Dark Magic (59 page)

Brand lowered the axe. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s been so long since I’ve drawn it in anger…and Grasty’s treachery surprised me.”

“I know,” said Telyn, leaning against him.

Kaavi turned away from the scene and began inspecting the room closely, as she had before.

“What’s that sound?” Puck asked.

“Sound?” asked Brand. “Good point. You should have been playing your pipes, man. Perhaps you could have charmed Grasty back to our aid.”

“What works on a wandering maiden will not sway an ancient, leather-faced foreman of the Kindred,” Puck said. He put up a hand and urged everyone to fall silent. Reluctantly, the others quieted. Now that he listened closely, Brand thought he did hear something. A faint scraping sound. Perhaps a grating sound would describe it better. Something squeaked and groaned as they listened.

“That’s metal moving against metal,” Brand said, listening. “It sounds to me like a ship’s moorings while it sways at dock.”

Puck shook his head and turned to look at Brand squarely. “Not quite,” he said. “I think Grasty is turning the great wheels. I believe he’s releasing water into the lower chambers.”

Brand eyed each of his companions in turn. Every face except Puck’s showed fear. Brand wondered just how old the elf was, and if he had been in worse spots than this in his long life.

“What should we do, Puck?” he asked.

The elf looked mildly surprised he had been asked. He tapped a finger upon his tapered chin for a moment. He shrugged. “I doubt Grasty would place us here if there were any way to go upward. The stairway, for example, has clearly been collapsed on purpose. We must look for another route. Probably, it will lead downward.”

“I don’t want to go deeper into this filthy dirt!” Kaavi complained.

Puck shrugged. “You stay here if you like, sister, when we find the path out.”

Telyn didn’t bother talking, she went to the walls and sought an exit. She examined the floors closely. Brand decided to have a closer look at the collapsed stairway and the exit in the roof.

“Possibly,” he said, “if the waters push in until we are floating, we will reach the roof and be able to push that door open.”

Puck looked up with him speculatively. “I don’t think we can. When we get that high, we will not have anything to push against, we will be treading water. Without a firm stance, I don’t see how we can push very hard.”

Brand frowned.

“Once, Brand struck through a similar stone portal in a floor of this same castle,” Telyn said over her shoulder. “Remember Brand? When you discovered the redcap and his armory?”

“Yes,” he said. “But that was striking downward, not
upward
while paddling in a flood. If it comes down to it, I’ll give it a try, of course.”

Brand found the stairway was well and truly collapsed. He wondered if Grasty had done this on purpose, or if it had happened before he’d turned to the Shining Lady’s service. He had no way of knowing the truth of the matter.

“Shhh!” Kaavi shushed them all. She stood at the south wall in the attitude of listening closely.

“Is someone coming?” Brand asked hopefully.

She waved his words away. All of them stood hopeful, quiet. They stared at her. At last, she turned to face them. “It’s the water. I can hear it flowing nearby.”

Brand held his axe high like a torch. It ran with yellow light. He began pulling bricks and broken masonry away from the fallen stairway.

“That’s no use, Brand,” Telyn said gently.

“Maybe not,” he said without turning. “But I’ll not stand here with my thumb in my arse waiting to drown.”

Puck soon joined him, and the two of them heaved and rolled stones away. They threw handfuls of dust behind them. They worked for nearly an hour, but there was little progress made.

Sweat stood out on Brand’s brow. He growled and was in a worse mood every minute. His mind drifted to thoughts of mayhem. He imagined Grasty’s head popping up on a fountain of blood. He would kick it higher still, and use it for practice with his axe, slicing away features until it was nothing but a red ruin.

Telyn came to him and touched his elbow. “Brand, you’re blinding us.”

Brand noticed that the others had retreated from him while he struggled with the mountain of dust and rubble. Ambros was shining brightly, intensely, making his companions shade their eyes from its glare. He turned toward them with a face stained with sweat and gray dirt. His eyes were glinting and wild.

He pushed Telyn away, but not so hard as to knock her flat. “Don’t soften me now, woman!” he shouted. “This is not the time!”

He continued to work alone at the rubble now, keeping the axe held high. He did more work with one hand than five men could do, but it was no use. With each scoop of rubble he removed, a dozen more sifted down to replace it. If anything, the ruined stair was more thoroughly choked with debris than it had been when he had started.

Finally, he stopped, his sides heaving. The first runnels of water were sweating from the walls now. Behind him, he could hear one of the women coughing. He didn’t know if it was Telyn or Kaavi, and he barely cared which it was.

Brand sat upon a broken, fallen column and let the sweat bathe him. He remained there, sullen and staring at nothing. His hands clutched the axe, which glimmered at his knees. He ignored the others who spoke to him for a time. There had to be a way out of this.

Sometime later they noticed visible sprays of water coming into the chamber from cracks in the masonry. The floor turned dark and glistened wetly as runnels of water flowed to join with one another. The dark fingers of water soon widened into pools. Still Brand sat and tried to force his mind to operate. It was not easy with the axe in his hand. He did not want to let go of it, however. He knew he might fall asleep if he did.

Kaavi came to him, and her soft voice cut into his thought with its sweetness. She said things to him, into his ear. The thoughts soothed him, even if he could not really hear her words. Finally, he felt her soft touch. She combed dust from his hair and untangled it with her fingers.

Suddenly, Kaavi’s head jerked back and out of his sight. She gave a shriek of alarm and tumbled backward.

Brand lunged to his feet without a thought. His face split into a grin. Ambros rode high, shining brightly. The axe was eager to finally be given an enemy to hew.

