Endric followed, the heat washing over him, immediately taking away his breath. “Who said anything about en’raen? I’m talking about when I’m general.”
“Fine,” Pendin said, shaking his head. “When you’re general, you can drag me along as Raen. I’m guessing your father will serve another twenty or thirty years, so maybe by then, I’ll be ready. Or too old and long retired. Either way, I don’t care.”
He started into the tunnel, leaving Endric to follow him.
The light from outside quickly faded the farther they made their way into the shaft, soon disappearing altogether. With no light, Endric trusted Pendin to lead him, but how would they know where they were going? Flashbacks to the last time he’d been in the tunnel—then without much light as well—came to him, making his heart palpitate.
“Don’t you think we should go back for a lantern?” Endric asked.
Pendin shook his head. “These shafts start out dark to force your eyes to adjust. There will be light. Most of the time, men come with their own lanterns.”
He grabbed onto Pendin’s shoulder, following him that way. They stopped, and Endric realized there was a soft glow, that of a distant lantern. Pendin turned toward it, and as they neared, it became even brighter.
“See?” Pendin said. “Nothing to worry about. We’ll just borrow this one.” He pulled the lantern from the hook on the tunnel wall and smiled. With the dim light, shadows danced around his face.
“Maybe we should report that missing as well,” Endric said.
“Not to the miners. They get touchy about such things.”
Endric followed Pendin as they continued along the mine shaft. They had veered toward the university, but even as they did, he wondered if there would be any way in. If there was, it was possible that it would be some hidden entrance, one that they could only reach by taking a dangerous route, much like Endric had been forced to take a dangerous way into the chamber with the teralin.
The shaft of the tunnel ran straight, with no interruptions along the length of it. Occasionally, they would pass other lanterns, but they were spaced quite far apart. Endric was thankful for the weak light of the lantern that they’d grabbed and hoped the light lasted. Even thinking about getting cast back into the darkness left him with a cold sweat, surprising given the heat that came from the unmined teralin.
“How much longer do you think we should go?” Endric asked. “There’s got to be a point where we acknowledge that we’re not going to find a way above.”
“We’re not even headed in the right direction yet,” Pendin said.
“How can you tell? We’ve been going basically straight the entire time we’ve been in here.”
“Yes, but straight toward the back of the mountain, not toward the university. I’m hoping that we’ll find a place to turn here and then I’ll be able to know where we’re going.”
“And if not?”
“Then we have to turn around. Either that, or we just wander in here until we die.”
“No thanks. I’ve spent enough time wandering aimlessly in the tunnels already for one lifetime.”
“It’s not quite that bad.”
“No? How do you think it is? No lantern. The strange sense of the teralin all around you. And the Deshmahne chasing you. That was pretty bad.”
Pendin paused and turned to look back at Endric. He appeared comfortable, not bothered by the heat of the tunnels that left sweat streaming down Endric’s face. Shadows danced along his face, leaving his eyes flickering with a bright energy. “What do you mean about the strange sense of teralin? You mean like the heat?”
Endric shook his head. “Not the heat. There’s an energy to the metal. I’m sure you can feel it too.” Now that he was back in the tunnels, he could feel the way the metal pulled on him. This was neutral teralin, but with as much as was here, he knew it could be charged either way, leaving both the positive… and the negative polarity. The positive would have no ill effects on him, but the negative—that had been how the Deshmahne had attacked as easily as they did.
“I still think you’re only feeling the heat of the metal.”
“It’s more than the heat,” Endric said, but what it was, he couldn’t say with certainty. He could practically feel it pulling on him, dragging him if he were to let it. “Can we keep moving? I don’t want to be in here any longer than is necessary.”
“This was your idea!”
“I didn’t say that it was a good one,” Endric answered. “It was all that I could come up with. Now that we’re here, I’m thinking I need to document how my steward failed to warn me of the dangers of the mines and failed to remind me of my past problems while trapped here.”
“I think your steward might knock you out when we’re out of here.”
“Not while we’re here?”
“Then I’d have to carry you.”
Pendin started down the tunnel again, leaving Endric to follow. He was troubled by what Pendin had said. Had it only been that he’d felt the heat of the teralin? There had been more to it—he was certain that the Deshmahne had been drawn by more than the heat of the metal—but what exactly that was remained a mystery to him.
The longer they were in the tunnel, the more he was ready to leave. The heat became a stifling thing, the constant pressure of it slowly making it difficult for him to breathe, pressing on his chest almost like a weight. Pendin didn’t seem bothered by it. Had his experiences growing up around the mines desensitized him to the effects or was there something else to it?
This shaft eventually led to an intersection where Pendin paused.
The tunnel led in two directions, but neither seemed to Endric to mark the way toward the University. One seemed to slope downward, which would likely bring it eventually out of the mountain, or at least deeper into the rock. The other led off into a series of steps that climbed upward, but still away from them, also deeper into the mountain.
“Do you know which way we need to go?” Endric asked.
