Shadowkeep

by Alan Dean Foster - (ebook by Undead)

  Besides, the demon king would feel completely at ease in his lair deep within the castle and would be concentrating his energies on his planned assault on the outer world.

  As they neared the gate, the true vastness of the fortress impressed itself on each of them for the first time. It occurred to Praetor that Shadowkeep’s very size could constitute their greatest problem. He told Maryld so.

  “Gorwyther could be imprisoned anywhere within there. Even if we never encounter a single trap or guard, we could wander around inside for weeks, months, without finding him.”

  “Never fear, we’ll find him,” Maryld assured him, “just as we will encounter guards and traps. Even if I knew how to go directly to him, we could not do so for fear of drawing attention to ourselves. We must approach the wizard circumspectly, without displaying too much of our own abilities, or we will draw the attention of the demon king much too soon. Even if he is made aware of our intrusion, we do not want him to guess our true purpose in coming here. Let him think we are just another group of foolhardy treasure hunters.

  “We will deal with whatever obstacles are put in our path patiently, one at a time, and without making it appear too easy. In this fashion we may be fortunate enough to locate Gorwyther before the demon king realizes what we are up to.”

  The gate was not especially massive, but it did not yield to their efforts. Even Hargrod’s strength was insufficient to force the doorway. Its composition likely had something to do with the difficulty. The door was fashioned of solid rock.

  “Going to be tough to break through that,” Sranul observed aloud. He looked to right and left. “Looks like this is the only way in, too.”

  “We’re not going to break in.” Maryld stepped past the roo. She touched the door lightly with the three middle fingers of her left hand, ran them over the polished stone surface in several crisscrossing patterns. Then she stepped back.

  “I have done what I can.” She looked over at Praetor. “Hit it three times.”

  “Hit it?” The roo gaped at her. “You don’t think he’s going to knock a hole in that?”

  “Nothing of the kind.” She nodded encouragingly at Praetor. “Go on. Three times, as though you were knocking on the door of a friend’s house.”

  Praetor stepped forward and did as he’d been directed. The voice that responded came from the stone itself, not from behind the door, and made him jump.

  “SPEAK THE WORD AND ENTER.”

  “This is a first,” Sranul commented. “I’ve never been given orders by a door before.”

  Hargrod had moved right up next to the stone and was working his snout along the barrier. “I ssmell no sspeaker here.”

  “That’s because there is none, Hargrod. The door itself speaks though the spell that has been laid upon it.” Maryld took his place and whispered something Praetor and the others did not hear.

  Whatever it was proved effective. The door ground back on unseen hinges, allowing them entry.

  “How did you know the right word?” he asked her as they stepped through.

  “Isn’t it obvious? Give it some thought. You must learn to puzzle such things out yourself, Praetor.”

  Once inside, the door shut slowly behind them. They were in a high hallway lit with softly burning lamps. Still nothing leapt from the shadows to challenge them. There was an air, not of abandonment, but of indifferent maintenance to the place, as though it were kept clean and lit only occasionally.

  The hall opened on a large domed room. The ceiling was covered with mosaics of a disturbing appearance, though whether the designs were the work of Gorwyther or Dal’brad no one could say. Not that knowing who had rendered them would have made them any less unpleasant to look upon. They were not meant for the eyes of decent folk.

  Curved benches had been set out on the floor in neat rows, facing the altar that dominated the far wall. As altars went it wasn’t especially large, but it was quite impressive nonetheless.

  Sranul’s eyes widened as he stared at it. “Would you have a look at that!” Bounding toward it, he cleared the first four rows of benches in a single leap. It wasn’t surprising that the roo should find it a source of inspiration.

  The altar was solid silver.

  Sranul stood in front of it, luxuriating in the bright silvery glow. Someone, or something, had polished it recently and it burned with reflected light. It was as if a supernally gifted metalsmith had taken his hammer to a piece of full moon.

