Regardless, he kept the hood of his cloak over his head, keeping himself concealed. He swept his gaze along the street, looking for any sign of movement, but he didn’t see anything.
The only thing he was aware of was the sense of activity in the city. It was not the typical for this time of morning. Or maybe it was. Gavin didn’t come out in the mornings often.
Gavin hadn’t realized the home he’d been heading toward the night before had been so close to the market, but as he followed the flow of traffic, he thought it convenient that it had been. At least Gavin had some additional concealment this way. He moved as quickly as he could, staying as covered as possible.
The sounds of the city around him were almost overwhelming. It was part of why he enjoyed working at night, under cover of darkness and in relative silence. The only distraction in nighttime was from listening to Wrenlow in his ear, but even that wasn’t terrible.
Gavin breathed in. The smell of the city was different in the daytime as well. At night, there was almost a sense of coolness to the air, which seemed to wipe away the stench of bodies and filth and everything that crowded around him now. But there was an energy here now, and he couldn’t help but find everything slightly entertaining, from the merchants pushing carts along the street to the street performers tumbling or dancing to the people shopping.
He veered off down a side street, away from the market. Gavin reached the building the Fate had been heading to the night before, then paused across from it. The red awning was there, much more visible in the daytime. It was different than the other buildings.
Why this place?
Perhaps that was the better question.
Gavin watched for a while but saw no one, and he hurried across the street. He tested the door, found it locked, and jammed a knife into it. He twisted the knife and popped the door open. It wasn’t nearly as effective as the kind of lockpick that Gaspar used—especially since the old thief could relock the door, something Gavin’s technique wouldn’t allow—but it did the job.
Once inside, he closed the door and started to shuffle through cupboards in the kitchen. It was a small home and easy for him to sort through quickly. No other furniture and no decorations were found here. Dust clung to the air, filling his nostrils, and everything that he touched seemed to kick up even more dust. Empty. The main part of the house was empty as well.
He headed to the back room, where he’d been forced to go out the window, and he paused at the window. At least he knew he could go through the alley if it came down to it, but he didn’t see anything otherwise.
Only, there was something.
A faint outline on the floor.
He crouched down and began to work his knife into the seam of the crack that he saw. The blade wasn’t sharp enough. Reaching into his sheath, he pulled out the El’aras dagger and tried that, leveraging it into the crack. Gavin wiggled the dagger from side to side to see if he could lift the trapdoor—at least, he was increasingly certain that it was a trapdoor.
The El’aras dagger managed to get deeper into it, and he pried, mindful that he might blunt the dagger. El’aras blades were incredibly sharp. Gavin worked his way around the trapdoor, carving through the cracks. The dagger wasn’t strong enough.
The sword.
Gavin unsheathed it, and the sword fit into the crack. He slid the blade around the edges, and he leveraged it. The trapdoor started to open.
His heart hammered. This was a sorcerer’s lair.
This was where the Fate had come.
Gavin knew of other similar lairs. It seemed dangerous he would come across another one. He continued to work the sword into the trapdoor and felt the door start to pull up. When he could get his fingers underneath it, he pried and lifted the door.
He held the sword down into the hole. There was no glow from below.
At least there was no sign of the Fate.
Gavin moved carefully down the ladder, holding the sword in one hand, prepared for a waiting Fate. He paused at the bottom of the ladder. The darkness stretched in front of him. Gavin moved forward but didn’t see or hear anything. The shadows started to swallow him. The farther he went, the more the light from behind him began to fade, ultimately plunging him into complete darkness.
The smart play would be getting help.
He’d seen what would happen taking on one of the Fates.
But if he surprised the Fate before anyone else was hurt…
He slid his feet along the stone, holding the sword out, but there was no movement. Gavin paused when he felt something press in on him, squeezing and pushing him back. It was a strange sensation, a magical sensation. He had no idea what it was, only that he could feel something out there and around him. It left his skin tingling, the hairs on the back of his neck on edge, and an uncomfortable tension inside of him.
Then he found a door.
Or rather, the door found him.
He crashed into it and bounced off. Gavin held his nose, stifling a cry.
He reached out and felt the door. Its handle was curved, forming almost a complete circle but with some waviness to it. Holding on to it left him with a tingling through his hand. Gavin squeezed the handle briefly before releasing it. He tried again and twisted it, but the door was locked.
It reminded him of how he had to try to jam the dagger and the sword into the trapdoor. Could he do something similar now? He started to run the blade of the El’aras dagger around the perimeter of the door but didn’t find anything.
Maybe there was a way for him to force it open.
Not necessarily with magic… or perhaps with magic.
Gavin called upon the core reserve of power within him. That might be all that he needed to do. As he focused on that sense of energy, he shoved his shoulder into the door.
The door resisted him.
Gavin tried again, ramming his shoulder into the door over and over. Each time he did, some resistance around him faded. He continued to slam his shoulder into it. The door creaked, then groaned, and then it finally crashed open.
It was dark.
No Fate here.
