The Black River Chronicles: Level One (Black River Academy Book 1)

by David Tallerman

  “It means more than that,” Tia said. “You don't just find rotwart bulbs lying around. Even an academy storesmaster would have a hard time laying hands on them.”

  Arein and Hule had caught up by then. “So Cullglass is dangerous?” Arein asked.

  “Death by rotwart toxin is so horrible that there are professional assassins who refuse to use the stuff,” Tia told her. “If he was behind this, then he's something worse than dangerous. And if he wasn't, then he still has plenty of questions to answer.”

  Yet if Tia was worried, she hid the fact well. For once again she set off without discussion, her eyes locked upon the footprint trail that still snaked into the gloom. Durren followed, alert now for whatever pitfall might lie ahead—though there was every possibility that none of them would see it until far too late.

  They took a couple more turns in quick succession, and passed a number of openings in the walls. This portion of the underground labyrinth seemed different to the other, somehow more like the inside of a regular building. What little Durren had glimpsed through the doorways suggested that they led off to rooms, which implied in turn that people had once used this region for a purpose, maybe had even lived down here. Durren tried to imagine that, and what those ancient dwellers might have been like. Assuming, he thought with a shudder, that they ever actually left.

  “I can feel something ahead,” Tia said.

  She didn't need to say, Something bad. That information was clear in her voice—and in any case, by then Durren had sensed the same himself. Yes, there was something terrible around the next corner. He knew so with certainty. He wanted to turn and run, but Tia had the lantern and she wasn't stopping. Durren would have liked to cry out to her, but the prospect of making a sound, of drawing the attention of whatever lay in wait, was somehow even worse.

  The light seemed strange now, as though it were thicker than before. Ahead, he heard Tia gasp, a small noise of suppressed horror. Durren was almost at the corner. Another step would carry him past. Yet he knew that whatever threat Tia had encountered, it lay not only ahead of them. The danger was behind him too, close behind. And, try as he might, he couldn't resist the urge to turn and face his fear.

  There before Durren, veiled in shadow, stood his father.

  Urden Flintrand said nothing. He only glowered, his eyes made black as pitch by the scant light. Durren understood all too well his unspoken meaning: that he was a failure of a son, a disgrace, and his punishment would be to be dragged home and forced into a life of—

  No. This wasn't right. As much as his senses tried to persuade him, as much as the fear strived against his doubt, Durren couldn't shake off a sense of wrongness. Then he remembered—and couldn't believe he'd forgotten, even for an instant. This had happened before. It hadn't been real then and couldn't possibly be real now. Anyway, this nightmare was already coming true; any day now he would be carted back to Luntharbour and his father's home. Nothing he thought made the feeling of dread go away, but abruptly Durren found that he could see beyond it. He knew what was going on here.

  “It's the Petrified Egg,” Tia declared, from ahead. Her voice was tense, but Durren could tell that she too had mastered her imposed fear. “Arein, please will you come here and deal with it?”

  Arein hurried past. As before, she seemed entirely impervious to the Egg's power. An instant later and so was Durren himself, the feeling of artificial terror abruptly vanished.

  Hule trotted past. “Damned spiders,” he muttered, just loud enough for Durren to catch. Then, at his normal volume, “I suppose we know now why somebody wanted us to steal the thing.”

  Durren didn't enjoy hearing what they'd done phrased so bluntly, but Hule was right: they'd stolen the Petrified Egg from those poor priests, who he felt sure now had been innocent of the slightest wrongdoing.

  “Another trap,” Tia agreed, “to protect or guard whatever's down here. One that was bound to work, too—against anyone but us.”

  It nearly worked on me all over again, Durren thought. The fear had certainly been convincing enough.

  “Obviously Cullglass, or whoever's pulling his strings, knew a great deal about the Egg,” Tia added. Durren saw that she was examining something in the centre of the passageway: a waist-high column, down the edges of which ran a series of carved runes. It closely resembled the pedestal that had housed the Petrified Egg back in the monastery tower—though how such a replica came to be here was yet another mystery.

