Unfettered

by Terry Brooks

  “Royce?” Hadrian called to him. “What’s your choice?”

  The thief didn’t answer. Instead, he tilted his head once more, and Hadrian thought his heart might stop. This time, however, the familiar scowl didn’t appear.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s quiet,” the thief told them.

  They all turned to look at the little door and waited. Hadrian was holding his breath without realizing it until he had to take another. By then it was obvious Royce was right. It was quiet. The pounding had stopped.

  Hadrian limped closer to the door. Placing a hand on it, he felt the bristles of the stressed wood where it had begun to snap. He listened. Nothing.

  “What does that mean?”

  Royce shrugged. “I don’t even know what the blazes that thing is out there.”

  “Well, it don’t like us,” Wilmer said, his voice down an octave. Turning to look at Myra he added, “And that weren’t my fault. It was yours.”

  Myra looked embarrassed and turned away. Setting her pack down on the stone dais in front of the chest, she drew her wet hair out of her face and softly said, “I don’t like spiders.”

  Royce, who was on the dais studying the lock, turned and shook his head in disbelief. “Are you joking?”

  “No, I’m deathly afraid of them.”

  “Anyone is,” Hadrian said, “when they have teeth and are as big as a river barge.”

  “Well, there you have it. I’m vindicated.” Myra sat down and began pulling more candles out of her pack. They were all the same. She must have had a backroom filled with the things.

  Myra was even odder than Wilmer, who Hadrian felt could best be described as challenged. A well-to-do widow of a candle baron, she had packed up the family carriage and headed off for fame and glory by spelunking for treasure. Chandlers—wax chandlers especially—supplied the rich and the church with light, making them both wealthy and respected. He couldn’t imagine why she would trade all that for this insanity. Early on, Hadrian had called her the Queen of Wax and received a nasty glare. Maybe Myra wasn’t happy with her inherited candle empire, or perhaps she simply wanted to try lighting one at both ends.

  “You shouldn’t have run,” Wilmer told her.

  With an armload of candles, Myra moved deeper into the room, establishing new lights as she went. “I’m sorry, okay? But I had no idea that crossing that blasted river would make the wolves attack.”

  “It didn’t,” Hadrian said, feeling the pain in his back. “They were just trying to get away from the fire, and of course you were still holding that cursed amulet.”

  Myra turned. “We don’t know for certain it was cursed,” she said, drawing sharp looks from all of them. “Okay, maybe it was.” Myra paused, one arm cupping a host of little beeswax sticks to her breasts, the other holding a lit candle. “Oh—but wait. Then I don’t understand. What woke that thing up?” She gestured at the door with the hand holding the candle, and it went out. She sighed miserably and began walking back to the nearest flame.

  “I would suspect the explosion did,” Royce said, then added with remembered frustration, “proving me correct that you never feed ravens, no matter how much they beg.” He glowered at Wilmer, who quickly looked away. Turning to Hadrian he asked, “How’s your leg?”

  He shook his head. “Hurts.”

  “Broken?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “Listen,” Wilmer pleaded, raising his arms in desperation. “Can we just decide what we’re gonna do? I don’t understand why we can’t just have Royce unlock this big, beautiful, iron, Maribor-blessed fortress door. Wouldn’t you rather have that standing between us and whatever that thing is?”

  “Might be a demon,” Myra offered, as she delicately placed a candle on top of the treasure chest.

  “Demons aren’t real,” Royce said.

  “You’re so sure, are you?”

  “Allow me to rephrase. It would seem unlikely.”

  Exhausted, Hadrian sat on the floor and continued watching Myra place another candle, this one on a ledge near the metal door. The room was almost bright.

  “We won’t get out of here alive—I just know it,” Wilmer grumbled, and Myra made a clucking sound that was audible even from the back of the room.

  Royce finished examining the chest and moved through the rest of the chamber, nimble as a cat and peering in every corner. Granted, he didn’t have a broken leg, nor had he been burned or clawed, but still, Hadrian marveled at Royce’s stamina. He’d even outlasted Myra, a feat Hadrian had once thought impossible.

