Celadonian Tales Vol: 1 Blood and Brass (7 page)

By mere chance he found it, just as he was about to give up in frustration. A spot right in the center of the false wall seemed to give the tiniest amount with pressure. He heard a soft click, and felt the left side of the panel move inward a bit. He pushed and the wall moved farther, unused hinges squealing in protest. The passage beyond was utterly black, the light from the room not penetrating more than a few inches beyond the door.

Intrigued, Bran turned to remove a candle from the holder nearby, and thrust it deeper into the passage. The flickering light illuminated a rough stone floor, ceiling and walls. A deep patch of darkness must mark the end of the passage, Bran assumed. Without a second thought, he began to shimmy his way into the dark space.

Bran thanked all the gods that the passage was mercifully short. The ceiling and walls were rough, and he scraped his back several times on jutting stones and bits of masonry. Whoever had the passage constructed certainly did not care much about niceties. The candlelight revealed the abrupt end of the passage. Here, the rough stone of the floor gave way to smooth flagstones, and the walls and ceiling fell away into darkness. Bran found himself crawling out of the tiny passage into a much larger one. Holding the candle aloft, he stood, staring around him.

He was in a narrow tunnel, about half the width of one of the keep's main corridors, and it was dusty. Years of dust lay piled on the floor. Thick masses of cobwebs hung from the corners of the ceiling, like grotesque draperies. The passage appeared to stretch interminably in both directions, though Bran knew that either direction might end a foot beyond the reach of his meager light.

The dark maw of the passage he had followed to get here caught his eye. Like the larger passage, dust was everywhere, and Bran could clearly see the marks of his passing. Gazing at his footprints in the filth, a thought struck him. If he could see those marks, then someone else could, as well. Heart hammering, Bran dropped to the floor and crawled back the way he'd come, the candle lighting his way.

It took only minutes to reach the end of the tunnel once more. Bran peered around the corner of the concealed door, but his chambers were empty. No one had come to check on him yet. That was good. Bran slid out of the tunnel into the room. He snuffed out two more candles before stowing them in his pocket and returning to the hidden passage. Scooting back over the rough stone, Bran moved far enough back that the door would clear his body, and then pushed it closed. It shut with a soft
snick
, telling him that whatever latching mechanism it had was secured once more.

With the panel secure again, Bran backed his way down the passageway, into the larger tunnel. Now that he was reasonably sure that no one would manage to stumble on him, Bran was intent on exploring. What was this place? Why was it here? Who built it? Most importantly, where would it take him?

Bran set off down the left hand passage. As he walked, he studied the passage. It was well built, and did not have the roughness he'd seen in the small connecting tunnel, which made him think that this was the older of the two. The smaller one must have been added later, specifically for entrance to those apartments. Perhaps the rumors that Aretin was murdered had some credence after all. Whatever its origin, the passage had not seen traffic in a very long time. The dust was thick, deadening the sound of his footfalls, the work of decades at least.

The passage ran ahead, straight as could be, at least as far as Bran's candle would show. For all he knew, there was a vast chasm yawning a foot beyond the sphere of candlelight. He pressed on, though. He had no plan other than exploring the passageway, but the temptation to escape was certainly in his mind.

He forced the thought from his mind. If he fled, he declared his guilt. If he stayed, he would die. The thought of living as an outlaw held little appeal, though it meant staying alive. His one hope now was to find some clue that would point him to the assassin. He pressed on.

***

Bran paused to light his second candle from the melted stump of his first. The passage seemed to go on forever, unchanging. He had seen nothing to differentiate one section of the passage from another. It was all darkness, blank stone, cobwebs and dust.

He tossed the ruined candle stub aside. The stub hit the flagstone floor of the passage and rolled. Distracted, Bran watched it, expecting it to stop. It continued rolling, moving ahead of him. So, he thought, something had changed after all. The passage was leading downward. How long since it began descending? How deep was he now?