  “Well,” said the roo gleefully, “a short expedition but a happy one. We’ve got what we came for. Let’s unbolt this and get out of here.”

  Praetor spoke as he worked his way through the benches toward the altar. “Open your eyes, Sranul! Or maybe you should close them. Have you forgotten why we’re here?”

  “I haven’t forgotten why I’m here,” the roo replied. “See how it shines, even in this bad light? Think what it will look like out in the sunshine!”

  “There’s not going to be any sunshine ever again unless we do something about it,” Praetor told him.

  The roo hardly heard him. “If that was melted down and cast into coin, it would take half a dray wagon just to haul it. A wagonload of silver.” He started toward the altar again, but by now Praetor was close enough to put out a hand to hold the roo back.

  “Wait a minute, Sranul. You’re not thinking. There could be danger here.”

  The roo frowned at him. “What danger? We came in through a door, walked down a hall and into this room. We haven’t been in here five minutes. No one knows we’re here or there’d have been some kind of reaction by now. The only danger I see is that you’re not going to help me drag this lovely little piece of furniture out of here. That’s okay. I’ll do it myself if need be. But danger? There’s no danger here.”

  “What about that?”

  “What about what?”

  Praetor pointed toward the intricate bas-relief that dominated the wall above the altar.

  The roo shrugged. “A decorative bit of carving. So what?”

  “This isn’t a playhouse, Sranul. Everything in here likely has a purpose, none of it inclined toward the good. That includes the decorations on the walls and the ceiling above us.” He nodded toward the bas-relief. “I’m no mage but even I can see that that’s a rune of power.”

  Sranul squinted at the wall. “Looks just like some stone carving to me.”

  “I’m telling you, it’s a rune. I’ve done enough reading to know a rune when I see one.”

  “Rune, ruin, what’s the difference?” The roo cleared him in a single leap and commenced a close inspection of the altar. “Got to be attached to the wall somehow,” he muttered as he tried to see behind it. “I can see cracks in the rock but no bolts or welds. Maybe it’s not attached. That’d make it even easier.” He grabbed one end of the altar and tugged.

  There was a brilliant flash of white light and a loud crackling. Sranul lit up like a torch. Then there was a sharp ripping sound in the air and something threw him halfway across the domed chamber. He knocked over a couple of benches, rolled over once, and came to a halt on his back as his friends rushed to his side.

  “Foolish,” Maryld muttered. “Foolish and stupid.”

  “Then why didn’t you stop him?” Praetor was bending anxiously over the motionless form.

  “Stop him how? With words? Mine would’ve been no more effective than your own.” She turned her gaze on the roo. “Some individuals cannot be talked to. They have to be shown.”

  “Yes,” Praetor agreed, “but must the example be fatal?”

  Maryld snorted. “He’s not dead. Stunned, but not dead.”

  “That’s good. I’d hate to think we’d lost one of our party only a few minutes after entering.” He put a hand under the roo’s shoulder, lifted him off the floor. “Come on, Sranul. Maryld says you’re not dead. Prove it. Say something.”

  The roo’s eyelids moved, the long lashes fluttered. “Ouch.”

  Disgusted, Praetor removed his suppo
rting hand and stood. “Get up, idiot. Hargrod, give him a hand.”

  The Zhis’ta nodded and all but yanked the dazed roo to his feet.

  “What… what happened? Who hit me?”

  “No one hit you.” Praetor jerked his head toward the gleaming silver altar. “I told you there was a rune watching over that. You wouldn’t listen. Not know-it-all Sranul, oh no.”

  The roo couldn’t meet his eyes. “Sorry. I really thought it was just a wall carving.”

  “All you saw was the silver. You got off easy. A cheap lesson.”

  Sranul rubbed the back of his neck, stretched painfully. “It didn’t feel cheap.”

  “A rune of power it is,” Maryld agreed, eyeing Praetor curiously. “I didn’t know you were so well versed in magic.”

