by Dave Gross
Soon, the cellar rang with the sound of picks on limestone. Tamlin watched anxiously as the men cracked apart the floor and pulled it away in chunks.
This will take time, signed Vox.
"I know," said Tamlin. "I know. Still, there's nothing else for me to do except… Where's my portfolio?"
He realized he hadn't taken the slipcase with his father's correspondence and his notes on the cipher with him during the excitement of Magdon's spell. He must have left it in the library.
"Wait here," said Tamlin. He looked to see that the men were all engrossed in their work before stepping behind a large cask and pressing the stone that revealed a latch to the secret door. The secret paths of Stormweather Towers reached even there, below the ground floor.
Vox glowered at his master. He knew he wasn't welcome in the secret passages, and he obviously hated letting Tamlin out of his sight.
"Don't fret, you mother hen," said Tamlin. "I'll be right back, and none will know I've left, so long as you stand here."
Vox shook his head in a weary and practiced expression of exasperation.
Tamlin closed the secret door behind him and found the spiral stairway that led directly to the second story. From there it was two turns and a pair of secret doors to the library. When he arrived, he checked the peephole before entering.
Magdon was the room's only occupant. She knelt on the floor, gathering the crushed foil of her magic-detecting apparatus.
Tamlin entered the library and closed the door silently. He moved well away from the secret door before coughing to avoid startling the wizard. It hadn't happened to him, but he would never forget the story of the three days Uldir Foxmantle lived as a Chultan tree frog after surprising his house mage in his study.
"My lord Uskevren," said Magdon.
The albino tried to rise and bow at the same time, managing to perform neither gesture very well. Tamlin remembered that his first assumption upon meeting Magdon and her sister was that they were peasant girls indentured to the wizards' guild.
You can take the girl out of the country, he thought.
"Oh, do not let me disturb you," he said, looking around for the documents he'd left. "Where's the portfolio I left here?"
Magdon replied, "My lord, I could not say."
"Could not," said Tamlin, feeling a sudden rush of anger, "or would not?"
Forgetting the danger of frightening a wizard, he stalked toward her. He paused before closing the distance and veered toward her satchel of materials on his father's desk. A glance told him there were no pages inside. Still, he knew a mage could render things smaller, or transport them with a spell.
"My lord, I promise you," she protested. "I took nothing."
"Who else was in here with you?"
"Only your man, Escevar," she said.
Relief washed over him then, followed by a sharp pang of chagrin.
"I beg your pardon, mistress. I hope you can forgive my intolerably poor temper. Since my father's disappearance, my manners have suffered. Escevar must be looking for me downstairs even now."
"Yes, my lord."
Tamlin was inclined to stay and apologize further- one never knew when one might need a favor from the wizards-yet he was anxious to recover his one tangible clue to his father's disappearance. He sketched a courtly bow, a gesture far out of proportion to Magdon's station, and turned to leave.
"My lord?"
"Yes?"
"It is I who owes an apology," she said. "I have deceived you."
Dark and empty, thought Tamlin. Here it comes, and me without so much as a smatchet.
While he was far more proficient with a long sword, Tamlin longed for his lucky axe. The weapon had saved him from a rampaging troll. Perhaps it would help him cut down the wizard before she transmuted him into something wretched.
Rather than raise her hands to conjure something out of the empty air, Magdon said, "The spell I cast for you was a ruse. There is no spell to show whether a person has magical potential."
"What?" said Tamlin. "Why would you do such a thing?"
"He said it would relieve your mind," said Magdon.
"Who?"
"Your man, Escevar. He said you were fraught with worry, and performing that charade might help you sleep better."
"That idiot," said Tamlin. "Even if his intentions were benign, how dare he… Wait a second. Do you mean to tell me that I am even now digging up a perfectly good wine cellar because of a mummer's trick?"
"Oh, no, my lord. That spell was genuine. I would not accept payment for a mere ruse. As things stand, I should return my entire fee. If you wish to complain to my mistress Helara, it would be only fair."
She removed a pair of coin purses from her satchel. Tamlin noted that they must contain at least twice as many coins as she had demanded for her services.
"We shall speak of this another time," said Tamlin. "Until then, I hope your penance shall take the form of the utmost discretion about this evening's events."
"Certainly, my lord."
"And keep the gold," he said. "One day I may come to you for a service."
She made a deep curtsy and kept her eyes on the floor as he turned and left the room.
Forgetting his promise to Vox, Tamlin dashed down the steps, retracing his earlier path when following the beams of light from Magdon's spell.
He paused in the grand foyer and asked the doormen, "Have you seen my butler?"
"Yes, my lord," replied one of the men. He stood straight at attention. "He went to summon a carriage for the visiting mage."
"How long ago?"
The guard frowned and said, "At least ten minutes ago, my lord."
"Dark!" shouted Tamlin. "Find him at once. Bring him back here, and make sure he has a leather portfolio with him. No one may look inside it but me. Do you understand?"
The guards snapped perfect salutes.
"Send a double guard to take your place here," Tamlin added, then spun on his heel and ran down to the cellar.
