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Chapter Eight
The hall beyond the claw-scarred portal is full of scurrying things.
The illuminating globe enters behind me and drives beetles and cockroaches into darkness, forcing them to flee through holes riddling the walls like Daaran cheese.
"I've always hated roaches," Talen confides in me.
"A roach can live for nine days without its head," Angelaria says. "I've experimented with them."
I look over my shoulder at her. "Nice..." I murmur. Honestly, who am I to judge? As a kid I burned ants to death using a magnifying glass in sunlight.
"I think I can see a stairwell to the left of you buddy," Talen says. "My night vision has always been extremely good."
I suppose I would have noticed it eventually. Walking around with my visor up is a more personable experience, but it denies me the use of many functions in my killsuit, one of those being night vision.
Angelaria gestures and the globe flies down the hall to my left, moving slow enough that I can keep pace with it easily.
Talen is of course correct. I find a set of stone steps at the end of the hall; they descend before the toe of my boots. Furthermore, the wall changes from wood to stone, and the shallow indentations of unused torch sconces line the right side of the stairwell. It winds counterclockwise into the sable deep. Talen joins me on my left. I later decide that the stair's too narrow for the both of us to descend abreast.
"I'll go first," he offers.
I considered that only a moment and shake my head no. "Take up the rear," I say, "in case something comes at us from behind."
Truthfully, I'd like to see something first before he snatches it up and puts it away in one of his bulging pouches.
Talen sighs and stomps back up the steps to take a place two paces behind Angelaria. Satisfied, I descend into the gloom following the bend of the stairwell. I pause when a step directly in front of me grabs my attention. It's a little higher than the others by about half an inch or so, but any thief worth his picks knows that half an inch is good enough reason to stop and check things out before proceeding.
Talen squeezes past Angelaria and whispers in my right ear. "What's wrong?"
"The step...it doesn't feel right. I'm not completely sure, but it could be another trap."
Talen examines the step and lowers himself onto the stone to get a better look at it. Then, he rises to his feet. "I think it's trapped too. But what kind of trap is anyone's guess."
Angelaria looks at the both of us. "The roof's a little different here too. Look there. That stone in front of Kian's head looks like it's one long piece. Could the trap have something to do with that?"
I can see what she's getting at: there's a large slab six feet wide and two feet long that has little resemblance to any of the other bricks around it. Talen stretches out his fingers to touch it, making sure to plant his feet. "It's newer, that's all. I don't know how much newer, but I don't think it was here when the stairwell was built. It's been added since then."
"I don't like this, Kian," Angelaria says. "Why don't we go back to the large room we found a hundred yards back? Something has gone through this place ever since it was abandoned and filled it with dangers. There's a reason for that, I guarantee."
I clear my throat. "I think we'll be all right if we just hop over that step. Do you agree Talen?"
He nods. "Sometimes it's best to let things like this just lie; it's probably been undisturbed for centuries. I don't want to take a chance on trying to disarm it and have whatever it is up there drop down on me from above."
I hop over the step and the others follow. Together we proceed down the stairwell and into the bowels of the Valion keep, my sensitive feet nervously alerting me to even the smallest perforations on the stone floor.
Old castles can be spooky places, and my eyes search for murky specters known to lurk at the edge of any light source. I have it on good authority that any ghost worth its weight in ectoplasm shies away from the light. That's just the way things are. Who am I to challenge the established traditions of the haunted?
On my left and on my right, we pass by several doors sealed against the eternal night of the Valion depths. I check the first of these doors for traps using practiced caution, but I detect nothing. I open it and step inside, waiting for Angelaria to direct the light into the room.
"It's a bedroom," Angelaria murmurs.
A dresser made of sandalwood and holding several closed drawers stands adjacent to the door. A single sad-faced porcelain doll occupies the top, caked in gray dust and complete with creepy lifeless eyes. It stares at the lumpy mattress occupying the bedframe. I wonder if at one time it was a grand feather bed. Lace curtains drape like dusty spider webs about the posts of the bed; they've collapsed in upon themselves over the years. There's also a disagreeable smell here...it's stale and the light from the globe reflects off some prone figure on the bed.