  He shrugged. “Like I told Sranul, I’ve done a lot of reading. Then too, we had many customers who visited us in the company of their own personal mages. Under their supervision, my teacher Shone Stelft would set many such symbols of power in metal. I saw enough of them worked into swords and shields to recognize one when I see it.” He nodded toward the bas-relief. “At least, I can recognize them when they’re not complex, and that one’s pretty straightforward.”

  “Indeed it is.” She turned to confront Sranul. “Avaricious roo, take this as a warning. The wealth of Shadowkeep is not free for the taking. Next time your greed may kill you.”

  On that solemn note she led them onward, past the domed chamber into the hall-like room beyond.

  Its purpose was clear: it had been either an armory or a junk heap. It was full of weapons, but most of them were broken, shattered, or otherwise severely damaged. Despite the fact that many clearly were designed for hands other than human, the sight made Praetor homesick.

  There were a couple of anvils, hammers and saws and chisels: all the familiar paraphernalia of a well-equipped smithy. There was even a forge. Praetor walked over and put his hands on it, wondering how it vented to the outside. The firestone was as cold as the floor.

  “Nobody’s worked in here in a long time,” he told his companions. He left the forge and moved to the nearest anvil. It had been set up atop a huge old millstone instead of being bolted directly into the floor. A heavy hammer lay atop it. He picked it up, enjoying the familiar heft of it in his hand. Many was the time he’d used similar hammers to work hot, pliable metal. Although the forge was cold, the business end of the hammer was scored and scarred from frequent use.

  “You know, I was working with such tools until just a few weeks ago,” he said to no one in particular.

  Hargrod’s tone was impatient. He was surveying the way ahead. “We have all the weaponss we need.” He kicked aside half a dozen broken sword blades. “What iss here iss usselesss anyway.”

  Sranul stood at his shoulder and peered past him. “Anything moving?”

  “Nothing. Sso far our pressence here goess undetected.”

  But Praetor wasn’t through inspecting the old armory. He knelt next to the anvil. It was heavily marked on both sides, and not by incidental blows of a hammer.

  “See here,” he murmured. “More runes.”

  “You look at them,” said Sranul. “I’ve had enough of runes for one morning.”

  Praetor was thinking hard as he picked up the hammer. “I wonder what would happen if…?”

  A slim hand came down on his wrist.

  “Don’t,” Maryld told him.

  “But it’s not valuable, like Sranul’s silver altar. It’s just an old anvil.”

  “Marked with old runes. Think a moment, Praetor. Why would anyone go to the trouble of rune-marking something so valueless—unless it’s not as valueless as it seems. Or as harmless.”

  He held on to the hammer as he turned this over in his mind. “The runes: do you know their meaning?”

  “No, just as I could not decipher the meaning of the carving above the altar. But this I do know: if you do not know the meaning of magical signs, it is safer to leave them alone.”

  Praetor hesitated. The hammer was comfortable in his grip. It felt natural, not threatening. “It might work something to our advantage. Might help to show us the way to Gorwyther’s prison.”

  “Or it might create a new prison, for us. Set it down carefully, Praetor Fime. Back where you found it.”

  Praetor did so, but reluctantly. What harm could result from striking an anvil with a hammer? What harm could there be in touching a silver altar? Sranul’s experience was still fresh in his mind. Sure, the action he proposed might be harmless, but mightn’t it also blow him across the room? And what point was there in having a thaladar along if he refused to take her advice?

  He put down the hammer. As he did so he thought the anvil quivered slightly. More likely it was his own nerves, teasing him.

  Hargrod and Sranul had already left the armory behind. He could hear them banging around in the next room.

  “What do you suppose those two have gotten themselves into?”

  “No telling,” Maryld replied evenly, “but at least we don’t have to worry about Sranul trying to carry off the next item of value he finds.”

  “Don’t count on that. Roos have short memories.”

  The next room was an extension of the armory in both purpose and appearance. Praetor’s nose wrinkled at the lingering odors of inhuman sweat and garbage.