  How long has it been?

  Hadrian straightened his back and felt the pain in his shoulder and the stab in his leg. This job was feeling much too similar to the Crown Tower, the first mission he and Royce had done together. It had nearly killed both of them. More than six years had passed since forming their little thieves-for-hire business, which they named Riyria—an elvish word for two. This job felt a lot like that one, and it wasn’t the first time Hadrian suspected they wouldn’t live through this ordeal. It wasn’t even the first time that day.

  Wilmer sat only a few feet away, hunched on the floor, his head between his knees. He rocked and muttered to himself—maybe singing, or possibly praying. With Wilmer, it was hard to tell. The farmer’s hair hung in the way, obscuring his face. When he wiped his cheeks, Hadrian realized the man was crying.

  Wilmer was an easier clam to open than Myra. They’d seen his home. Calling the little hovel a shack would be flattery. A more accurate assessment would be to say he had two pigsties. He lived alone—not just in his hovel, but because his farm was in the middle of nowhere. From what little Wilmer had said, Hadrian guessed he, his mother, and the pigs used to live somewhere else but were driven out into the wilds—something Wilmer had done. Then his mother had died, leaving him with only his pigs. Hadrian imagined they had become more like children or siblings than livestock. Wilmer must have been desperate to have left them. Maybe he expected they would only be gone a day or two.

  “Wilmer, how in the world did a pig farmer get one of the map pieces?” Hadrian asked. “I thought only nobles of the old empire received them.”

  “That’s true,” Myra answered for him. “His piece was given to Governor Hilla, whose descendants are now the Kenward family. Turns out his mother worked for the Kenwards once.”

  “Lord Kenward thought me mum was special,” Wilmer said.

  “I bet he did.” Myra smirked. “When he died, Kenward left the map section to her. Maybe he thought it was funny.”

  “It weren’t funny. That map is cursed.” Wilmer sighed, then turned so that the lights illuminated the arrow in his side. “That fall snapped the end off. Don’t really hurt much though—not if I don’t move.”

  “Then don’t move,” Royce said.

  “Shouldn’t we pull it out?”

  “No.” Hadrian held up a warning hand. “You’ll bleed like a spigot, and we don’t have any more bandages. That shaft is working like a cork in a bottle.”

  “That’s another thing,” Myra said, returning from her lighting expedition to look at Wilmer. “Why aren’t you dead? Anyone else gets hit by an arrow, they die—you don’t even stop talking.”

  “Just lucky, I guess.” Wilmer looked up at the ceiling, which appeared ready to cave in. “I don’t think our chances are very good. None of us will survive this place. Thing is—it’s all a joke, ain’t it? I mean, that dwarf made jokes for a living, right?”

  “He was the imperial jester,” Myra said.

  “If this is a joke, it isn’t funny.” Royce walked back to them. “I can’t find any other way out besides that steel door. No way to continue forward, at least. We could go back the way we came in, but I don’t think that’s wise.”

  “So the choice is still the door, the chest, or the lever,” Hadrian said.

  “The door is the only thing that makes any sense,” Wilmer insisted.

  Myra shook her head in frustration and pretended to pul
l her own hair. “What in Maribor’s name do you know about sense? The door isn’t the answer. It’s way too obvious.”

  “You think pulling that lever and bringing the roof down is the smart thing to do?” Wilmer asked with a sarcastic tone. “Because that definitely ain’t obvious.”

  She glared at the farmer. “That’s also obvious—obviously stupid. Although I’d almost like to, just to see you crushed under a mountain of rock.”

  “But what would be the point of opening the chest?” Hadrian asked. “We’d still be trapped. All the gold in the world won’t help.”