"It's a GIRL'S room," Talen says.
I swallow nervously and step to the bedside. Yes, I discern a shape under the dust. I stretch out my wrist blade and poke it gently with the tip. The dust sloughs from exposed bone; in other places the skin's pulled tight as a drum.
Behind me, Angelaria stifles a scream by clasping one hand over her mouth. The body's desiccated and a bit moldy from the stale air. The whole room smells foul even this many years after its death. Curiously, there are still wisps of ash blond hair on its skull. More remarkable, however, is a hole about two-inches across present in the parietal bone. Teeth marks scar the skull where flesh has been torn away.
Something has removed her brain!
Talen's hands tremble slightly as he arrives at the same realization.
Angelaria mumbles something under her breath.
Talen looks over at her. "What?"
She shakes her head, "Nothing. I just asked myself why didn't I listen to my father and stay home."
Talen tries to grin. "That's a no shitter. If I'd been a princess, I'd have stayed home."
"Like you AREN'T a princess," I state with a sly wink.
"Touche," Talen replies.
I stand up and motion for them to leave the room. When I exit, I pull the door closed behind me. Better to leave the dead to rest in solitude than to risk being cursed for defiling a grave. Outside in the hall, Talen and Angelaria are pensive.
"What do we do now?" Talen asks. "Do we leave or do we continue on?"
"You're not serious are you?" I ask with exaggerated disbelief. "That was just a corpse. We haven't found anything else here except roaches and rats. And I know you're not afraid of a few beetles. In fact, this place is cleaner than the thieves' guild back in Clothol by far."
"Minus the dead bodies," Talen says.
I tilt my head and think about that. "Okay, minus the dead bodies."
"And all the broken furniture, and the webs everywhere. We didn't have webs."
I glare at him and he stops.
"Kian..." Angelaria begins, "that girl had her brain sucked out of her head. I think that common sense would direct us to get the hell out of here while we still can."
"Angelaria, that could have happened years ago. Whatever or whoever did that couldn't possibly still be here."
"Then who set the traps, Kian?" Talen asks. "Knights wouldn't trap their own keep, not to mention that they don't train for that kind of thing. All they do is work out to get their seven pack abs they need to wear armor, wield swords, and fuck women."
"Seven pack abs? What's that exactly?" I ask.
Talen shrugs. "It's a six pack with a seventh lump for the hernia you get from all that exercising."
I laugh. "Now that's funny. The knights I've seen though are definitely fuckable."
Angelaria just rolls her eyes.
"Boys, listen," she says. "I think you generally don't leave traps like the one you found on the stair unless you plan to occupy a place for a while and don't want to be disturbed."
Talen smiles. "She's got a point."
I suppose it's his turn to side against me. This whole "odd man out" game is getting old. As a result, I'm not even going to give his quip a response.
I start down the hall, which is still and quiet before I pause and ask, "Don't you have any sense of adventure? Right now it's a raging blizzard outside and it's cold and my nose is runny. Let's just stick to the facts. We're in here and we're dry and it's not cold and the only thing that we've come across is a single skeleton. That's it. And I'm not afraid of a skeleton so stop being a scaredy cat."
Talen sets his jaw, and he directs me to lead on. But I know it's not out of any sense of adventure or duty, but because he trusts me implicitly.
"I'm sorry," I say to Talen after a few minutes. "I didn't mean to insult you. I know you're not a coward. If you want to leave we will. That goes for you too Angelaria."
Talen places his hand on my shoulder and gives me a reassuring squeeze with his fingers. "Let's at least find a room to rest in for the night. I don't think we should go any deeper into the keep, but one of these side chambers will do nicely provided it's unoccupied. Maybe we can talk some more in the morning."