  “I think we must be getting close,” Arein said. “Otherwise no one would just leave something so valuable lying around.”

  As they set off again, it soon became apparent that she was right. Since Cullglass's footprints had suggested he'd ignored the rooms they'd passed earlier, so had they. This time, however, halfway down the next passage, the imprints turned off into a doorway—currently a vacant arch, for nothing remained of the door itself but three blackened hinges. An unpleasant smell came from beyond the entrance, one that made Durren think unmistakeably of overflowing latrines.

  He didn't much like the idea of going in, but there could be no turning back now—and in any case Tia had already slipped through. Noticing that she had her knife in her hand, Durren drew his, and tried to take some reassurance from its heft.

  The space beyond the doorway was shallow but long, so much so that Durren could barely make out the farthest wall. However, for the first time in what seemed an age, there was natural light to be seen: narrow, sloping channels had been cut into the ceiling, and through them fell slivers of dusty, green-tinged sunlight.

  At first, Durren couldn't say what the room's purpose had been—not until he noticed the glint of metal. Then he understood: half of the chamber, divided lengthways, was cut off by vertical bars, and those bars in turn were subdivided into a series of cages.

  “There's someone here,” Arein murmured. Obviously her vision in the darkness was considerably better than Durren's own—or else she was still relying partly on Pootle's perspective.

  The four of them drew closer together. And now Durren could see what Arein had seen, there in the most distant of the half-dozen cells: a shape that seemed to him more or less human.

  They crept nearer. The shape wasn't moving. Durren could tell, though, that it was a person, crouched with their back to one wall.

  “Wait, isn't that…” Hule began.

  He didn't need to finish. They'd all seen by then. For the shape had glanced up, and the face it had turned their way was undeniably familiar.

  There could be no question. The man they were looking at, the man imprisoned here deep beneath the earth, was Lyruke Cullglass.

  17

  A

  t first, the second Cullglass barely seemed aware of their presence. It was obvious that the lamplight troubled him, and he shielded his eyes with one bony hand. Other than that, however, all he did was sit there, swaying slightly, as the four of them gazed through the bars at him.

  The Cullglass before them differed in a few crucial ways from the one they'd come to know over the last few weeks. For a start, he was a great deal thinner: his cheeks were sunken, his eye sockets were dark pits, and Durren found it unpleasantly easy to perceive the contours of his skull beneath the skin. His hair and beard were long and straggling, reaching well past his shoulders. He looked older as well, though perhaps that was only another result of the obvious mistreatment he'd endured. Durren didn't doubt for one moment that he'd been in that cage for a very long time indeed.

  Tia set down her lantern before the cage and studied the lock with an expert's eye. “I can get that open,” she decided. “But are we certain I should?”

  “What do you mean?” Arein asked. “We can't just leave him in there.”

  “I'm just saying—” Tia dropped her voice to a whisper. “We don't know for sure what it is we're looking at.”

  “He's…” Clearly Arein had been about to say, Cullglass, before she'd realised Tia's meaning. Her brow scrunched in thought.

  Then, whe
n the man in the cage spoke, she nearly jumped out of her skin. “Are you…real?” he croaked. “Or are you…like him?”

  “Sir,” Arein said, “we're students from Black River Academy. My name is Areinelimus Thundertree—but you can call me Arein if you like. These are Hule, Durren and Tia.”

  The second Cullglass scrutinised them. “Is this another trick?”

  “It's not a trick,” Tia assured him. “But why would you believe it was?”

  “I think I know,” Arein murmured. To the caged Cullglass she said, “Just a moment, sir. We'll be right back, and please don't worry about anything.” She caught hold of Tia's arm and drew her into the shadows, nodding for Durren and Hule to follow.

