by Andrew Rowe
Upon seeing the woman continue to pound on the wall, I realized what I was seeing: prison cells. They were trapped inside.
And someone — possibly their jailor — was dead right outside.
Disconcerting.
I frowned, moving toward the corpse. The masked man raised a single hand while I approached, giving a curt shake of his head.
Was the body a trap? Or was he just saying that it was far too late for the victim?
Or maybe he didn’t want me to know how the man had been killed?
I glanced around the room, looking for anything vaguely cylindrically shaped on the walls. I didn’t find anything of the kind, but I did find a hexagonal panel on the floor, not far from where the man had fallen.
Was the dead man a candidate like me, someone who had stumbled upon the jail?
Resh.
Carefully, I went to the body, ignoring the masked man. I avoided the hexagonal shape, glancing from side to side as I knelt.
The woman who had been pounding on the wall gave me a curt nod.
I took that as sign that I was safe to continue, reached down, and rolled the body toward me.
I heard a click.
I jumped backward just in time to avoid the spear of light that flashed across the room from left to right, flickering and fading as it hit the opposite wall.
Shuddering where I stood, I looked down, finding a small depressed tile beneath the body I had just moved. I’d just re-triggered the trap that had killed him.
If I hadn’t seen the body, I might have died in the same way.
His eyes stared open in disbelief. I thought I recognized him from the line outside, but I was probably fooling myself. There were hundreds of candidates.
I had always known these tests had the potential to be fatal, but somehow, seeing this had finally made it real.
I leaned down and closed his eyes, shaking my head.
“I’m sorry you died like this. I hope your spirit finds peace.”
They were hollow words, and I knew it.
I searched through what he was carrying. It wouldn’t do him any good now.
There wasn’t much of use. He was wearing a sword and dagger on his belt. The dagger looked valuable, with the hilt being carved into a golden lion’s head. I left them both, instead taking the glove off his right hand. It had an unfamiliar symbol embroidered on it in gold, similar to my own glove. A family symbol.
I slipped it into my bag. I’d look for them.
I could feel the eyes of the prisoners on me, but I didn’t care. I continued going through his belongings, searching the pouches at his side. Food, water, a candle. A key, blue in color.
I took the key, putting it in my pack, and carefully made my way over to the crystalline walls of the cells.
“—hear me?” I caught the voice of the woman. She was a bit muffled, but audible. I watched every step as I approached, and just in case, I scanned the ceiling as well. I found a few more trap panels on the floor, but nothing visible on the roof.
“I can hear you,” I said at normal volume. She nodded, and the black-haired man finally moved, approaching the corner of his cell where he could get closest to us.
“Good. Don’t do anything yet.” She looked like she was talking loudly, nearly yelling. I could hear her a little better now that I was close. “Don’t touch the walls.”
I had been just about to touch the walls.
“Okay,” I said. “What’s going on here?”
The masked man tapped a fist on the inside of his wall. “Crystalline structure. Nearly unbreakable. I could manage it, but the cells are warded. If I broke mine, the wards on the other two would trigger defenses.”
Warded?
I glanced at the crystalline walls more carefully, narrowing my eyes. I wasn’t attuned yet, but I could see some hints of blue energy within the crystalline structure. They looked almost like hovering letters.
Yep, warded.
“Listen closely,” the woman said. “I’m Vera Corrington. If you help me get out of here, I can help get you nearly anything—”
“You should help the kid,” the man cut in. “He’s been unconscious for nearly two days. Dehydrated, most likely.”
“Don’t be a fool.” Vera glanced at the masked man. “The child has no chance of making it out on his own, and the key is only going to work once.”
I frowned, looking at Vera. “Exactly which key do you mean?”
Vera folded her arms. “The blue one you found on that poor bastard’s body. There should be locks outside each of our cells, but these things eat keys. You won’t be able to help all of us.”
The masked man walked to the center of his cell, tapping a part on the wall. I could just barely see a keyhole there, now that he was indicating it.
Resh. One key, three locks.
Was this a part of the test?
It easily could be seen that way, if I broke it down into component parts. A dead body to indicate the traps. I could only free one person. The obvious option — the child — might already be dead, and a waste of a key. A man and a woman were the other options, maybe to appeal to people of the opposite gender?
Or, of course, it could actually be a prison.
Had I found a place in the tower I wasn’t supposed to be?
It seemed unlikely. The goddess was supposed to observe everything in the tower and guide our paths. At least, according to legend.
Was it possible that the prison was real, but that the goddess had guided me here? To give me a chance to free one of them, or maybe all of them?
There were too many things I didn’t know. I had to treat the situation as real — meaning that I was actually being given a chance to free someone who was trapped in the tower.
Someone like Tristan.
“Has either of you met someone named Tristan? Another prisoner, maybe?”
The two adults looked at each other, and then both shook their heads.
The masked man spoke. “Others have come and gone, but I haven’t heard of anyone by that name.”
Vera jerked a thumb at the man. “This guy would know. He’s been in here for weeks, if you believe his stories. And he can survive longer, too, which is why you should free me.”
