A much smaller, similar symbol graced the painted floor tiles that spanned the length of the room. Time had chipped the pattern in places, but the intricate maze-like design had been done with great care. The path, no wider than four men, was bordered on both sides by broad canals of fire. Coils of smoke wafted up, drifting into outlets cut into the distant ceiling. Halfway down, the path branched left and right; briefly interrupting the canals and creating a bridge to allow access to the alcoves.
There was a definite sense of age and reverence about the room, and a whole lot of heat.
Pushing the sweat-damp hair off my face, I started forward. The vibration of my tracking spell occupied my focus. It was six paces before I realized Jarryd wasn’t beside me. I turned back. His uneasiness washed over the link like a rush of nausea.
Jarryd answered my questioning glance with an unsteady whisper. “I’ve been here.”
Sparing him giving voice to the moment, I reached inside my store of Jarryd’s memories. I knew there were aspects of his imprisonment he had yet to share with me. Nor had I taken it upon myself to sort through the recollections of his time here. Jarryd’s captivity was too tightly woven around my own; something else I hadn’t sorted through yet. Looking at his now though, I found the moment easily.
“It was right after you were captured,” I said. “You were brought here and presented to Draken. The guards threw you down in front of the steps. There—” I turned and pointed to the end of the path where narrow wooden stairs led up to a wide dais. The platform encompassed the back half of the room. On it sat Draken’s throne.
“He lounged in his chair, staring at me. I don’t know how long. Then he walked down and started kicking me. I was sure I was dead then.” Jarryd paused. His gaze drifted as he relived the memory. “Draken ordered me carried up and chained to the floor beside his throne. Then he left. They all left. They left me there for days, chained to that damn floor, no food, no water, covered in blood, and…” Jarryd swallowed the rest. “It was so quiet. Except for the yelling outside the door. Someone kept coming back, shouting at the guards, demanding to be let in. I couldn’t make out the voice. Only later did I find out who it was.”
“Malaq.”
Jarryd nodded. He said nothing else. Neither did I. He felt my sympathy and my anger. It said far more than I could.
When he was ready we walked the rest of the path. Jarryd’s pulse was making mine erratic. It became more so as we reached the stairs. He started up. I stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to.”
Resolve lessened his anxiety. He pulled out of my grip and took the stairs ahead of me. “Let’s just find your damn lock and get out of here.”
I followed Jarryd up to the wide platform. Draken’s throne was in the middle, tall and intimidating. It was fashioned from a single generous boulder. There was no magic in it, just rock; black and harsh and ominous in all its natural hard angles and lines. Only the seat was round and smooth, sculpted into a distinct, oval shape eerily similar to a massive serpent’s head. There was even a gap, as if the snake’s mouth was open.
I thought back to the riddle in the box. “This is it.”
The armrests were wide slabs, grooved and pitted and banded with metal. More metal adorned the ridiculously tall seatback. Flat and thick, the odd decoration became thin and jagged toward the top. Twisting and spiraling, the metal ran tighter and tighter; restraining and suffocating. When it ran out of boulder, it wrapped around a five foot tall metal spike that shot straight up from the back of the throne in a deadly barb.
There was nothing redeeming about Draken’s seat of honor. His throne was an ugly, frightening monstrosity not befitting his polished outward appearance. But it mirrored perfectly what lived inside the man.
Knowing him as I did now, I could picture him here. Delighting in how the simple act of sitting in a chair would strike terror into the heart of all those who came before him. The satisfaction of having some wretched soul dragged up the shadowy stairs to the balcony jutting out above his throne—left him breathless. Physical pleasure ran through his body as theirs were thrown off to fall upon the spike. Blood would rain down, sliding through the ruts of the boulder, dripping onto the floor, pooling red at his feet. It made him feel powerful. Aroused. Alive.
Not anymore.
“So,” Jarryd said loudly, reclaiming my attention. “The answer to the Shinree addiction to magic is in the throne room of the Langorian King. Little ironic, don’t you think?”
“So is the Langorians stamping a Shinree symbol on their faces for hundreds of years.”
“Malaq should have put that in his speech.”
The key was growing increasingly uncomfortable against my chest. I pulled it off over my head, wincing in relief. “Why don’t you see what’s up there?” I gestured at the balcony.
Jarryd nodded and walked off toward the stairs on my right. I was glad to get him away from the throne. But in truth, I wasn’t all that anxious to get near it myself. The platform surrounding it was soiled with dark stains. The base seemed to be sunken into the floor, like it was part of it, or fastened underneath. Sets of rings were anchored to the platform on both sides of the chair. I tried not to think of my friend chained to them.
I walked around behind the seat. The back of the bolder was even more menacing than the front. Shackles were bolted in place for wrists and ankles. A stripe of serrated metal ran down the boulder’s middle to slowly bleed anyone shoved up and bound against it.
“I know this whole place is dark,” Jarryd called down, “but that throne…are you sure it’s Shinree made?”
“According to Jillyan, very little of the keep was altered from the original construct. Though I’m guessing the Langorians added a few things,” I said, eyeing the deadly metal strip.