  Some distance away from the occupied cage, Arein crouched, motioning for the others to join her. “Listen,” she said, “I think that our Cullglass is a shapeshifter. Do you remember I told you about them, Durren? They're magical creatures, but ones that started out as men—at least so far as anyone knows. They used to be a big problem a long time ago, always stirring up trouble, and in the old days people would kill them whenever they were found out.” She shuddered. “I thought the last one had been executed centuries ago. Still, it's the only possible explanation.”

  Durren was ready to argue, for the explanation seemed too outlandish to be real. Was he really expected to accept that the Lyruke Cullglass they'd spoken with so many times had in fact been some magical imposter? Only, a memory came to him then, and he knew suddenly that she was right. “That's how he gave you the slip the first time you followed him, Tia,” Durren said. “And how he nearly lost us before. That wasn't a disguise—at least not in the way we thought.”

  “Is there any way to be sure?” Tia asked.

  Arein considered. “There must be a test. Like I said, there was a time when everyone thought they'd wiped shapeshifters out for good, so they have to have had a way of finding them. Whatever it was, though, I don't know it.”

  “But,” said Durren, “it's not exactly likely that the real Cullglass would have locked up a shapeshifter duplicate of himself.” Only as the words left his mouth did he realise what Tia was getting at. Yes, that was unlikely—but it was perfectly plausible that the storesmaster was keeping imprisoned a shapeshifter that had, at the last moment, taken on his appearance to confuse them. “I think we've no choice but to trust this Cullglass,” he decided. “After all, our Cullglass has been behaving suspiciously. Isn't that enough?”

  “No,” Tia said, “it isn't. We know now why he wanted the Petrified Egg. Maybe he had an equally good reason for needing a unicorn. And he could hardly just say to us, 'Here's a list of things to steal for me, so that no one can come along and rescue the shapeshifter I have locked up out in the forest.'“

  “You know, I can hear every word you're saying,” came a weak voice from behind them. “So perhaps you'd like to include me in your discussion?”

  Tia sighed, clearly annoyed by the stupid mistake they'd all just made. She turned back to the cell. “If you've been listening, then you heard what we want to know,” she said. “How can we be sure we can trust you? If you're claiming to be the real Cullglass—”

  “I am Lyruke Cullglass,” the caged man said. Annoyance gave his tone a strength it had lacked before. “I was drugged and kidnapped by that filthy creature and brought to this foul place, where I've been kept for…” His words choked off, and Durren realised he must have no idea how long he'd been incarcerated down here in the darkness. “For a long time indeed,” the old man concluded. “Now I would very much like to get out.”

  “If you're the real Cullglass,” Hule put in, “then why was the fake Cullglass visiting you? Why did he even bother keeping you alive?”

  “I think I know the answer to that,” Arein said. “Shapeshifters don't just turn into people. It takes a constant effort, and relies on their memories of the person they're imitating. If the fake Cullglass had just let the real one die, then he could only have kept the impersonation up for a few days.”

  “Exactly,” agreed the man in the cage. “That creature kept me here because he needed me. Twice a week he would bring me food and question me so as to perfect his imposture, while reminding himself of precisely what I looked and sounded like. Until your arrival, that has been the entirety of the company I've received—and I can tell you honestly that I didn't much enjoy listening to that vile thing.”

  Arein glanced from face to face. “I really think this is the real Cullglass,” she whispered.

  Durren was inclined to agree with her, while Hule's expression suggested that he had no real opinion either way. Only Tia seemed still to have doubts.

  She took a few steps closer to the bars and knelt before the second Cullglass. “Who's head of the rogue class?” she asked him. “No, wait, that's far too easy. Who was the academy's third head tutor?”

  For all his malnourishment and dishevelled appearance, the caged Cullglass still managed to scowl at her convincingly. “There were no head tutors in those days,” he grumbled. “However, the third arch-dean of what was then the Conto Martial Academy was Lord Rufus Conto, fifth son of the founder Lord Rafael Conto. He was something of a wastrel by all accounts, which was why the academy was sold off and renamed.”