I sighed. Shouldn’t have hoped for anything this soon. I just need to stick to the plan and make the climb to the top.
In the meantime, maybe I can help someone else.
I scratched my chin. Truthfully, I wasn’t certain I should free anyone. If they were here, wasn’t that the goddess’ will?
Thinking that way wasn’t going to get me anywhere, though. If everything here was part of the goddess’ plan, freeing them was just as likely to be what Selys wanted. And if the goddess wanted people my age to bleed out on the floors of her towers, well, I wasn’t certain I could trust her judgment.
It was a blasphemous way to think, but Tristan’s disappearance had changed me.
I looked at the masked man. “Not making any argument for me to free you?”
He shook his head. “That child is dying. Vera is right when she says it may be too late, but I wouldn’t want it on my conscience if he died when he could be saved.”
I nodded. I couldn’t disagree with that reasoning.
“Tall dark and shady over there has a point, but he’s not mentioning another possibility. He’s not all that attached to me. Might be that if you free the kid, he’ll break out of his own cell and make me dead.”
The masked man shook his head. “You’re paranoid.”
She tilted her head to the side. “A few days stuck with you and anyone would be.”
“What are the two of you doing in here, anyway?” I folded my arms. “What is this place?”
Vera sighed, running fingers through greasy hair. “Stepped in a place I shouldn’t have. Happens to delvers all the time.”
I frowned. “Delvers?”
The masked man spoke next. “A fancy term for looters.”
Vera gave a crooked smi
le, highlighting a scar across her upper lip. “I prefer ‘treasure hunter’.” She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, there are traps all over these towers. Some of them are merciful enough to be fatal. Others set off alarms, or drop you into places like this. It was the first for me, the second for this Keras over here.”
Keras bristled. “If by ‘dropped’ you mean ‘teleported’. I wouldn’t get caught in a mere pit.”
“Right, sure you wouldn’t. Anyway, we’re equally stuck, but you’re the wanted criminal.” Vera turned back to me. “And if you let the kid out, there are good odds he’s going to cut himself loose. Which is a shame, because all the fire and lightning from those wards is going to be terrible for my complexion.”
If people like them could get “caught” and imprisoned here, there’s a good chance it’s happened to others. That makes the odds Tristan is still alive somewhat higher...but I don’t know how long someone could survive in a cell like this.
Vera’s argument made me nervous, but I couldn’t just leave a child to die. I moved toward the child’s cell with the utmost care and raised the key.
“Thank you,” Keras said.
I glanced at him. “After I free the child, stay there. If you try to break yourself out while Vera is still in her cell, I’ll deliberately trigger every trap I can to make sure you never walk out of here.”
He nodded. “I understand.”
Vera let out a low hiss. “I don’t like this. You’d better know what you’re doing, kid.”
I glanced to her. “I’m pretty sure I do. One question, though. How do you know it’s the blue key that opens these doors?”
She shrugged. “It’s the same color the jailor uses. Why?”
I pointed at the lock. “The keyhole is gray. Could they accept other keys, maybe?”
Vera nodded. “There’s a chance, but other keys might also trigger the wards. It’d be a risk.”
I nodded, considering, as I turned the blue key in the lock.
A section of the wall vanished entirely, taking the key with it. That explained how the key was “used up”, as they explained.
I didn’t step inside the cell immediately; it could have easily been another trap. I removed my rope from my backpack and tried to get the lasso around the kid’s waist.
Vera quirked an eyebrow. “Seriously? I get that you’re cautious, kid, but that seems like overkill.”
“A lack of caution is why we’re in these cells, Vera.” Keras leaned on the wall next to her cell.
“Speak for yourself. My room wasn’t even remotely fair.”
So, she’d failed a challenge and ended up here? Could Tristan have done the same, and ended up in another prison?
It was a chance. Not a good chance, but a possibility. If he was alive, that meant that asking the goddess for the boon of returning him would be much more likely to succeed. People said the goddess could raise the dead, but I didn’t know of any confirmed cases. Just legends.
I clung to that hope as I managed — barely — to get the lasso around the kid’s waist.
“You’re going to hurt him.”
That was Vera speaking, which was interesting. She hadn’t sounded all that concerned about the kid before.
I turned back toward Vera. “You really want me to step in there? There’s a chance the wall will close behind me, or that it’ll trigger another trap.”
“At least...move him slowly, yeah?”
I nodded, inspecting the floor carefully before I dragged the boy’s body across it. The cell wasn’t large, so it didn’t take me long to get him outside. I gingerly picked him up and set him on a non-trapped part of the floor, then turned him over.
His chest still rose and fell. His lips, however, were cracked and torn.
I didn’t really know how feed an unconscious kid water. Maybe one of the others in the cells did, though.
I stood up, brandishing my red key.
Vera narrowed her eyes at me. “Now where’d you get a thing like that?”
“Room with a Valor board.” I turned to Keras. “You seemed to understand the wards... I take it you’re attuned?”
“In a manner of speaking. That’s not important. I do understand the wards, for the most part.”