Vox nearly leaped at the sight of his master returning from a path other than the secret passage. Before he could sign a complaint, he saw the deep scowl on Tamlin's face.
"Bad news, Vox," he said. "We've found our traitor."
CHAPTER 20
THE INEFFABLE VAULT
I'm getting too old for this.
The thought kept returning to Thamalon's mind like some refrain from one of the operas Shamur adored so much. He hoped his predicament would turn out better than it did for the characters whose tragedies were sung in the amphitheater of the Hulorn's Hunting Garden.
He pressed his ear against the door and listened-yet again-for any sounds of inhabitants in the room beyond. He'd been doing so all morning at dozens of secret doors, and each time he heard voices or footsteps nearby, his heart skipped a beat.
It was only a matter of time before he blundered into the wrong room and revealed that he'd been skulking through the Sorcerer's no-longer-completely-secret passages.
Apart from the incredible difference in scale, the hidden corridors of Castle Stormweather were remarkably similar to those in Stormweather Towers. They weren't exactly the same, but they reinforced Thamalon's notion that this grand bastion and his own relatively modest manor home were fraternal if not identical twins.
How he could accept those similarities and deny the likely relationship between the Sorcerer and his son, Thamalon did not know. Nor did he care to examine the question too closely. It was a matter of faith and intuition, and Thamalon preferred to leave it that way.
Thamalon heard nothing beyond the door. He estimated that he'd wound his way through the servants' quarters and was near a kitchen or one of the lesser feasting halls. He sniffed for some smell of roasting meat or baking bread, but either he'd misjudged his direction or else the secret door sealed too tightly to allow odors to pass through.
He searched briefly for a sliding panel that might reveal a peephole. There were many such devices in his Stormweather, some of whic
h had proven quite useful in spying on those who awaited his arrival before a trade meeting. Thamalon felt utterly no guilt in the subterfuge, which he assumed his competitors also employed. To his way of thinking, anyone so foolish as to discuss trade secrets in his rival's home deserved what he got.
Unfortunately, Thamalon had found precious few spy holes in the monstrous reflection of Stormweather Towers. Perhaps they were simply impractical in walls more often constructed of granite than of wood. Or maybe, Thamalon thought, the Sorcerer had other means of spying on his guests.
Thamalon felt exposed. He wondered whether the Sorcerer was even then observing his guest's ostensibly clandestine explorations.
He put his faith in the hope that the Sorcerer's resumption of his hunt would keep him sufficiently distracted throughout the afternoon. The man had already brought down two of the great skwalos, but Thamalon's dwarf friends had told him to expect no fewer than six catches before the Sorcerer gave up his slaughter. If catching them was as demanding as the contest Thamalon had witnessed the night before, he felt reasonably sure the distraction would prevent the Sorcerer from scrying through a basin like the one Lady Malaika used to observe his hunting.
Satisfied that the room beyond was unoccupied, Thamalon raised the brass latch and eased the door open a few inches. The room was bare of furnishings, and Thamalon realized it was a continuance of the secret corridors of Castle Stormweather. Inside he found two more latched doorways and a spiral staircase descending below the ground floor.
At last, Thamalon thought.
He'd been hunting for a passage down to the wine cellars, and to the chamber below.
The Ineffable Vault.
He'd not yet decided what to do when he reached the forbidden chamber. He'd questioned Lady Malaika on its function, but she claimed to know its powers only because the Sorcerer had told her of them long ago, when they were young and shared all their secrets. She had no first-hand knowledge, and no further advice except to caution Thamalon against detection.
That was superfluous advice.
The stairs led to another chamber on what Thamalon judged must be the level of the cellars. The Vault was at least another twenty feet down, yet the stairs descended no farther. He found another door, listened for voices, and carefully went through.
Thus he continued through the cellar level of the castle until at last he heard the sound of human voices.
Screaming.
His first instinct was to retreat. After his initial panic, Thamalon realized that there were other kinds of places traditionally lodged underground. Aside from treasure vaults and wine cellars, after all, there were dungeons.
The Stormweather in which he'd grown up had included such a place. Its six cold cells were reserved for drunks and brawlers among his father's guard. Thamalon smiled at the memory of his own brother's brief incarceration in the dungeon. Perivel had staggered down to the prison to impress a couple of wenches he'd lured home. The big man was drunker than he realized, for the doxies locked him into one of the cells and demanded he pay bail to be released. Once he handed over the last of his coin, the women blew him a pair of kisses before running back out to spend their new bounty. Luckily for Perivel, Thamalon had been the first to hear his hoarse bellowing the following evening. Had their father discovered how easily his eldest son had allowed himself to be tricked, he might have left him in the cell for another tenday.
When Thamalon rebuilt Stormweather Towers years after the rest of the Old Chauncel razed the original, he saw no reason to restore the dungeon. Any offense worthy of confinement called for dismissal, in his opinion. Anything less could be left to the discretion of the captain of the guard.
Thamalon never thought his father cruel for using the cells-his dungeon was simply a prison. No one ever suffered more than mild privation and bland food in the dungeons of Stormweather Towers.
Not so in the castle.
