This time Aedan told no one. When they were all asleep, he stole from the room, dragged one of the statues in the display hall to the central feature, climbed up to the platform and descended the stairs.
Once in the cold subterranean darkness, he partly unshuttered his lantern so that only a sliver of light escaped. In the past, he had always turned left. Now he looked to the right, beyond the chain, down the narrow passage. Dun’s warning rose up again. This was not like ignoring a sign that told him to keep off the grass. There was something down there that was not just forbidden but secret.
He thought about it. What did he care if the consequences were bad? Iver had turned his life to bile. He was in a prison already. What was trouble with the rules or even the law in comparison? But that was only if he were caught, and he did not intend to be caught.
He dropped down and crawled under the chain. With his head so close to the ground, he could see that the dust had been disturbed. People had passed here recently. He rose and started forward, padding cat-like on the balls of his feet, pointing the open end of the lantern down the passage. It cast the faintest yellow glow a few yards ahead to the boundary where light wrestled with shadow. With the wick trimmed to allow only the smallest flame and the forward shutter open but a crack, it did little more than soften the darkness, but it was more than enough. Aedan had no fear of the dark. It wasn’t a consequence of courage. He had simply never had cause to fear it. Instead, he had often found security where he could not be seen, where he could hide and keep watch.
A sound brushed his ear, light as the touch of a moth, yet he was able to feel it in the gound. When he held his breath and listened there was nothing.
He continued forward as the corridor plummeted down a long flight of stairs so precipitous that he almost had to use his hands. The surfaces were narrow and the drops deep. He was all too aware that if his balance should carry him forward, there would be no recovery. A misstep here would hurt, for a long time. The bottom, if there was one, remained lost, far below in darkness.
He tested every surface before committing his weight, so progress was slow. It was almost an hour before he reached the level ground in front of an oak door, dry, split and papery with age. The door was slightly ajar so he pulled it open with a soft creak and cast the lantern light into what appeared to be a store room, though, by the looks of it, one that had been forgotten for a very long time.
The large room was filled with heaped sacks, ropes, rusted tools, and mildewed harnesses so old that even the mildew had died and trickled to the ground forming little heaps of grey powder. It was an odd assortment and certainly a strange place to keep all these things, for the room appeared to terminate the passage. No doors lead out from here. The stone walls were unbroken except by the door through which he had entered. Why anyone had built such an interminable stairway only to provide access to a pointless store room escaped Aedan, yet here it was. Perhaps marshals were poor architects after all. But the thought did not rest well. He was missing something and he knew it.
Another brush of sound.
It was like the air had shuddered. It came from everywhere and nowhere, as if the earth itself were sighing and the floor and walls whispered of it. What had Garald said? Shakes and shiverings that don’t belong in rock … Aedan waited a long time, but there was nothing more.
Disappointed with this dull end to the night’s exploration, he leaned against a pile of sacks that crumbled and produced a powdery cascade behind him. The dust and decay drew him back into his own thoughts and the ruin his life had become. As he let his mind drift back through the years, flailing for something, anything that would give a flicker of relief, he remembered what was so close that he had almost forgotten it. Reaching beneath his shirt, he pulled out the little leather case, now old and worn. He looked at it for a long time, considering. Then with a suddenness to counter the years of hesitation, he made the decision.
It was time.
He crossed back to the entrance. The sagging door ground over dusty flagstones as he pushed it closed. There was a corner at the far end of the room where he could tuck himself down between two piles of sacks, and after placing the lantern there, he sat and lifted the cord over his head. He held the little case in his palm where the light fell. Since Thomas had given it to him he had carried it, fearing to look inside, fearing the pain it would cause. But after the past weeks, he no longer cared about the pain.
Kalry was not here to take his arm anymore, but her words were here, and he suddenly needed them again. He untied the rawhide binding and, with a deep breath, slid the cover off to reveal a small walkabout diary painted with flowers, birds and beasts, all surprisingly well-proportioned for the creations of a young girl. The handwriting was as familiar as his own. It caused his breath to catch. Though the pages were tiny, there was a good deal in them owing to thin and probably expensive paper and a very small handwriting. He remembered how she had found that writing small was the only way to keep the letters neat. She had objected, however, to anyone calling her normal script messy. She insisted, with a half grin, that it was a good thing if the letters wanted to be a little different every time. Aedan smiled at the memory. After a brief pause, he began to read.
Dear diary.
I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve decided not to write to you again. That’s why I’m starting a new diary today, and it’s the last time I’ll write dear diary unless you write me something back (which of course we know you won’t).
I’m not too sure who to write to. I was thinking about writing to the Ancient, but I’m worried about bothering him with silly things. Tulia said it would be wrong. Daddy said I would be wasting ink. He said there are many gods who didn’t care about Mommy when she was sick and don’t care about us now. But it was that angry and quick way of speaking he uses when he’s just saying things because he wants to and not because he knows they are true. Emroy who was listening in as usual came up to me later and said if there is a god then why can’t he see it, and then he gave one of those smiles like the sheriff does when he’s thinking about something, and walked off as if he just said something cleverer than the sheriff himself.
