The Fourteenth Key (The Chronicles of Terah Book 3) (89 page)

“Well, that’s a record we’re going to break.” Kevin stood up and stretched. “Just as soon as I come up with a plan.”

~ ~ ~ ~

After the others left his office, Kevin took Wythe’s maps upstairs and went over them again. The layout was pretty straight forward, and having a map should make what he was going to ask King Merdin to do a lot easier, provided King Merdin showed up soon.

Kevin had the beginnings of a plan for rescuing Chris and Elin, but until he talked to King Merdin that’s all it was. And if King Merdin didn’t show up soon, he was going to be forced to come up with a plan B, and he had no idea what that would be. He had to have them out of there Saturday morning at the latest, and it was already Wednesday afternoon. That didn’t leave a whole lot of wiggle room.

While he was waiting for King Merdin, Kevin paced, making a circuit around his room, out on the balcony, and back inside. After an hour of pacing, he felt like he had to get out of his room for a bit, so he went out to the stable. He figured he might as well give Marshall a break and take Nikki inside with him.

When he got to the stable, Nikki was lying flat out on a mound of hay, sound asleep. Marshall was sitting on top of her crate cleaning some tack.

“Busy day?” Kevin nodded towards his dog.

Marshall grinned. “I tried to keep her busy. Thought you might prefer a quiet puppy this evening.”

Kevin nodded as he knelt down beside her. “What all did you do?”

“We checked the fences in the horse pasture, and then we checked the ones for the cows.”

Kevin glanced up. “And she went with you the whole way?”

“Every step.”

“No wonder she’s wiped out. I’m surprised she made it.”

“I kept a close eye on her, and we stopped for a rest break every once in a while. If she’d gotten too tired, I’d have put her on Watson with me. He’s really good.”

“Watson?”

Marshall shot his eyes towards a brown and white horse quietly eating in a stall. “I know he’s not my horse, but I’m the only one who ever rides him, so I sort of think of him as mine.”

Kevin nodded and made a mental note to give Marshall that horse, or rather, have Neiven do it. “Have you fed her yet?”

Marshall nodded. “But she might want some more later. She used up a lot of energy today.”

Kevin rubbed her head and waited for her to open her eyes. He laughed when she yawned. “Come on, girl. You’re going inside with me for a while.”

“I’ll be here for another hour if you need to bring her back, and you know where I live, right?”

Kevin nodded. “Thanks, but unless something happens, I don’t plan to leave the castle tonight. Why don’t you head on home?”

“Thanks.” Marshall jumped down from the crate. “I might do that, but like I said, you know where I live.”

Kevin and Nikki left the stable and headed inside. Dinner was being served in the dining room, but Kevin was anxious to get back to his room, so he fixed a plate, grabbed a carafe of coffee, and headed upstairs.

Once they were in the room, Nikki walked straight to the couch, climbed up, and went back to sleep. Kevin settled in one of the armchairs with his dinner. He wasn’t hungry, but he ate anyway. At least it was something to do.

When he set the empty plate down on the coffee table, he looked at Nikki and grinned. She looked so relaxed there was no way he was going to make her get down. King Merdin would have to make do with the other armchair when he got there.

King Merdin’s chair. Kevin jumped up, startling Nikki, who jumped off the couch, looking right and left, trying to figure out what the emergency was. “It’s okay, girl. I’ve just got to get something.”

Nikki yawned, stretched, and followed Kevin out into the hall. They went down the hall towards the smaller family bedrooms to the room Kevin had slept in his first night at the castle. King Merdin’s chair was in there.

Kevin picked it up with his outstretched hand and carried it back to his room. As soon as they stepped through the door, Nikki growled and moved in front of Kevin, blocking his path.

“Now that’s just not fair,” a voice said from the other side of the room.

“King Merdin?” Kevin reached down to grab Nikki’s collar.

When King Merdin made himself visible, he had a grin on his face and a twinkle in his eye. “Good idea, that.”

Kevin frowned.

“The dog,” King Merdin said, slowly approaching Nikki. “But I’m glad I didn’t bring Dani with me. He might have objected.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think about that.”

