Maylin's Gate (Book 3) (13 page)

"I'll go first," Jeremy said.

"That's okay Jeremy," she said. "I think the spooks have already been exorcised from this place." She hooked her feet in the ladder's top wrung and descended.

Arber and Jeremy came behind and the three moved deeper inside the ancient ruins.

She climbed lower moving past layers of half-frozen mud and stone. She paused on the ladder and peered downward.

Yellow light shone a few feet below but the ladder extended further into the shadows.

Her stomach swirled and she leveled her gaze on the ladder rungs ahead. She stepped lower until light from an excavated tunnel bathed her.

Trowels, picks, and shovels littered a narrow passageway. Stone coffins lined the walls then disappeared around a corner. A teenage boy appeared hauling a wheelbarrow loaded with pottery. The boy paused and nodded in her direction before resuming.

She moved lower past two similar passageways. Each appeared more ancient than the one before. She held firm on the ladder and peered up.

Jeremy hung on the ladder above her and Arber above him. Jeremy gave her a short nod and paused.

She climbed lower until she reached the bottom several hundred feet beneath the ruins.

A floor built from symmetrical bricks laid out before her. Oil lamps, hanging from brass poles, gave off ample light along the narrow corridor.

She stepped clear of the ladder. Jeremy then Arber moved in beside her.

"What is this place?" She said.

Arber knelt and touched the brick. "Whoever built this place understood masonry. This stone looks like expert hands carved it."

"I think the creatures guarding this place meant to keep us away," she said.

"This place feels wrong somehow," Jeremy said. "My senses are screaming at me to run and not look back."

Like icy fingers tickling her spine, a chill washed over her. "Let's go find Brees and we can leave," she said. "I have the same feeling." She walked ahead following the passageway.

Unblemished stone, like an artist's untouched canvas, lined the curved passageway.

"Why do I feel as if we're walking in a circle?" She said.

"I think we are," Arber said. "I get the feeling the architects designed it like this on purpose."

She crept forward and the smooth stone gave way to strange symbols and markings. She couldn't read any of the words yet the script pulled on a memory.

The writing stretched along both walls from floor to ceiling.

"Danielle wait," Arber said.

She froze and goose bumps flared across her arms and legs. "What's wrong?"

Arber rubbed one of the engraved symbols. "I recognize this."

"You can read it?" Jeremy said stepping in beside Arber.

"No. I don't understand it, but I've seen it before."

Realization blossomed in her mind and her flesh crawled. They should leave this place. They didn't belong. Something primal inside her begged her to go, but her curiosity won out. Sir Alcott hadn't reported any beasts lurking in these tunnels. She had to reign in her overactive imagination.

She fished in her belt pouch until she found the item she wanted. She stepped up beside Arber and held Trace's key beside the symbol Arber touched.

"It's a perfect match," Jeremy said.

"Let's find Sir Alcott," she said. "Maybe he has a translation."

She, Arber, and Jeremy followed the passage until the writing gave way to ancient drawings.

"Look at this," Jeremy said.

The drawing depicted a red dragon in flight. Flames spread from its mouth and a rider sat atop its back. The rider clutched the pommel of the dragon's jewel encrusted saddle. Time had eroded the rider's face.

"Had I not seen them with my own eyes, I'd believe this drawing a fantasy," she said.

Arber moved a dozen yards further and stood before another drawing. "Danielle, you need to see this." Tension laced Arber's words.

She moved ahead and stopped beside Arber. "What is it?"

Arber pointed to the drawing. "See for yourself."

The drawing depicted a scaled creature clutching a rope tied around its neck. A long scaly tail protruded from the creature's backside.

Beside the creature, the artist had drawn a human. A second rope secured the man who wore a tattered loin cloth. The man's eyes bulged while groping at the rope.

Both ropes led to the hand of a creature. The humanoid creature stood twice the size of the baerinese and human slaves at its lead. A menacing mask covered its face and anger flashed in the figures eyes.

Her skin crawled and she the hallway spun around her.

"That's fantasy," Jeremy said.

"I don't think so," Arber said. "That's a baerinese man and a human."

"I'm not talking about the baerinese man or the human," Jeremy said.

"Why would it be fantasy?" She said. "Everything else in the picture is real." She pointed back down the hall. "And so is the dragon."

Jeremy pointed to the demon-like creature. "If creatures like that ever existed, they are long since gone. Otherwise, we would all be dead or in chains."

She fingered the silver key and slipped it inside her belt pouch. Trace's words rolled around in her mind warning her not to pursue the key's origin. "Let's go," she said. "I don't want to look at it anymore."

She walked ahead her footsteps echoing from the stone floor and walls. She followed the passageway relieved to find the walls empty of further drawings.

Voices, muted by the sound of hammering, came from the passageway ahead.

"We're almost there. I hear them up ahead." She rounded the passageway.

Sir Alcott's broad frame clogged the corridor ahead.

She relaxed and tension drained from her muscles.

Sir Alcott pointed to the base of the passageway's interior wall. "That's it Roddy. Give it one more swing and I think we'll have it."

A spindly man with thin gray hair swung a sledgehammer that should've sunk him like a boat anchor. A hollow thud came from the wall and the wiry man set the hammer aside.

"Very good Roddy." Sir Alcott clapped the aged man's shoulder almost toppling him over. "You've done it." A toothy grin split Alcott's face. The scholar appeared oblivious to her approach.

"Sir Alcott," she said lowering her voice so as not to frighten the man.

Sir Alcott jumped and stumbled backward.

