Sarn opened his mouth to scold his son, but Ran was staring in shock at his hand. A tear rolled down his son's cheek.
Rat woman’s spy darted into the chamber a second before a warning flashed on Sarn’s map. Someone was coming, and it wasn’t the rat’s mistress.
“Come, we must go.” The blind man tugged on Sarn’s arm, and he heard what had spooked his guide—footsteps.
This chamber’s secrets would have to wait for another day. For now, Sarn followed the blind man around another bend toward more crystalline structures transporting magic to who knew where for who knew what purpose. The mystery begged to be solved, but Ran might be in danger.
“Take the left turnings, and you should find a staircase. From there you can ascend to the upper levels. Go quickly now.”
“Who are you and who approaches?”
Shaking his head, the blind man urged Sarn to go. His arthritic hands pushed Sarn’s shoulder trying to turn him. “No time, go. Don’t let the guards catch you. It’s your death if they do. This place is forbidden.”
A rat chittered at Sarn and pointed its paws at the exit. Of course, it was one of Rat Woman’s spies
“What is this place?”
“The heart of the mountain—now go!”
“Thank you for—” the ground shook cutting Sarn off. Damn it, he still hadn’t found the cancer eating at Mount Eredren. Was the mountain about to deliver another ultimatum?
The ground trembled, but the floor attracted Sarn’s boots, allowing the rest of him to sway. He crashed into a stone wall jarring his son. Magic leaped to his defense too late to stop the rock from tearing his tunic and scratching his skin. Blood welled, and a drop splashed onto the stone under his feet.
Mount Eredren let loose a deafening roar as its foundations vibrated, shaking its cone. Rocks fell, and Sarn broke into a run aiming for a more stable section of the tunnel.
Far above, the quake knocked over a chair dumping Gregori onto a shag rug. Several corridors down, a cup shimmied off a low table, and its breaking jarred Nolo from sleep.
A half mile away on the same level, the quake shivered the stacks of paperwork on Jerlo’s desk tipping them over in domino fashion. Papers swirled. A dragon-shaped ink-well and the Ranger’s seal toppled off the desk.
Jerlo opened the door of his private quarters and peered at the mess. At least the inkwell had survived its fall. The opposite door opened revealing Nolo still in his dressing gown. Gregori shoved in behind him. They met Jerlo’s gaze, and he nodded.
“Find the Kid before the damned mountain shakes itself to pieces and us with it.” Jerlo shut his door. He left his second in command to figure out how to find a Kid who did everything he could to avoid being found, damn Sarn and his secretive ways.
Nolo and Gregori exchanged a glance. Gregori shrugged and clapped his friend on the back. “Guess we’d better look. I’ll take the library.”
“No, you check the rest of this level. I’ll take the library.” Nolo removed Gregori’s hand from his person. Forgiving what the man had done to Sarn would condone kidnapping and Nolo couldn’t do that.
Classes would still be in session for another hour or so, and he could check up on his son. Sarn would do the same since his brother also had class right now.
“You don’t trust me?”
Nolo spun on his heel and faced the man who had stood by him when he’d married Inari. “Don’t make me order you to go because I will. Jerlo might be willing to let your actions slide, but I’m not.”
Hurt flashed in his friend’s eyes, but it fled as the wise guy mask descended again. Gregori twitched his shoulders in a lazy shrug. “Fine, I’ll get on it right now, sir.” Gregori backed out of the doorway and stalked off.
Nolo tightened his sash and followed until he reached the end of a short corridor and broke right.
Chapter 24
Sarn put his back to a wall and listened. No footsteps, no earthshaking—their situation had improved. His sixth sense could tell him more but triggering it might give all the magic back there a hold over him. Maybe he should lay off on the magic for a while.
“No more glowing things?” Ran’s head swiveled his eyes on alert for them.
“No, we left them behind.” Sarn waved his free hand at the fallen rocks. They blocked part of the tunnel back to the farm creating a waist-high obstacle. Where was Rat Woman’s long-tailed minion?