"That sounds like a great idea. We could all use a break," Angelaria states.
I move to the next door down the hall and inspect the lock for a trap. When I find none, I enter the room and discover a chamber somewhat smaller than the first, but it's cleaner with no furnishings of any kind except a chest against the far wall. My friends slip into the room one at a time, and I latch the door shut once we're all inside. As I knew he would, Talen crosses the room to the chest with Angelaria in tow, and the both of them study its surface carefully, chattering back and forth with wild curiosity.
I join them, laying my pack on the stone floor. "Find anything?" I ask.
"It doesn't appear to be trapped," Talen declares.
He moves his slender fingers over the latch while I proceed to dig into my pack. I come across some left over cheese, half a loaf of bread, and some meat stolen from the tavern's larder. I sandwich it all together and start in on it.
Angelaria collapses next to me and unshoulders her belongings.
After a minute, Talen pops the lock off the chest and sets it down carefully on the stone. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he takes hold of the lid on the large coffer and carefully pulls it open.
"Find anything?"
"Yes."
Talen pulls out some folded clothes. There are several pairs of pants and four pairs of shiny black leather boots that look newly made. The pants are made of the same slippery material as the purple bit of cloth he found on the floor earlier today. Talen puts these aside. Then he retrieves a matching shirt with a turtle-neck and long sleeves that end in gloves--one seamless garment.
"That's an odd-looking thing," I say.
"There's more," he whispers. "What do you make of this?"
He hands me a plain ring made of gold and chased with silver runes. I of course can't read them, so I flip the ring over to Angelaria who's watching us intently from behind a loaf of bread. She stops chewing and catches it; her eyes move intently over each of the silver runes. Then she holds it to the light while I try to rubberneck over Talen's shoulder to see if he's hiding anything else that might be interesting.
"Is that it?"
He furrows his brow. "Yes." However, just to be sure he taps on the bottom and on the top of the chest. He even measures it with his sword. "Sometimes," he murmurs, "you can find false bottoms and false tops to these things. Not this time though. There just isn't any room for it."
I inspect the garments. Under scrutiny they're of flawless quality, clean and remarkable. Each feels comfortable against the skin. The boots...well they're an awesome prize and look made for Talen and I, though a bit big for Angelaria. The glossy black color is perfect for work done in the dark; the insides are lined in the same material as the clothes. Two sets of buckles on the length of the boot can be used to tighten them along our calves for a snug fit.
"Let me see them," Angelaria says. "I'll take first watch and cast a spell that should identify the items if they're magical. If not...well...a waste of time but at least you won't be donning anything cursed."
I look over at Talen. He shrugs his shoulders and hands them over to Angelaria.
Talen makes our camp, laying out a blanket on the floor and putting out some old clothes in a roll for a makeshift pillow. We take off our wet cloaks and hang them from pegs on this side of the door; they should dry by morning. Then we remove our armor and slip under a blanket.
At first we both shiver. Soon, however, the warmth from our bodies heats our makeshift bed and I feel comfortable. Talen curls up next to me, and I try to keep my runny nose from disturbing him too much. I think I'm catching a cold, and it kind of puts a damper on any amorous activities we might have engaged in otherwise.
As my lids grow heavy, I watch Angelaria. She sets out a plain white cloth in front of her along with a bowl, which she then fills with dry grass. She set this aflame with an incantation, and the grass smolders, causing smoke to plume in thin drifts toward the ceiling. Next, she reaches within her pack and withdraws a sparkling diamond and plops it into the bowl with the fuming grass. I stare intently for a few minutes more but nothing else happens. She sits with her legs crossed and her eyes closed, letting the strange colored smoke drift like incense about her face.
At some point my eyes drift together, and I fall asleep.
My eyes don't bolt open again until I hear the screaming.
I shall post Chapter Nine next week. Thanks for reading! "The Nightshade's Apprentice" will be a free download on Thursday and Friday. Go get your copy from Amazon (links on my website)!