“No, don’t apologize. After the initial shock, everything would have been fine. Your dog couldn’t hurt him.” By that time King Merdin had reached them. He held his hand out to Nikki. “What’s your dog’s name?”

“Nikki.”

“She’s a young one.” King Merdin rubbed her ears and made a friend for life. “You’ll enjoy her.”

Kevin nodded as he moved King Merdin’s chair over near the coffee table.

“I take it there’s a reason you wanted to see me?” King Merdin asked.

Kevin gestured towards the chair. “You might want to have a seat. This could take a while.”

Kevin went through everything that had happened since Tuesday morning, including his decision to take Marcus, the pages, and Laryn someplace safe.

“Good thinking,” King Merdin said with a nod. “I’d have done the same. So when are we going to go get Chris?”

Kevin couldn’t help grinning. “I do plan to go get him, but I want to do more than that. Let me show you something.” He took out Wythe’s maps and explained the layouts of the main floor and the first two basements. Then he pulled out the map of the dungeon. “Wythe, the man who drew these maps, was never in the dungeon, so this may or may not be accurate, but he knows there’s a door at the foot of the stairs.”

“Not a problem,” King Merdin said. “I can use the key to get through it, and if Dani’s with me, he’ll know if anyone’s on the other side.”

Kevin nodded. “If we can pull it off, I’d like to empty those cells. I don’t want to just rescue Chris and Elin, I want to rescue every single person she has in those cells. I want to make it clear that coming here and stealing my people has a price. I want it to cost her, and short of killing her, this was the best I could come up with.”

“How do you plan to do that?”

“I’m not sure. I was hoping you and Dani could slip in there and check things out, get an idea how many people are in there. I’d like to get everyone out without anyone knowing we’re there, but whether or not that’s doable depends on how heavily guarded the dungeons are and how many prisoners are down there. And we have a deadline. This has to be done before the council meeting Saturday.”

King Merdin pointed to the maps. “Could I borrow those? I’d like to let Dani get a good look at them, especially the map of Hendon Port.”

Kevin nodded.

“We need to go during the day, their day, while things are going on. It makes it easier to slip in and out if the castle’s busy.” King Merdin rolled up the maps. “After we check things out, we’ll come back here, and you can figure out what you want to do. I have one question though.”

Kevin nodded for King Merdin to go on.

“You know I could bring Chris with me when I come back, right?”

“I know, but if we do that, Gwendolyn will move Elin out of there. And even if you were able to get her too, I still want to get the rest of them, and that’ll be a lot easier if they’re not expecting us.”

“You seriously think she’s not expecting you?”

“If Chris is in that dungeon, she’s not. She’d have him somewhere else if she thought I might try to rescue him. No, she gave me an ultimatum and a deadline, and she’s arrogant enough to think I’ll do what she says.”

“She doesn’t know you very well. Does she know you went after Rolan a couple of months ago?”

“I doubt it. I haven’t told anyone, and I can’t see him admitting it.”

“You’re probably right,” King Merdin said. “All right. Dani and I’ll go around two tomorrow morning. That should be mid-morning for them. We should be back by sunrise.”

“Thank you,” Kevin said as they both stood up. “And be careful. I don’t want anything happening to you.”

King Merdin grinned. “They’ll never know we were there. See you in the morning.”

Chapter 76

King Merdin in Hendon Port

A little after two Thursday morning, King Merdin and Dani left Farowood for Hendon Port, Landoryn. Using the map Wythe had drawn they went straight to the square in front of Gwendolyn’s castle. Her place was impressive, and intimidating. King Merdin would give her that.

“Ready to go in?”
Dani asked.

“Head straight for the stairs,”
King Merdin answered.
“There’s no need to check out the offices. Myron won’t be on the ground floor.”

“Right.”

“Stay with me. I’ll need you when we get to the doors.”

“I’m right beside you. Let’s go.”

