Chapter 6 #2
“Do some of the staff have orders to keep lanterns burning down here?” Fel pointed at the light.
“No. There are some other tunnels above these that the family uses to get around when they don’t want to be seen—”
“—or to foolishly go places without their bodyguards,” Fel grumbled in a tone that suggested that had happened during his time working with Nyvia.
“Yes. Those are more often used, but, even then, nobody leaves lanterns burning all the time. Someone is down here.”
“Right.”
“The hidden chamber is that way.” Syla pointed toward one of the tunnels that disappeared around a bend, and Fel took the lead again.
He paused when they heard a distant clink. The metal of a sword or other weapon hitting one of the stone walls? Syla didn’t know, but it was so quiet underground that any noise stood out. It had seemed to come from the direction they were going.
Probably thinking the same, Fel loaded a quarrel in his crossbow before continuing on, the tunnel sloping downward after the bend, taking them deeper into the bluff under the castle.
They were, Syla was fairly certain, heading away from the harbor and the sea.
One of the tunnels at the intersection they’d passed led to an underground lagoon that always had a boat in it, one seaworthy enough for the royal family to escape in if need be.
On the way back, she would look to see if the boat had been taken, if anyone had slipped away.
Fortunately, there weren’t many places one could turn, so the tunnels weren’t a confusing maze.
Had they been, Syla would have struggled to remember the way since it had been years since her parents had shown her these passages.
As it was, she could easily have missed the hidden entrance that led to the shielder.
The stone door matched the tunnel wall and was set dozens of yards before the passageway ended at an ancient catacomb from a time when burials had been more common than the current day’s funeral pyres.
But… the door to the hidden tunnel stood open. And lights burned in that direction.
Syla stared, a feeling of ominous foreboding filling her.
Maybe it was silly since she’d logically known someone had been down here, sabotaging the shielder, but seeing the evidence was still unnerving.
Thoughts that the magic of the device had simply failed after so many centuries departed her mind.
“Whoever did it may still be down here.” Fel stepped through the doorway but didn’t yet continue on, instead regarding her grimly over his shoulder.
“Are you thinking again about how I’m a pain in the ass?”
“No, that I wish more of the bodyguard contingent were here so I could have someone watch you in a safe spot while I investigate.”
“Oh, I see. Does that mean your knee is feeling better?” Syla smiled but lamented that he considered her to be in the way, or at least a burden that was keeping him from a greater duty.
“It’s feeling dreadful, but other concerns are distracting me.”
She touched her chest and raised her eyebrows.
“Exactly. Stay close.”
Shoulders set, Fel continued forward.
She glanced toward the end of the passageway, the catacomb that they hadn’t yet checked, again having that feeling of being watched, but what could she do? Check it out on her own? No, thank you. She hurried to catch up with Fel and his mace and crossbow.
“There’s another catacomb at the end of this passage,” she said, “and the shielder is—or should be—mounted in the center, placed close to protect the tombs of the first kings and queens of the kingdom.”
Fel nodded without glancing back, his attention remaining forward.
“Also, it would have taken someone with a moon-mark to open that door.” Syla tilted her thumb over her shoulder, wondering if he’d seen her open the entrance under the stage.
“I figured there had to have been an insider involved,” he said.
“A, uhm, very insider. There are only a few people who have moon-marks and also know about these tunnels.” Her direct family members, essentially.
She doubted even a close relation, like Aunt Tibby, who’d worked around the capital her whole life, and had visited the castle countless times, had been given the family secrets.
Fel only nodded again.
After another two dozen silent steps, they entered a circular chamber, a single lantern burning near the closest sarcophagus.
It was one of twelve, the stone burial places curved to fit along the walls, elaborate statues and chiseled tablets adorning each tomb.
The sarcophagi created numerous nooks where people might hide, but Syla’s gaze was drawn to a woman’s legs sticking out from behind the thirteenth sarcophagus, the only one in the center of the chamber.
A pale blue dress was tangled around those legs, blood spattering the fabric and floor around.
Whoever it was had to be dead, and Syla rested her hand on the wall for support while mentally bracing herself for the identification.
Her middle sister, Venia, favored dresses over the trousers that their warrior-trained sister, Nyvia, liked.
Even though Syla hadn’t spent a lot of time studying Venia’s legs, her gut churned with a certainty that she couldn’t logically have yet.
The memory of Venia, seven years her elder, trying to teach her how to properly drink sageberry tea while testing her on the geography of the kingdom came to mind, a day that had stuck with Syla because it had been the first that she’d memorized everything sufficiently enough to satisfy her demanding sister.
Venia had rewarded her with candied walnuts from Orchard Island.
Syla rubbed her face, pushing away the memory and reminding herself that she couldn’t be distracted, not here. They weren’t alone.
Fel had to have seen the body, but he hadn’t yet moved.
His gaze was roving around the sarcophagi—doubtless checking the nooks, though they wouldn’t be able to see into all the shadowy corners until they walked toward the center of the chamber.
His instincts had to be telling him that danger lurked, and Syla didn’t doubt that it did.
The sensation of being watched wouldn’t go away.
Beyond the central sarcophagus and the body was the shielder.
