Crimson light flared in the gallery, the spikes throwing mad, tangled shadows over the walls. Ridmark glimpsed another Mhorite shaman in the midst of the warriors, casting a spell. Calliande drew herself up and started casting a spell of her own, white fire shimmering around her fingers.
The floor jolted beneath Ridmark’s boots. Every single one of the glyphs upon the tiles blazed with fiery light, and an enormous glyph burned upon the ceiling, so large that it seemed like a stylized moon wrought from a blacksmith’s fire. White light flashed around Ridmark and Morigna and Calliande, and an instant later the shaman’s attack hammered against the ward with a howl. Calliande’s magic proved the stronger, and the killing spell flickered and vanished.
As it did, every single door in the octagonal courtyard began to slide shut, massive slabs of glyph-carved granite moving to seal the entrances.
“Go!” shouted Ridmark.
The women sprinted for the archway. An arrow skipped off the floor next to Ridmark as one of the Mhorites produced a bow, and he ran after Calliande and Morigna. Arandar, Gavin, Kharlacht, and Caius stood at the entrance to the tunnel, just beyond the sliding slab of granite with its carved glyphs. Calliande and Morigna dashed through the closing gate, and Ridmark put on a burst of speed and followed.
The Mhorites were right behind him.
Five of the warriors burst through the closing door. Arandar slew one, and Kharlacht killed another. Morigna shouted, purple fire pulsing in the gloom, and a ripple went through the floor, knocking the Mhorites from their feet. Gavin killed one of the orcs with a quick slash from Truthseeker. Ridmark snatched the dwarven war axe from his belt and opened the throat of the fourth. The final orcish warrior fell backwards with a scream, and landed in the archway just as the massive granite slab slid shut, sealing off the courtyard.
The closing door cut off the light, but just before it did, Ridmark saw the Mhorite orc’s torso explode like a fruit crushed beneath a horse’s hoof. The door’s motion did not slow in the slightest as it crushed the Mhorite.
The resounding echoes faded away, the only light coming from the shimmering glyphs upon the door’s surface.
For a moment Ridmark and the others stood motionless, breathing hard.
“Well,” said Gavin at last. “Now what?”
Chapter 4: Night Visions
Calliande took a deep breath, and then another. She felt calm return as the tension of battle drained away. They were safe enough for now. The granite door was two feet thick, and even with Mournacht’s powerful magic to break the warding glyphs, it would still take the Mhorites days to break through that door.
Safe, of course, was a relative term, but they had make progress. Her staff felt closer. Perhaps they could yet find their way through this maze and reach Dragonfall.
Assuming they had not just gotten trapped in a dead end.
“Mara, Antenora,” said Ridmark. His voice was calm, the voice of a man in command of the situation. She knew him well enough by now to realize it was something he had learned, a part of his upbringing as a knight and noble of Andomhaim. Yet, by God and the apostles, it made her feel calmer. “Use your Sight, please. Are there any additional wards in this passage?”
“None, Gray Knight,” said Antenora. She was a cowled shadow in the dim glow from the door’s glyphs.
“There’s something wrong with the door, though,” said Mara. She stepped closer to it, a slender shadow in the glyph’s dull glare.
“The lady of the dark elves is correct,” said Antenora, peering at the door.
“Ah,” said Mara, a bit of amusement in her voice. “Is that to be my nickname, then?”
“I do not understand,” said Antenora.
“You never call anyone by name,” said Mara. “The Gray Knight. The Keeper. The master thief. The orcish warrior. The dwarven friar. In fact, I think the only one you call by name is Gavin.”
Gavin shifted a little, Truthseeker still in hand. He got along surprisingly well with Antenora, despite their vast differences in age and background. Perhaps it was because they had both lost their homes. The arachar had burned Aranaeus, and Arthur Pendragon’s kingdom of Britannia had passed into the dust of time.
“We can discuss that later,” said Ridmark. “What’s wrong with the door?”
“The spells are…decaying, I think,” said Antenora. “Yes. They are damaged, just as the ward within the Citadel was damaged. They will break at some point in the next few hours. I think…”
“Fifteen hours,” said Mara. Antenora looked at her. “When I was younger, precise timing was often important in my profession.”
Calliande cast the spell to sense the presence of magic. “They’re right. The glyphs are weakening…and the weaker they get, the easier it will be for Mournacht to break through them.”
