Turning, he saw that Madigan had adopted much the same strategy. Morella, recently arisen and silently bustling about, had laden herself with nearly everything she carried. When Will caught her eye and raised an eyebrow in question, she hugged her satchel of scrolls closer. “This is my life’s work and I’ll be damned if I let it out of my sight.”
Will smiled and winked at her to which she bit back a laugh. The nerves were starting to crawl in his stomach, worming their way through his insides. He refused to acknowledge them, to give in to their power and despair at the monumental task before him. No, while Mad might force them away with his own silent determination and brooding quiet, Will’s own methods involved a foolhardy invitation for them to do their worst so he could smile and grin, maniacally telling himself that he was unaffected. Laughter and wide-mouthed grins had once been his approach to apprehension and, in the face of imprisonment and certain death, it appeared that that side of his brain was reigniting.
He crawled to the ledge once more and stared down at the jagged, cruel behemoth that was the Shale Prison. His eye twitched as he saw the lightning crackle over its surface, mirroring the patterns of his key. The lightning came from nowhere he could determine and danced mesmerizingly across the jagged stone. It began to call to him, inviting, as though it was the visual representation of the key itself. It was hailing back to the crackling power that obliterated the creature that blocked their way in the Shanghai Tunnels. That lightning held answers. It was taking every ounce of restraint not to throw himself from the ledge and discover what mysteries were locked behind the nonexistent gates of Shale.
Face stretched into a nervous grin, he turned back toward his brother and Morella who had finished their preparations. He glanced at Cephora, whose onyx eyes were hard and distant. His heart racing, his fingers twitching to be on and active, he mustered up as much nonchalance as he could.
“Well, shall we begin?”
26
Within the Shale
At a signal from Madigan, the four of them crept down the jagged embankment and turned toward the prison. The cover of the cool night aided them some, but as soon as they came around into full view of the prison, Madigan surrounded them in his Shade. His face strained with the effort of maintaining it in so controlled a fashion as they moved across the sands. On more than one occasion Will nearly added his own power to his brother’s, thinking it would go unnoticed in the circumstances. With an effort, he showed restraint and trusted his brother to see it done.
Will couldn’t see any kind of opening in the prison, nor were there any guards. The structure itself was massive, continuing to grow in scope and magnitude as they drew closer.
“Cephora,” Will whispered as they crept along, “how many people are inside?”
“Prisoners? Unknown,” she said in a voice that was barely audible. “As far as guards? The entirety of the Shale army is housed in the prison.”
Will fought back the urge to curse. “Do we have any record of the size of the army?”
Cephora shook her head but Morella responded. “Nothing accurate,” she said. “When they last marched in force, just after the Sundering, it was estimated to be nearly ten thousand strong.”
This time the curse flowed freely from Will’s lips. “So, there could very well be the population of an entire city housed within these seemingly impenetrable lightning walls, is that it?”
“So it would seem,” Mad said through gritted teeth. Will frowned, suddenly very concerned about the odds. We’ll just have to stay out of sight.
As they neared the base of the wall, Cephora held up a hand to signal them to stop. She knelt and placed her palm to the earth, closing her eyes as her mouth moved in silent words once more. After a moment, she stood and turned to the others. “There is no breach nearby. We’ll have to keep circling at this distance or else…” She trailed off and gestured at the lightning before setting off again.
Will dropped back a few paces to come alongside his brother. “Are you holding up okay?”
“Nothing to it.” Madigan forced a casual smile but the tension in his neck and sweat on his brow betrayed the lie.
“Can I help?”
He shook his head. “Nothing you can do, Will. I’m fine.”
Will wracked his brain briefly and then it came to him. Stepping closer to Madigan to ensure no one else would hear his words, he spoke. “Mad, remember what I told you in the Nordoth about Grandda’s key. Focus on it.” Madigan gave him an impatient glare but Will persisted. “I know you’re at your limits but please, just try it.”
The Shade’s cover of darkness lessened a bit and Cephora shot a sharp glance backward. Will made a placating gesture and she shook her head before continuing on. Will watched Madigan. Nothing changed. He waited and doubt crept in. Maybe it’s something unique about my key?
Then, suddenly, Madigan’s eyes softened and the tension seemed to ease out of his neck. The Shade darkened and grew, extending until there was room for each of them to move easily within it. Morella turned and raised an inquisitive eyebrow at Will. He grinned and shrugged.
“It’s like a soothing balm of cool on a summer’s day.” Madigan’s voice was filled with a deep sense of calm awe and had taken on the cadence of a poet. “Will, yours, does it do that too?”
“Uh, something like that,” Will whispered as his attention turned to the jolting shocks that were regularly emitting from his own key. There was no soothing balm associated with that power, not unless he counted the brief respites of inactivity from it.
“How did you…?”
“It worked for me at the Nordoth,” Will said. “I figured it may be the same for you.”
“These keys…” Madigan nodded and smiled, a new gleam of determination in his eye. “This is a game changer.”
“Well, if we get in there and find ten thousand troops waiting for us, I hope you’re right,” Will snickered. There was no humor in it.
