He knelt beside her. “The powder smells like lavender deje. Leif burned the resin of that plant once and let me inhale the fumes. Makes the whole body numb, tingly. It was fun. Do you think we can we sniff the powder, too?”
“Why would we do that?”
“To feel good.”
“We’ve other more important matters at hand.”
“But we can’t just waste it. The deje plant is so rare. Expensive. One of the most dangerous things. Only oghul pirates dare collect it. Lavender deje only grows in Sør Sevier.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “In the Bloodwood Forest, they say.”
Tala went rigid at the mention of the forest. “Just look at the map, would you.”
He studied the newly revealed drawing. “Where does it lead?”
“To the Rooms of Sorrow. Then out to Memory Bay. Jondralyn says whatever is down here is important—”
“Jondralyn?” He stood abruptly. “I won’t be a part of any more of your mad adventures, Tala.”
“Fine.” She stood too, folding the map and putting both it and the tin of lavender deje back into her pocket. “I will go alone.”
Glade was exasperated, angry. “You carry a rare tin of lavender deje. You have an invisible map leading to some mysterious crypt. You waltz into Purgatory like you own it and boss my brother around. It’s all absurd. Everything you do leads to trouble. The type of trouble that gets folks executed. Remember what happened with Sterling Prentiss last time we went off adventuring into secret places together?”
At the mention of Sterling’s name, she stole a nervous glance at Gault Aulbrek. She whispered to Glade, “That business with Sterling seemed to work out just fine for your brother. So how do you know that perhaps something even greater for the Chaparral family isn’t waiting at the end of the map?”
“I’m done with your nonsense. I’m following Lindholf back to the castle.”
“Then you can explain to Jovan how you just let his sister, the princess of Amadon, disappear like a vapor into the dungeons of Purgatory.” She snatched her dress from the floor, held it up before him. “Disappeared, Glade. Alone. Her torn dress found by the cage of this Sør Sevier killer.” She ripped the dress down the middle, threw it to the floor, ground it into the grit underfoot. “Who knows what could have happened?”
Glade clenched his jaw, eyes on the filth-covered dress. His fists were clenched too. “This is a dungeon. A dangerous place we know nothing about. This is Purgatory. You can’t ask this of me, Tala.”
“The map is the route Hawkwood used to escape this place after the duel with the Dayknights.” She met his gaze. “How would it be, Glade: you, the one to discover his escape route?”
A spark of interest grew in his eyes. “I thought you said the map led to treasure.”
“Hawkwood’s escape route and treasure.”
“It will likely take more than two hours to follow that map to the Rooms of Sorrow, if they even exist. And then what? The guards come down those stairs to find us missing?”
“That doesn’t matter. We exit under the water into Memory Bay like the map says and make our way back to the castle.”
Glade shook his head. “In two hours the guards will come down here. They will tell Leif we have vanished and they will search for us. And even if that map is correct, and all those hidden tunnels really exist, and even if we can float out into Memory Bay, how will we even see? It’s pitch-black down here.”
Tala’s eyes scanned the chamber, sizing up each of the dozen or so torches hanging in rusted sconces along the walls. She crossed the chamber and pulled one free. “They look fresh lit, good for half a day, if not longer.” She then counted the sconces along the wall to the left from the entryway inward and made her way toward the sixth one. “According to the map this is where we begin.” She lifted that torch from the sconce too, beckoning Glade over, handing both torches to him.
Gault had heard their entire conversation. But there was nothing she could do about that. The man would tell Leif what he had heard and seen or he wouldn’t. And he seemed the type who wouldn’t give anyone anything at any time. With that thought, Tala faced the wall, reached up, and pulled down on the empty sconce. It took the entire weight of her body, but like a large iron lever, it swung downward with the groan of stone sliding across stone. There was a loud eerie clicking sound across the room.