Sarn scanned his map, but the area they’d left was still sketchy leaving plenty of dark spots for a rodent to hide in. Damn it, and he didn’t have a fix on Rat Woman yet. What about those crystals? If he gazed deep enough into their light, might he find answers there?
“Can we go home now?” Ran looked to Sarn for an answer.
The poor boy had enough adventuring for one day. Best he returned his son to familiar surroundings and then he’d find Rat Woman and get his hands on that book. Miren would be done with classes in a few hours and could read it to him.
“I know why you’re so quiet,” Ran said reminding Sarn of his son's presence. “You want to go back there, but it's a bad place.”
“It’s different, but it's not dangerous.”
“It’s bad for you. You do bad things there.”
Doubt mauled Sarn. Had those crystals offered the answers he sought or had he deluded himself? Was it the power of the place luring him back? It might be, and the thought chilled Sarn. He turned his back on the tunnel and took the left turn the blind man had suggested. It was time he showed the magic he made the decisions.
Ran nodded at the change in direction. “You know I’m right.”
“Because you’re never wrong?” Sarn hazarded trying not to laugh.
Ran rolled the idea around but shook his head rejecting it.
When Sarn reached for words to thank his son for anchoring him, they abandoned him. Instead, he held Ran close to his heart, contenting the boy. Maybe his son knew he was a gift. One Sarn appreciated always.
“What’s happening?” Ran’s breath misted the air as the temperature dropped.
“I don’t know.”
Nausea curdled his stomach as Sarn pivoted, but there were just endless miles of tunnel interspersed with the occasional rock formation to break up the monotony. There weren’t even any pictograms.
A disembodied arm popped into view pointing back to the magical hub.
“No, it’s a bad place. We’re not going back,” Ran swatted the arm away, but stopped when the ghost boy’s head appeared and fixed pleading eyes on them.
“The answer is back there in a book, right?”
The ghost boy shook his head. In frustration, Sarn kicked the nearest wall. There was a slight delay before his magic cushioned the blow, reminding him he’d done too much magicking today. Then a crash shattered the silence, sending Sarn running. He knew that sound all too well.
“I’m sorry,” he said over his shoulder to the ghost. Panic beat frantic wings as it sought to master Sarn. One word echoed in his head over and over in a metronome of doom—cave-in. Which tunnel was collapsing? Was it this one?
A boom shook the ground under Sarn’s feet rattling the mountain. Dust sifted onto their heads. Sarn squeezed out a breath as claustrophobia tackled him. Was the ceiling caving in? Was the floor buckling? Were they over the mines right now?
“Everything will be okay.”
Sarn willed his son to believe it as he tore around the bend. He had to get his son away from the mountain. Nothing else mattered.
Screams and sounds of a violent altercation echoed off the stone walls. Had the denizens of this underground hellhole started looting and rioting already? Ran trembled in his arms and cringed at every sound.
“I'll get us out of here. We’ll be okay,” Sarn murmured between breaths.
Echoes distorted sound making it impossible to tell where the trouble originated. Sarn called up his sixth sense, his head map—anything to help him elude danger. But his thoughts spun in a tight circle of fear.
Memories of a ca
ve-in returned, raising the ghosts of countless child miners. They had died seven years ago, but their shades floated after him, and their empty eyes asked why he had survived. Why had a stranger pulled him out and left them to die?
One heart-shaped face stood out from the crowd—Jorick—his first friend, his first for a lot of things, but she was dead and gone like all the rest. Her gaze stabbed the deepest, and her whispered questions turned the knife.
‘You liked me, why didn’t you save me?
“Let me see your eyes boy. I know you aren’t like the others. You’re worth something,” said the vagabond who’d pulled him blinking and coughing into the sunlight because of his magic-promising green eyes. Had the cave been better lit, his savior would have left his brown-eyed brother to die like all the rest.
A cold tear slid down Sarn's cheek for all those who’d perished. But A life more precious than his own rested in his arms trusting him to get them both out of this alive.
You’re all dead, and I’m sorry you’re dead, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Go away and leave me alone. As Sarn picked up the pace, he left the specters of his past behind.