The sounds Thamalon heard through the walls were a melody of pain. The staccato cracks that punctuated the screams could be only the rhythm of the lash. Thamalon had heard such sounds before, in public punishments for crimes of property and contract. Witnessing those that crossed on Uskevren business was his repellent duty. Unlike some of his peers, he had never developed a taste for human suffering, however deserved.
Revulsion wrestled with his curiosity. As was becoming typical for him, wonder prevailed. Thamalon moved slowly toward the horrid sounds.
He came to an alcove much like an opera box with four chairs situated on steps before three shuttered windows. The sounds of torture came from beyond the louvered panels.
Thamalon tried to swallow away the disgusting taste that came to his mouth as he considered the implications of the viewing box.
He knew he should leave immediately, but he felt the compulsion of one who passes a horrible spectacle in the street and cannot resist turning to watch it. Thamalon lifted one band of the shutters just enough for a peek into the yawning maw of the Abyss.
The Sorcerer's dungeon was the size of Talbot's playhouse. Like the Wide Realms, it was a circular structure with stepped rings descending to a central platform. Dozens of cells surrounded the theater in stacks five high. Inside more than half of them lay dirty, naked humans and elves. Five or six more prisoners hung limply in spiked cages dangling from the ceiling.
The torturers were brawny men wearing red cowls over their heads. They moved methodically among the screams, like battlefield surgeons undaunted by the chaos around them. One drew the lash over the red back of an elf chained to a bloody frame. Another pressed a glowing brand shaped like a lightning bolt into the armpit of another big man-perhaps a recalcitrant member of the Vermilion Guard. Two more turned the wheels on a rack that stretched an elf until his shoulders popped out of their sockets. The elf didn't move or speak. Thamalon guessed he was already dead.
He closed the shutter.
Perhaps there were more clues to be gleaned by spying on the place, but Thamalon could bear to see no more of it. He endorsed discipline and punishment, but this was wicked work.
The nasty taste in his mouth had trickled into his stomach. He felt queasy for a moment, then suddenly much better. Whatever guilt he'd felt about betraying the Sorcerer's hospitality had evaporated. All that remained was a fierce desire to escape that infernal place and return home. If that meant harming the Sorcerer by opening his precious vault, then that was only added value.
CHAPTER 21
BETWEEN THE WALLS
The hairs on the back of Tamlin's neck stood up as straight and as hard as sewing needles. He turned around to see nothing behind him but the bare wall that concealed the secret door to the cellars. Even so, he felt the strong sensation that something was coming through that passage, toward him.
The sound of picks and hammers on the stone floor resounded in the cool chamber. He briefly considered ordering the workmen to pause in their labor, but his desire to see what they would find beneath the foundation was too great. Already they'd uncovered an arc of granite stones that formed a partial archway. Inside the frame they formed, a weird blue stone plugged the gap that should have provided a passage.
He didn't know what it was, but Tamlin knew as sure as the stars shone on a clear night that the uncovered artifact was a clue to his parents' disappearance. He would do nothing to delay its excavation.
"Put your backs into it, men."
Tamlin smiled in what he hoped was a beneficent manner as his men glanced up at their master. They hadn't understood his insistence about digging up the floor, and they understood even less what they saw there.
"Tamlin?" called a voice from behind him.
Tamlin turned, but there was nothing there but the wall-and the unseen secret door within it.
"Wait," said Tamlin. "Stop digging. Listen."
The hammering subsided, and the voice called again.
"Tamlin? Is that you?"
The voice sounded exactly like his father's, and it was definitely coming from behind the
door.
"Talbot?" Tamlin called. "Is that you in there?"
His brother's talent for mimicry had often amused Tamlin, even before it played a role in rescuing him from the kidnappers. Under the present circumstances, however, it was a jest in very poor taste.
"No," replied the voice, this time more assured, as if the speaker had been initially dubious of Tamlin's identity, "it is your father. Where are you?"
Tamlin paused before answering, "I'm in your favorite room of the house."
Talbot would probably know the answer to his brother's simple test, but an outsider posing as his father would not.
"The wine cellar," he said. "Good!"
"Father! Where in the Nine Hells are you? I can barely hear you."
"Within the walls," he said.
"Wait," said Tamlin. "I'll follow your voice. You sound like you're in… You men, go up the stairs and tell Vox to double the guard, then come back here and resume the dig."
After the workmen had gone, Tamlin slipped through the hidden door and called, "All right, I'm in the secret passage. Where are you?"
They called back and forth, each seeking the source of the other's voice. Thamalon heard his father's voice more clearly, but no matter where he went, he remained alone in the secret passages.
"I think this is as close as we can come," said Thamalon.
"I still can't see you."
"Well," said Thamalon., "I think I know the reason for that."
They exchanged their stories of the days since Thamalon disappeared from the library. Tamlin was both astonished and relieved to hear of his father's transportation to another world, and Thamalon's voice turned cold and hard after Tamlin reported that Shamur and Cale had also vanished.
"Let us save the details for later," said Thamalon. "For now, the most important thing is keeping you and your siblings safe. The first thing you must do is to have yourself appointed as head of the family. I realize you may not feel entirely comfor-"
"Already done," said Tamlin.