by Jon Kiln
“How could I forget? It is how you and I snuck in and how I and your daughter made our escape.”
“Right. I do not want to make the same mistake Solag did of leaving it exposed.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“I want lookouts along the walls, but be careful of weak spots and collapse. I don’t want to lose men to stupid accidents.”
Nisero set about to carry out his orders, but turned back around when Berengar motioned to him.
The Captain pointed toward the entrance to the castle building. “As you recall, this place has many turns and alcoves. Before we venture into the underbelly of the place along our ancient maps, I want to search out every dark corner. I don’t want to find anything or anyone in here with us after the fact. I’m thinking four parties of four men each in a coordinated search.”
Nisero nodded. “I’ll see to it, Captain.”
“Have the scholars give us detailed instructions of the descent we have coming. Pick a couple that are able-bodied enough to accompany us for any needed translations as we go. We’ll want to mark our way down and leave groups of men at each opening along the way should any traps be sprung or doors closed upon us that we need help reopening.”
“When you say, we,” Nisero said, “I take it you and I will be the ones digging into the root of the castle for this piece of the artifact.”
“Did you ever have any doubt, Lieutenant?”
“Not much, sir, no.”
“In the meantime, I’d also like the foreign scripts on the outside of the castle translated.”
Nisero stared a moment and smiled. “You care to know what horrible things are wished upon you in every language.”
“History benefits with a full knowledge of what is written,” the Captain replied flatly.
Nisero laughed as he went to carry out the Captain’s orders. “I’m not sure I want knowledge of all the positions the angry bandits wish to see you put in, but I will set the sages upon translating them all for you.”
A few treasures were discovered by the search parties over the next few days. There were not many, but they brought out necklaces and jewels that were lost in the darker corners and crevices of the castle. Berengar had them locked away for the King.
Some tablets and bits of scroll came out and the sages set upon them. The translations proved to be largely mundane bookkeeping and nothing that served their current mission. They were locked away to be preserved as well.
The writing outside the walls appeared to be more of the same in the foreign tongues. The scholars were most uncomfortable reading them off to the Captain. The graffiti inside was a bit more complicated. The scholars translated spells that seemed to be to enchant the castle and raise warriors from among the dead.
There were more drawings that could not be translated or deciphered. A few of the drawings were the profane bits that Berengar had seen on walls plenty of times as he took offenders down into the dungeons of the capital.
One party of searchers came out soaked and reported their findings in the wet passages of the lower levels of the castle. They described passages filled with bones and chambers stacked with skulls in strange formations. Berengar listened intently even though he already knew the places well. When they finished their reports, Berengar sent the men out to get dry clothes and to warm themselves by the fire.
***
As the day came to open the first doors of the secret passages down to the chamber of the artifact, Berengar prepared the men and checked all the ropes and gear himself, even after Nisero had done the same.
As Berengar recoiled the last rope and handed it back to the Guardsman it was assigned to, Nisero said, “At least we know the ropes won’t break.”
Berengar looked up at the high wall of the grand chamber. He had run past this room searching for his daughter, and later as he fled Solag into the dark belly of the castle. The walls were stripped of all decoration that would have indicated whether this was a throne room or banquet hall. Deep gouges in the stone of the wall marred the spots where carvings or other etchings might have once been. The carved marble of the hearth was battered and broken apart in a way that could have been to collect the material or to destroy the memory of the place.
High on the wall, more splattered paint drew skulls and broken bodies. Words were written, splashed over, marked out, and drawn over until none of the curses could anymore be read in this chamber. It was just as well, Berengar thought, as the writers had seemed to run out of original things to say. The drawings were quite rough and childish despite their profane content. It was as if those leaving them were reverting to younger and baser instincts as they scrawled their anger and hatred across the walls of the castle.
In the midst of it all, above the remains of the hearth, was a giant drawing of a woman with strips of black painted across her chest and loins. No one had ventured to deface the crude drawing. The eyes of the woman were dark pits without life or soul. The curves of the drawing’s body were far more pronounced than Berengar had recalled from his encounter with Solag, but he assumed that was who this visage represented. Her dark pits of eyes stared down on the Captain with dead hatred.
“I want eyes open,” Berengar said as he looked away from the painted face of Solag. “Those that are looking out, be sure we are not surprised from the outside. And those watching inward, be sure we fall into no traps.”
Nisero’s gaze traced the figure on the wall. “All are ready.”
“Nisero, Belsh, and my scholars are up here with me. In the event that anything goes wrong, Belsh, you dash back to the next team up and warn them of the trouble.”
Belsh nodded uncertainly. “Yes, sir.”
“That being said, this chamber is three floors up from the ground.” Berengar rested his hands on his waist as he looked around for the scholars. “I thought this hidden piece was at the root of the castle?”
One of the scholars stepped forward and coughed nervously. He had a dark circle of hair that sat atop his head like a bowl. “With respect, sir,” he said, “many Kings had secret passages built into their castles to facilitate escapes. We believe this began as that for King Faithcore and it was converted into a vault afterward. He would have had this entrance built closer to his chambers and throne back when it was intended for escape… or so we believe, sir.”