Without thinking, Tala snatched one of the torches from Glade and hurried toward the sound, Glade on her heels. When they reached the other side of the chamber, they could clearly see that the bottommost five-foot section of one of the vaulted columns that arched high over the chamber had slid upward. There was a gap perhaps two feet high under the stone column. Tala knelt and peered under the raised stone. The gap led to a dark corridor beyond.
Just like being in the secret ways . . .
She looked up at Glade triumphantly. “See, the map was right.”
† † † † †
There were no instructions on the map on how to shut the gap once on the other side. They wasted a good ten minutes looking for a second lever in the narrow corridor beyond before deciding to just leave it open.
Tala carried the map in one hand, a torch in the other. Glade held the other torch and one of Hawkwood’s swords gripped tight. The passageway sloped down. It was cold, musty, and acrid. The blackness of their surroundings seemed to devour the light of the two torches, their only beacons in the gloom. Hunks of chiseled rock littered their path. Ax and pick marks pocked the cavern walls on either side. The sounds of their heavy breathing and footsteps echoed from wall to wall.
They followed this singular dark corridor for at least an hour before a set of stairs led them down to a large chamber. Thirty stairs total, marked on the map. Passageways branched off in all directions from the room. But Tala paid the passageways no heed and followed the map’s instructions. She crossed the room in a straight line to a black stone wall. Water streamed endlessly from a tiny crack high above. It flowed straight down like a sheet of glass over the smooth rock surface.
Tala could feel the hollow brittleness of her own voice as she spoke. “There should be another lever at knee level, a loose brick under the falling water.”
Glade pointed. “I see it.”
Tala squinted at the tiny writing on the map. “Push it in just a small ways, until it clicks into place. If you push too far . . . there is some trap set.” She looked up at the wall nervously. “But it doesn’t say what kind of trap.”
Glade knelt and carefully pushed against the loose brick. It slid a few inches in, clicking into place. The water stopped flowing from the ceiling and a crack was instantly revealed in the wall—a black sliver.
“Lean against the left side.” Tala put her shoulder to the rock wall and pushed. Glade helped. The wall silently moved inward like a door on a hinge. She shoved it open just far enough to slip through. “Let’s leave this one open too,” she said. “In case we need to double back.”
They followed the map for what seemed another hour. By now the guards would have come back into the chamber to find her and Glade gone, her torn dress on the floor before Gault’s cage, a dark gap left open under the stone column. They would be scrambling, trying to figure out what to do. Wondering if they won’t soon be executed for losing the princess! With that thought, Tala realized that in her cleverness, she had not quite thought through every ugly ramification her actions might bring. How many guards will be in trouble for my disappearance?
With a weighted soul, she carried on. Glade led the way now. The floor of the downward-sloping corridor had a thin layer of water rushing along. Soon it was ankle deep. As they waded through the brackish flood, the water was a cold shock on Tala’s skin. Glade’s silhouette was a phantom gleam in the flickering light of their torches. Stray torrents of yellow light fluttered like sails on the chipped and jagged canopy of rock above, sparkling a dozen shades of orange and gold all around. Here in the blighted roots of the Amadon’s twisted under
belly, the way in which the darkness moved and glittered both frightened and invigorated Tala. Beyond their torchlight lived a deep blackness. In some places the ceiling was low, and they had to duck and crawl through; other times there was naught but hollowness above.
“When will we be out of this damnable place?” Glade’s voice echoed off the walls of the passage. Tala had been asking herself that same question with each watery step. They’d been in these waterlogged tunnels so long that she wondered if they wouldn’t just dump her back under Mount Albion and into the castle, dump her right into Jovan’s chamber. It was a sobering thought. After this adventure, she would likely spend the rest of her days locked in her room under guard.
She heard cackling laughter in the distance, a cackling that pierced the darkness and raked over her nerves. Before her, Glade stepped with caution through the black water, reaching a sharp bend in the tunnel. He peered warily around the corner.
“Who’s there?” came a hoarse shout.
Glade ducked back, a hint of torch flame glinting in the depths of his frightened eyes. “There’s a naked old man hanging from the roof ahead,” he said.
