Prisoners of the Keep

by Susan Bianculli

  “I told you what would happen, did I not, Under-elf? I told you back there that if we did not kill her then evil things would happen! And now look: Thoronis, the Surface-elf I travelled to this hell-hole with is dead. His blood is on your hands!” he snarled.

  Arghen looked up at him. “Death in battle happens. I tried to save him because I hoped he could be saved, but once I knew he was dead I accepted it. I do not doubt that my Goddess would have kind words to his Deity—”

  “Sylvanelle, he had said on the way here,” interjected Auraus softly.

  “—for dying on behalf of Lise’s mission and the rescue of Her mortal son.”

  “But Thoronis is dead!” roared Ragar. “And there is something wrong on top of that because the Rite of the Dead did not work!”

  Auraus turned on him, angry now. “Ragar! You will control yourself! Do not call more guards down upon us! Yes, our companion is dead, but death is a part of life. And whatever is wrong we will somehow fix! I will not forget him, nor will I dishonor his memory with behavior like this! Will you?”

  Ragar looked flabbergasted that the Wind-rider would say something like that to him and shut his mouth.

  I was grimly amused but said, “We need to move on. We can figure out what to do about Thoronis’ body later. We need to find that other dungeon and we need to find Morsca now. Arghen, Jason—I was wrong before. Somehow that knife Morsca carries is what I was sent here for.”

  Everyone looked at me like I had two heads.

  “Are you sure?” Arghen asked.

  I gave him a disgusted look. “Yes. I am completely sure. The stairs I saw through the secret door where she escaped went up, so she’s gone back to her bedroom. Let’s go.”

  Arghen nodded. “We will need to keep a sharp eye out behind us for more guards. We can be assured that the whole keep is on the alert and hunting for strangers now.”

  CHAPTER 30

  We brought Thoronis’ body back up to Morsca’s room, laid it down in the conversation nook, then shut the bedroom door behind us and picked up the smokeless torches that had been abandoned on the floor.

  “Farewell, friend,” Auraus murmured to his body, as Arghen put a comforting arm around her shoulders.

  “Come on and show yourself, Morsca. Let’s finish this,” I called out in the meantime.

  No answer.

  “Can’t you use your magic to find her?” Jason asked Auraus.

  “I can try,” she replied as she raised her hands and closed her eyes.

  I felt a small tingle of magic whisper across my skin.

  The Wind-rider stood that way for about a minute, and then shook her head. “There is no one living in this room beside ourselves. There must be another secret door in this room that she used for escape.”

  “Can’t you scry for her, or the door, or something like that?” I asked.

  Auraus shook her golden head again. “The crystal which I use for scrying was lost when I was captured. I would have to find another appropriate crystal and attune myself to it for me to be able to scry. That would take time we do not have. In addition, I do not have the others things that I would need.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Then let’s try to find this other secret door the hard way.”

  Arghen waved at me for attention. “I suggest, Lise, that we start with the wall opposite the windows. I believe a secret door would be more likely built on an interior wall as opposed to an exterior one, since an exterior one would necessarily weaken the defensive structure of a keep.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I agreed.

  We started looking as slowly as we dared while keeping in mind we had to hurry. Jason was nervous and jittery by the time we reached the far corner of the cavernous room without any success. This last partition ‘room’ we entered was a little different. There were only two tapestry walls here because the stone walls of the keep formed the other two. This place had a long, ornately styled dining table made of a black wood with ten blue velvet padded chairs surrounding it. On the stone wall was a large, round glass-tiled mosaic wildly patterned in shades of black, grey and white which matched the ivory inlay of the bedroom door.

  “Ah!” said Ragar, his face lighting up in a feral grin as he faced what seemed to be a blank section of stone wall in the corner.

  “You found something, Ragar?” Auraus asked.

  The mountain-cat-elf held up a hand-paw. “Yes, and no. Wait.”

  He sniffed in the corner, moved up and down the wall on both sides of it and then spent time crouching at floor level, inhaling near the wall that bore the mosaic.