Sarn skidded to a halt before a shoulder-high pile of debris bisecting his path. In his blind panic, he’d run to his cave. A stupid move indeed, but it was too late for regret. Rumbling off in the distance made Sarn turn and fumble for his head map. It spawned, but the map shook. So did the ground, and the resulting double vision made his stomach heave.
“I want Bear,” Ran said through tears.
“Okay, we’ll get him.”
But they'd have to pass the Foundlings’ door. The Foundlings—oh Fate—he had to warn them. They had to evacuate right now. Sarn stepped onto a pile of broken stone created when a column had collapsed in a previous earthquake and rushed across it.
After Sarn had hurtled the last obstacle, he turned a corner and halted at a closed door. Maybe they’d already gone. No, his head map exploded into view showing eighteen people icons before it shattered. Three of them he recognized in the split-second view.
“Stay by my side,” Sarn said as he put his son down so he could hammer on the door.
“Who’s out there?” asked a woman who could have been Morraina.
“You have to get out now. There’s a—cav—”
The word ‘cave-in’ twisted on his tongue and slithered around in his mouth. Each time Sarn tried to force the word past his lips, it changed from ‘cave-in’ to ‘earthquake’ as the word writhed on his tongue. Maybe the geas binding him to the truth had trouble identifying what was going on. Sarn shook his head and spat out the troublesome word.
“You said we’d be safe here.”
“Nowhere is completely safe. You have to—”
“So you lied to us?
“I can’t lie. Look we’re wasting time. You must leave right now. Will you get out here?”
“No, you said we’d be safe here, and since you can’t lie, we’re perfectly safe, aren’t we?”
She spewed more screwed up logic, but Sarn ignored it. He could think of no counter for her argument except to punch a door he refused to open in frustration. No lock hindered him except memory, but it was enough. The Foundlings’ part of his life was over. He'd crossed their threshold for the last time the day he'd left them for good.
“You're paranoid,” she continued. “You weren’t this bad when you lived here. You should move back in with us. Living on your own has put funny ideas in your head.”
The slap of bare feet against stone took her away from the door and ended the discussion. The cavern’s walls were thick enough to mute any further protests, so Sarn saved his breath. He turned to apologize to his son, but he sensed the boy was a hundred feet down and around a bend in the tunnel.
Hurrying to his cave, Sarn found the door ajar and a blanket covered lump shivering on the mattress. He scooped up boy, bear, and blanket and fled as the ground shook under his feet. Cave-ins were quick things with everything collapsing in a matter of minutes. But this prolonged quaking meant something else was going on.
Could there be many cave-ins or a series of tremors? Or worse, was this part of the fallout from the ghost boy’s death? The quickest route to the surface would take him close enough to the mines to answer his first two questions, so Sarn headed for it.
Ten minutes later, dusty miners joined the throng hustling toward a glimmer of daylight ahead. Closing his eyes, Sarn joined their ranks, holding tight to his silent son. Just another half mile and he’d be outside. Two thousand six hundred and forty feet and dwindling separated him from clean air and sunshine.
His magic reached out for it, wanting to be free and he lost his balance. The wall Sarn bumped into as the crowd jostled him felt solid against his shoulder, not crumbling. In fact, the ground had ceased quaking some time ago. Had he been wrong about a cave-in? Surprised, Sarn pushed off the wall.
“Go back to your homes. There’s nothing to see here,” shouted a guardsman from up ahead.
Opening his eyes for a moment, Sarn glimpsed a fellow with a pointy helm standing on a fold of rock above the crowd. Behind the lead guardsman, a line of blue-uniformed men held spears at the ready.
“The mountain isn’t falling down on your heads. It was an earthquake, and it’s over now,” continued the head guardsman. “Go back to your homes or places of work. The danger’s passed.”
Voices swelled as the crowd discussed this bit of news.
“There’s been too many these last six or seven years. Weren’t no quakes before, mark my words," said a woman reeking of chemicals shuffling along in front of Sarn.