  “No one said a thing about gold,” Myra replied. “The legend says the emperor’s jester stole, and I quote, ‘the most valuable thing anyone could ever possess.’ You people have such small imaginations. We’re talking about the ancient Novronian Imperial Palace here. The greatest empire the world has ever known. They conquered the dwarves and elves and forced them to pay tribute for centuries. The jester was probably once a dwarven king they had enslaved. And everyone knows how dwarves hoard precious gems. The old empire also had wizards so powerful they could move mountains and redirect rivers. The bloody Rhelacan itself might be sitting in that chest.”

  “What’s that?” Wilmer asked.

  “No one really knows; a weapon of some sort that won the war against the elves. I’m just saying whatever is in that chest might be magical and could give us the power to escape these caverns. We might be able to lop the whole top of the mountain off and just walk away.”

  “What do you think, Royce?” Hadrian asked.

  “I’m wondering where the battering ram went,” he said. His partner was focused on the little wooden door and seemed more bothered by it than before.

  “Back to that hall of scary lights, I hope.” Wilmer was up and walking, not heading toward anything, just pacing in a circle. His still-wet feet left a damp trail. He stopped in his orbital trek and glanced around. “When you think about it, this is the nicest room we’ve found so far.”

  “That’s what frightens me,” Royce said, then once more tilted his head.

  “Not again,” Hadrian muttered. “What is it?”

  “Water,” Royce said before running off to the far side of the room, grabbing one of Myra’s lighted candles on the way.

  They all watched as he climbed the rear wall. From that distance, Royce appeared to be little more than a shadow. His trek was so fast and fluid that he could have been some dark liquid spilling uphill. When he reached the top corner, he set the candle on a ledge and they all saw the problem. Water was leaking from a crevice near the ceiling. A column of dark streaks discolored the stone below it. The room looked like it was weeping.

  “So?” Wilmer said. “It’s just water—right?”

  “Yeah,” Royce replied. “But it wasn’t there before.”

  BOOM!

  This time the impact didn’t come from the little door, and they heard a pop near the rear wall, which turned the trickle into a spray.

  “Oh how nice, Royce,” Myra said. “Your friend is back. Must have heard you were missing him.”

  “Not my friend,” Royce replied. “But it looks like he was off causing mischief. Maybe you’re right. Maybe he is a demon.”

  BOOM!

  The rear wall cracked, and more water surged in. It hissed under pressure, kicking out a rooster tail far enough to spray the side of the metal chest. Hadrian wondered if there might be some river or lake above them. Perhaps they had traveled far enough west to be under the ocean itself. The force of the water looked likely to win the battle against the walls, but even if no more breaching occurred, the floor was solid stone, and there was no drain.

  Hadrian said, “We have almost an inch of water gathering here.”

  “All right, that settles it. I’m ordering you to open that chest,” Myra told Royce, who looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “Look, I hired you—so do what I say. You two were supposed to be an accomplished pair of thieves—”

  “Technically, he’s the thief,” Hadrian said. “I’ve never made that claim.”

  “No—you’re right, Viscount Winslow assured me you could fight. Good with a blade, I think he said. Only I haven’t seen anything out of either of you to prove your worth. You couldn’t even steal the map piece. How hard could that have been? He’s a pig farmer, for Maribor’s sake. He lived in a shack on a lonely road in the middle of nowhere. He didn’t even have that many pigs! You had three swords, and you’re twice his size. You should have just killed him and taken the map.”

  Royce looked at Hadrian and raised both hands palms up, as if to say, “See?”

  “Is that how you got the other pieces?” Hadrian asked Myra.

  The woman stopped. The rush of the water was loud, but he knew she’d heard him. Still Myra hesitated, turning slowly. “What?”

  “You said that an old man gave you the other pieces, but did he? Did he just give them to you?”

  Hadrian could see it on her face—she was considering lying. Any other time, anywhere else, she probably wouldn’t have hesitated. He had long suspected Myra was a good liar but buried deep under a mountain in a sealed room filling with water, she must have realized there wasn’t much point.

  “He was an old man and dirt poor,” she replied. “Figured a rich widow could be persuaded to finance an expedition for a quarter of the recovered treasure—a quarter! He had seven of the eight map pieces and told me Wilmer had the last.”