  When he stood up, he looked pleased. “I am sure there is a door or something at this point because I can smell incense coming from here.”

  He indicated the floor in the corner where he’d spent the most time sniffing.

  Jason said, “Gran. How do we open it? There’s no handle or button!”

  “There will be something that activates it, Jason,” Auraus told him. “We just have to find it. But it could be anything.”

  Everybody searched for something that might open the wall: a twistable sconce, a decoration that could be pulled, or a stone that could be slid. Remembering a particular fairy tale, I went to the mosaic and started pressing glass pieces at random. I was rewarded when the third piece sank under my fingers. Those nearest the room’s corner jumped back as a door-sized section of wall silently slid sideways. It revealed a steep set of stone steps that spiraled downwards, lit by more magical torches. Wordlessly Ragar, a feral smile still on his face, plunged down the steps as soon as the door opened. The Under-elf was only a breath behind him. But Auraus stood and stared at the small opening and the curved steps with wide eyes.

  “Auraus, we don’t have time for your squeamishness!” said Jason sharply, and he pushed her in front of him towards the opening.

  The Wind-rider stopped short on the doorsill just as she had down below, her white-and-gold wings partially spread in panicky reflex. Jason curled his lip and pushed her into the opening, grabbing the back of her tunic so she didn’t fall down the stairs. Auraus gave an audible gulp and snapped her wings closed, buffeting him without meaning to, and descended with Jason hard on her heels.

  I hadn’t moved my fingers from the glass switch because I was afraid that if I let go it would close. But I couldn’t stay there holding it until they all got back! I memorized the secret button’s location, and then took the chance to run to the door. I made it past the doorsill and down the first couple of steps. Magical torches lit the stairs going down as far as I could see. I looked back up and was relieved that the door still hadn’t closed. I saw a small mosaic that looked like the big one in Morsca’s room beside me on the wall. Betting to myself that this was the mechanism that operated the secret door from this side, I went to test that theory. Before I could reach the glass pattern hanging on the wall, though, the lighting around me changed. I looked towards the top of the stairs and saw that the door had closed on its own. A noise down below me made me realize that Jason and Auraus were out of sight, so I abandoned the idea of checking the mosaic out and moved to catch up to them.

  The stairs went on for a longer time than it should have taken to go down two levels, with no sign of either Arghen or Ragar. The steps finally bottomed out into what looked like an antechamber. Though there were no light sources in this room, the light from the stairwell showed that it had hooks and shelves lining the walls filled with dried herbs, fat candles of varying colors, flame strikers, and small carved boxes that smelled of incense even when closed. There were also golden incense burners that could be swung around on chains, several different sizes of hourglasses made from precious metals and glass, and other pretty-looking things you might find in a church or some other house of worship back home. There were also a couple of chests full of embroidered altar cloths that someone had pulled at haphazardly. It was in that room we found the mountain-cat-elf and Arghen peering through a cracked door into yet another room.

  The Unde
r-elf turned at our arrival and left Ragar to come to breathe in our ears, “We have found Morsca. She is beyond the door.”

  “Bueno!” Jason whispered back. “What’s it like in there? Is she alone?”

  Arghen said, “She is alone, in a manner of speaking. You all should come take a look first. Then we can formulate our attack.”

  We went to the door and peered out into a very large underground cavern instead of a room. Many smokeless torches along the walls lit the cavern, creating a fairly even, though dim, light throughout. There were shelves all along the cave walls going up to a height of about six feet. Above them were painted giant stylized pictures going all the way up to the ceiling. They’d been done in stark blacks, greys and whites, excepting for the lurid blue used for the main figures’ hair. These main figures were doing different things: one was riding a flying beast of some kind with a figure crushed in its jaws, another was cracking a whip across an ocean made of people, another was caressing a glowing knife, and other disturbing images. I guessed that all these figures were meant to be Morsca.