Sitting within its mount, the eight-foot silver orb represented the moon, including the two craters that people called eyes.
Comprised of silver branches, the top and bottom of the mount stretched upward and downward, disappearing into the floor and ceiling.
Supposedly, those branches not only supported the orb but were conduits for its magic, sending its power out to protect the island from all sides.
But the shielder was far different from when Syla had seen it before.
The two other times she’d visited, the whole contraption had glowed silver, the orb itself emitting moon-like light.
Now, it not only lay dark, but a jagged hole had been created on one side, baring its core, a tangle of angular and tube-like innards that Syla couldn’t begin to make anything of. They looked more machine than magic.
“Stay here.” After glancing down the tunnel behind them, Fel moved to the left. He walked slowly around the chamber to check the nooks around each sarcophagus and ensure nobody crouched among them.
Syla couldn’t obey. Drawn by a need to identify the body and look more closely at the orb, she set her pack on the ground and let her feet pull her forward.
She did glance toward the sarcophagi she passed, also checking for intruders, but she didn’t see anyone crouching in the shadows.
With the foul sabotage done, whoever had been responsible might have left hours ago.
She had to see the body even as she dreaded seeing it. For support, she rested a hand on the cold stone lid that covered the central sarcophagus, that which contained the remains of the first queen of the Garden Kingdom, a half-god, if the legends could be believed.
The woman on the floor—dear departed gods, it was Venia—lay on her back with her eyes open, her blonde hair arrayed wildly around her head like a dandelion gone to seed.
The top half of her dress was unbuttoned, as if she’d come down here for a tryst rather than a betrayal.
A gargoyle-bone-bladed dagger was thrust into her heart, though she was cut in other places, too, as if there had been a fight first. There weren’t any other weapons visible, however, only the dagger that had ended her life.
A rider weapon. The magic infused in gargoyle bones made them stronger than steel.
Syla closed her sister’s eyes, tears springing to her own at the coldness of Venia’s body.
Lamenting that her sister would have to lie here on the stone floor a while longer, until a semblance of order could be restored, Syla wished she had a blanket with which to cover her.
For now, all she could do was whisper one of the prayers for the dead, requesting a peaceful afterlife for Venia, protected by Venia’s chosen deity, the sun god.
After that, Syla wiped her eyes and made herself look away and examine the shielder more closely, especially the dark hole in the side. Had the gargoyle-bone dagger also been the weapon that had damaged the orb?
The magic of the shielders, the artifacts crafted by the gods themselves, supposedly made them strong.
Very strong. Legends spoke of arrows glancing off instead of penetrating.
But… they weren’t completely impervious, otherwise they could be on display on the various islands, not hidden away, their locations carefully guarded secrets.
Syla crept closer to the orb and lifted a hand.
When she’d been guided down here by her parents, she hadn’t presumed to touch the device, but maybe her magic could tell her…
something helpful. Something hopeful. That the shielder wasn’t completely destroyed and could be fixed.
It looked utterly dead, with no hint of light, heat, or magical energy coming from it, but maybe…
“You’re again not in the spot where I told you to stay,” Fel said.
A sarcastic retort came to mind, but Syla couldn’t summon the energy for it, not with her sister dead three feet away. She could only shake her head grimly as Fel joined her, and rest her hand on the unbroken side of the orb.
He watched her warily, as if afraid magical energy would hurl them across the chamber, but he didn’t try to stop her. If anything, his eyebrows rose with the faintest of hope.
The orb was cool against Syla’s palm, the texture grittier than she would have guessed, and she willed her magic to enter it, as if this were a patient with a broken bone she might repair.
The moon-mark on her hand glowed, as if the magic would obediently do as she wished, but it didn’t leave her body and flow into the orb the way it did when she healed people and animals.
For good or ill, the shielder was neither.
Nonetheless, she closed her eyes and attempted to sense what her eyes couldn’t see, as she did when she looked with her mind into the bodies of injured people.
Was there anything inside that she might be capable of repairing?
Or was there any hint of magic remaining?
When she’d visited the chamber before, she’d been able to feel the shielder’s power from across the room.
No, even sooner than that. She’d sensed it as soon as that hidden doorway had opened.
But now…
“Nothing,” she murmured.
“It’s completely destroyed?” Fel guessed.
“I…” As she withdrew her senses, pulling her magic back into her body, the faintest of sensations brushed against her awareness.
Like a tiny hint of plant growth on a prairie that had been swept by wildfire.
For a brief moment, she sensed magic. Power.
Something alive. But when she tried to examine it more closely, it retreated.
Had she imagined it? Or was she simply not attuned to this kind of power? “I’m not sure. We need an expert.”
“Are there experts on the shielders? The legends don’t suggest they break or need any kind of maintenance.”
“I don’t think they do, but there’s Aunt Tibby.”
“The tractor engineer.”
“She’s moon-marked.”
“I’m sure the tractors like divine attention.”
Before Syla could retort, stone scraped nearby, startling her.
She sprang back from the orb as Fel whirled toward the central sarcophagus scant feet away. The lid crashed to the stone floor, and a warrior wielding a gargoyle-bone sword leaped out of the interior. A stormer warrior.
Raising the blade, the man leaped straight toward Syla.