“There’s no way there are that many soldiers in there,” Madigan replied, giving his brother a level stare. “They would have run out of food long ago and it would be way too cramped in there for good morale. Therefore, they’ve probably all killed each other by now anyway.”
His facade cracked on this last bit of speech and they both chuckled. Their lapse was cut short as Cephora spun abruptly and quieted them with a gesture. The brothers each gave her an appropriately chastised look. Cephora muttered under her breath before pressing forward while Morella smiled. The smile hinted at something that Will couldn’t determine, as if she was in on a joke that only she knew. Just more of her delightful mystery, he mused.
The walls loomed overhead as they drew closer to the prison and the brief levity soon faded. From a distance they were imposing. Up close, they were impossible. The stone was jagged and sharp and the bolts of lightning that scoured the walls whipped across them constantly. The ground near the walls was hot to the touch even through their shoes.
Morella’s eyes were on the sky as it crackled and split with lightning. Madigan’s brow pinched as if the strain had returned, but when Will gave him an inquiring glance he brushed him away. The sky began to brighten as day stretched forward and Will wondered what would happen if the prison phased away before they gained access. Or after we’re inside. He felt raw and blistered and he soon began shifting his blades from frustration and nerves.
Cephora, though, was all business. Periodically she would stop and reach a hand to the ground before shaking her head and ordering them forward. The farther they moved along the prison wall, the more often she checked the ground and the more her pace quickened between stops. Finally, after another ten minutes of starting and stopping in silence, she drew her hand upward sharply. The group stopped. She dropped to a knee and, without hesitating, thrust her hands into the broken, scorching sand.
“Here,” she said, her voice tight. “Quickly.”
As they closed the distance to the wall, a gaping hole suddenly began to tear along its surface.
A fissure grew, roughly torn along the wall, yet as the stone broke, it did so in silence. The tear was black and impossible to see through. Will stared at Cephora with questioning eyes.
“This will get you in. I don’t know how long I can hold the rift, so you need to hurry,” she said in hushed tones.
“A rift?” Madigan raised an eyebrow. “You mean to tell us that this hole isn’t a hole?”
Cephora nodded. “And if you don’t go now, there is no telling how long it may take me to find another breach.”
“Then let’s go,” Morella said. Without pausing she stepped forward and into the gaping blackness. Madigan, eyes growing wide as he saw her disappear, gestured to Will.
“You next, I want to give Cephora cover as long as possible.”
Eyes darting between Madigan and Cephora, Will nodded and stepped forward. Just before he stepped through the darkness he turned back and leveled his gaze at the Seeker. “You’ll get us out, right?”
“I’ll do everything I can.”
He took no comfort in her tone and everything behind it left unsaid. As Madigan gave one final urge, Will turned and stepped into the crack of darkness.
When Will was nine, his grandfather took both boys to the state fair. There was a ride called The Twisting Terror that Will begged to go on. As the ride spun and lifted and dropped, Madigan was laughing like a madman all the while. Will, however, did not find the same pleasure in the experience. His own knuckles were white as he gripped the safety bar and felt the hot dog and soda from lunch lurching dangerously in his stomach. The entire experience had been reminiscent of leaning too far back on a chair that tipped onto one leg—that momentary balance of the impossible and the knowledge that it is all about to come crashing down.
The Twisting Terror was the only thing in life that prepared Will in any way for the sensation of entering the rift. The biggest difference was the roar of icy, deafening winds and the overwhelming scent of earth, and that the rift was about a thousand times more forceful than The Twisting Terror had ever been.
He collapsed onto smooth, stony ground as the blackness of the rift disappeared. Pushing to his feet, he stumbled and fell against a wall. Fighting the wave of vertigo that needled at his brain, Will scanned his surroundings. There was no one in sight other than Morella, and she had inched her way into a darkened corner not far from him. She gave him a feeble smile that Will returned with a thumbs-up before making his way toward her. No sooner had he cleared the exit point of the rift than Madigan came barreling through with the quick sound of air being sucked through a pinhole. He stood tall and erect and drew the noctori. He scanned the area, looked up, and saw his brother.
“That was awesome!” His face split into a wide grin and he released the shadowblade.
Will shook his head. “Yeah, Mad, really awesome.”
The rift had deposited them on the inside of a small storeroom. All the shelves were empty, all the racks bare, and the air held the dusty scent of disuse and abandonment. Morella pushed forward to the door and tried the handle but it was locked. Madigan nodded to Will who reached for his lock-picking kit. He made his way forward but Morella waved him away and withdrew her own. Quickly, Will heard the click of tumblers and the door cracked open. Madigan swept the room in the darkness of his Shade and stepped forward.
“We stick to the shadows as much as possible,” he said as Morella slid the door open. “Cephora is probably right about Senraks being somewhere in the lower levels.”
“And the Shale army?” Will asked.
“Hopefully we can avoid them.”
“And if not?” Morella quipped.
“Then we do what we have to,” Madigan said. The look on his face told Will exactly what his brother meant.
Without another word, Madigan swept forward through the doorway and into the corridor beyond. Will and Morella followed, glancing down the corridors as they did so.