I wanted to tell him he can’t see his own head and that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have one. Aedan said in his case it did. I don’t feel wicked for laughing because Emroy can be a real bully even when I try to be nice to him. Anyway what he said gave me an idea.
If I thought like him, Emroy I mean not Aedan, I would always lose at hide and seek because I would always be saying there’s no one there when I don’t see them and I’d always give up too soon. If you want to be any good at it you need to look all over and search for trampled grass and footprints and startled birds and all those kinds of things that Aedan is always showing me. And I got to wondering if maybe the Ancient is like that too. Maybe he wants to hide like he wants us to look for him instead of him just appearing in the middle of the field and saying, Here I am! Because maybe then we’d just say, You’re in my field, go away.
So maybe he lets the people find him who really want to find him. I remember the one time I got lost in the fir woods on the south side of the town. It was Aedan’s father who found me and when he found me he even let me hug him and cry against his shoulder. But when I go to visit Aedan at his house his father is really rude and he sometimes doesn’t even say hello because at those times he’s not looking for me.
That reminds me about something else. Today Aedan and I went questing for the castle of the silver dwarf. Aedan was so good at finding tracks in the forest even when they weren’t really there. But when he didn’t know I could see him he got this deep, sad look in his face. I’ve seen it before and I also saw bruises that he didn’t want to talk about. First I thought it was Emroy, but I overheard Dorothy saying something to Tulia that makes me wonder if his father is hurting him. I would give up all my collections and story books, even the ones I wrote, if I could just make it stop. I wish he was my real brother. Then he could come and live here an
d be safe.
Aedan’s vision was too blurred to see the page. He closed his eyes and his shoulders shook silently for a while. He knew that Kalry had meant what she had written and he knew how valuable those story books had been to her. When he had reined himself in, he rubbed his eyes and started the next entry.
Dear Aedan
Seeing as my diary didn’t write to me I’m going to write to you but if I catch you reading it I’ll tell Dorothy that you stole those four slices of cake that made you sick on William’s birthday. When I’m dead and buried you can read it all, but only you. Don’t tell Emroy about the part where I thought your missing head joke was funny.
I want to write about something that I’ve been feeling a lot lately and today it was particulilly (I’m sure I spelled that wrong) clear.
I went walking really early in the morning, you know when stars are yawning and closing their eyes, and flowers and grass begin to stretch before the wind gets up from the valley and starts them dancing, and birds are worried about flying into things so they sit in their trees and chatter to each other telling stories about what they dreamed and what they plan to do with the day, and while I was standing there in the middle of the west field I heard something even more beautiful than the chorus of the birds.
I think the best way to describe it is by calling it a song, and almost everything can feel it. I can’t hear it with my ears, it’s more inside and it makes me tremble like it’s trying to wake me up and I’m saying, But I am awake, and it’s smiling (I think this song can smile) and saying, No you’re not, because you’re not singing. It seemed as young as the dew that was making my toes cold, but at the same time I knew that it was older than memory itself. (I borrowed that line from one of your mum’s books.)
It made me think of that poem by Theol where he mentions the echoes of the Ancient, but that sounds too cold. To me this was like the song of the Ancient. I think I’ll call it that.
I think it’s a song that’s always been there, but it’s like it’s getting louder now, like something magnificent and spetakular (that one doesn’t look right either) is going to happen. It made something spetak wonderful happen in me. I was ready to burst with excitement so I ran right over to the old tulip tree and hugged it, and I think it laughed. Thomas saw me and he certainly laughed. I’m not mad with him anymore. I probably would have laughed if I’d seen him hugging a tree.
I want to tell you about all of this soon. I know we have a lot of make-believe things like the dwarf and the wandering willow and the fox with the golden tail but this is different. It’s as real as rain but I think it can be ignored completely.
I hope you know about it too. It’s lonely for me when we can’t share things.
This time the tears poured down his face and he made no attempt to check them. How he missed her. He remembered her telling him about the song, and remembered how she had been disappointed in his subdued enthusiasm.
He began to wonder about the storm that had revealed itself over Castath, if what she described was a more subtle form of what he had experienced when he had heard his name wrapped in thunder. It really had felt like he was being woken, though somehow that stirring, that excitement, had faded. In its place were cold chains and a cauldron spilling fumes of hatred that had pulled him back into a heavy sleep.
A sharp click pierced the silence. Aedan blew out the flame and pushed himself against the wall between the mounds of sacks. The floor shook under a heavy grinding. He was momentarily confused when a shaft of light fell across the floor from the wrong side of the room. Then he understood – a door was opening in the stone wall. Aedan ground his teeth. He should have guessed it.
From where he was hiding, only the wooden door was visible, so the two voices that reached him were faceless.
“I understand that well enough, but we must humour him. He has the respect of many thinking people occupying influential positions. If he were to be silenced too directly, it would breed suspicion.” The voice was familiar, but Aedan could not yet place it.