Five steps farther on, he encountered his first intersection. The main passage continued on, straight as an arrow's path. The left corridor sloped steeply upward, while the right corridor went straight, and then turned sharply to the right after a few feet. Neither passage showed signs that anyone had recently ventured that way – the dust lay thick and undisturbed.

Bran hesitated, unsure of which way to go. The left passage would likely take him up toward the levels of the keep where people ventured. The right passage seemed to lead deeper into the dungeons. Continuing with the main passage meant going deeper under the keep, into the heart of the Stone. What secrets lurked there in the darkness, he wondered? In the end, that question decided his course. Onward and down – perhaps the answers he sought lay concealed in the darkness below.

The angle of descent steepened almost immediately beyond the intersection, and the passage began to take on a different tone. The flagstones grew larger, cruder. The stones making up the walls were also larger, rough-hewn and more loosely fit together. Strange carvings began to appear, etched deeply into individual stones along the wall.

He saw one that might have been a man with a bolt of lightning, and another that seemed to be a gate or doorway of some sort. Others seemed to be little more than random images, circling birds or odd geometric patterns. He peered at them, the flickering candlelight making the images seem to waver and move within the gray stone.

Sudden voices made him stop. They seemed to be coming from ahead of him, but it was hard to be certain. Sounds echoed strangely in these passages. It seemed to be two men talking. Bran crept closer, doing his best to hide the light of his candle.

"I don't care," one voice said. The voice was very familiar for some reason.

"You should care, everything hinges on this," the second voice was male, but deeper, rasping.

"When he's dead, it won't matter anymore," the first voice argued. Bran was able to put a face to that voice now. It was Davin, his brother, King of Celadon now that their parents were dead.

"His death is only the beginning, your highness. It will not stop then."

"Of course it won't! But when Bran is burned and blackened, I can finally have some peace!" Davin's words cut Bran to the core. This was not the brother who had argued for Bran's right to tell his story before the Council. This was someone else, a Davin who hungered for Bran's impending death.

"Yes, with Bran finally disposed of, we can tie up loose ends here in the city. But what of the overall plan?"

"Mind your questions, Cornar! Lest you forget, I rule in Celadon, not you!"

"Of course, my king, of course, I forgot myself."

"See that you remember whom you serve, dog," Davin's voice was cold. "Leave me now; I will go on alone. You have things to attend to, so get about them!" There was silence then, followed by the sound of footsteps moving away. There must be another passage up ahead, Bran surmised, as the footsteps began to recede once again.

Davin wanted him dead. What was this? Had his brother orchestrated the entire thing? Was Davin behind all the murders? Anger flared anew in his heart, wreathing his mind in cold hate. Bran would find out the truth. New footsteps echoed off the stone, alerting Bran that his brother was on the move.

Bran hastened to follow, watchful that his candle did not give him away. In mere feet, he rounded a turn and found the intersection where Cornar and Davin must have entered. Both left and right hand passages were a confusion of footprints in the deep dust. The area seemed heavily traveled, a fact that struck Bran as very strange. Which way, though, left or right? Davin's footsteps seemed to have moved away to Bran's right, but sound was confusing in these timeless passages. He turned right. If he was wrong, then so be it.

The new passage sloped steeply down, with crude steps placed every few feet to provide better purchase. The walls were natural stone now, roughly hewn and still showing the tool marks from centuries past. The way ahead was dark, but Bran could hear the faintest echo of Davin's footsteps if he stilled his breathing. He hastened on.

The passage narrowed and widened, the work of inexpert hands. Bran seethed, his free hand clenching and unclenching as he walked. He passed beneath a low arch in the passage and the left-hand wall suddenly dropped away. Bran emerged into a natural cavern, the roof so high it was invisible.

He stood on a narrow path cut into the side of the cavern wall. To his left, there was only deep night, a drop that might have been five feet or five hundred. Somewhere in the distance, Bran heard rushing water.

Farther down the path, Bran could make out a pinprick of light that must have been Davin's torch. He blocked the candle's light with his hand, fearful that it would give him away. A second later, the pinprick of light that marked Davin's path disappeared.

