by Jim Galford
“May I ask who the ambassador was or which land sent them?”
Cinastin smirked and told Therec, “From what I am told, it was the ambassador from Turessi. Strange thing is, you had not arrived yet, but this occurred right after I made it known that you were coming. I doubt all of my men intended to betray us, as it only takes one or two high-ranking soldiers to seize control over a troop. I believe that is what has happened here.”
Therec’s stomach clenched nervously. He had not heard of another Turessian coming to Lantonne, so he had to assume this was a lie, but that might also indicate why the council hurried him southward. If there was another man claiming to be from Turessi, who was escalating the war, he needed to find this person and stop him.
“Your Majesty,” Therec said, trying to pick his words while still thinking through all the implications of the betrayal by the soldiers, “what would you have me do?”
“You will do what you already do, but with my blessing. You will search the magisters for a traitor and bring him to me for judgment. I give you the authority to go where you wish, but there are limits. Few trust you, so know that eyes will be on you at all times.”
“Giving your spies a chance to find the traitor, while I am watched,” Therec added, eliciting an impish grin from the king. “They will think me a spy and guard themselves, even as they let their defenses down around your real spies. The current belief that I am trying to take your city from you will flush out the ones who actually would have something to gain by doing so.”
“Correct.”
“I would be honored, Your Majesty,” said Therec, bowing deeply. “I will report whatever I can find. May I assume this was the reason I was brought here?”
“Only partly. Your people are reknowned for their necromantic tendencies. We are at war with a people that have embraced the use of the dead in their armies. A necromancer on-hand for our questions is of great value.”
Therec could not detect any hint of malice or sarcasm in the king’s tone. If he hated necromancers the way others in the city did, he hid it well. From what Therec could deduce, the boy honestly wanted to do what was in the city’s best interests, regardless of popularity. He would be a fine king one day, despite his poor education. Perhaps, if matters went well, the council might allow him to train with one or more teacher from Turessi.
Therec opened his mouth to reply when a rumble through the floor cut him off. As he stood there, trying to deduce what was happening, several paintings fell off the walls and the king put his head in his hands.
“I pray that is not another golem,” the boy said without looking up. Before he had finished speaking, the guards stepped back into the room. “If it is a magister’s experimental project, you have my permission to have him or her flogged. Guards, send someone to investigate.”
The two soldiers at the door nodded in silent acknowledgement and turned together towards the partially-open door. Before they could take a step, the door flew the rest of the way open, knocking the nearer man to the floor at Therec’s feet.
Standing in the doorway were three rotted and somewhat bloated corpses, looking around at the occupants of the room. The moment they had a clear path, all three rushed for the king, running clumsily over the fallen soldier and ignoring the attempts by the other to stop them.
Therec reacted instinctively, stepping between the king and the three undead. Between his previous injuries and the surprise, he struggled a little with finding his concentration to draw on magic to stop them, but a Preserver’s duties required him to always be ready. Before the corpses had gotten halfway to the king, Therec’s spell took hold and all three stopped where they were, slowly lowering their arms and taking a more neutral posture. His hold would not last long, but it would be enough for now.
“Someone is attempting to control them,” he warned the king, while the still-standing guard helped the other stand. Try as he might, Therec could not quite break the hold on the undead to let them be free. Each time he tried, his magic slid off the zombies without quite severing their creator’s influence. “There is another necromancer nearby and they are far stronger than I am. I can hold them, but I cannot seize control. I would guess that whoever was strong enough to lead the force against Lantonne has sent one of their apprentices to strike here.”
One of the soldiers raised his sword, ready to strike down the nearest corpse, while the king past and behind Therec. Cinastin could not hide his fear and Therec did not entirely blame him. Seeing undead reduced to such a barbaric state was grotesque beyond measure, even for one used to dealing with the dead.
“Please do not do that,” Therec warned the soldier, who looked past him to the king for confirmation. “These were someone’s family. I would much rather they be stopped than destroyed. Once we can sever the control, the bodies may be laid to rest properly.”
Apparently receiving agreement from the king, the soldiers lowered their weapons and moved to secure the door. Almost immediately, three more figures appeared down the hallway. The soldiers hurriedly slammed the door shut and fitted the bolt.
“What now, ambassador?” the king asked, standing somewhere behind Therec. “If they are already in that passage, most of my soldiers in the main keep’s halls are dead. The four of us are all we might have.”
Therec attempted to ease his hold on the zombies to see if he could cast more spells at anything else that got through the door, but the moment he let up on them, the zombies turned their attention straight back to the king. He quickly tightened his hold again and the zombies relaxed somewhat. Whatever held them was determined to push them after the king, to the exclusion of anyone else.
A heavy crash against the wooden door drew the attention of both soldiers, who began sliding furniture against it in hopes of slowing whatever was coming. The next impact jarred the hinges and bent the bolt, despite the short cabinet the men had placed in front of it.