Everything looked identical. There were hallways and doors and passages but no signage to mark what was where. There were no windows. There were no carpets or tapestries or any detail to offer any differentiation. How do people find their way around in here?
“Well, this looks promising,” Morella whispered, her thoughts mirroring Will’s own.
“Any suggestions?” he asked her.
She looked up at him and then turned her head askew as if he had said the dumbest thing she had ever heard. “Why would I have any suggestions?”
“You’re a historian,” Will shrugged. “Perhaps something turned up that could be useful.”
She shook her head, still giving him that tilted glance. “No, Will. I would have told you before.”
“Come on, let’s get moving,” Madigan cut in.
He picked a path, seemingly at random, and began to walk. Will couldn’t place it but something about Morella seemed harsher than before. Nerves, that’s all. Gods knew his own stomach was trembling. But still, be it an extra flick of her fingers or the way her eyes narrowed, there was an edge about her that he couldn’t place.
Keeping the storeroom at their backs, they pressed forward through the corridors. Silence surrounded them and there was no trace of any other living creatures. They made their way inward, Madigan taking point and guiding them along the impossibly long hallways. They found their first junction after five minutes. Will’s key suddenly began humming more than usual, sending quick shocks to his body.
“There’s something nearby,” he whispered as they peered down the halls.
Morella cocked her head to the side. “How do you know that?”
Will hesitated. “Just a feeling in my gut,” he said.
Madigan nodded and backed him up. “That’s good enough for me,” he said. “Your instincts are usually right. Which way?”
Will nodded to the left passage and Madigan gestured for him to take the lead. Morella muttered under her breath and shook her head. Her mood had definitely soured but Will couldn’t figure out why. Reeling from the rift, maybe? He brushed his hand along hers but she pulled away and shot him a contemptuous look. Disconcerted, he began to move again.
As they progressed farther in, the corridors began to shorten and they found themselves turning and winding, sometimes seeming to backtrack. With every path looking identical to the last, it was not long before Will realized that there was no way he would be able to find their original entrance. Morella’s muttering increased and whenever he glanced at her, her eyes were set square on him and filled with something he couldn’t place. What was going on? Does she suspect something more as to why Mad let me lead?
Sounds from the corridor ahead of them broke his train of thought. He glanced at Mad who jerked his head to the side, gesturing toward a nearby alcove. It was small and cramped, barely more than an entryway to a cell, but the three of them crowded in. Madigan drew his Shade close and masked them in darkness. Morella flicked her wrist. A blade appeared between her fingers and she braced it at the ready. Each of them held their breath and waited.
Slow, heavy footfalls echoed through the hallway. A mass of darkened shadows appeared, stretching out toward them, their forms an uncertain conglomerate of spikes and tall plumes. The clang of metal against stone and the swishing sounds of leather followed as the scent of horse filled the air.
“Are they mounted?” Will risked a whisper, incredulous at the notion but unable to escape it.
Morella shook her head and pushed into the wall at their backs, as though the stone might give way to her flesh and allow her to sink fully from view. As the warriors of Shale entered his field of vision, Will soon understood.
The Shale Prison was a seemingly impenetrable, inescapable fortress, and the army who shared its name was ancient. They had survived countless wars, countless centuries of battle and blood, by adapting. What passed before Will that day looked human, yes, but barely. Three soldiers marched, each as indistinguishable from one another as the halls of the prison, but they looked as hard as the Shale itself. Their bodies were covered i
n leather and mail armor, but coarse hair protruded from the breaks in the armor. Their helms were not adorned in plumes, in fact they were wearing no helms at all, but their hair was shaved close along the sides while remaining long and flowing about the top.
But the faces of the Shale, their exposed skin, were a horror beyond Will’s understanding. The shadowed spikes he had seen were just that, spikes, only these had been impaled—No, embedded—into their faces. Their skin was coarse like scales and pierced with spikes as well as, upon closer examination, what appeared to be razor blades and jagged strips of metal. The barnyard smell was coupled with something sour, something vile—a battlefield hospital before the discovery of penicillin and sterile conditions. Though coarse, their skin looked wet and Will realized that fresh blood covered their faces, though whether from the cruelties carved into their flesh or those wrought on an unfortunate prisoner, he did not know.
Will grit his teeth and held his breath. The figures neared the hidden trio and time seemed to slow down. Will felt his heart threatening to rip itself from his chest. But as it pounded and stuttered, the Shale warriors passed, never glancing in their direction.
Their footsteps drifted away and the group stayed frozen in place in their alcove, wrapped in Madigan’s Shade. No one moved a muscle. They waited until finally there was no echo of footsteps, no lingering smell in the air. A small laugh escaped Will’s lips, breaking the silence.
“Light’s fall, Will, what?” Morella snapped. “What could possibly be amusing at a moment like this?”
Will stared back at her, incredulous. Her face seemed somehow transformed, as though a mask had been removed and the laughing, whimsical Morella had gone. This anger and rage, these contorted features, this was the real Morella. He stood speechless, not by her outburst but by the transformation. “Nothing,” he said finally, stepping away from her and into the corridor. “Just releasing some tension is all.”
Shadowborne Page 30