“I can’t see Jillyan here, with people chained at her feet like pets.”
“I’m sure Jillyan’s done things she’s not proud of. Things she was forced to do to remain in power under watchful eyes.”
“Still, to carry off a chair like that, you need a fair amount of intimidation.”
“She was plenty intimidating the day we met.”
Jarryd snickered. “Because she was naked.”
Thinking back to our first tantalizing encounter, a surprising wisp of longing swept through me. “I don’t understand why she’s leaving. There are other ways to deal with Elek.”
“Maybe she wants to go. The woman does like adventure.” Jarryd’s voice came closer as he descended the stairs. “Besides, it wasn’t going anywhere between you two.”
As I rounded Draken’s throne again, my hands trailed over the contours. “It might have, if she wasn’t running off.”
“Bullshit. It wasn’t going anywhere because you’re in love with Sienn.”
I nearly tripped. “I’m what?”
“You felt it the first moment you laid eyes on her in that bathhouse in Kael. You just didn’t know it.” Jarryd laughed as I stared him. “You still don’t.”
I shrugged off his observation. “What does it matter? With a past like ours, Sienn and I could never have a future.”
“You’re right.”
I frowned at him. “You could lie to me once in a while.”
“You don’t need me for that. You lie to yourself enough.”
My frown became a scowl. “Are you finished?”
“You two may not have a future together, Ian, but you have right now. If I learned anything from this godforsaken place, it’s to grab onto now with everything you have until the last bits of it slip through your fingers.”
Jarryd’s words sent my mind down another path. “I’m glad Draken is dead. I should’ve done it myself a long time ago. If I’d killed him on the battlefield, if I’d given five seconds thought to what I was doing when I found the Crown of Stones…” I shook my head. I’d agonized over that
moment so many times. I couldn’t do it anymore. “I just wish you’d been more careful.”
Jarryd’s remorse snuck across the link. I was glad to feel he had some. “I didn’t mean for Janus to die. I’m not sure Malaq will forgive me.”
“Janus was his call. It was a political move, and it was clean. If Draken had died by Malaq’s hand it would have been messy, publically and personally. Regardless of the kind of man Draken was, being responsible for his own brother’s death would have haunted Malaq. Eventually, he’ll realize you saved him from that.”
Jarryd grunted. “I thought we were talking about Sienn?”
“My redirection doesn’t work with you anymore, does it?”
“Never did.” He nudged me as he walked by. “Guess you should be more careful who you join souls with.”
Feeling a flicker of amusement from him, I laughed. It was moments like this, the fleeting instances when our bond was light and full of friendship, that made the war and my father and the crown seem unimportant. It also made my choice to destroy it that much harder.
Feeling Jarryd’s stare, I squashed my guilt before it gave him pause.
“Well,” he sighed, “this is getting us nowhere.”
I walked up to Draken’s throne. “Maybe a different perspective.”
“You’re not really going to…”
I sat.
“Guess you are,” he muttered. “How does it feel?”
“Powerful.”
“Is there magic in it?”
“Not a wisp.” It wasn’t that kind of power. My brief merging with Draken’s soul had made his throne far too comfortable and familiar.
Placing my arms on the metal-wrapped armrests, I gazed out across the vast room. I studied the tapestries, the alcoves. I eyed the canals of fire. There was nothing out of the ordinary. No suspicious patterns or lines to indicate a hidden door.
Jarryd was watching me. “Anything?”
The key in my hand was going crazy. “It’s here. It’s right here.”
I shoved aside Jarryd’s impatience. His desire to be gone from the room was palpable. But he sat on the edge of the dais and left me to examine the throne. I went over it inch by inch. I ran my fingers methodically through the dips, furrows, and pits in the stone. I inspected the front and the seat, and found nothing. The right armrest proved equally useless. I reached the left, and the key jerked violently, vibrating so hard its edges tore the skin on my fingers.
Feeling my discomfort, Jarryd came and stood beside me. He peered over my shoulder, watching as I placed the key on the armrest. Contact was made, and the air squeezed around my hand. It shifted, and, what moments ago was a natural-looking fissure running between two strips of metal, was now suddenly an obvious keyhole. The shape scored into the boulder mirrored the teeth on the ancient malachite key.
My locater spell at an end, the vibration stopped. I picked up the key and inserted it into the lock. The teeth went in easy and deep. It took some pressure to get it to turn. As it did, the old tumblers fell into place with an ominous clunk. A resounding series of bangs and slams followed. Booming thuds bounced out through the chamber and off the walls. On their quietly echoing heels was the clear-cut grating of metal grinding and gears turning. Both were doing so with reluctance.
Something heavy fell into place and the platform in front of the throne began to move. Rumbling open, the floorboards folded over themselves, bit by bit, peeling back like flesh being skinned from an animal. When the folds reached the walls the gears stopped. The machinations came to a grudging, clattering halt, leaving behind a deep silence, and a set of winding stairs leading down into darkness.