“Do you have an escape route?” asked Therec over his shoulder. “I know my people rarely allow themselves to be boxed in.”
“I do,” answered the king. “It has not been used in generations, but hopefully it’s intact. Back up and I will guide you. My men will cover our retreat and come down behind us to seal the tunnel again.”
“How many know of the route?”
The king took hold of Therec’s robe and guided him backwards into the dining chamber, where Therec had previously never been allowed. Meanwhile, the soldiers held their position at the door, clearly ready for anything that might come through. This was what they were trained for, Therec reminded himself, pushing shut the door that separated the rooms. They would die to protect their kind, as was their duty as simple warriors.
The moment the door closed, Therec could hear the telltale sounds of the soldiers hacking at the zombies he had controlled, though he could not entirely fault them. When he was far enough away, the undead would attack again. Much as he would have loved to save their remains from being torn apart, he had to accept that the soldiers were ensuring their own safety.
“Those two and their evening replacements know of the passage,” the king finally answered once they were alone. He made his way into the back of the wood-paneled room and began fumbling with one of the panels, clearly unsure where the hidden passage began. “I’ve only been down there once and they have never used it. It should be obscure enough that we can get to the dungeons without anyone being the wiser. From there, we can regroup with the troops that likely have no idea we are under attack. We may need to retake my keep from the ground floor.”
Therec scanned the room, searching for any other ways in, but the place did not even have a window. That satisfied him that they would be secure once the king found the door, but until then, the one they had come through was the weakness in their defense. He hurriedly grabbed a chair from the nearby table and wedged it against the door, hoping to buy them a few precious seconds. Unlike the outer room’s door, this one was not built for defense.
“Found it,�
� Cinastin announced, sliding open an unlit stone passage hidden behind the paneling. “I’m afraid I have no torch…”
Therec pushed past the king, summoning a thread of magic to create a small ball of light over his palm. While it lit the first few feet of the passage, the pale blue light did little to illuminate anything more than the stones directly before him.
Setting off, Therec did not even bother to check on Cinastin’s progress once he heard the door click shut behind them. The boy would have to pull his own weight, but Therec would do what he could to protect him and that meant getting as far from the royal chambers as possible. Cinastin would follow his light, as the boy really had nowhere else to go.
The passage wound its way through much of the floor, following the main hallways so far as Therec could tell. Sharp turns took them ever toward the middle of the keep, always paralleling the halls that were likely on the other side of one wall or the other. Whoever had designed the passage had been clever, keeping it narrow and never allowing it to alter the layout of the outside halls. Anyone attempting to map the place would have a difficult time even guessing the tunnel existed. By the time they figured it out, anyone using it would be miles away.
When they reached what Therec believed to be the center keep, the passage split off in several other directions that appeared to allow access to any other important rooms. At the intersection, the floor dropped away into darkness with a rotted old ladder as the only means of descent.
“Four floors,” whispered Cinastin, kneeling at the edge of the shaft. “That ladder should go down that far. No idea where the other passages go…my father never mentioned another room with access to these tunnels.”
“How long since the ladder was mended? It looks older than anything I have seen in the keep.”
Cinastin shook his head, warning Therec not to think too deeply on that topic. The ladder would have to hold or they would be making a faster descent than he would have wished. As narrow as the shaft was, Therec could see that if one of them fell, the other would have no means to avoid them.
“I’ll go down first,” Therec told the boy. He put one boot to the dry wood step of the ladder and felt it creak and shift. “If I fall, avoid the steps that break. If you fall, I will try to keep you from getting past me. You will get to the bottom, Your Majesty, or neither of us will.”
Slowly putting his full weight on the ladder, Therec took a breath to steady himself as the steps bent and crackled. Despite the sound, they did hold his weight. Once he was satisfied that the ladder might not immediately collapse, he turned his hand to let the globe of light fall into the shaft below. It raced away, lighting up a square passage with no other entrances as far as he could see before it was too far away to provide light. He could still make out very faint shapes from its ambient light, but it was no help with details.
Therec’s gloves gave him a good grip on the dry wood, though he wished he had worn a far less bulky robe. As he began descending, the hem of the garment nearly tripped him up and got in the way of seeing where to put his feet. After three rungs, Therec stopped trying to see around his own clothing and forced himself to descend by feel, measuring the distance from one step to the next to guess where the one after might be.
After Therec had dropped well below the floor of where they had begun, he could see faint movement above him as Cinastin began his own descent. The king hesitated with each step down, but he was catching up to Therec.
The climb down seemed to take hours, though Therec had no true sense of time in the nearly absolute darkness, made worse as the spell he had cast faded away to nothing. What he knew was that his feet had not yet found solid ground, and that alone was his measure of time and distance. He could have gone ten feet or ten floors and could not be certain.
Easing his foot down toward the next rung, Therec felt the toe of his boot touch down on the crossbeam board and he put his weight onto it. Immediately, the rung tore away and his hands slipped, sending him tumbling backwards. With a crash, he hit the stone floor, no more than three or four feet below. The fall was not overly painful, but Therec could do nothing but stare up into the shaft in trembling fear of what could have happened.
