No foes showed themselves, and Arandar relieved him at watch.
Morning came and they departed, making their way around the edge of the lake. At last the ledge ended in a narrow cavern, and Caius consulted the map again, nodded, and led them deeper into the silent stone maze. They passed through more natural caverns, and here Ridmark saw numerous signs of fighting, with dwarven and Frostborn bones and armor scattered about. It was a grim sight, but he took it as a hopeful sign. They had to be drawing back to Khald Azalar proper.
Finally one of the natural caverns ended in a massive gate, almost as large and ornate as the Gate of the West had been. Like the Gate of the West, this gate had been shattered by some terrible force, the stonework cracked and damaged, the doors of dwarven steel twisted and bent. Hundreds of locusari husks lay motionless before the gate, and beyond Ridmark saw a wide, broad stair climbing higher into the mountain.
“The Gate of the Deeps,” said Caius, his voice solemn as he looked at the bones of his slain kindred. “It seems the defenders made a stand here.”
“A last stand, probably,” said Ridmark, “once the Frostborn had penetrated this far into the city.”
“Aye,” said Caius, taking a deep breath. “Well, at least they made the Frostborn pay for every step.” He gestured at the locusari husks and the scattered piles of Frostborn armor, cold mist swirling around the crystalline bones. “If our maps are accurate, those steps should take us up to Citadel courtyard itself. If the Citadel of Kings is as badly damaged as the Gate, we can probably make our way to the Vault of the Kings without difficulty.”
“And then to Dragonfall,” said Ridmark to Calliande, who stood looking at the Gate of the Deeps with a haunted expression on her face.
“Aye,” she said, meeting his eyes. “My staff…it is very close now. Only a few hours’ walk away, I think.”
“Then let’s not keep it waiting,” said Ridmark, and they passed the Gate of the Deeps.
###
Calliande climbed the broad steps with the others, her heart hammering against her ribs. Not that the stairs were particularly steep.
Something else sent thrills of fear and unease down her nerves.
Somehow she knew this place. Calliande was certain that she had been here before, a feeling that had come to her a few other times in the Vale of Stone Death. The presence of her staff felt like a steady drumbeat within her head. Very soon, she realized, she would find Dragonfall and recover her staff and her memory.
She would learn anew what kind of woman she had been.
What kind of woman could seal herself away in the darkness for two hundred years, losing everyone and everything that she had ever known.
She took a deep breath and forced herself to continue walking.
“Are you all right?” said Ridmark in a quiet voice.
“Not really,” said Calliande. “This is…harder than I thought it would be.”
He smiled a little at that. “That is true of everything that has happened over the last four months.”
“Yes.” Calliande looked up the stairs. They went on for hundreds of yards. “I’ve been here before, you know. I’m absolutely certain of it.”
“You’ve had that feeling before,” said Ridmark. “At that lake below the Vault of the North in the Vale of Stone Death.”
“I did,” said Calliande. “It is a peculiar feeling. I am certain of something, of some…some fact, some bit of knowledge, but I cannot recall how I acquired it.”
“Soon you will,” said Ridmark.
“I hope so,” said Calliande. She took a deep breath. “I hope so. I know I’ve stood upon these stairs before, Ridmark. I’m certain of it. And I remember…”
“What?” said Ridmark.
“Dread,” she whispered. “That is what I remember. When last I stood here I felt utter dread, I am certain of it.”
For a moment Ridmark said nothing.
“That’s happened before,” he said at last. “The day I found the stoneberries.”
“I know,” said Calliande. That had been one of the few vivid memories she had recovered, an image of her father. He had been a fisherman, and she remembered sitting on a dock with him, gazing at the towers of the High King’s citadel across the River Moradel as they ate stoneberries together. Just thinking of it filled her with longing and regret.
The day she had recovered that memory had also been the day Ridmark had kissed her, which filled her mind with another set of memories. If that damned wyvern had not happened upon them…
No. She could not think on that. What was done was done.