He took in a slow breath, noticing that the air had something of a pungent aroma. Gavin swept the sword out in front of him, probing as he took a step, then another. There was no glow to suggest any hint of magic. He needed to figure out some way to illuminate the room.
He stepped in and moved slowly, probing forward. Finally, he came across a table. Gavin ran his hand along the surface of the table carefully. His hand bumped something. A lantern.
He grabbed it, twisted the handle. The lantern started to glow with a pale white light, though he hadn’t lit any oil or anything inside of it. Some sort of magical lantern.
Gavin held it out.
The light revealed a curved room. Walls sloped overhead, stretching high above him. Gavin couldn’t see far into the darkness, but the light of the lantern gave him barely enough of a way to perceive the peak of the ceiling.
The air had a strange odor to it. Each time he took a breath, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the odor was lingering in his nostrils, as if trying to work its way deeper into his mouth.
He swung the lantern from side to side, quickly assessing whether there was anything else there. Whereas Gaspar was quick about determining if there were any items of value in a room, Gavin was much more skilled at searching for threats. No sign of the Fate—or why he would have been heading here the night before.
Gavin paused in the middle of the room, where the odor seemed more pungent. He couldn’t find the source, so he stepped deeper in. It was much larger than he would’ve expected, certainly larger than the lair in Cyran’s home. He stepped toward the back room, then he saw it.
He knew immediately what it was.
A body, but so far decomposed it wasn’t even identifiable as a body. Velvet robes hung around it. As Gavin came close, the smell still struck him, and he had the sense that the smell had been contained for ages. It was almost as if it had bee
n bound here so that it wouldn’t assault anyone.
This had to be a sorcerer—the one who owned the home.
Could this be the reason the Fate had come?
Gavin needed to check the sorcerer’s body. He reached his hand into the cloak and felt inside the pockets, but he didn’t find anything. He nudged the sorcerer’s body, and the bones collapsed, dust spewing up. Gavin brought his shirt up over his mouth.
He nudged the body with his foot, pushing it off to the side. It covered nothing but more stone.
Gavin stepped forward, heading deeper into the room, sweeping the lantern around. He turned the brightness up, and the magical lantern glowed more intensely, pushing back the darkness.
He glanced down at his El’aras dagger. Surprisingly, it glowed as well.
Magic was here.
Gavin dimmed the lantern again, glancing down at the dagger.
The glow persisted.
So much for surprising the Fate.
Gavin stepped out and closed the door. He still didn’t see anything.
In the light of the lantern, strange symbols on the surface of the door caught his attention. Gavin traced his hand across them. He held the dagger up to the door, and he frowned for a moment. The writing on the dagger was similar to the writing on the door.
El’aras? Why would the El’aras have helped create these doors?
Something sounded nearby.
He had to keep moving.
Stop the Fate.
Gavin hurried toward the trap door, and the sound came again. The brightness of the dagger intensified.
Gavin reached the ladder leading out of this crawlspace. He started up slowly, and the sound came once more. This time from overhead. As he neared the top of the ladder, he prepared himself to fight the Fate.
The trapdoor slammed shut above him.
Gavin shoved his shoulder up against the trapdoor but couldn’t move it. He tried again and again, but each time he met resistance. The ladder was cool to the touch; an old wood slick and worn down over time. If there was somebody out there, he liked his chances better fighting rather than hiding.
He pushed on the trapdoor again. He focused on his core reserves, concentrating, and then he shoved. With a surge, he felt the trapdoor starting to move.
Then the ladder cracked.
Gavin dropped down a step. He could no longer throw his shoulder into the trapdoor the way he had before.
Whatever he had detected was up there still—either that or the sorcerer who’d caused his El’aras dagger to glow was using some sort of magic on the trapdoor to make it so Gavin couldn’t escape.
Gavin shoved again.
The step beneath him cracked again.
Gavin dropped again.
The Fate had to have sealed him in.
He was stuck.
At the bottom of the ladder, he looked up at the trapdoor overhead. There were no markings on it, much like there were no markings on it from above. It was simply a door.
He tapped on the enchantment. “Wrenlow, are you there?”
There was silence.
Gavin looked up at the trapdoor again. The glow of the dagger persisted, giving him enough light to see more clearly, although the magical lantern light allowed him to be able to peer above him too.
The answers weren’t out there, and he didn’t know if they would be in the room where he had emerged. There had to be some other way out from here. Not just the trapdoor, but an alternative exit. What sorcerer would have given themselves only one way out? Or why would the El’aras, given what he had seen on the door?
Gavin made his way back to the room. He looked at the door again, noting the El’aras symbols and writing. He pushed it open and wrinkled his nose at the smell. Why was the odor still so fresh in here? If the body were old and had been there for a while, why would he still smell it quite so profoundly?
And what reason had the Fate for coming here?
As far as he knew, there was only one way in and out of a sorcerer’s lair like this.
“Wrenlow?” he called into the enchantment again, and again he didn’t know whether Wrenlow was listening to him. Maybe he couldn’t hear him. Or worse, maybe the enchantment had somehow been severed because he’d come down to the sorcerer’s lair.
Find a way out, then find the Fate again.