  Beds of varying size and shape lined one wall. Several were broken and decorated with cobwebs. Broken pots and bottles, worn-out leather, piles of parchment full of unrecognizable writing, and heaps of lesser items covered the floor.

  “It’ss ssome kind of barrackss,” Hargrod surmised, “but not for the demon king’ss guardss.”

  “I agree.” Maryld eyed the mess distastefully. “Not that demons have a fetish for cleanliness. Quite the opposite. But this, like the armory behind us, has not been used in a long time.”

  Sranul was poking through a pile of rubbish as tall as he was.

  “What are you ssearching for there?” Hargrod asked him.

  “Anything useful, my cold-blooded friend.”

  Hargrod made a face. “It sstrikess me that whoever abandoned thiss end of the fortresss would have taken any usseful thingss with them when they left.”

  “Not necessarily,” Sranul argued, throwing garbage in all directions as he plowed through the last of the first pile and started in on the one next to it. “Depends why they left and at what speed. Never know what you might find in living quarters hastily abandoned.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Praetor told him. “We didn’t come here to go rummaging through trash. Besides, Hargrod’s right. You’re not going to find anything in this garbage.”

  “Oh no?” Triumphantly, Sranul emerged from the pile holding three small metal disks. They were thick and heavy with grime and grease. While the fastidious Maryld looked away, the roo used his long tongue to clean them.

  “Not find anything, eh? What do you call these? Three goldens, just lying there for the taking.” He slipped them into a waist pouch and resumed his digging, using feet and tail as well as his hands.

  “It would take days to go through all of this,” Praetor told him, “and there’s no assurance there’s anything else to find. So you got lucky and found a couple of pieces of gold.”

  “You talk like I’d found a few cloves of garlic,” Sranul shot back as he continued to send dust and mold flying.

  Praetor turned away. “Come on. Now.” It wasn’t the roo’s reluctance to follow that made him turn back again, however. He looked toward the back of the room. “Maryld? Don’t tell me you agree with him?”

  “No.” She beckoned him over.

  She was standing by the back wall, beyond the broken beds and piles of trash. “What do you make of this?”

  She had one hand resting on a small podium. Praetor eyed it carefully. At first he thought it had been cut from the trunk of a single tree, but close inspection revealed that it was not made of wood at all. It had a shine to it no wood could match, no
matter how frequently polished. It was cool and hard to the touch, but hard in a way wood was not. There was no give to it at all.

  In the center of the flat top was a diamond-shaped depression. A silver wheel gleamed on the side.

  “I don’t know,” he finally told her. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it. It’s interesting, but not particularly impressive. Although…”

  Maryld searched his face. “It reminds you of something.”

  “Maybe—I’m not sure, Maryld. Last night, after the rest of you had gone upstairs, Norell took me into a back room. A storeroom. He had quite an assortment of stuff back there. Weapons, armor, a handsome little ring I wouldn’t mind having, potions and the like, all of it valuable, worthwhile, and expensive. Too expensive for me.

  “There were also some crystals. Not gem quality, but of unusual size and color.” He ran his fingers over the diamond-shaped depression in the top of the podium. “I was just thinking that some of them might fit in this.”

  Maryld’s fingers met his inside the depression. She was thinking hard. “I don’t know what to make of what you say, or of this device, for device I am certain it is. It does not look important, but I was taught at a very young age to be warier of nothing that looks like something rather than something that looks like nothing. Still, without one of those crystals there is nothing we can do but speculate as to the purpose of this device.”

  “Do you think if we had some of the crystals to try this thing might help us?”

  “I don’t know, Praetor. I will think on it further.”

  “Hey!” They both turned in the direction of the excited cry. “I found the sstairss.”

  “About time,” Maryld muttered.

  They followed the sound of Hargrod’s voice. After a final, desultory poke at a massive mound of garbage, Sranul joined them.

  The wooden stairwell wound its way upward. Hargrod held his spear at the ready as he stared at the uppermost steps. “We go up?”