  But my eyes were drawn to the center of the cavern where a dais was much more brightly lit than its surroundings. Behind a stone altar covered in a splotchy red altar cloth wreathed by sweet smoke from some sort of incense burner positioned at either end, Morsca stood with her arms upraised. The light cast by four torches surrounding the altar glinted off the jewels of the knife in the green-haired Surface-elf’s left hand and lit up her pearlescent skin. My eyes dropped to the altar’s surface, and I could see the figure of a very small brown-skinned humanoid of a kind I didn’t know stretched out on its surface. The faint sound of Morsca’s voice raised in a chant reached my ears. The jewels in the knife handle glowed brighter and brighter, and I knew what I was about to witness. Arghen had apparently been waiting for that moment of recognition because he shut the door before any of us could do anything rash.

  “Yes, she is about to sacrifice that Kobold,” stated Arghen in a grim tone. “We cannot save it, but perhaps we can save the others.”

  “The others?” I asked blankly. “What others?”

  The mountain-cat-elf looked at me in disbelief. “Do not tell me you missed seeing the shelves in there?”

  “Well, I saw them, but ….” My voice trailed off as I put two and two together. I whispered, “You–you don’t really mean ….”

  “I am afraid he does, Lise,” said Auraus, suppressed horror in her tones. “Those shelves are full of bodies! This is the other dungeon!”

  “Some are living. Some have been already sacrificed, as far as my nose can tell,” confirmed Ragar, “though at this distance I do not know which is which.”

  “To whom is she sacrificing the whatchamacallit, the Kobold, on the altar?” inquired Jason in a detached tone.

  Only the look of nausea on his face reassured me that he felt like I did.

  The Under-elf shook his head. “I do not know. I do not know how one goes about becoming a Goddess, after all. Maybe she is making it up as she goes along.”

  “Dusk said it might have to do with souls,” mused Auraus. Her grey eyes grew wide. “Oh! I think I have a guess! The Kobolds and Troglodytes and others are alive, which is how she preserves theirs souls until she needs them. She must have some spell that is keeping them on the shelves; maybe something as simple as a sleeping spell. Then she can get them as she wants them, sacrifice them one by one, and somehow eventually suck their souls into herself!” The Wind-rider grew pale. “And maybe that is why the Rite for Thoronis did not work properly. Maybe she had already gotten to his soul somehow!”

  “How?” I demanded.

  “I do not know! She would have to have something magical with which to do that. What did you see her carrying?”

  My mind flashed back to Morsca’s and my fight. “She was using a knife that lit up like a Christmas tree—uh, candle—when she said a couple of words to it and then tried to jam it into my heart upstairs while you were unconscious. That was when I was god-touched and realized that the knife was actually my quest. On the landing at the bottom of the stairs she used the same lit-up blade on Thoronis.”

  Auraus nodded excitedly. “That must be it. Maybe she can prime it to suck a soul out before striking someone with it, and did that to Thoronis!”

  Jason demanded, “How can you suck a soul into a knife, or yourself? You can’t see a soul!”

  “Just because you cannot see a soul does not mean it is not there. You can usually see a soul when the Rite of the Dead is performed, and it slips its earthly bonds.”

  “You mean that mumbo-jumbo stuff you do is really real?” asked Jason in a flabbergasted voice.

  “That’s what Arghen and I have been trying to tell you all along,” I said with exasperation.

  Auraus said, “Yes, Jason, it really is real. And there are magics that can trap the released soul. I have heard of such. There are also magics that can re-direct the soul into a keeper. Maybe she has somehow fashioned herself into a keeper in preparation for becoming a goddess? If this knife has soul-affecting magic, then maybe Thoronis’ soul is either in it or in her.”

  “And if she is using all those souls to become a Goddess, then you can bet they would never be released!” growled Ragar.

  I shivered. “Poor Thoronis. We have to help him!”

  “So what are we going to do about it?” grimaced Jason.

  Arghen raised his pale-skinned hand. “I do not doubt that she has protections set up to delay us from getting to her. But I have no idea what those may be. The only thing I can suggest is a partial frontal attack to draw them out, because I am very sure that as soon as we cross the threshold, she will know it.”

