. I lingered until the burning sensation became overwhelming and then I let myself on the floor again.
The pleasant sensation was short-lived and, once my feet touched the floor, the dampness of the corridor brought back the disquieting sensation of the situation I was in. I wondered where to go next. The witch had been sure that if there was a chance of finding Nuuk alive and imprisoned, there would be no other place to look for him but these cells. She had mentioned the existence of other cells in the basements of each of the five towers, yet I questioned my ability to find them, not to mention that it would mean walking in broad daylight across the streets and pathways that separated each building. It was definitely not a good idea and definitely unlikely of success.
I decided to continue ahead. The short walk led me to another wide-opened door. It revealed a splintered section in the middle of its thick panels as it propped on the right wall out of its hinges. Dust, rust and decay had eaten through every fallen piece of it, be it metal or wood, and the cobwebs it accommodated had been rearranged multiple times. Even though the sight reassured me I would find no guards or wizard’s servants in those rooms, it also lowered the chances of finding any prisoners alive.
Equipped with less optimism, I entered. The room instantly reminded me of a guards’ chamber. On the left side, near the corner, there was a big chest-drawer with both of its doors spread open. Rusty and blackened cutlery, dirty pots and platters, both earthen and metal-made, littered the muddy-green floor in a wide area. A thick, oak table was still intact in the middle of the room, yet the two benches next to it were laying upside-down. The humidity in the room, aided by the small window, allowed foul-smelling lichens to grow between the cracks of the rocks on the floor. The pleasantness of my feet on the soft blanket of moss did not make up for the stink it produced and so I hurried towards the window, slipping and almost falling at my first step.
I calmed my alacrity, thinking how badly I could’ve hurt my knee had I landed on it and decided to inspect the small window, which was wider and lower than the previous ones; I could see more of t
he mountain top it faced upon.
Yet, before I leaped at the frame to pull myself up, a door at a higher level, opened and closed loudly and quickly.
Disconcerted, I intuitively lowered myself with the back on the wall. Crouched as I was, I strained myself to understand precisely where the noise was coming from; the only way to find out was through the aperture to my right, which opened onto yet another set of stairs.
I firmly clutched Winterhorn’s handle. Unfortunately, the noise had died as soon as the door closed. It was a long moment before my ears caught another subtler sound; footsteps. Frail, bare footsteps crossed the raw stone of the floor, indicating the position and direction of the guest in the room over my head. The weight and pace sounded more human-sized, rather than an orc.
Would Felduror walk barefoot, and that swiftly? I stopped to consider.
With languorous movements, still crouched and helping my stride with my hands, I approached the threshold in front of me. My heartbeat picked up, but no external noises gave away my presence, thanks to the soft, malodorous blanket of moss. I passed the door’s aperture, listening to what occurred above; thinking I heard the brief clang of something metal at one point. It reassured me as I noiselessly crawled on the narrow, curved set of stairs, until I ended up in front of a wrought iron door.
The sounds died when I reached the top and I stooped even lower. The position allowed me to check the ante-chamber behind the iron bars, where there was a big double-panelled door on the right, which I gathered would lead outside, and one smaller door on the left, from behind which the footsteps had come.
With a quick, silent leap I moved behind what little corner was offered between the frame of the gate and the wall, and placed my ear on the cold bricks. There were no more footsteps I could pick up. Instead, there was a hollow voice, muffled and distant, and a dull metal sound. The mumble, belonging to a single voice, sounded weak and non-threatening, but I could not comprehend a word it said.
Winterhorn (Tokens Of Benevolence Book 1) Page 36