THIRTY EIGHT
The air tasted old. Webs clung stubbornly to my hair and settled on the protruding hilt of the sword strapped to my back. Black sand crunched beneath our boots as we walked the desolate corridor. Our steps were cautious. I wanted them to be quicker. I wanted my coat to be heavier. Since moving farther into the tunnel, a barren passage too long and dark to see its end, the temperature had plummeted. Ice crystals inhabited the cracks in the walls. Our breath billowed out and disappeared past the reach of our light. We didn’t have much. Just two orange circles bleeding from the torches Jarryd had run back to pilfer off the wall outside the throne room.
The smooth silt beneath our boots was devoid of prints. It appeared no one had been this way in ages. Still, I kept my eyes open for traps. I ran a light hand along the cold, damp wall as we walked. Vibrations stroked my skin from the various veins held within. Their faint glows winked on and off with my touch. The little sparks would cut out in places; dead spots where bands of hornblende had invaded.
We moved in a straight line for quite a while. It wasn’t until I was certain we’d traveled beyond the keep and were deep inside the mountains, did I hear the first sound that wasn’t us.
“Water,” I said. The word echoed past me. It faded. And like a trigger, the vague trickle at the edge of our hearing, became a deafening roar. Light sprung up ahead. Weak, with no visible source, the band of pale yellow seemed to hover in the middle of a never-ending corridor of dark.
“Beacon?” Jarryd wondered aloud. “Or trap?”
“Guess I’ll find out.”
“You mean we’ll find out.”
“I think I better take it from here. With this noise, we’re deaf to anything coming up from behind.”
“You want me to stay here and guard the deserted tunnel while you go ahead into danger?”
“We don’t know there’s danger.”
“If Krillos was here, he’d be rolling on the floor with that one.”
“Even so,” I grinned, “we left the front door wide open. And sooner or later, someone’s going to find those guards. So watch yourself, and keep the link open in case you need me.”
Jarryd gave me a parting nod, and I headed for the faraway light. I couldn’t catch up to it, though, or the water. Both light and sound stayed consistently ahead of me, moving as I did, leading me down the passage and through a small narrow shaft. When I came out the other side, the air had warmed. Instead of ice, water streamed down the scarred walls. I thought about turning back. I had no idea what lie ahead. But answers were in front of me, not behind, so I kept going.
The ground turned soggy. It pooled and clung to my boots. I lived with the squish, squish of my steps for several minutes, which made it obvious when I stepped on something hard. A clink rose above the water noise. Gears turned behind the walls. A rumbling joined the grinding, and a storm of dust drifted from above.
The rumbling picked up. It was close.
Behind me.
I spun around, and a thick slab of black plunged down from the ceiling. Spanning the width of the tunnel, the rock hit the floor and sunk in deep, cutting me off from the way back and Jarryd—in more ways than one. I couldn’t sense him at all. Our link was a vacant void. Hornblende, I thought. I hollered, but not even my voice was getting through.
Putting a tentative hand on the dead stone, it was dry and smooth. There wasn’t a single niche or gouge. No latch or obvious way to move it. I knelt and dug in the mud, but I gave up quickly. Even if I found the bottom, the slab was too heavy to lift on my own. The passage was otherwise empty. I felt no magic, yet there had to be a spell at work. I’d never known hornblende to disrupt the link before.
A sudden light broke the shadows. I glanced over my shoulder. My yellow guide was barely two feet away. “Getting impatient?”
In response, it jumped forward. I almost didn’t follow. The slab’s landing was loud. Even from a distance, Jarryd couldn’t have missed it. But he had less chance of getting through than I did. So I stood and stepped toward the light.
It jumped again.
Another step brought another jump.
Playing the game around several bends, it ended abruptly at the source of the water: a fall twenty
feet wide and twice that high. The cascade pounded down from its misty beginnings to disappear into a slender chasm in the floor. Striping the flow was my yellow light.
I inched up. Cold spray wet my skin. Squatting, I turned my head and reached through. The floor on the other side was barely three feet away. An easy jump.
Even if it wasn’t, I was out of options. There was nowhere else to go.
Leaping into the waterfall, the air tingled. It broke around my body as I crossed the divide. I cleared the water and all sound disappeared. No mist hit my back. Magic was blocking my sense of the fall, making sure my focus was dead ahead, on the tunnel’s end—and the old wooden door that marked it. Banded with rusted metal, the wood was rotted, but the doorframe (sparking and shifting with a sturdy reinforcing spell) fit firmly into the wall.
I approached cautiously. Turning the knob, with a push, the door swung inward, scraping over piles of thick sand like the entrance hadn’t been breached in decades. The chamber beyond was well lit, despite a lack of torches or lanterns. More waterfalls veiled the other three walls. They too poured down into a seam in the floor, cradling the room in their silent cascade.
A round, well-like structure about four feet high occupied the center of the room. The well appeared naturally formed out of a single stone. A cluster of rocks resembling an altar stood on the left. On the right, a square table holding a teapot, two cups, and a set of dice. Two chairs were pulled up alongside. A man sat in one, nearly bald with skin craggy and slack. His back, beneath a faded tunic, was slightly hunched. Age accentuated his Shinree features, making his cheeks appear almost hollow beneath his sharp bones.
The Crown of Stones: Magic-Borne Page 33