Tala looked at the map, pointing to a note on the map that simply read, Hanging cage. Her feet were frozen in the water. She wanted to keep moving.
“How could a naked old man have gotten down here?” Glade asked. “Who put him there?”
“Let’s just keep going. He’s in a cage. He can do us no harm.”
Glade glared at her with fierce intent. “I wager every Dayknight in Amadon is searching for us now, scouring these tunnels, frantic . . . including my brother. Possibly yours, too.” He gripped his sword, thrust his torch beyond the corner, and stepped around the bend. “This all better be worth it.”
Tala followed him into the corridor. It stank of body odor and rot and human feces. They approached the old man in the hanging cage. “There they are!” the man shouted. “Rats! Rats! Dirty castle rats! Finally come a-creepin’, finally come a-lurkin’, finally come a-walkin’ in the waters from out of their hidey-holes to see ol’ Maizy.”
The old man sat on the rotted bottom of the cage, legs dangling into the air, a good three feet off the floor. The rusted cage hung from a thick iron chain in the center of the corridor. It swung about, twisting slightly as the old man stretched spindly, skeletal arms out between the bars, clawed and gnarled hands reaching for Glade. “Come to me, boy. Come to ol’ Maizy.”
Glade’s back hugged the wall as he waded past the cage, the old man’s shit-encrusted fingers just inches from his face. Glade held his sword out threateningly. “Stay back!” he snarled. The old man’s jittery fingers grabbed at the blade. “Back!” Glade shouted, and then he was past the old man’s reach.
As Tala slid by the cage, a wretched stink hit her like a punch to the face and she nearly vomited. But then she was by the old man and hurrying on, water sloshing at her legs.
“I’m hanging so close to the water,” the man’s voice scratched. “Give ol’ Maizy a drink of it, please! So close. I can’t even taste it up so high. . . .”
Glade continued around the next bend, Tala following with haste, glad the crazy old man and his rotten stink were behind them.
“You lazy rats!” Maizy shouted, louder now. “Perhaps the spirits who stalk you will aid an ol’ man. I see your true hearts! There are many ways in and out of here! You are not alone!”
“The wraiths have taken that one,” Glade muttered. Tala couldn’t get herself away from the mad shouting fast enough. She hustled her pace.
“A spirit with evil intent follows you!” His cackling voice still pursued her in the deep. “Follows you! Follows you! Someone always follows rats from the castle! A lurker, a stalker . . . a misshapen thief . . .”
The old man’s deranged voice eventually faded away into the distance. Tala and Glade fell into stillness again, the rustling of the water at their feet the only sound.
† † † † †
They finally came to a dry room with a low ceiling, thick spiderwebs clinging overhead, brushing against Tala’s hair. She listened for any sound of pursuit but could hear nothing save a low rumble growing from all around her all at once, an iron-cold thrum that soon consumed the entire room.
Glade stepped further into the room, torchlight playing over a cobbled floor all aglitter—it was covered in thousands of needle-sharp silver darts sparkling in the firelight. Whoever had previously traversed the room had cleared a path through the darts. Tala took a look at the map and found the note, Traps dismantled, darts, do not touch. She shivered inwardly as both she and Glade made their way carefully through the room, the walls now thundering with sound.
Before entering the next passageway, she stopped and untied the water skin from her belt and took a long drink, offering some to Glade. The glow of their two torches created a pocket of light around them. The light burnished his face in an amber glow, a face that she could see was lined with doubt and fatigue. She felt the same, doubtful and tired. The journey was taking far longer than anticipated.
As Glade gulped the water down, Tala was almost tempted to cling to him, longing for some reassurance that she wasn’t alone in this dark place. She recalled how things used to be with Glade years ago, before he turned into the monster he now was, how his name would skip lightly off her tongue, how the mere presence of him would set her heart aflutter, how his touch would melt her skin. Now she was just repulsed by him.
He murdered Sterling Prentiss, and he didn’t even flinch while doing it.