With Davin no longer in sight, Bran picked up his pace, though the path was treacherous. Water glimmered on the walls, reflecting the candlelight, and trickled onto the path. It made the stone beneath his boots slick, but his anger drove him on faster than caution would dictate.

The path down was long, and Bran was winded by the time he reached the bottom. He paused to survey the area. The path he walked ended in a black pool. The edge of the pool curved away into the darkness, and was paved with white stones. A glance at them showed distorted faces, some human, some misshapen beasts. All seemed malevolent. What strange place was this? A gap in the paving stones allowed the dark waters to rush out, forming an underground river that flowed away into the cavern to his left.

Bran looked around. The pool lay in a depression, surrounded by stone on three sides. The path he followed wound its way down the face of one side, ending before the pool. Around the pool was a narrow path of gravel, and Bran could just make out a dark shape on the opposite side of the pool. Was this the way that Davin had gone? Bran saw no other options, unless his brother decided to swim in the chill waters.

He edged around the pool, gravel crunching softly beneath his boots. The candlelight eventually revealed the entrance to another tunnel, but one far different from the others he had traveled to get here.

The same white stone rimmed the mouth of the tunnel, boasting the same bizarre faces. Many of the faces bore scars, the work of tools wielded with deliberate intent Bran guessed, judging by the gouges that ran across the stones. White stone also made up the interior of the tunnel, the blocks fit tight without any mortar.

Bran stepped into the tunnel, and his candle guttered. The flame bent back toward his hand as air flowed out of the tunnel. It wavered for a moment and then went out. Bran cursed his luck; he had no means to relight the thing. What was he to do now? He stood still, surrounded by darkness, listening to the sounds of the deep earth.

It dawned on him that he could make out the vague shape of the stones beneath his feet, pale ghosts in the murk. There was sight where there had been none before. Bran was mystified, but he accepted it as a small blessing from the gods, capricious as they were. Surely, they owed him some small thing. Moving with as much care as he could muster, Bran made his way deeper into the tunnel, the pale stones beneath his feet the only anchor to the world of sight.

A cracking sound beneath his boot told him that something was out of place. The floor had been so smooth and free of debris that he bent down, trying to determine what it was. The object was just shorter than his forearm, and smooth. His boot had cracked it in half and the broken edges were jagged.

It felt oddly familiar; then it came to him. It was a bone, human by the size of the thing. He flung it down, and it clattered against the stone floor.

He encountered more bones as he made his way down the passage, crunching beneath his boots with increasing frequency. Bran noticed something else, as well. The white stones were more visible now; he could make out the passage floor several feet ahead. Shapes he knew were bones covered the ground, and other shapes, too. He bent to examine one and his questing fingers encountered rough metal – a helm. The passage was littered with bones and armor.

What was this place? What had happened here? He knew nothing of this darksome pit beneath Harron's Keep – none of his teachers had ever touched on anything occurring beneath the very stones of his home.

His questing fingers encountered something more solid than armor, something familiar. It was a hilt; Bran pulled the thing free of the tangled bones in which it was trapped. It was a sword, longer and wider than what was common in Celadon today. The hilt was wire wrapped, the wire blackened with age. The blade was tarnished and rusting, but the edge was still sharp.

Now he was armed. The sword was nicely balanced for all its age and wear, and there was something comforting in the way it felt in his hand. He picked up his pace. There were some pointed questions that he wanted to ask Davin – very pointed.

He was almost running when the passage ended. The floor rose up in a series of steps, reaching higher than Bran's head. The light was stronger here, warmer and brighter. He could make out the chips in each stone riser as he ascended them. Above him, the ceiling receded.

Bran reached the top of the stairs and stopped. Before him stretched an enormous room. The top stair riser marked the end of the white stone. The room that stretched away before him seemed to be a natural cavern, and the stone here was dark grey, not white. Bran was first struck by the blinding light. In reality, it was likely very dim, but his eyes had become so accustomed to the darkness that gazing into the room was like staring into the face of the noon sun.