“There should be a marker,” Pendin said.
“A marker? There’s been nothing here so far.”
Pendin held the lantern to the wall and pointed to a section where it appeared there was nothing more than scratches. “These are for the miners. They alert the master miner where the tunnel leads, and with the right map, they can track the tunnels throughout the mountain.”
“Too bad we don’t have a map.”
“There aren’t many who are allowed access to the maps of the mines. The master miners. A few others within the university.”
“The Magi?” Endric asked. “The Denraen?”
“I don’t know. It would make sense, but I never saw my father with the Magi. Or the Denraen.”
“Have you ever seen them near the mines?” Endric asked.
Pendin shook his head. “The Magi wouldn’t trouble themselves with the mines. They might like the teralin mined here, and they might have used it in their ceremonies, but they weren’t that eager to get dirty down in the mines.”
That didn’t completely fit with what Endric knew. Tresten had seemed as if he knew something about the mines, and then there was that strange room filled with teralin sculptures, the one where he’d found Listain. That cavern was more a place of the Magi than of the miners.
“Which way do we need to go?” Endric asked.
“I can’t tell. The markings here”—he pointed to a series of four lines that seemed almost perfectly parallel, like a rake had scratched the surface of the stone—“declare this a primary shaft.”
“Which means?”
“The primary shafts run horizontally, much like this one does. All of the secondary shafts branch off these primary tunnels.”
“We haven’t seen any that branch off.”
“That’s why I’m not certain I’m reading this right.” He turned back to the wall, staring at it the way that Dendril stared at the maps in his office. Pendin had a similar look of concentration, and he bit his lip as he studied the sto
ne. “There should have been others along here. I don’t know why we haven’t seen any.”
“Could they have been filled in?” When Pendin frowned, Endric went on, “Would the miners have closed some of these to prevent others from accessing them?”
“I don’t know. It might only be that they never used this shaft because it was too close to the surface. They might not have wanted to destabilize the rest of the city.”
Endric almost laughed as he imagined the tunnels collapsing, but then he remembered that was exactly what had happened on the second terrace during the Deshmahne attack.
Could those tunnels connect?
They would have to, wouldn’t they? That had been how his father—and Pendin—had found him. That had been how Listain had moved so easily throughout the city, gathering information.
“What about the other tunnels?” he asked. “The ones that aren’t for the miners?”
“I don’t know those as well,” Pendin said.
“You helped my father find me in them.”
“Helped, but it wasn’t the same. Listain would know them better than I do. You could ask him.”
Endric shot him a look. “I really can’t ask him. Can you imagine what Listain would say if I went up to him and asked for details about the tunnels?”
“Knowing Listain, he’s probably aware that we’re here,” Pendin said.
That made Endric feel little better. “I’m ready to get out of here, so which way do we go?”
Pendin swung the lantern toward the wall and pointed toward the stairs leading up. “I think that way will bring us where we need to go, but again, I’m not certain. The markings aren’t clear here.” He turned back to Endric. “We probably would be better off returning to the barracks and waiting for word from my father. At least then we’re not likely to wander through the mines aimlessly like this.”
“You don’t think you can get us back out again?”
“That’s not it. We can trace our steps back to get out of here, but how long do we want to give this? How much longer are we going to keep going? I think there should be a connection to the university, but I’ve never gone that way, so I don’t know whether there is.”
Endric took a deep breath. The idea of wandering through the endless tunnels didn’t appeal to him, but stubbornness won out. He wanted to learn whether there was some way to reach the university. He didn’t want the scholars to beat them and prevent them from reaching their level. It was foolish, and the kind of thing his father would have chided him about—likely offering another lesson on patience—but it didn’t change anything.
“I’m willing to keep pushing ahead if you are,” Endric said.
Pendin studied the wall a moment more and shrugged. “What’s the worst that could happen to us here?”
As he started forward, images—ideas of terrible things that could happen in the mines—flashed before Endric, and he almost changed his mind. He didn’t. A desire to find Senda pushed him, as did the desire to know what she might have learned of Urik.
Finding him would be worth the torment of the mines.
9
“How long do you think we’ve been down here?” Endric asked. The smooth walls of the tunnel hadn’t changed, and the heat continued to press on them as they walked. The air held more than the heat of the teralin; it had taken on a strangely bitter odor, one that burned at his nose. Lanterns were spaced farther apart here, making him even more thankful for the one Pendin had grabbed off the wall.
They’d climbed dozens of stairs and had taken nearly as many turns. Each time, Pendin paused, studying the walls before guiding them onward. Endric would not have been able to find his way out of here alone. Would Pendin be able to bring them back out if they decided to turn around? He trusted his friend and believed that he knew where he was going, but an edge of doubt had begun to creep in, making him wonder whether they would end up trapped down here.
At least when he’d been in the mines before, there had been the knowledge that they might eventually come across miners. They’d seen no evidence of any miners, no evidence that there was anything still active here. When Tresten said the Magi no longer used teralin, Endric hadn’t expected the mines to be completely abandoned. The only sound had been that of his heavy breathing—despite his night of drinking, Pendin didn’t huff quite as loudly as Endric—and their muted steps.