“Perhaps,” said Ridmark, “you may yet find some memories. Ones with joy in them.”
“I hope you are right,” said Calliande, her voice hoarse. “I hope…I don’t know what I hope.”
“Well,” said Jager, glancing back from where he walked with Mara, “I do hope that we get out of here alive. And then I hope for a warm bed, a plate of biscuits, and a rasher of bacon. Then quite a lot of a wine.”
“For a man of such extravagant habits,” said Morigna, stepping back to join them, “you have a taste for simple food.” She flashed a brief look at Calliande before turning toward Ridmark. Calliande felt a burst of irritation. She could not even have a single conversation with Ridmark without Morigna wandering over. Still, she could not blame Morigna. Had Calliande been in her place, she likely would have done the same.
“It’s the simple pleasures that are the best,” said Jager. “Wine. Good food.” He put an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Women.”
Mara smiled but said nothing.
“Stoneberries,” said Calliande, looking at Ridmark with a smile. “The simple pleasures.”
“Yes,” said Ridmark.
“Stoneberries,” said Jager. “They grew thick around the Lake of Mourning near Caudea where I grew up. My sister used to make the most marvelous stoneberry pies.”
“Your sister?” said Mara, astonished. “You never talk about your sister. You never even told me her name.”
“Dagma,” said Jager in a quiet voice. “Her name was Dagma. I…” He stared off into space for a while. “I burned down Sir Alan’s domus after he murdered my father. I sent Dagma away the day before I did it, with everything my father left us. Then I burned the domus and fled. I don’t know what happened to Dagma. She fled to one of the cities, Tarlion or Westhold. I…knew Sir Alan and Sir Paul would come after me, I didn’t want Dagma to suffer for it.” He sighed. “I should have found out what happened to her.”
“If she was your family,” said Morigna with a bit of scorn, “then you should have sought her out.”
Calliande expected Jager to argue back, but he only nodded.
“You’re right,” said Jager. “For once, you are right. I should have.”
“If we live through this,” said Mara in a quiet voice, “then that’s what we’ll do, Jager. We’ll find your sister.”
“Thank you,” said Jager. He took a deep breath, his usual cocky demeanor returning. “Though do forgive me, my lady Magistria. Rambling about my fears at a time like this.”
Calliande laughed. Jager did have a knack for cheering her up. “We have no shortage of fears.”
“No,” murmured Mara. “And I think we’re about to find another one.”
“What is it?” said Calliande, her misgivings falling away before the dangers at hand. “The Sight?”
“I see something through the Sight,” said Mara. “But…I’m not sure what it is…”
“Antenora?” said Calliande.
“I perceive a great focus of magical power, above us and a short distance away,” said the ancient sorceress.
“Do you recognize it?” said Calliande with a sudden hope of surge and fear. “Is it the Keeper’s staff?”
“No,” said Antenora. “I know what the staff looks like, both in the material world and with the Sight. This is something else. It is an array of interlocking warding spells of surpassing power, stronger than any I ha
ve ever encountered.”
“It looks like the wards upon that trapped door in the Citadel of the West,” said Mara.
“Exactly so,” said Antenora, “but exponentially stronger. These wards could repel almost any magical or material attack.”
“I suspect,” said Caius, “that you are seeing the wards upon the Vault of the Kings itself. The treasury of Khald Azalar would have been the most heavily defended place in the city, built of dwarven steel and warded with the most potent glyphs of the stonescribes.” He hesitated. “It is entirely possible that the Vault did not fall to the Frostborn along with the rest of the city.”
“Could you be seeing Dragonfall itself?” said Calliande.
“Perhaps,” said Antenora. “I do not know what Dragonfall looks like, so I cannot say. Yet the nature of the magic appears khaldari, similar to the glyphs that we have already seen.”
“Can your Sight penetrate the glyphs?” said Caius.
“No,” said Mara and Antenora in unison. They looked at each other, shrugged, and then Antenora kept speaking. “I suspect that is part of the nature of the spells, to obscure whatever is within them from any magical observation.”