  “Did you poison him?” Royce asked. There was no accusation in his tone, merely professional curiosity.

  “I run a candle shop not an alchemy store.”

  Royce shrugged. “It’s just a common choice for women.”

  “Maybe for the women in your social circle, but all I had on hand was a lot of hot wax.”

  This made Wilmer grimace, shocked Hadrian, and even Royce looked impressed.

  Myra rolled her eyes. “What kind of person do you think I am? I smothered him with a pillow while he slept.” She folded her arms and huffed. “So why didn’t you kill Wilmer?”

  “You know I’m right here!” the pig farmer yelled.

  BOOM!

  The room shuddered once more. Dust rained from the ceiling, and all of them looked up to see if some new and more immediate disaster was about to befall them. When the stones hanging over their heads remained unaffected, the party shared a communal sigh.

  “I asked Royce not to,” Hadrian said.

  “He’s annoying that way,” Royce added.

  “It wasn’t necessary. Wilmer offered his piece in exchange for a fair share. His only condition was to come along.”

  “And Maribor’s beard, was that ever a mistake,” Wilmer said. “Might have been better if you had killed me.” He looked at the thief. “Would have been quick and painless, right?”

  Royce shrugged. “Sure, why not.”

  “At least it would have been over and done with. These last few days have been the worst of my life.”

  “Coming from you, that’s really saying something.” Myra sloshed over toward Royce through ankle-deep water.

  The tight bun on top of her head had come loose, and her hair cascaded over her shoulders, making Myra look like some fairy-tale swan princess. Lines of gray frosted darker locks, lending her a mystical quality—then again, Hadrian might have lost more blood than he realized.

  “I should have hired someone else. Viscount Winslow told me you had escaped from the Manzant salt mines, and I got too excited. You just don’t find many people who have experience with dwarven constructions. But this whole trip has been a complete disaster. You’ve done a pathetic job.”

  “We’re here, aren’t we?” Royce said. “And you don’t even have a scratch.”

  “Oh, I have plenty of scratches. I can assure you.”

  “What are you complaining about?” Wilmer asked, pointing at the arrow in his side.

  “And if Hadrian hadn’t killed those wolves, you’d—”

  “And how about when I ca
ught your shoe?” Wilmer said. “You’d be nearly barefoot if it weren’t for me.”

  She looked at him incredulously, then turned back to glare at Royce. “Okay, fine, but none of that matters if we drown down here.” Myra looked down. Several of the map pieces and an armada of candles had escaped her pack and were floating on the surface. “I’m telling you the way out is some sort of magical item hidden in that chest, so once more I’m ordering you to open it!”

  BOOM!

  The creature had returned to the little door, and the two braces bucked and threatened to splinter. The water was nearly knee deep.

  “Okay, forget it,” Myra said. “I’m begging you to open it.”

  “We don’t need the treasure,” Wilmer yelled. “We need to get out! It’s one of them tests, ain’t it? You’re just letting your greed get the best of you. If we open the chest, there could be some kind of explosion that traps us.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Maybe kill us too.”

  “You know, there’s really no reason to believe we have only one choice,” Myra said.

  “You were the one who suggested it,” Hadrian reminded her.

  “I know, and maybe it’s true, but maybe it isn’t. Everything up to this point could have been designed to frighten us away. We might be able to just open the chest, grab the treasure, unlock the door, run out into the beautiful mountain meadow where we left our horses, and all live happily ever after.”

  “Are you still drinking that stuff?” Royce asked.

  “No!” she shouted. Then a melancholy looked crossed her face. “Hadrian threw away the last bottle that the faerie king gave me.” She shot Hadrian a wicked stare.

  “How many times must I tell you,” Hadrian said. “That thing wasn’t a faerie king, and what you were drinking certainly wasn’t wine.”

  BOOM!

  The room shook, and a good-sized chunk of rock punched out of the wall. The spray of water became a torrent.

  “Time’s up,” Royce said, as the water began to rise at an alarming speed.

  “Open the chest!” Myra shouted.