“But what he proposes will only excite ideas that could lead to unrest. His theories are going to spread like poison. You have to admit, with the increasing reports of inexplicable sightings in the east, and now these tremors that even we have felt, he will have the ears of the whole city. His ideas have a credible tone. He could ruin everything you have been working towards.”
This thick throaty voice Aedan recognised immediately. It was Ganavant, the prince’s big bullfrog of a councillor. The other voice, then, was Burkhart’s.
“I am well aware of that, and I am glad that we are the first to be shown beyond the vaults. How he managed to open them I’ll never understand. Kings have been defied by those locks for five hundred years.” The stone door ground closed. Burkhart’s voice was almost dreamy when he spoke again. “I still can’t quite accept what my eyes told me … It might have been a long way down, but there was no doubt – it moved! With supporting evidence like this, he could put an end to all my plans.”
“That is why it must not be seen by anyone ever again. You often say that truth is not necessarily the best thing to throw at the masses. If people see what we just saw, it would cause panic like we have never imagined. It might even send them fleeing towards Fennlor, perhaps even the DinEilan of their wild stories rather than remaining here. We must close the vaults again and seal this door immediately.”
“Yes, yes, Ganavant. You clutter the air with the obvious. This room will certainly be blocked off with enough stone to bury whatever is down there for good, but the dilemma of plugging the old windbag remains. How is he to be silenced without raising widespread questions?”
There was a brief pause.
“Allow him the quest,” Ganavant said. “Let him go and search for answers, but let it work for us too. Accidents can happen, especially in a place unanimously rumoured to be under a curse. Men could be paid to go along and witness that his theories were shown groundless shortly before he and those loyal to him met their unfortunate ends. What if –”
“You speak of such things in the open! Your tongue is growing loose, Ganavant. You risk attaching soil to my name!”
“Forgive me, Highness.” Despite the apology, the councillor’s voice did not sound remorseful. It seemed to Aedan only a matter of form. This councillor was not the bowing and scraping type. Aedan imagined him to listen to reprimands while smiling inside, calculating.
The wooden door grated over the dirty stones as they pulled it open and the two men walked out of the room, but the light did not recede.
“What is it?” Burkhart asked.
“Did you not leave the door ajar?”
Aedan tensed. Fool!
“I do not clearly recall,” said the prince, his voice betraying his annoyance.
“With your permission, I would like to make a quick search inside.” The light grew stronger and the door creaked again. Aedan held his breath and drew his feet as tightly against him as he could. Overhearing such talk, even if he only partly understood it, would not be punished by cane but by iron, the very sharp iron of an executioner’s axe.
Heavy steps re-entered the room.
“I do not believe I gave my permission,” Burkhart snapped, his voice edged now, even dangerous. “I wonder if you are forgetting your place, Ganavant.”
“Sorry, Highness.” Again, there was no sorrow in the apology.
“Let us be gone.”
The light withdrew and Aedan was left in darkness. He tried to understand what he had heard, that the prince and his councillor were conspiring to assassinate an innocent man – Culver, by the description.
And what lay behind that door that it should be sealed away forever?
He decided to wait in case anyone else emerged, but after what felt like hours, he could wait no more. He struck the flint until he raised a flame and lit his lantern, then crept out to inspect the wall.
The concealed door had closed, leaving no trace of its whereabouts. He was sure there wo
uld be a way to open it by pressing on a stone or several stones, but he was also sure that there would be traps that could swallow him if he pressed the wrong ones. Holding the lantern close to the surface, he thought he could make out a slight shine on two of them, perhaps from the oily deposits left from years of being pressed. But then this could be a trick whereby the wrong stones were touched and the right ones pressed through a garment.
He was considering anchoring himself with a rope to guard against an opening floor trap when the same sharp click cut through the wall. He blew out the lantern again and dived behind a stack of perished leather harnesses as the door opened and someone entered the room. This time he was poorly concealed. He had to crouch and wait until the light had disappeared, but when it was dark again, he looked up and saw a robed, grey-haired figure striding away.
He turned back to the door. Tonight would be his last chance to discover what lay beyond it, what had lain undisturbed for five hundred years and was now to be hidden for good. He checked the ropes, but they were impossibly old, crumbling at his touch. He would have to fetch another if he wanted an anchor capable of providing any security. There were several in the training hall that he could borrow. He headed off in that direction, his lantern unlit, staying well behind the man he assumed to be Culver.
Climbing that mountain of stairs in the darkness was far from comfortable. This time he did use his hands. When he reached the top, the robed man was gone. Aedan felt his way along the narrow passage, under the chain, past the collapsing stairs, down the broad passage, through the weapons hall and finally into the training hall. He knew the dimensions of the space so well after the years of exercises that he did not need a light.
He rummaged about until he located a coil of rope, then counted his paces back through the doors, across the weapons hall – only bumping against one stone pillar – and into the broad passage again. Safe now from observation, he lit the lantern, ran the rest of the way and approached the forbidden corridor. He had put one foot under the chain when his dim light revealed what he had not expected, not so soon. Three uniformed soldiers were blocking the way.
Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1) Page 49