Done drinking, Glade wiped the water from his face with the sleeve of his shirt. “This was a stupid idea following you!” He had to shout to be heard above the growing roar coming from the walls. “We are lost! We could die down here! And what is that fucking sound?”
“We have to keep going!” She ripped the water skin from his hand and again secured it to her belt. It was so cold the skin of her face was tight and numb. It hurt to yell. “This is how Hawkwood escaped! We are almost to the end!”
There was a sudden flash of white light in the distance just over Glade’s shoulder. Just a flash and then gone. “Did you see that?” She grabbed his shirt, turning him.
“See what?” Glade’s mouth was set in a firm expression beneath the torch and its lazy flickers of yellow light.
“I saw a light behind you!”
“You are imagining things!”
A whisper of wind touched the back of her neck and she shuddered, thinking she heard the metallic clinking of armor. Something is back there. She recalled the old man’s warning. A spirit with evil intent follows you. Everything about this place, including the company she kept, made Tala feel cold and lonely. Has the Silver Guard found us already? Beyond the torchlight, everything was submerged in a swamplike gloom.
“This is madness!” Glade yelled. “Let’s go back!”
“We can’t turn back now!” she shouted, pushing Glade farther down the tunnel. “Let’s go!”
Within a few short paces they were stumbling over piles of broken rock, where large stretches of the passageway’s roof had fallen in. Water dripped from the jagged ceiling. A few more paces and the deluge worsened, raining water over them. They were swiftly soaked through, their torches flickering, threatening to go out in the downpour. And then Glade’s torch lost its flame. They huddled over it, tried to relight it but gave up in frustration. Glade hurled it into the darkness.
Tala hunched over her torch as she trudged along, trying to protect the flame from the water. But the heat was nearly unbearable. Soon there was a deep roiling stream to their left, gurgling and splashing darkly beside them. They skirted past a waterfall that crashed down into the wild torrents from a fissure high in the walls, some deep crevasse that stretched back into the dreariness. Chunks of wood and other refuse from the city somewhere above came tumbling from the falls at intervals.
In the oxcart, on their journey to Purgatory, Leif explained to them that in death the poverty stricke
n would be hurled with all the other garbage into the Vallè River, their bones to litter the banks. He’d advised them to always stay clear of the river, warned them of the covens of witches and other cults that used its waters in unholy sacrament. Some of these sinister cults—the oghuls mostly—would strip the flesh from the corpses and perform rituals with the blood and bones. Tala now wondered if some of that filth wasn’t in these underground waters. The booming sound of it all was tremendous and smothering at once.
They continued on, the roiling stream to their left. Soon there were more falls springing from the darkness. The deluge of falling water created a boiling flood more than twenty feet wide in the gully next to them. No longer just a stream, this snarling river that had taken root to their left looked black and dark and deep and moved with a swiftness that nearly took Tala’s breath. And the debris that occasionally came twirling and swirling in its fierce current looked as helpless as leaves in a fierce windstorm.
And the ledge that acted as their pathway grew narrower as the snarling waterway beside them grew more threatening. On the map was written river, but to Tala, this was no river but a dangerous, roiling maelstrom, ominous and dreadful. And she wasn’t so sure she had it in her to continue even one more step.
Then they came to the end of their path. A black wall of rock, the feral river disappearing with ferocious thunder beneath it. Tala watched in horror as a hunk of wood as big as her leg smacked into that wall with a thud, tumbled once, twice, and then was swallowed under, vanishing forever.
She closed her eyes and silently prayed, doing the three-fingered sign of the Laijon Cross over her heart. Glade’s voice was rough with anger. “This is nothing!” He whirled on her, torch held high. “You’ve led me to nothing! A dead end!”
“Look!” She handed him the torch, pulled out the map, and unfolded it. The writing was still there, faint, almost unreadable in spots now. She showed him. “We have to go into the water! Under the rock! To the Rooms of Sorrow!”
The Blackest Heart Page 19