Gavin set the lantern down near the dead sorcerer as he explored. He headed to the walls, searching in a pattern as he spiraled generally inward. There had to be something else here. Another way out.
“Wrenlow, if you’re there, I need help,” he whispered into the enchantment.
He was so accustomed to having somebody with him these days.
Gavin crawled across the ground, holding the dagger out, sweeping it from side to side. Maybe there would be a crack or something along the ground to guide him. He found nothing. He held the dagger closer to the sorcerer’s body, and the light started to glow even more brightly.
Gavin frowned, looking over to the door for a moment. As he did, he realized the symbols that were present on the other side were also present on this side.
The dagger was glowing a little less brightly than it had been before; the distance from the sorcerer’s remains seeming to dim the light. Using the lantern might help. Gavin brought it over to where he stood near the door. He twisted the handle so that the light blazed more brightly. He studied the markings on the door. They were El’aras symbols.
For the most part, the door gleamed with reflected light. But the lower section seemed duller, as if it had been touched. Or scuffed. Gavin leaned down, studying it. From a lower vantage, as he held the lantern out, he couldn’t even see the slight change in sheen to the door.
He shifted the lantern from side to side but didn’t see anything more. He jabbed at the section of the door with his dagger.
The door hissed.
Balls.
He held the dagger to the door more cautiously than the last time. The door hissed again. He lingered for a moment, getting even lower and holding the lantern out so that he could see if the spot where he touched the dagger to the door would change anything. Gavin brought the dagger up to the door on one of the higher sections, but nothing happened. Bringing it back down lower, closer to where he saw the dull areas, he noticed the hissing sound again.
Only in a certain small section of the door did it make that sound. He couldn’t even tell if it came from the dagger or if it came from the door. Gavin pushed the dagger against the hissing door, and he listened for a long moment, waiting for something to change. It continued to hiss, the sound building around him.
He took a seat, studying the door. He couldn’t read the El’aras writing.
If the dagger made it hiss, what would happen with the sword?
Gavin unsheathed the sword, but it didn’t hiss at all. Of course, there weren’t the same markings on it, though it still had other El’aras markings. He pushed the sword forward, pressing the blade against the door. Rather than a hissing sound, there came a soft grinding.
The blade blazed brighter again.
He started to pull it back, but he couldn’t. It was almost as if the sword locked in place, preventing him from doing anything with it. Gavin jerked his hand back, trying to withstand the changing nature of whatever was happening, but he couldn’t.
He pushed the sword forward. If he wasn’t going to pull the blade back, then if nothing else, he would force it farther forward. The blade glowed, and something unexpected happened.
The symbols on it changed shape. They glowed in a way that matched with the door, which started to grind again.
The door began to roll open—differently than how it normally opened. The part where the sword touched the door rolled slowly, pulsing with a hint of brightness and a surge of pale light.
An opening formed to the right of the door, not within it.
Withdrawing the sword, he stepped into the darkness.
Chapter Nine
Once Gavin stepped insid
e, another grinding sound came from behind him, and he spun around, the lantern light allowing him to see that the opening that had formed was rolling back into place.
Gavin held out the lantern and turned back around, but he could barely see anything. He detected shadows ahead. These days, it felt as if he were noticing shadows moving all around him, though none of them were obvious. Nothing along the corridor. Instead, he turned around and focused on the door itself.
Gavin was sealed inside. Only, as he looked at it, he wondered if he truly was. The inside of the door had similar symbols as what he had seen on the other side. It was almost as if the El’aras writing matched up with the sword.
He looked down at the blade. It still glowed, though it was dimmer than it had been before. He had taken this from Cyran’s home—from his lair.
Had Cyran known what he possessed?
Gavin crept along the hallway, the sword still glowing with a soft light. The hallway ran parallel to the other hall. Could it be that the sorcerer’s lair led to more than one location? Would Cyran’s lair lead to more than one?
The walls were smooth, almost perfectly so, and certain areas of the wall caught the light reflected off the lantern, shining it back at him. Gavin stopped and noted a symbol that reminded him of the ones he saw in other sections of the hallway. Those symbols seemed to matter.
“Let me know if you can hear me,” he said into the enchantment.
There was still no response from Wrenlow, and the silence around him felt even more stark with the heavy darkness around him. Gavin twisted the lantern, and the brightness shone along the corridor. It looked to stretch an impossibly long distance beneath the city.
He reached a branch point in the tunnels that veered in either direction. The tunnels extended away from him, darkened both ways. A soft breeze blew, though Gavin couldn’t tell where it came from. It carried the stench of foul water mixed with decay.
The sword started to glow a little bit more brightly when he pointed it in one direction, so he turned and headed that way. He moved more carefully. Every so often, he caught sight of something along the tunnel, and he didn’t know if it was a reflection off the walls or if it was something else. He swung the lantern around, but he never caught them with the light. The walk through the tunnels seemed to take an impossibly long time, though it never veered off. It headed straight, and thankfully, he had the lantern with him.
The Fates of Yoran (The Chain Breaker Book 3) Page 10