“Ambassador?” called out the king softly. “I heard the wood snap. Are you alright?”
“I am fine, Your Majesty,” he answered, though his racing heart made him feel like a liar.
Slowing his breathing, Therec forced himself to calm. He managed to get the shaking in his limbs stopped before the king reached the bottom. Fear could be conquered, but was far easier to deal with when another did not know that you were afraid in the first place. He had no intention of concerning the king with his own weaknesses.
Therec brought forth another sphere of light, wishing he could save his strength for fighting his way through whatever had attacked the keep. Still, the spell was simple enough and he knew that he had plenty of fight left in him…and hoped the king did, too.
Looking about, Therec found the escape passage only went one direction, a straight shot off to his left. Thick dust swirled around his boots, making it even more difficult to see than it had been above.
“Should be about a hundred feet, then a door,” Cinastin said as he reached the floor and covered his face with part of his jacket to keep the dust out of his mouth and nose. “No invader would go to the dungeon first. That is our way out. The dungeon has three ways to the surface.”
Therec began down the new passage, trying to cover his own nose, but the dust seemed to get through even the thick sleeve of his robe, making his lungs itch. He bit down the urge to cough and kept moving on, hoping to be free of the place before either of them did anything to give away their position.
As they moved silently down the abandoned tunnel, Therec became aware of lines or scratches all along the stones on either side. He ignored them at first, but began to watch more carefully, initially thinking that something living in the tunnels might have made them. Soon, he realized that they were not scratches at all, but writing that had faded to nearly nothing.
“The builders left their artwork on the original stones all over the keep,” Cinastin whispered, motioning toward a section of the marks. “We never did find out what they meant, if anything. Most public-facing stones were ground down to hide the old writing.”
Therec stopped and brought his light closer to the markings on the right-hand wall. They were once quite intricate, carved into wide swaths of the wall with several feet between each section.
“Memorial for those lost in building the place,” he noted, tracing several of the faint lines of symbols with his gloved finger. “Eighteen slaves and thirty people died down here. Other parts give their names, though that is too faded to read. There is more than that, but I do not know the words.”
The king leaned close, staring at the point Therec had his finger positioned at. “Those are a language you have seen? The magisters spent decades trying to find meaning in them.”
“These are Turessian rune-words, Your Majesty. Old ones at that. Few of my people even read the old dialect anymore. I can only make out some of it and likely could not read much more if it were intact. The old language has been dead for more than a thousand years.”
The two stared at the symbols for several minutes, until Therec realized that he had no idea why his people would have ever been as far south as Lantonne. The council had long taught the clans that the northlands were their ancestral home and the lands not covered in snow were to be ignored.
“Who built this city, Your Majesty?” he asked, turning to face the boy.
“I have no idea,” the king admitted, shaking his head. “The magisters say it’s at least a thousand years old, but they’ve always said it appeared to be dwarven-built. The dwarves have no records of it, either. The envoys from their cities did say that it appears to have been built by the same architects as Altis, if that helps.”
Therec gave the rune-words another glance, wondering if he had stumbled upon something that th
e council would need to hear about. Even Turess had never ventured beyond the northern wastes in his conquest of their peoples’ neighbors, according to what Therec had learned as a child. To find any hint that their people had come so far south might rewrite their own histories.
“We will look into this more once the keep is secure,” Therec said firmly. He would hold the king to that, whether the boy agreed or not. “For now, I want to get outside and learn what is happening.” He began walking again and Cinastin followed behind, saying nothing.
They soon reached the end of the passage where the stone walls ended in a heavy wooden door that appeared very nearly as old and decayed as the ladder. Despite its age, the hinges looked nearly as new as those inside the keep’s rooms.
Touching the hinge, Therec studied it briefly and began to make out the faint feel of old magic. Whoever had built the passage had used an enchantment to ensure the hinges did not rust or break. Likely, something similar had been used on the door, but its more fragile materials had long since lost the enchantment. Therec had always heard that the faster a material decayed on its own, the faster magic would dissipate.
Therec had to feel around the door as much as look until he found a heavy latch. He raised a finger to his lips to warn the king to remain silent and lifted the latch, finding the door remarkably easy to open. With a rush of fresher air, the hidden door opened into a well-lit tunnel that looked much more like the one Therec had seen down in the dungeons. He could not be certain, but he thought he might have passed this spot when checking on the prisoners.
“Head left and then up the stairs,” the king said so softly that Therec could barely hear him. “At the top, turn right and there will be a door to the guard-house.”
Nodding, Therec opened the door the rest of the way. As soon as he did, a pale-skinned hand slammed into the door, forcing him backwards. The hand’s fingers were torn and broken, with a layer of filth and dried blood clearly visible around the tips. Try as he might to push the door closed, the creature’s strength was far greater than his.