She darted forward and gripped the scholar's arm. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you."

Sir Alcott clutched his heart and laughed. "You gave me quite the scare. No matter my dear. No matter." Sir Alcott regained his balance and straightened his tunic stained with dust and mud.

Roddy grinned revealing tobacco-stained teeth.

She glanced between Roddy and Sir Alcott. "What are you doing down here?"

"We're excavating the ruins, of course." He peered around the passageway. "Look around you Danielle. I thought the Book of Order was the discovery of a lifetime." Sir Alcott's head shook causing his gray beard to sway from side to side. "That was merely a warm up for what we've found here."

"I understand you’re excavating, but shouldn't you have at least a few knights with you? What if something happens down here?"

Sir Alcott blinked and stared at her like she'd just stolen his dessert. "We're perfectly safe. These passageways have stood undisturbed for thousands of years."

"I'm not worried about the architecture," she said. "Don't you remember what happened to me in the room upstairs?"

"I'm not alone." Sir Alcott pounded Roddy's back. "I have Roddy with me and he's tough as nails. I can assure you of that."

She flashed a nervous smile toward Roddy before returning her gaze to Alcott. "No offense to Master Roddy, but he can't be younger than sixty-five seasons, and —"

"He's seventy-one this spring and not a day older," Sir Alcott said. "But we digress." He pointed toward a stone door built into the passageway. "We're on the brink of understanding Danielle."

"Sir Alcott, where's Master Brees?"

"The passageway you followed forms a perfect circle," Sir Alcott said. "That alone is no small engineering feat, but this door is the literal polar opposite of the door you entered. Down to the inch."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Jeremy said.

"Maybe nothing lad. Maybe everything." Sir Alcott thrust his finger skyward. "But it is a curiosity."

"What's behind the door?" Arber said.

Sir Alcott grinned. "A question unknown for which an answer will soon be supplied."

"Sir Alcott, about Brees —"

Sir Alcott waved her away. "In just a moment my dear I'll answer all your questions." Alcott faced Roddy. "Roddy, if you'll please peel away the door."

The wiry man slipped his fingers inside a crevice running the door's length. Roddy's arms strained and his back went rigid.

She gawked at Roddy and turned a hard glare on Sir Alcott. "You can't be serious." She whipped her head toward Arber. "Can you help him please?"

Arber shifted into a gorilla and bent to fit inside the cramped passageway. The guardian wedged meaty fingers inside the frame and joined Roddy at the door.

Wisps of yellow energy floated above Roddy's arms and the door rumbled.

"He's a battle knight?" She glared at Sir Alcott.

"Of course he is. You didn't think I'd come into these passageways unarmed did you?" A wry smile turned up the scholar's beard. "That's it Roddy. Another heave should do it."

The door groaned and protested but relented and slid open wide enough for a single person to slip through.

"Nobody move." Jeremy motioned and shields appeared around each person in the group.

Sir Alcott's eyes glimmered. "Thank you Knight Jeremy, now let's see what the fuss is about shall we?"

"Maybe you should let me go first?" She said.

"And let you take all the glory?" Sir Alcott grinned. "I think not." The scholar grunted and wheezed then disappeared inside the opening.

She pushed her way through after him and froze.

Blue shield light bathed a room shaped in a perfect circle. Strange symbols, like those in the passageway, decorated the walls from top to bottom. Flickering light danced on a single floor-to-ceiling drawing.

Smooth unbroken stone dulled by the hand of time paved the floor and ceiling. At the room's center a metallic object rested on a raised stone platform.

"Don't touch anything," Sir Alcott said.

Arber and Jeremy slipped through the opening and took up positions beside her and Sir Alcott.

Her gaze locked on the drawing and her pulse accelerated. "Sir Alcott, the drawing." Dryness constricted her throat and her lips turned bone dry. A slick sheen of sweat formed on her palms and she stepped forward on rubbery legs.

"Stop Danielle. Traps might litter the room," Sir Alcott said.

She slipped past the platform and stopped before the drawing. Tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She crumbled to her knees and gasped.

The mural depicted a circular doorway suspended in midair. The doorway stood between three spheres held together by a triangulation of steel beams.

The door opened to a world unlike any she'd seen. Strange creatures flew in the sky carrying humanoid riders. In the distance, a mountain range made up of active volcanoes spewed lava into a blood red sky.

In the drawing's foreground, appeared hundreds of heartwood trees.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Ransacked

Broad couches lay toppled and their split frames revealed gashes of white pine. The furs covering them scattered the cabin's wood floor. The dining table, nestled in a nook before the lodge's bay window, lay on its side. A pewter plate lay upside down, its uneaten food splattered against an overturned chair.

Ronan's pulse quickened and he nudged the front door open wide. "Moira?" He raised his voice loud enough to carry through the lodge.

General Demos's tongue flickered. A low hissing sound came from the general's chest.

"What's wrong?"

"Violence." General Demos surveyed the wreckage.

He didn't need a forked tongue to figure out that piece of information. He moved deeper into the room stepping over a toppled broom and a splintered coat rack. "She might still be here."

General Demos tossed aside a fur blanket and moved toward the stone hearth heaped with gray ash.

A cooking pot lay on its side and its congealed contents oozed onto the hearth. Iron fireplace tools lay in a haphazard pile beside the tipped-over cooking pot.

General Demos knelt by the fire and prodded the blackened coals.

Beneath the ash, embers glowed with a faint orange light.

He stepped over the cooking pot and knelt beside General Demos. "Judging by that ember, this happened less than a day ago."