“That is part of the nature of the Vault’s defenses, I suspect,” said Caius. “To both defend itself, and to guard the secrets it contains from any spies.”
Mara shook her head. “If we can see it from this far away…even the Warden might have had a hard time breaking through the glyphs, even if he was in Urd Morlemoch at the heart of all his power.”
“Likely that is why you chose to conceal your staff within Dragonfall, Magistria,” said Caius. “The Vault concealed its location from Shadowbearer with centuries, and even if he had been able to find the staff, he would not have been able to enter the Vault.”
Calliande shook her head. “Instead he discovered my location, and waited to kill me. No need to worry about the staff of the Keeper if there was no Keeper to wield it.”
“It might have been a secure location,” said Morigna, “but how are we supposed to get inside?”
That was a good question.
“I…don’t know,” said Calliande. “I hope I left some way to open the doors.”
“Ah,” said Morigna. “Once again you have been foiled by your own cleverness, one takes it?”
Calliande scowled, but Morigna had a point.
“Let’s get to the Vault of the Kings first,” said Ridmark. “Then we can argue about how to get inside. It would not surprise me if the dwarves left some guardians or traps behind.”
###
But they encountered neither enemies nor traps as they climbed the stairs.
The stairs ended in a huge octagonal chamber, the roof rising nearly a thousand feet overhead and terminating in a broad dome. The scale of the engineering involved stunned Ridmark. Massive balconies rose alongside the walls, and Ridmark guessed that tens of thousands of dwarves could have filled the chamber. A pool of lava bubbled in the center of the floor, channels flowing into Khald Azalar and the Citadel of Kings proper.
“This was built in imitation of the Stone Heart in Khald Tormen,” said Caius, “where my kindred first came to this world. The people of Khald Azalar would assemble here to listen to the decrees of the King.”
“It looks like they made their last stand here, too,” said Arandar.
Bones carpeted the gleaming stone floor, hunched and broken in the fiery light of the pool of molten stone, along with a wide array of dwarven weapons and armor. The damaged hulks of a dozen titans stood scattered through the chamber, their glyphs giving off sputtering arcs of white lighting. Scores of Frostborn bones and hundreds upon hundreds of locusari husks lay everywhere. If the individual Frostborn were as formidable as the one that Antenora had faced in the threshold, the dwarves had indeed put up a ferocious fight.
“Be watchful,” said Ridmark. “If the deep orcs were right about their Devourer, it makes its lair near here.”
“Perhaps it is wise enough to avoid two Swordbearers,” said Kharlacht.
“Perhaps,” said Ridmark, “but if it isn’t, we’ll have to teach it otherwise.”
They crossed the vast chamber, picking their way over bones and locusari husks. Caius looked at his map, and then pointed at an archway beneath one of the balconies. A flight of stairs vanished into the gloom, more bones strewn across the steps.
“That way,” he said, “if this map is accurate, goes directly to the Gate of the East.”
Morigna snorted. “We could have saved ourselves much trouble by avoiding the Vale of Stone Death, circling around Vhaluusk, and using the Gate of the East instead.”
Ridmark shook his head. “It might have been worse. The Gate of the East opens into the upper valley of the River Moradel, and those forests are infested with urdmordar and their slaves. Some of the surviving urdmordar fled there after the Swordbearers and the Magistri destroyed their empire four hundred years ago.”
“Either the urdmordar or the gorgon spirit,” said Jager. “A fine choice.”
Gavin shuddered. “If I had the choice, I still would have taken the gorgon spirit over facing an urdmordar again.”
“Though now that you carry a soulblade,” said Kharlacht, “an urdmordar would not be so quick to face you again. Agrimnalazur would not be as eager to kill you now.”
“Just as eager,” said Caius, “but perhaps not as capable.”