Berengar and Nisero exchanged a look. The Captain assumed that Nisero was also thinking about their escape through the tunnels under the palace of Ramael. An entrance on a higher floor would have saved the King sooner. Perhaps they should have all learned from the wisdom of the legendary Faithcore.
“Judging from the condition of his castle, Faithcore should have left it as an escape tunnel.”
“Perhaps so, sir,” the scholar agreed.
“Show me this entrance, if it still exists.”
The scholars consulted their pages and counted out flagstones from the hearth, the door, and one corner until they located one of the ruddy stones off center from the design of the room. It seemed little different from the other stones around the barren floor.
Berengar looked about and saw scrapes that might have been from which the grand tables or throne were robbed from the room. They might also have been from the violent battles and murders upon the floor. It appeared that blood would come up given enough time, but the scrapes remained behind much longer.
“What now?” Berengar asked.
The scholar pointed at the stone. “There is a seam that is too fine to see when unopened. A sword has to be inserted. It will lock in and then depress. There will then need to be a quarter turn to the west… that is left from the way you are facing, Captain. The first chamber will be revealed. The lock is old and likely the sword will break instead of being released as is the intended design.”
Several of the guards stepped forward, but Berengar held up a hand to stay them. He drew his own sword.
There was mumbled protest, but Nisero spoke up over all of them. “Sir, any one of us can sacrifice a
blade. You do not have to use yours.”
Berengar held his sword by the hilt over the ruddy flagstone with the point aimed down under his fist. “I have been through more blades than I can count. There is nothing magical or special about this sword. I can grab a spare from our supplies as easily as any of you. Faithcore was the last warrior that claimed to possess a magic blade, and we see where that took him.”
There was more muttering, but the men stepped back and waited.
“And where is this invisible seam, scholar?”
The man with the dark bowl haircut reached out tentatively and ran the tips of his fingers across the center of the stone at its widest section laterally. He pulled his hand back suddenly as if he expected the Captain to plunge the blade down taking off his fingers.
“It might not open smoothly,” he blurted, slightly embarrassed at his own anxiety. “There is probably centuries of debris packed in that we might have to scrape out to clear the mechanism, sir. Give it a try slowly once you are ready so that we can see what we are up against.”
Berengar brought the tip of the sword down on the line the man had indicated. He barely touched the floor and then applied pressure. The seam opened and the blade slid in with a sheering noise. It clicked into place and the flagstone depressed into the floor a span.
The men around him took another step back.
Berengar tilted his head. “A quarter turn left and west, you said?”
“Yes, sir.”
Berengar twisted the hilt and the flagstone turned smoothly. He felt the entire floor turn with him. Berengar and the scholar lowered into the floor as a circle of stone spun on a central shaft until they were resting in a low chamber overlooking a set of neatly carved stone steps, leading down into the darkness.
Berengar looked up at Nisero, Belsh, and the other men as they looked over the edge. He turned his attention on the scholar who had yelped and flailed his arms in surprise as the floor lowered, even though he was expecting it. The learned little man was half crouched to maintain his balance. Berengar withdrew his blade unbroken from the lock. “You could have warned me about the floor we were standing upon.”
The scholar nodded quickly, shaking his bowl of hair. “Yes, sir, but the documents did not indicate how wide the opening was. I will make a note of it for future generations.”
“Splendid,” Berengar said. “First team, stay above and feed down your rope. Everyone else, jump down, please. Torches lit and eyes open.”
The men leapt with a clattering of armor, and one group of three stayed above to feed a rope down into the opening. One of the three above held a spear out by his side. The Guardsman eased the other scholar down with the first. The second academic, clutching his bundles of pages, had a long, gray beard. Berengar didn’t think this was exactly what he had meant by able-bodied, but he supposed by scholarly standards he was well enough. Berengar realized the man was probably not much older than the Captain himself.
As Nisero and Belsh joined him, the bowl cut scholar spoke with restrained excitement. “Down these stairs we will find a wall bearing a puzzle of jewels.”
“What happens if the jewels have been robbed?” Berengar asked.
The scholar looked down at his notes intensely, turning a few pages. “The puzzle will be much more difficult.”
The Captain shrugged. “Let’s go then.”
One of the Guardsmen took hold of the end of the rope from above and trailed it behind him as he approached the top of the stairs. Another used a block of chalk to mark an arrow on the wall pointing up to the opening.
“I think we know the way at this point,” Nisero remarked.
“Arrows point to the light,” Berengar said. “We will not take the chance of being lost.”
The scholar started to take the first step, but Nisero took hold of the man’s shoulder and held him back. “You stay in the middle. We do not want to lose you to a fall.”
“There does not appear to be any traps, according to the records,” the scholar protested, though secretly he was glad not to be leading the way.