“Then let us be gone from here,” said Ridmark. “Antenora. Can you provide light?”
“Of course, Gray Knight,” said Antenora. She tapped the end of her staff against the floor, and the sigils carved into its length grew brighter, flickering as if a fire burned within the wood. Soon it seemed as if Antenora held a staff-shaped bar of fire in her hand. It was a decidedly peculiar effect, but useful.
“Since we have no other choice, we will go forward,” said Ridmark, starting down the tunnel. Unlike the galleries near the Dormari Market and the Citadel of the West, the walls were smooth and unmarked, lacking the ornate, blocky glyphs and stylized reliefs. Calliande suspected that she was using the servants’ halls of long-dead Khald Azalar, or at least the streets of the commoners. “Caius, do you have any idea where we are?”
“None, I fear,” said Caius. “Beyond the Dormari Quarter, I have seen very little of Khald Azalar.” He gazed at the wall for a moment, the flickering light of Antenora’s staff making him seem like a solemn statue robed in brown. “If I were to guess, I would say that this tunnel leads to either a residential quarter, a quarter for artisans, or some farming caverns.”
“Farms?” said Gavin, surprised. “The dwarves had farms within Khald Azalar? I thought the dwarves grew their food in the Vale of Stone Death.”
“Oh, they did,” said Caius. “Some crops require sunlight.”
“But what could grow in this lightless place?” said Gavin. “In Aranaeus we grew wheat and barley and grain and all manner of vegetables, but they required the light of the sun.”
“Mushrooms do not,” said Caius. “We constructed cisterns to capture snowmelt from the sides of the mountains, and used the water to grow mushrooms and edible mosses. We also stocked ponds with eyeless fish, and kept herds of murrags for meat and leather. There are many wild things that grow in the Deeps or hunt in the Deeps, and the ones that are edible we have tamed.”
“There are also things in the Deeps,” said Ridmark, “that find dwarves edible.”
“Or humans or orcs or halflings, for that matter,” said Caius. “That is the reason for the siege doors.” He sighed. “Though they availed my kindred little against the Frostborn.”
They lapsed into silence after that. The tunnel sloped downward, and began to cut back and forth as it descended deeper into the bones of the mountain. Calliande found her attention wandering, and forced her weary mind to focus upon her surroundings. They had not had much chance to rest at the Travelers’ House, and their journey across the Vale of Stone Death had been tiring and dangerous. She could not help but admire how Ridmark showed no sign of fatigue, even though he had to be exhausted.
Her lip twitched a little. Morigna had to be exhausted, too, after what…
Calliande banished the thought. It was not a worthy one, though a petty, jealous part of her wanted to brood upon it further.
“Keeper,” said Antenora. “Is anything amiss?”
“What?” said Calliande, jerking out of her thoughts. “No, I am sorry. I am tired, that is all. My mind wandered.”
“This is a dangerous place,” said Antenora. “An ill one for wandering thoughts, if you forgive my presumption.”
“There is no presumption,” said Calliande. “Not when you are correct. Tell me. Are there any places like Khald Azalar upon Old Earth?” A conversation would help keep Calliande’s mind from wandering. She also wanted to learn more about this strange woman who called herself the Keeper’s apprentice.
“Like this?” said Antenora. “No, not precisely. The engineering prowess of the dwarves is very great.”
“Thank you,” called Caius from where he walked next to Ridmark.
“It is only in the last century that the sciences of the men of Old Earth permitted anything like this,” said Antenora, waving her free hand at the wall. “The great empires of Old Earth used places such as this to house their most terrible weapons of war, machines that could turn a city to ash in the blink of an eye. Or so I think. I…may have seen such a place once, but it has faded from my memory.”
“I know the feeling,” said Calliande. “Better than I might wish.”
“Yes,” said Antenora. “Still, I did not intend to damage my memory. You removed yours on purpose, Keeper. I do not understand why.”
Calliande shrugged. “I do not fully understand myself. I think it was because of Shadowbearer.”
“Shadowbearer?” said Antenora.
“An archmage of the high elves,” said Calliande. “He forsook his people and turned to follow Incariel, a mighty demon bound into the darkness. The dark elves worshipped Incariel, as did the dvargir, and the Enlightened of Incariel are a cult among the men of Andomhaim that worship Incariel even now. They’ve tried to kill us repeatedly.” They had also tried to take the empty soulstone in the pouch at Calliande’s belt more than once.