King Merdin walked through the front doors, past the guards, past the guard office, and turned down the hall on the right. As they walked down the hall, King Merdin saw the dining room and kitchen on the right, but he wasn’t sure what was on the left because all the doors were shut. When they reached the door at the end of the hall, King Merdin moved towards the wall and waited a moment.
“Do you sense anyone?”

“There’s someone on the other side, near the top of the stairs. I think he’s coming this way.”
After a moment, Dani said,
“There’s two of them and they’re coming through the door.”

“Will we have time to scoot through?”

“I will. Not so sure about you. Get ready. Here we go.”

The door opened to a man and a woman, both dressed in gray tunics and leggings. They were talking when the door opened, but as soon as they stepped through, they hushed.

“Now,”
Dani said as both he and King Merdin dashed through the open door. The door slowly closed behind them.

“If I’d known the door was going to be that slow, I could have taken my time,”
King Merdin grumbled.
“Someone needs to grease those hinges.”

Dani chuckled.
“Hope not. Slow doors are better for us than fast ones.”

“You’re right. Let’s head down.”

For the next few minutes, the pair eased their way down the dimly lit stairs. When they reached the next floor, there was a small landing and a door. The stairs turned and continued down to the next level. When they reached the next landing, King Merdin said,
“This should be the floor with the slave quarters. The dungeon should be next.”

When they turned the corner to the next set of stairs, the steps were steeper and there was even less light. A few steps down, they began to spiral and the stairwell became tighter and darker. King Merdin was beginning to think they never would reach the bottom when they came to a huge, heavy door with a latch.

“I don’t suppose we’d be lucky enough someone’s getting ready to come through this door, would we?”
King Merdin asked.

“I don’t think so. I don’t sense anyone anywhere near it. Want to use the key to get past this one?”

“I don’t guess we’ve got a lot of choice. Put your paw on my arm and let’s go.”

When they got to the other side of the door, King Merdin looked around to see if anyone had noticed the slight change in light that opening the energy field caused. Not only did no one notice, no one was in sight. The hall wasn’t quite as dim as the stairwell, but it wasn’t well lit either. There were stone walls on both sides of the hall for about ten feet. Then the wall on the right hand side was replaced by a row of metal bars.

As King Merdin and Dani moved down the hall towards the metal bars, soft voices drifted towards them. When they reached the bars, they saw about a dozen boys scattered around a dark room, lying on blankets, sitting on the floor, or leaning against the rock wall at the back.

And right there, towards the middle of the back wall, sat Chris.

“Want me to let him know we’re here?”
Dani asked.

“In a minute. Let’s check out the rest of the dungeon first.”

They made their way past that cell to an opening on the right. There were three chairs and a big table set back away from the hall. Three guards were playing Octuro. A few buckets with dippers hanging out of them were lined up against the back wall and half a dozen blankets were stacked beside them, but that was it as far as supplies went.

After they passed the guards’ area, there was another wall of bars. That cell had the women. King Merdin estimated there were maybe a dozen women, fifteen or so girls, and eight or nine toddlers. At the end of the cell, there was a solid rock wall that went all the way across the hall.

King Merdin and Dani turned around and made their way back to the cell where they’d seen Chris. Dani slipped through the bars and crept to the back of the cell. He sat down beside Chris and lightly touched his arm.
”Chris, it’s me, Dani. Don’t move or speak, but I wanted to let you know King Merdin and I are here checking things out. Myron will be coming for you soon.”

“Thanks,”
Chris said mentally without looking up.
“Tell him from what I can gather, everyone in these cells is from Camden. We need to get them out of here, and tell him they need food. We haven’t been fed since I got here. And water. And tell him to have Theresa standing by. Some of these kids are so weak I’m not sure whether or not they’re sick.”

“Got it. Anything else?”

“Yeah, tell him the kids think their fathers and older brothers are still at that cave, working in iron mines.”

“He’ll know what cave you’re talking about?”

“Yes, and tell him the guards change about every eight hours the best I can tell. I’m not sure about the times, but it was about eleven when she grabbed us and brought us back here. We were down here within fifteen minutes, and the guard changed an hour or so after that.”