“Not much more than an hour,” Pendin answered, pausing at another branch point in the tunnel. This one veered off in three directions. They could continue straight—which appeared to be another primary shaft based on what Pendin had shared with him—or they could go down either of the side tunnels. Both were narrower than the one they were in, and both seemed darker than most. Pendin pointed to the right tunnel. “This way.”
“How can you be sure?”
He shrugged. “I’m not. Not anymore. Now I’m following patterns.”
“You’re what? What happens when you can’t follow patterns, and we get stranded? There aren’t any miners who will find us, Pendin.” He realized he sounded panicked but couldn’t help it.
“The markings aren’t what I expected.” When Endric frowned at him, Pendin shook his head. “It’s been years since I’ve spent this much time in the mines, and even longer since I’ve needed to navigate them like this. You get to recognize certain patterns, and they match up. That’s how I found you before.” Endric forced himself to take a steadying breath, slowing his heart. “Besides, we’re heading gradually up.”
“And that’s important?”
“Down would lead into the mines, Endric.” In the dim light of the lantern, Endric noted a troubled expression cloud his steward’s face, passing briefly so that Endric wasn’t even certain that he saw it. “Anyway, as long as we’re heading up, we’re likely to reach something.”
“Maybe not the university, though,” Endric said.
“Maybe not.”
Endric could only imagine what would happen were they to find their way into one of Listain’s tunnels and back into the barracks. How would the spymaster react then? Not well. He didn’t hold Endric in the same disdain as he once had—at least, Endric didn’t think that he did—but he still prized his network and wouldn’t take kindly to Endric discovering any more about it than he already had.
“You should have spent more time exploring Listain’s tunnels,” Pendin said.
The ground sloped gently upward, enough that Endric knew Pendin had been right about their direction of travel. Going upward like this would have to bring them somewhere else in the city, wouldn’t it? Would they mistakenly go too far and end up on the third terrace? He could only envision how his father would react if he were to appear out of these tunnels and in the Magi palace.
In some ways, that might be worth it.
“What time? Dendril has taken an active interest in making certain I learn everything he wants for me.”
“I thought that was what you wanted too.”
Endric nodded. “It is. But it doesn’t leave much time for venturing into mysterious tunnels.”
“If you weren’t so distracted with Senda, maybe you would have had more time.” Pendin’s soft laughter echoed through the mine.
“Maybe if you could find your own distraction, you wouldn’t be so upset.”
Pendin paused and turned toward him, the lantern lighting his face. “I’m not upset. The opposite, really. Before Senda, you were always so… unsettled. I don’t know if it’s her that changed you, or what happened outside the city. You don’t really talk about it that much.”
“There are things I can’t talk about,” Endric said.
His father had made that clear, and Endric agreed with him in that. Whatever creatures the Antrilii hunted were a part of it. His father had also made that clear, just as he had made clear that was the reason the Denraen didn’t patrol too far north. Those lands were left to the Antrilii.
The Deshmahne threat had been shared with those among the Denraen, but there was only
so much that Dendril was willing to do about them. Having lost as many men—and as easily as they had—Dendril was hesitant to attack.
Patience.
Dendril demonstrated far more patience than Endric could manage, but perhaps that was ideal. If it were up to Endric, he thought that he would have led the Denraen south, sweeping toward the Deshmahne to eliminate the threat altogether. If the rumors out of the south were true, they needed to be more focused on the Deshmahne then they had been, and they needed to at least acknowledge the fact that they were dangerous—and risked destabilizing the south.
“I understand that much, but that’s why I’m not upset about Senda. With her connection to Listain and his network, you probably can share with her. I think you need someone you can talk to.”
Endric nodded but didn’t tell Pendin that his father had advised he not share the Antrilii with Senda either. That meant that Listain didn’t know, which surprised Endric. Why would he keep the secrets of the Antrilii from those closest to him? What other secrets did Dendril want to hide?
They reached another stair and Pendin climbed them quickly, leaving Endric to follow. As he did, he realized that something had changed.
The air didn’t have the same heat and no longer carried with it the same bitterness that he’d begun to note. There was a hint of a breeze here as well, one that tugged at his uniform. Were they getting closer to the surface? Would they finally find some way out of the mountain?
If so, he couldn’t help but feel a little disappointment in the fact that they hadn’t found the university. After seeing the scholars preventing him access, he wanted to know more about them, even if it were only to sneak a peek at their training. The university hid something—secrets that he hadn’t realized he was interested in learning. He could wait for Pendin’s father to get back to them, but how long would that take?
As the stairs ended, they opened into another tunnel.
Lanterns were closer together here.
Pendin slowed, looking at the wall nearest one of the lanterns, running his fingers along the shapes there. He frowned.
Soldier Sword (The Teralin Sword Book 2) Page 8