They crossed the chamber and came to the gates of the Citadel of Kings. Like the other dwarven gates Ridmark had seen in Khald Azalar, they too had been smashed and broken by the power of the Frostborn, the dwarven steel twisted and crumpled. Defaced dwarven glyphs covered the floor and walls, and the detritus of a colossal battle lay around them, bones and armor and broken swords. The stream of lava glowed beneath the edges of the walls, and beyond opened a vast hall, larger than anything in Andomhaim. Huge pillars supported the high ceiling, carved in the likeness of armored dwarven nobles. Canals of lava flowed beneath them, converging upon a massive dais at the far end of the hall, where sat a single looming throne of red gold, gleaming in the dull light from the molten stone.
“The throne of Khald Azalar,” said Caius in a reverent voice.
“This place is astonishing,” said Mara, looking around in wonder. “Maybe a dark elven ruin like Urd Morlemoch could match it in terms of size…but this has weathered the centuries far better. Nor does it have the malevolence of the dark elven ruins.”
“If I ever need to a hire a stonemason,” said Jager, “I will know where to go.”
“The doors to the Vault of the Kings are behind the throne,” said Caius, and they started across the vast hall.
“All this, then, just to defend the treasury?” said Morigna with some of her usual scorn. “Did the dwarven kings value their gold more than the lives of their people?”
Caius shook his head. “More than just gold resides in the Vault. Any dwarf of Khald Azalar could store his treasures within the Vault, and the kings took solemn oaths before the gods of stone and silence to safeguard those treasures. The complete records of Khald Azalar shall be within the Vault as well, the register of births and deaths, and the history of our kindred since Khald Azalar was founded. The most powerful magical relics will be stored there. The Vault is the very heart of Khald Azalar…and it looks as if it never fell to the Frostborn.”
They climbed the stairs to the dais and passed the ornate throne. Behind it rose a massive pair of doors fashioned from a peculiar red metal. Hundreds upon hundreds of dwarven glyphs marked the doors and the doorway around it, and unlike most of the glyphs Ridmark had seen, the symbols shone with a steady white glow. There were signs of scarring and damage on the nearby walls, but the doorway and the towering doors bore not a scratch.
“This metal,” said Arandar. “I’ve never seen its like.”
“Few other than our kindred have,” said Caius. “It…”
“It is called adamant steel,” said Calliande in a faint voice. She stared at the doors as
if stricken. “It is a secret known only to the greatest smiths of the dwarves. It costs a hundred times more to forge than common dwarven steel, but it is lighter and stronger than any other metal upon this earth, and impervious to…to almost anything. God himself could break doors of adamant steel, but no other power could.”
Ridmark looked at her. Calliande’s face was tight, her blue eyes wide.
“You’ve been here before,” he said.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I…I remember some of it. These doors. The fear. I was so afraid.” She closed her eyes for a moment, calming herself.
“I hope,” said Morigna, “that you happen to remember how to open those doors. Because while God himself might be able to open the doors, we cannot.”
“There is a keyhole,” said Jager, pointing. In the exact center of the doors, at the height a dwarf would find comfortable, was a keyhole the width of Ridmark’s wrist.
“Can you pick the lock?” said Arandar.
Jager strolled forward and peered into the keyhole for a moment. Then he nodded to himself, straightened up, and stepped back.
“Sir Arandar,” said Jager, “you know I am not one to falsely denigrate myself.”
Morigna snorted. “Or to indulge in understatement?”
Jager did not choose to dignify that with a response. “Give me a hammer and a chisel, and I could sooner turn this mountain into a sandpit than I could pick that lock. It is simply beyond me. Whoever built it was a genius without equal, and his work makes the locksmiths of Andomhaim look like children playing in the sand.”
“So,” said Ridmark. “How do we get the door open, then? Do you remember anything, Calliande?”
Calliande opened her mouth to answer…but another voice came from behind Ridmark.
A voice that he did not recognize.
He whirled, raising his staff for a blow, and the others followed suit.
Frostborn: The Broken Mage Page 15