The axeman faltered when he saw what was amiss. Telyn had yanked Kaavi backward. She’d wound her hands into the elf girl’s hair and had pulled her almost off her feet. The two of them now rolled in the inch-deep water that filled the chamber, hissing and ripping at one another. They parted and drew knives.

“I’ll not die watching you paw my husband!” Telyn said.

“Crazy witch!” Kaavi hissed back, no less enraged.

Brand stepped up to them. They lunged and locked wrists, struggling. He thrust the head of his axe between their snarling faces and commanded it to give a muted flash.

The women howled and clawed at their eyes, cursing him. They staggered backward and called one another vile names.

“Telyn, what was that you said?” Brand asked.

“She’s a slattern dock-whore!”

“No, no, before that,” Brand said.

Telyn stared, still blinking with watering eyes. She shook her head.

“About the redcap…” he said. Suddenly, he had a clear thought. He lifted the axe and swung it down two-handed. He delivered a great blow upon the floor. The stone chamber rang with the booming sound of it. Water and stone chips flew, causing the others to step back in alarm. Brand lifted the axe and brought it down again and again, striking with all his might. The floor began to be cut away, as if a lumberjack chopped through a log.

“He’ll destroy the axe!” said Kaavi, aghast.

“No, probably not,” Puck said. “The Jewels are not easily destroyed, no matter what form in which they choose to clothe themselves.”

“I’ve seen him cut through stone before,” Telyn said. She wiped blood from her lower lip and shielded her eyes from flying stone chips and the yellow flashes of light that filled the chamber with every booming strike. “That’s what he meant about the redcap. He cut through stone then in this very castle.”

“And the gnomes,” Puck said. “He severed their bodies, which are little more than mobile stone.”

Brand found nothing but earth beneath the floor, so he gave up there and moved to the west wall. He chopped there with measured strokes. He thought it was rather like chopping at tree trunks. The consistency of stone, when struck by the axe, felt as dense as might hardwood when hewn by a sharp tool.

Behind the west wall he found a slurry of mud. It poured into the chamber and quickly formed a black mound like spoiled porridge. Unperturbed, he turned and walked to the east wall. He struck and struck and struck again. Each time stone flew like wood chips and orange sparks rained into the muddy water that lapped at his boots. After thirty or so hard blows, the stone gave way and crumbled downward in a slide of broken masonry. Brand paused, sides heaving and face slick with sweat. His eyes wide and staring, he leaned into the rough-hewn hole he had created to examine it.

Behind the east well he found, to his surprise, another wall of a different quality. These bricks had clearly been laid down here at a different time. He chopped a wider, deeper hole, and eventually broke through into a room beyond. He thrust the axehead inside when it would fit and they all peered inside.

A chamber of gray-white marble was revealed. The water on their side was now more than a foot deep.

“Should we go through?” Kaavi asked.

“What choice do we have?” Telyn demanded.

After Brand had cut away a space big enough for even his shoulders, they all squirmed through the hole into a place unknown to them.

They found themselves in a hallway that led parallel to the room they had left behind. One way led southward, and quickly turned. The other led north and seemed to stretch into the distance.

“I would suggest we head north—as the flood lies to the south,” said Puck reasonably.

They walked upon fine tiles of marble and their boots rang with every step. Brand wondered that anyone would build such an elegant hall so deep within the earth.

“Hold!” said Puck, putting his arms out to his sides to slow the others.

They all stood at his sides, staring, wanting to surge ahead.

“Something is not right,” he said, almost in a whisper.

“You are right,” Telyn said. She crept forward and knelt. “There,” she said.

Brand did not see it at first, but each of the others exclaimed and knelt. Finally, he held Ambros high and urged it to blaze like the exposed sun. They all blinked in the brightness, but they could see the glimmering thread that lay across the floor. It was about an inch above the tiles.

“Is that a spider’s silk?” Brand asked.

Puck shook his head. “No, it is a wire. This hall is trapped. Let’s proceed with great caution.”

They each stepped over the wire with great care. They did not dare to cut it or disturb it. There was no obvious result that might have come, but none wanted to learn the truth of the matter.

They kept going, and frequently they came upon new traps. The water came after them as well, running around their feet as if drawn past them. They could hear it ahead somewhere in the distance, falling and rushing somewhere. After another thirty paces, they found out where the water was going.

They stood upon a ledge overlooking an abyss. The water rushed out around their boots and fell tinkling and splashing down an unknowable distance into the darkness.

Each of them looked into the pit, which resembled an underground gorge. It extended off to their right and to their left a great distance. The marble tiles stopped here, and although there was no bridge across the yawning abyss, there were steps to the left. The steps were cut large and wide. Each one was like two steps for a normal man. Kaavi was left hopping from step to step as they walked downward a dozen steps to investigate. The water from above still flowed around their boots, making the path treacherous. The stairs had no railing, and Brand felt a fall upon them would likely be fatal.

“I’m sorry for yanking your hair, Kaavi,” Telyn said suddenly.

Kaavi eyed her. “I’m sorry for being thoughtless in your presence.”

Brand noted that Kaavi had not apologized for being aggressively flirty, just for doing it while his wife was watching. He shook his head. He supposed it was something. Perhaps his home life would be more peaceful now. He could always hope.

“There is only one path,” Kaavi said, with fear in her voice. “And ever does it lead us downward. Are we escaping, or are we being led—guided to a darker place?”

“I don’t know,” Brand answered. “But we have no choice, and I for one wish to meet our guide and see how they stand up to the twin blades of Ambros.”

Puck shook his head and huffed lightly. Brand didn’t care. Snarling slightly without meaning to, he stepped down ahead of them all. He hopped down each stone stair with a single stride, his foot splashing each time it landed. He would find out who was at the bottom of this place, and he would have hard words with them.