Berengar moved in front of the smaller man. “We’ll not have you break your head open on some sharp edge and then be without you when it comes time for the puzzle.”
“As you wish, sir.”
Berengar, Nisero, and Belsh led the way down with more torchlight following behind. They heard the scratches of the chalk, adding arrows every few steps. At one point, they stopped on the long trek down the stairs so that the men could tie off another section of rope when they reached the end of the first.
The air was stale and the torches added heavy heat to the still air around them. The torches wavered in the thin air, but did not go out.
The stairs did not spiral, but continued at a forty-five degree angle down the passage.
“If this continues,” Berengar said, “we will be out from under the castle soon.”
“We are probably close to ground level and will be between the lower chambers soon,” the scholar offered.
“Do we have a plan for if this passage is flooded like the others below the castle?”
The scholar shook his head. “I have the combination for the puzzle, but I’ll need to be able to see it and I can’t hold my breath long.”
Berengar sighed. “We shall see then.”
As they unraveled the second rope, they continued down the stairs.
“You seem uneasy,” Nisero noticed. “Is there something about this passage that concerns you in particular, Captain?”
“I was still hoping that it was a myth and did not exist. Now I am hoping the lowest chamber sits empty and the fragment proves to be imaginary.”
Water seeped from the walls and made the steps slick underneath. They found dry patches to mark their chalk arrows between.
They reached the flat floor of a passage and worked their way across away from the stairs. They stopped again to tie off a third rope and continued forward, still marking arrows pointed back toward the stairs, even though there was only one corridor so far in their journey down Faithcore’s secret passage.
Water dripped from the ceiling with loud echoes as their boots scraped on the grimy, wet floor. Occasionally, a drip landed on the torches, giving a serpentine hiss and spitting out dark smoke.
Berengar saw the sparkle off the jewels ahead. “Be alert.”
The light of the torches danced within the jewels as the flames flickered. The torchlight pulled toward the edges of the flat wall in front of them and Berengar felt the breeze pulling toward the wall. There was something beyond it, but he did not know what.
The jewels glowed in the light with red, green, purple, and amber hues. The pattern seemed uneven. As the Captain’s eyes focused, he saw the head, horns, forked tongue, and open jaws of a dragon formed in the pattern of the gems.
Berengar stepped aside to provide more space for the learned men. “Do you know what to do, gentlemen?”
The scholars stepped forward and leafed through the pages. The men muttered between each other. Berengar realized he had not heard the second man’s voice thus far.
The younger man pointed at several gaps in the jeweled design. “There are pieces missing as we feared, but they do not appear robbed with all that was left behind. They seemed to have been broken off by some other force. Perhaps quaking or shifting of some sort.”
Nisero looked up at the dripping ceiling and down at the damp floor. “There are none on the floor. Did someone retrieve the loose ones and leave the rest?”
“And can you open it?” Berengar added.
“The nubs that held the jewels are still there. We’ll just have to figure out the colors logically from the pattern.” The bowl-haired scholar took hold of one of the nubs. “This must be the first purple one by the count.”
The second bearded scholar referenced their notes and nodded.
The first man pulled the nub to the right. The wall shifted and pulled loose from the passage. The rush of wind through the gap on the left sid
e nearly extinguished the torches, but they flared back up.
“What just happened?” Nisero moved towards the open door, hand on his sword hilt.
The scholars looked at each other slightly disappointed. The younger man said, “It appears to already be unlocked.”
Nisero stared into the darkness of the gap. “That makes things easier.”
“Depending on why it is unlocked,” Berengar said.
“If someone beat us here,” Nisero stated, “it would seem all the jewels would be missing.”
Berengar waved them forward. “Open the wall and let’s continue with caution.”
The men pushed the dragon’s jeweled head aside, revealing another passage like the first, but dryer. They tied off a fourth rope, marked the wall with an arrow, and continued onward. One more team of three took watch outside the line of the newly opened wall. One of the three leaned on the spear shaft assigned to his group.
Light filtered in from above and they looked up to see long, open columns looking on the light of the sky. They were too narrow to travel up, but small weeds grew in cracks under them indicating light and water snuck down the narrow vents.
They rounded a corner and marked the wall again.
“There is one last chamber door ahead with another puzzle,” the scholar said.
They tied another rope and continued forward. They came upon the opening of a chamber with metal gates pulled up and down like open teeth.
The scholar pointed ahead and shrugged. “Also unlocked it appears.”
Berengar held his torch out which failed to penetrate far into the darkness. “Do we have something to wedge those gates open?”
One of the men from the last team of three forced a spear into the gap.
Berengar nodded. “Nisero, Belsh, and the chatty fellow enter with me just as we had planned before, and the last team and the quiet one waits outside. Stay alert.”
Berengar led the other three inside. The Captain and Lieutenant held their torches out. They walked down three stairs to the chamber floor and revealed plain, stone walls. One more step forward revealed the base of a pedestal.
“There,” the scholar next to Berengar said. “That is it.”