“Yes, but not from my teachers.” He pulled the door out of the doorway and let it fall to the ground. “Oh.”
The doorway had been walled up with stone.
“Any more ideas, Mistress Adventure?” Griffin said with good humor as he leaned against the wall.
“Actually, I have a really good one,” Charlie shot back. “We’ll find a way to throw you over the wall, and I’ll go back to the other side of the moat and leave. I will then continue happily on my journey while you will rot on the inside of a castle that has no way out. How’s that?”
“Quit being ridiculous. You’re the one who wants to go inside in the first place. I’d just as soon leave.” He pushed away from the wall and looked down at her. He was as dirty and sweaty as she was, but he looked unconcerned. “What is this place anyway? What do you need to see inside?”
Charlie studied him through her eyelashes from her spot on the ground. She couldn’t explain her sense of defeat to Griffin because there wasn’t a walled-up doorway stopping him from finding something he desperately wanted. Finally she pulled herself to her feet and carefully ran her fingers over the stone. This wall was not the expert masonry of the outer walls; this was constructed of irregular chunks of rock that weren’t mortared together. Bits of stone crumbled under her fingers. She tried to find a rock she could wrap her hand around and pull free.
“What are you trying to do, pull it down with your bare hands? Maybe there’s another door.”
“It’s just loose stone,” Charlie pointed out. “It was stacked there by hand. It could come out that way.” She pulled away a sizable chunk with both hands as proof.
Griffin rolled his eyes. “This is such a waste of time. All right—you do that. I’ll be right back.”
Charlie continued to pull out the stones one at a time where she could work them loose. It was difficult to do, and her hands were quickly becoming scraped and cut. She had only managed to remove a few when he returned.
“Move,” he ordered. He had found a sizable log somewhere, one with good handholds where shorter branches had been broken off. Charlie stepped out of his way, and he swung the log backward, then forward, and let it go. The log crashed into the stone wall in a shower of gravel. The barricade of loose stones crumbled into a heap in the doorway, and daylight shone through the gap.
“Well, that worked,” Charlie breathed, amazed.
“I came top in siege tactics. Let’s go in then,” Griffin said, tossing a few more stones to the side. “That should be a big enough hole to crawl through. In you go.”
Charlie climbed carefully over the pile of rubble and through the doorway to the other side of the wall, skidding a bit on the unstable surface. She stopped to take in the castle and its courtyard. The grass was overgrown, and the trees, shrubs, and gardens had long ago gone wild. A few smaller buildings scattered around the main tower had either collapsed or were about to. The castle itself was a primitive keep with a few later additions and was in peril of officially becoming a ruin. Pillars were cracked, and a corner of the building sagged inward. Only what was made of stone had held up to some extent. It was very, very quiet and still.
Taking a deep breath to steady her growing excitement, she strode determinedly toward the large building, Griffin following her in silence. A quarter of the way around, she found the main entrance, a pair of plain metal doors that were twice as tall as she was. She climbed the cracked steps to the doors and brushed her hand across the worn plaque that was nailed to one of them to reveal the flaking, gilded lettering.
“'Enter ye, if ye dare,’” Charlie read slowly, stopping to brush the dirt away from the letters to see them better. “'A task or trial awaits within. Only the worthy shall return from the fire.’ That’s very quaint. Like a message a child puts on a treasure map.”
“It is odd,” Griffin agreed. “And strangely threatening. Still want to go in?”
“Yes,” Charlie said firmly, taking hold of one of the ornate door handles. When she couldn’t get the heavy door to open, Griffin wrapped his own hand around the handle and added his strength to hers. Slowly, the rusty hinges creaked open.
Their eyes adjusted to the dim light inside. They faced a large, open hall, the ceiling high above their heads. The remnants of an old, faded carpet ran the length of the long room, stopping at the foot of a circular platform. Empty sockets for torches lined the otherwise bare walls. High up on the walls a line of narrow, arrow-slit windows let in the only light. In the center of the platform was a pillar of sorts.
“Look up,” Griffin said from behind her.
She did and gasped.
The ceiling was painted with bright, intricate designs. The colors, shapes, and patterns were mesmerizing. They gleamed hazily in the light from the open door, almost appearing to move. She was captivated by the silver, blue, red, and purple patterns and looked until her neck began to hurt.
“It means something,” the green-eyed knight murmured. “The pattern changes as it goes down. Maybe you have to look at it a certain way.” He shrugged and continued on to the front of the room.
Charlie followed slowly, her eyes still fixed upward. He was examining the pillar when she reached him. “Anything?”
He shook his head. He had assumed a rather watchful, reserved attitude, as if he expected danger or a sudden surprise. “It feels strange in here.”
“That’s because it’s abandoned,” Charlie reasoned. She examined the pillar along with him.
It was about three feet high and made of pure white marble. The top was two feet in diameter and shaped like an octagon. Ornately carved letters or figures were etched into its polished surface. Try as she might, she could not make them out. She glanced up to ask Griffin if he recognized them only to find he wasn’t there.
“Griffin?”
“I’m right here,” he called. “Don’t get in a panic.”
“I never panic,” Charlie sniffed.