A man nearby grunted assent to the washerwoman’s report. Fear iced Sarn’s insides. Six years ago, the Lord of the Mountain had found him half dead in a snow bank and brought him here.
Could there be a connection? Had he somehow caused every quake in the last six years? Sarn stumbled and caught himself on a boulder. Leaning against its comforting bulk, Sarn remembered the alien press of the mountain on his mind. He might have just endangered tens of thousands of people—oh dear Fate, it was possible. His magic knew how to use him, and he'd become its instrument.
“I want to go outside,” Ran said in a shaky voice.
“I know. I’m working on it.”
Sarn wore the Green—the woodland shade worn only by the Rangers. In theory, he could walk up to the guards and show them. They’d have to let him through. He belonged to Jerlo when the Lord of the Mountain was away, and the commander had the papers to prove it.
Sarn chewed his lip as he considered. If he walked up to a guard now, they’d see his son. He was the only Indentured Ranger, so word would reach Jerlo within the hour of the boy’s existence. Hugging his son tighter, Sarn turned away.
No, the Rangers could never find out about Ran. If they ever did, they’d take his son away from him because, in their eyes, he was mentally deficient.
Violence broke out ahead when some residents made an issue out of the guards’ presence. Everyone else fled back toward their squalid hovels. To escape the flow, Sarn slipped down a passage.
There were other ways out of the Lower Quarters. After all, this place had as many tunnels as there were people. Sarn loped toward the underground castle and the staircase hidden in its tower.
“You said we’re going outside. I saw the sun that way.” Ran pointed over Sarn’s shoulder.
“We are. We need to go another way. The other way isn’t safe right now.” Sarn checked his map as he sprinted. Yes, he was still ahead of the crowd. Good, then he could take that next right and cut across the Lower Quarters via the most direct route.
“Oh, okay.”
One more turn dumped them into the expansive cavern where the castle crouched in its far end holding up the cathedral ceiling. The old fort was still abandoned, but not for long. Sarn’s map tracked five icons on an intercept course, likely for the same reason, the staircase to the surface hidden in the north tower. But he’d be gone before they arrived if he kep
t running.
Ice sliced through Sarn staggering him. He held tight to his son as he tripped and went down on both knees. His magic rushed to protect his delicate skin and arrived a second too late. Since he’d forgotten to change his ripped trousers, rocks scraped his bare knees drawing a bead of blood.
“No!” Sarn rose, over balanced and sat down hard on a large piece of debris. A thin green film shimmered over the scratch, preventing any more blood from falling.
Ran, ever inquisitive, touched it. “It’s warm. Does it hurt?”
Sarn shook his head.
“Why’d you trip my Papa?” Ran glared at the ghost boy crouching in front of them. It had managed to pull half its body back together, but the ghost’s right arm and leg still floated nearby. Gray filaments strained to reconnect both appendages. The ghost raised stricken eyes full of apology to meet Sarn’s then pointed back the way they had come.
“No. We go out now. Papa said, and Bear agrees.”
Ran squirmed free of Sarn’s grasp and held his stuffed toy up, so its button eyes met the ghost’s.
The specter shattered and vanished. After shooting Sarn a guilty look, Ran lowered his bear.
“Why does that keep happening?”
“I wish I knew.” Sarn pushed to a stand. Those incoming icons had multiplied from five to ten, and they were two turnings away and closing. It was time to go. “Come on, outside is at the top of that tower.” Sarn picked his son up and headed for it wondering what he’d find on the surface.
Chapter 25
Sarn climbed through a vertical shaft of light into a golden afternoon. A westering sun hung three finger widths above the serrated horizon. He still had time before he had to meet the Rangers, but not much.
Ran choked his stuffed bear as he blinked at the sky overhead from his supine position in Sarn's arms.
“We’re outside now. We’re safe.” Sarn turned in a full circle as he considered what to do now. So much had happened, but his head felt light enough to float off without him. Was hunger making him faint? A handful of sweet potato wedges made a snack not a meal, but repeated run-ins with unnatural creatures had curdled his stomach.
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