Enigmatic, but sufficient. “All right. Can you determine if an incorrect key will trigger the wards?”
He knelt by his own keyhole, examining the crystal. “I don’t believe so.”
I quirked a brow. “You don’t believe?”
“I’m not an expert at this style of warding.”
Not good. “Okay. Do you think the explosion would kill people outside the cells if the wards are triggered?”
He shook his head. “No. They are a failsafe for destroying prisoners. The jailor would need to be able to do it and remain safe from right outside.”
I looked to Vera. “Do you know anything that would contradict what he’s saying?”
“No, he’s a little scary, but I think he knows what he’s talking about. So, um, if you’re going to free one of us...”
I looked back to Keras. “If I freed Vera, would you be able to break yourself out and survive the resulting explosion?”
He nodded once.
“Uh, before you do that,” Vera stepped away from her cell door, “I should probably remind you that he’s a wanted criminal.”
Keras put a hand to his forehead. “I’m just a foreigner, Vera. That doesn’t automatically make me a criminal.”
“I’m just sayin’, innocent people don’t usually run around in masks.”
A fair point.
And if he was a criminal, getting him to swear he wasn’t going to harm us wouldn’t really mean much.
I wasn’t confident that freeing everyone was the right choice, but I was even less confident I was going to make it out of here on my own while trying to care for an injured child.
“Keras, I’m Corin. You want to tell me what your side of the story is?”
I was humanizing myself, trying to diminish the chance he’d murder me the second he got out.
“Not now.”
That was not a good answer.
“But, if you get me out of here, I’ll tell you when we’re out of the tower.”
An implication that we’d be leaving together. I could work with that.
I made my way over to Vera’s cell, holding the red key. “You both okay with taking this risk?”
I could see a hint of fear in Vera’s expression, but she hid it well. “I think I’ll die of boredom if I don’t take this chance. So, yeah, go for it.”
The masked man just nodded.
I put the key in the lock.
Nothing happened. I tried to turn the key and it didn’t budge.
“Well, that was anticlimactic.” Vera sighed loudly.
I put the red key back in my back and withdrew the gold one. Vera blinked at me.
“Do you just have a bag full of keys or something?”
I shook my head. “Last one.”
I’d been hoping to hold onto the gold key, since it had been the one coded to the path I’d been taking so far. Still, I couldn’t in good conscience leave without trying it.
I tried the gold key.
It turned. The door to Vera’s cell vanished.
She blinked, hesitantly reaching a hand into the space outside.
A broad grin spread over her face as her hand exited the cell.
She stepped outside, grabbing me in a hug. “Ooh, yes! Freedom! Thanks, kid.”
I may have blushed.
I turned my head toward the masked man. I didn’t see him move. The space where he’d been blurred, and I heard the sound of metal ringing against stone.
A section of the wall of his chamber had been cut away, leaving nothing but a pile of cleanly-sliced rubble where it had once stood. Keras’ weapon was already sheathed again. I never saw it in his hand.
Holy goddess. What...?
There was no sign of triggering the wards Keras had mentioned. Had
he been lying, or were the wards simply disabled because two of the doors were already open? I couldn’t be sure.
“We should leave.” Keras moved out of the cell with deliberate slowness.
He stepped over the trap that had killed my predecessor, moving to the child’s side and kneeling down. He looked at me. “Do you have water?”
I nodded, fumbling for my backpack, and withdrew a flask. I tossed it to him without a second thought. He caught it, of course.
Vera watched the whole exchange with narrowed eyes.
Keras uncapped the bottle, tilting the young boy’s head at an angle. Then, he opened the child’s mouth and poured water down his throat.
The boy coughed, but he swallowed some of the water. A good sign, I hoped. I was never very good at medicinal matters.
The masked man tossed the flask back toward me. I missed the catch, but Vera caught it.
“Mind if I take a swig?”
I shook my head.
She drank deeply from the flask, making a satisfied “ah!” sound, and then handed it back to me.
I replaced the flask in my bag, looking back to her. “There’s some water on the body, too. I didn’t take it.”
Vera knelt down next to the corpse, taking the bag that carried his food and water. “Thanks. This’ll be useful.”
She looked nervous. I felt the same way.
“Come.” Keras knelt down, picking up the unconscious child. He draped the kid over his shoulder and stood back up, leading the way out of the room. Vera and I carefully avoided the trapped spots on the floor, following him into the hallway.
He walked quickly, which let Vera and me deliberately fall a bit behind. I turned my head to her. “You know much about him?”
She lifted her hands and shrugged. “He was in there a lot longer than I was, from what I understand. I’ve only been here a few days, thank the goddess. Seen him do a few more magic tricks in his cell. Not sure what his attunement is. I’ve never seen anything like that sword trick, cutting stone.”
I thought on it. My best guess? He had multiple attunements. That was rare, but not unheard of. Maybe the Legionnaire attunement and something related to swords?
But that wouldn’t explain his speed.
Three attunements?
Practically unheard of, but I couldn’t think of a better explanation. I’d have to get more information first.