“Why did Shadowbearer make you remove your memory?” said Antenora.
“Because he brought the Frostborn to Andomhaim the first time,” said Calliande. “I don’t know how, but I must have known he would try again in a few centuries, when the alignment of the thirteen moons allowed him to open a gate to their world. He might succeed this time, too. The men of Andomhaim would forget the danger, they would grow complacent and careless. When the Frostborn returned, they would not be ready. So I had to warn them. I knew dangerous secrets, so I removed my memory and hid it with my staff, and put myself into a magical sleep below the Tower of Vigilance. Apparently I planned to awaken on the day of the conjunction, reclaim my staff and my memories, and stop Shadowbearer from summoning the Frostborn.” She shook her head. “Perhaps it was utter hubris.”
“Perhaps not,” said Antenora. “Men are easily corrupted. I am so old, Keeper…and time and time again I have seen tyrants overthrown, only for the liberators in turn to become crueler than the defeated tyrant. Why should the men of Andomhaim be any different?”
“A bleak assessment,” said Caius from the front.
“But I fear it is an accurate one,” said Arandar. He had sheathed Heartwarden, likely to spare Ridmark the headache, but his hand remained upon the hilt. “The Enlightened have eaten into the High Kingdom like a cancer. Tarrabus Carhaine is willing to murder my son to protect his secrets.”
“They also kidnapped Mara and used her to force me to steal the soulstone,” said Jager. “I feel like I should mention that.”
“They tried to have Ridmark assassinated several times,” said Morigna.
“The human heart is filled with darkness,” said Antenora. “Do I not know it well? It seems you were right to take the path you did, Keeper. Though it seems your plans have gone amiss.”
Calliande shrugged. “Evidently I founded the Order of the Vigilant to keep watch for the Frostborn. Shadowbearer saw them as a threat, so he engineered a civil war within Andomhaim. The Order had to take sides, and was destroyed in the fighting.” She shook her head. “All my preparations were for nothing. If Ridmark had not happened to be in Dun Licinia the day I awakened, Shadowbearer would have slain me and won everything on the first day.”
Again she felt a wave of gratitude mixed with a burst of sick fear. If Ridmark had not decided to help Sir Joram find Caius, if he had not stumbled upon the Mhalekites, Calliande would have died upon the altar of the Black Mountain. She would have died in terror and pain, and worse, she would have died in ignorance, never knowing why. Still worse than that, she would have died in failure. Shadowbearer would have triumphed, and all the sacrifices of the Order of the Vigilant would have been for nothing.
And the Frostborn would have returned.
Often Calliande wondered if she had been too extreme, wondering if sealing herself in magical sleep for centuries had been folly, wondering what sort of woman could put herself into hibernation for centuries and awaken to a world where everyone she had ever known and loved had died.
Now, though, after disaster had almost overtaken her, she wondered if she had not been extreme enough.
“No plan of battle survives the first encounter with the enemy,” said Arandar. “I have seen many battles, my lady Magistria, and not a single one of them has gone as planned.”
“The knight of Tarlion speaks truth,” said Antenora. “Had you not prepared so thoroughly, you would have been slain so long ago.”
Calliande shook her head. “Ridmark saved my life.”
A flicker of irritation went over Morigna’s face, as it usually did when Calliande talked about Ridmark. Well, it was the truth. Ridmark had saved Calliande’s life. Ridmark had saved Morigna’s life as well, for that matter.
“Well, Gray Knight,” said Antenora, “what do you think?”
“I think,” said Ridmark, “that I am a practical man, and therefore should turn my attention to practical matters. Such as why I can smell something rotting up ahead.”
Calliande sniffed the air. She did detect a faint odor of decay coloring the air. At first she feared they were about to walk into the site of a recent battle, but the odor was wrong. It was damp and earthy, like the rotting vegetation in a swamp or a forest.
“Ah,” said Caius. “I suspect we are heading towards one of the farms.”
“Be cautious,” said Ridmark. “In the Deeps, sources of food and water are often guarded. If deep orcs have taken over Khald Azalar, one tribe might have claimed this cavern for its territory.”