  “I didn't know any of that,” Arein said, sounding impressed. “Did the academy really used to have a different name?”

  “Yes,” Tia confirmed, “it's all true. And unless the shapeshifter did a great deal of preparation, I can't believe it would have known that much.”

  Without waiting to ask their opinions, she began at once to work at the lock with her picks. The task took her considerably longer than opening the door from the courtyard had done, and every so often Durren would hear her tut or curse beneath her breath. Finally, the mechanism gave a definite click, and Tia drew the barred hatch open. Then she backed away, so as to give Cullglass space.

  His first step, the one that carried him across the perimeter of the cell he'd dwelled in for so long, was hesitant—as though he was having second thoughts about leaving or, perhaps more likely, as though he couldn't quite persuade himself that this chance of freedom was real. He was bent half double, and the way he moved belonged as much to animal as man.

  Then, perhaps conscious of their eyes on him, he drew himself to his full height. Even with his beard and hair matted and filthy, even dressed in stinking rags, Cullglass had a certain authority.

  “Well,” the storesmaster said, “I'm grateful to you for my rescue. But now, if none of you have any further objections, I'd be very glad to get out of here.”

  Getting out of there was not so easily said as done.

  Only as they turned into the long passageway did Durren remember that they were trapped. Hadn't the plan been to hunt for another way out? However, now that he really thought, they had no guarantee that there was another exit, and it would be all too easy to become lost—especially if Tia's lantern, which already seemed less bright, should exhaust the last of its fuel. Anyway, Cullglass was clearly in no state to be wandering for hours in these subterranean depths.

  Therefore, their only remaining option was to find a way back over the chasm. Eventually, after much discussion, they arrived at a solution: they tied the free end of the rope to the curved hilt of Hule's dagger and anchored the blade deep in a crack in the floor, propping a broken chunk of paving stone on top to keep it in place. Even then, Durren had his doubts that the arrangement would hold, but Tia volunteered to go first, arguing that she was the lightest, and she shimmied over without incident, moving as easily as though she'd spent half her life crossing horizontal ropes over gaping holes.

  After that, they began to discuss what to do with Cullglass—who cut them off with a curt, “I can manage perfectly well by myself, thank you.”

  Durren wanted to argue. Even had the storesmaster been at full strength, it was hard to imagine him capable of such an athletic feat. But Durren hadn't the nerve to contradict him, no one else tried either, and so the only o
ption was to let him make his attempt. Durren spent the entire time with his teeth gritted and his fists clenched. Yet a couple of minutes later and Cullglass was safely on the far side with Tia, chuckling to himself with obvious self-satisfaction.

  Arein went next, and had the most difficulty. However, with the same stubborn patience she'd shown on her first crossing, she made it over in one piece. Hule had considerably less trouble, and even managed to carry their flagging lantern in one hand—though his overconfidence was nearly as nail-biting as Arein's nervousness had been. Then there was only Durren left.

  Everyone else had had the failsafe of another party member to catch the rope if it should slip. Only Durren had to rely solely on the anchor of Hule's knife—and the memory of his passage in the other direction was still fresh in his mind.

  As it turned out, however, the going was considerably easier this time. Durren was careful to secure his remaining arrows in his pack, and without that distraction to throw him off, it wasn't long before Hule and Arein were helping him to his feet on the other side. He gave the rope a last grateful glance—it hadn't proved such a bad choice after all—and the three of them, with Cullglass beside them, followed Tia as she led the way.

  Finally, they ascended the flight of stairs back to the surface. Durren felt as though hours had passed, and certainly the way the shadows had lengthened told him they'd been underground for a considerable while.

  In the daylight, Cullglass made for a pitiful sight. He reminded Durren of those poor souls who lived on the streets of Luntharbour, the sailors too devoted to drink to take ship and the petty craftsmen whose debts had consumed their fragile livelihoods. However, as he watched, the storesmaster seemed to pull himself up, as though simply by being free of his prison he was beginning to recover some of his vigour.