“Sure you don’t. What do you think of this?”
She went to where he was standing next to a long table off to the side of the platform. “What is it?” she asked, coming closer to examine the strange structure. The table had a raised edge around the outside, and the horizontal surface was lower in the middle than the sides. There was a fire pit beneath it. The whole outside of it was carved with symbols and pictures like those of the pillar.
“It’s an altar,” Griffin replied. “For sacrifices.”
“Sacrificing what?” Charlie asked with a shiver, running her hand across the top.
“Young maidens,” Griffin suggested with a grin. He grabbed her under her arms and acted as though he were trying to drag her onto the altar. Charlie squeaked and struggled against his hold, startled. He let her go with a laugh. “Oh, stop. I won’t sacrifice you today. I’m all caught up on my sacrifices for now.”
She straightened up and glared at him. “That wasn’t funny. And why would you sacrifice people anyway?”
“I didn’t say people, I said maidens,” he replied. “Young, innocent, preferable pretty ones. It was a common occurrence four hundred years ago. There’s only one hallway off this room. Shall we?”
Charlie followed him to the door and into the dark hallway. It was too dark to see much down the hallway, but she could make out the dim outline of several doors at intervals. Griffin tried a few of the handles, but most were too warped or rusted to open. When he did manage to open one, they could make out nothing inside but a feeling of stale, dank air. Rats, disturbed by their presence, scurried along the walls and disappeared again.
“It’s too bad all of our candles are across the moat with the horses,” Charlie grumbled after a rat had scuttled across her shoe.
“If we find a torch, I can light it,” Griffin said. “It’s a little lighter up ahead. We’re at the end.”
The hallway ended in another door, and after Griffin had prised it open, Charlie stepped into a large open room and smiled. It was a ballroom or great hall of sorts, nearly round in constr
uction with a high ceiling and bigger windows than those of the original keep. The floor was smooth under layers of dust, and sconces for candles covered the walls. A broad, elegantly-carved staircase curved down to the center of the floor from the level above. Intrigued, Charlie went straight to the staircase and jogged up the steps.
Halfway up she stopped and turned to survey the room from her vantage point. It must have been lovely one day, a small, plain room compared to the great ballrooms of the palace, but a charming place for a party long ago. She had been rigorously tutored for the day she would descend a staircase like this into a ballroom under the gaze of a thousand eyes by the light of a thousand twinkling candles. She had spent hours rehearsing her entrance with her sister for the ball she had never gotten to attend. With the precision of long practice, Charlie placed her right hand on the dusty handrail and descended the steps with the slow, dignified grace of a court lady, holding the skirt of her invisible dress. For just a moment the empty room flashed with bright silks, chatter, and music.
Griffin stood at the bottom of the staircase, eyebrows raised and eyes glittering in the sunlight streaming dimly through the broken shutters. He gave her a formal bow and offered his hand. Charlie hesitated, then took it and allowed him to draw her out to the floor. Expertly, Griffin took her hands and began a music-less dance. Charlie let him lead her through a few turns, the movements as automatic as walking. She was a well-trained dancer, though sadly without much natural grace. After a few steps, she suddenly felt shy being so close to him and pulled away
“Let’s go see what’s at the top of the stairs,” she suggested.
The two of them quickly ascended the staircase, finding one long, dark passageway at the top. It was much too dark to see.
“Hold on—I think I saw a torch I could light in one of those brackets,” Griffin said. He vanished back down the stairs, leaving her standing alone at what felt like the dark maw of a sleeping monster. It seemed like ages before he came panting up the staircase again, a torch smoking copiously in his hand. Cautiously they walked down the dark passage, kicking at the rats that came too close. The long hallway ended in a plain wall. Charlie shrugged, and they turned back. This time they passed a hallway that led from the one they stood in and that she was certain had not been there before.
Charlie and Griffin exchanged glances. “Let’s go back down the stairs,” Griffin said softly. She nodded.
But the hallway dead-ended again.
“It can’t do that,” Griffin protested. “We just came this way from a staircase.”
“Let’s go back the other way,” Charlie suggested, trying to keep the quiver from her voice. Again they met a wall. “The other passageway then,” she said quietly.
“I could swear that wasn’t there before,” he muttered.
“It wasn’t,” she agreed. “But there’s nowhere else to go.”
Cautiously they proceeded down the dark, narrow passage, glancing back often to make sure the opening was still there. Griffin’s torch fluttered softly, casting shadows against the walls. The floorboards squeaked quietly under their feet. The passage ended in another stairway.
The space beyond the staircase was too dark to see. The bottom of the stairs was obscured in complete darkness.
“Can you hold it up?” Charlie asked in a whisper.
He raised the torch, but its dim circle of light did not expand.
Slowly he took one step forward, then another. She stayed one step behind him, staring into the blackness. After a few steps, the torch and what little she could see of Griffin pitched forward suddenly and disappeared. She heard a curse and a thump, but before she could question what had happened, her foot had met the same slick surface that had unbalanced him, and she fell forward after him down an incline. He had the decency to break her fall at the bottom, but she guessed by his grunt that it hadn’t been intentional. Somewhere during the fall the light had been put out.