  “I agree. Let’s spread out as soon as we enter the doorway,” I suggested. “I’ll go along the left wall. Jason, you go along the right. Auraus, use those wings and fly up to the ceiling and attack from above—pick up some of the stuff on the shelves in here and throw it down at her if you have to. Arghen and Ragar, you should just charge forward.”

  The Under-elf nodded. “I think that is best. She has to know we are coming, so let us not delay. I would add one thing: Lise and Jason, try to be as unseen as you can. The rest of us will purposefully draw her attention. Yes, she will know exactly why we are doing it, but if we three can keep her busy enough she will not have time to look for you sneaking up on her.”

  Jason and I nodded in turn. Auraus grabbed up several silver goblets and a couple of the golden incense holders and signaled her readiness.

  Arghen threw open the door and leapt forward into the cavern with the loud battle cry, “For Quiris!”

  Ragar snarled and moved out at a slight angle behind him to give them both fighting room.

  Auraus leapt forward and up, calling, “Caelestis! Guide my hands!” as she soared towards the high ceiling nearly lost in the gloom overhead.

  As they crossed the threshold, the sounds of their cries mixed with the sounds of a high pitched alarm bell. A shriek of denial and rage came from the center dais. Jason and I snuck into the room behind them and saw Morsca plunge her illuminated weapon into the breast of an unfortunate Kobold, different than the one I’d seen before. I winced, saddened for the poor Kobold, as Morsca withdrew the dagger. Its jewels glowed brighter for just a moment, and then she waved the knife at the dead body. The bloodied corpse disappeared to be replaced with a fresh one, and the gems went dark. Morsca took up her stance once more and chanted faster, firing up the jewels again. Jason nodded at me and ran off at a crouch along his wall, and I imitated him along mine. Then Morsca’s defenses showed up.

  Just as the high shrieking sound of many bats filled the air, the rock and dirt of the floor twenty feet in front of me geysered up and turned into something that looked vaguely humanoid. It had to be an earth elemental. But I didn’t know how to kill one! I glanced towards my companions but realized I would get no help from them. Auraus far above was being dive-bombed by a swarm of bats, which made her drop her armful of cups and thin
gs as she frantically tried to get enough space so she could cast a spell. Below her, Ragar and Arghen fought off what looked to be some kind of large reptile as they dodged the rain of metal from Auraus above. Jason, I couldn’t see.

  I refocused on the elemental. It didn’t seem to be very fast, so I thought I could outrun it. But I also didn’t want it attacking me from behind while fighting Morsca, either. I drew my saber and lunged forward, hoping to take it by surprise. The sword slid easily into the stomach of the elemental, but I had to duck to avoid being caught in a crushing embrace against its chest. I kept hold of my weapon and danced backwards out of reach of the earthen arms, but it didn’t look to me that my attack had hurt the thing. I circled to its left, and it pivoted slowly to face me. I got in a good two-handed swipe on its arm. Though it was nicked, it didn’t bleed. I half-expected a roar of pain or something, but eerily it reached out to swipe at me again in total silence. I hit it a few more times, always targeting the same arm, then pressed the attack. Despite a couple of grazing hits from fists that rattled me, I put extra effort into my next several sword swings and broke off the left arm of the monster at the elbow. But this put me right in the way of a smash to the side of the head from its other fist, and I dropped like a stone.

  I was just aware enough to feel myself being picked up by the elemental. Slack limbed, I was carried somewhere draped across its good arm like a waiter’s towel in a fancy New York restaurant. I was stunned and dizzy and knew that that was probably a bad thing, but neither my brain nor my body wanted to do anything about it. My head hurt, my eyelids were too heavy to open, and it was hard to breathe in the position I was in. I was soon dropped on a hard surface which banged my head again. Weirdly I didn’t seem to be on the floor because the drop was too short for that, but the bright light that was around me made me want to keep my eyes closed. I heard a female voice chanting nearby. Another voice, one that sounded familiar, chanted something different in response somewhere above me. Confused, I stretched out my fingers to find my saber. I felt wet cloth beneath my hand instead.