“Are you all right?” Griffin asked softly.
“I think so. Are you?” She patted gingerly at the ground to find a surface to brace her hands against so she could untangle herself from Griffin.
“Mostly.” He stayed still until she had gently shifted herself to the floor.
Charlie sat up, holding onto Griffin’s sleeve so she would know where he was. After a moment, another light flickered to life in his hand, illuminating their surroundings.
Charlie screamed.
The room was full of skeletons, their boney arms shackled to the walls. Large wooden and metal contraptions filled the room, some bearing sharp blades. She moved her foot and something clattered; a skull rolled out, its mouth open in horror.
Griffin’s reaction to her scream had been to seize her in a one-arm grip against his chest while he waved the light in his other hand at anything that appeared threatening. Considering the situation, she decided to ignore the liberties he was taking with her person.
“What is this?” she choked.
“I don’t know. Not a nice place, but it’s been long-abandoned. Skeletons can’t hurt us.”
“No, but let’s leave anyway. How do we get back out?” she whispered.
“We just have to reach the steps again,” he whispered back, still holding onto her. “Maybe we can climb the sheer part.”
“You go look.” She timidly kicked the skull away. She looked at him suddenly. “What is that?”
She had assumed when the light had returned, however irrationally, that Griffin had somehow re-lit their torch. He was instead holding a sphere of what looked like candlelight in his hand, unattached to anything and flickering softly.
Griffin looked down at his hand. “Can I explain that later? Escaping seems more pressing.”
“All right,” Charlie agreed. One problem at a time.
He stood, pulling her up with him. She watched as he raised the light, looking for where the slope and the steps merged. “It’s out of reach,” he said after a moment. “We slid a long way.”
Glancing uneasily at the odd devices around her, Charlie replied, “We have to find another way out or climb back up.”
“The hallway up there dead-ends at both ends,” he reminded her. “Let’s look down here first.”
“Fine.”
Carefully, Griffin leading with his ball of light, they made their way around the odd contraptions and skeletons. One skeleton lay stretched out on the flat part of a device, a spike driven where its heart would have been. Another hung by its ankle from the ceiling, held together by the remnants of its garments.
“It’s a torture chamber,” Charlie whispered, horrified. “But why would they have one here?”
“I don’t know, but I’m beginning to think this was a temple.”
“Yeah?” So Shalans did have strange ideas about what constituted a temple. No wonder Shala and Tandora were at odds; Tandoran temples were pretty, peaceful places where people left incense.
“Yes. A very old one from some very old religion. They judged heretics in that long room and tortured them down here. And you saw the altar already. That’s enough proof for me.”
“Lovely,” Charlie muttered. Her foot caught on something, making her bump into Griffin. She looked behind her and shuddered. Carefully she picked up the skull and replaced it on the neck she had knocked it from.
A few minutes later Griffin tripped.
“Put it back,” Charlie said.
“I didn’t trip over a skull,” he said. “It’s a wire.”
“A wire?” she echoed, puzzled.
“Yes. Do you hear that?”
A faint clicking sound met their ears.
Griffin raised his light.
Above their heads was a blade. It wavered uncertainly on its fraying rope, the light shivering across its surface as it moved. With a soft groan, it started to fall. Charlie and Griffin leapt apart, throwing themselves out of the way only a second before the long blade hit the ground.
Trembling, Charlie sat up, brushing away cobwebs and moving
bones aside. Griffin was untangling himself from a rotted torture device that had broken under his weight. Standing shakily, she went to see what had fallen.
It must had been an intimidating blade at one point, two feet long and thin as parchment, but it had become so thoroughly rusted that it had broken upon impact. Shattered bits of metal littered the floor. The oak-plank floor was pitted where sharp slivers had cut into it. Part of the frayed rope that the blade had hung from was still tied to the hole bored into the largest piece. The remainder of the rope dangled from the ceiling.
Griffin had dropped his light when he had jumped, but it had not gone out. It rolled across the floor, glowing faintly. Charlie picked it up, surprised that it was warm but not hot. It was soft, bending under her fingers, but springing back to its round shape when she stopped pressing.
“Well, this is straight out of a nightmare,” Griffin remarked. “Fortunately this little prank was too old to do much damage.” He held out a hand for the light.
She didn’t give it to him. “Can you make another one and let me keep this one?”
He shrugged. A moment later another ball of light appeared in his hand. She didn’t question how he did it.
“Let’s go back,” Charlie said, heading toward the stairs. “I don’t think there’s another way out.”
“I agree. There doesn’t seem to be any doors or windows down here. We’re probably underground.”
The slanted surface of the ramp was impossible to climb up. Several tries left them both still at the bottom.
“It’s too slick,” Charlie complained. “We need something to stand on.”
Griffin sighed. “Let’s see what we can drag.” He glanced around the room.
They eventually found a table that wasn’t bolted to the floor and, after removing the skeleton that occupied it, they slowly dragged it across the floor to the bottom of the ramp. Bits of old wood broke off as they moved it, and the legs wobbled threateningly when Charlie climbed onto it.
“Can you reach?” Griffin asked, holding his light up for her to see.
The Silver Key Page 13