Chapter 4
Nothing untoward happened when Rylana pushed the front door open farther, so she risked stepping into the foyer.
There weren’t any lamps lit to illuminate the ancient slate floor tiles, and the blue glow wasn’t present in this part of the castle, so it was quite dark.
If not for her memories, her eyes would have struggled to identify the various shadows around the space.
A candelabra hung from above, little more than a dark shape near the high ceiling, and a few suits of bronze armor stood against the walls to decorate the circular space.
Supposedly, they were to warn away intruders as well.
Rylana remembered an uncle telling her and her brother that they could come to life to defend the castle if enemies tried to enter.
Just inside the threshold, she waited to see if the magical wards would activate, believing her an enemy.
Since she’d been gone so long, she wouldn’t be surprised if her father had reconfigured them—or gotten an entirely new security system.
The old gods knew she didn’t remember a system that caused the library to glow blue.
“I can sense magic,” Sylin said from the threshold. “Your family’s wards, I presume.”
“Probably.”
When nothing zapped Rylana, she ventured deeper into the foyer, passing the narrow side halls that led to the towers and pausing before a curving staircase that rose to the upper level and the ramparts.
To either side of the wide steps, orbs were mounted on the railing posts.
Rylana pressed her hand to one, something she’d done often as a child when friends from the neighborhood had come to visit.
Back then, the wards had been cued to obey her and let people in, but she expected the orb to ignore her.
Or to knock her across the room and onto her ass.
To her surprise, it warmed beneath her hand, just as it had in her youth. The doorway flashed once, silhouetting Sylin.
“Am I invited in?” she asked.
She’d probably had all manner of experience with wards, but every system could be different. The ones made here in Tranquility, usually by gnome wizards, often specialized in keeping the mischievous pixies out as well as larger intruders, and they could be finicky.
“If I am, you are,” Rylana said.
The eerie moan sounded again. The library was on the other side of the castle and its inner courtyard, but she had a feeling the noises were coming from there. What could Vormalt have possibly done? And to what? The books didn’t moan.
“Comforting,” Sylin said without moving.
“You can wait there if you want. Maybe a pointy-eared werewolf will come along to woo you.”
“I don’t know why I spend time with you.”
“Unlike others, I don’t mind that you’re an assassin, and I believe you when you say you’re not angling for the elven queen.”
Sylin’s grunt didn’t sound that grateful.
Rylana, now convinced that her father had left her in the security system’s magical memory, ventured out of the foyer and toward the great hall. She debated whether she should light some of the lamps along the way. Had Vormalt come in before night had fallen?
Sylin, her hand on the hilt of her knife and her eyes wary, followed her. Rylana kicked something on the floor and paused as the lightweight obstacle bumped away.
“A toy?” Her first thought was that there weren’t kids around, but she didn’t know if that was true.
During the coffee meeting with her father, he’d mentioned that her brother, Frodin, had married and had two children.
Though he’d also said Frodin lived in his own house in the city, working in the family office near the core of the shipping district.
Rylana plucked two portable lanterns from holders on the stone wall, found a match, and lit them.
“Ah,” she said as the small flame revealed a floppy velvet rope with numerous knots. “Dog toy.”
“It sounds like your father has a more robust relationship with his hounds than he has with you.” Sylin accepted one of the lanterns.
“That’s always been true.”
A gnomish dusting machine whirred past, capturing debris on the floor. It avoided the dog toy, perhaps regarding it as belonging there.
Rylana and Sylin navigated around the contraption and continued through the great hall, which opened to a study, staff living quarters, offices, and eventually the kitchen and dining rooms. On one side, windows overlooked the lawn and, on the other, the enclosed courtyard.
A square area in the center of the castle, it had raised garden beds, outdoor seating, decorative urns, and a small fountain.
Everything glistened with moisture from the rain, and the blue light beaming toward the sky reflected in puddles.
“The glow is definitely coming from the library.” Rylana waved toward a bank of windows that also overlooked the courtyard.
“We’re not there yet? This place is huge.”
“It’s in the back with the largest windows and a seating area facing the lake. My room is—was—above it.”
“You don’t think it’s there anymore?”
“I have no idea.”
“I doubt your father needed to clean it out to make space. Are you sure we haven’t passed the library already? What were those other rooms full of books?”
“Father’s study, his office, and the castle scriptorium.”
“Who has a scriptorium? I can’t believe I’ve always half-believed you when you claimed you didn’t grow up spoiled.”
“I should have left you on the threshold.” Rylana lifted her hand as they turned down a hall leading through the back of the castle, and another moan wafted toward them.
It sounded almost animalistic, or maybe like it came from an ogre or troll throat rather than one belonging to a human.
“That’s not Vormalt,” she decided again. “Unless he’s got a bad cold.”
The hall flowed into the spacious library with its tall windows overlooking the courtyard on one side and the backyard and lake on the other.
Thanks to the blue glow filling the space and beaming up toward the high ceiling—toward it and through it—every table, chair, bookcase, and polished marble floor tile was visible.
Another time, Rylana would have looked nostalgically around at what had always been her favorite place in the castle, an ideal spot to hide from her chores and homework assignments by burying herself in books of mystery and adventure.
But the ongoing moans and eerie blue light kept her focus toward finding Vormalt—and figuring out what was going on.
“The magic is most intense in here,” Sylin said.
“I guessed.”
“I assume this is not a part of the security system.”
“Not unless something went awry, like a wheel falling off Gniknik’s dish collector.” Rylana ventured into the center of the library. Was the beam strongest and maybe originating in that back corner? Behind the last aisle of bookcases?
“How often does that happen?”
“Something falls off one of his contraptions at least daily. I have a feeling he’s waiting tables because he doesn’t have the natural aptitude to get into the Gnomish Invention Academy.”
“That’s a prestigious school. They’ve heard of it even in the south. I doubt many get in.”
A cold draft whispered through the library, raising the hair on the back of Rylana’s neck.
She caught herself reaching for her bow before remembering she hadn’t brought it.
Maybe that had been a mistake. As Jildarin had once pointed out, even when it was tied with a tranquility ribbon, she could use it as a club.
“Not that clubs are useful against magic,” she muttered.
Sylin pulled out her knife and held up the blade.
“Are you volunteering to go first and stab the glow?”
“It’s hard to stab light, but I can go first.”
Despite the offer, Rylana continued to lead. She rested her hand on the hilt of her own knife as she stepped around the bookcase, and the back corner of the library came into view. The glow originated in the floor, appearing to flow straight up from the marble tiles.
“Is there a basement?” Sylin asked.
“There’s a root cellar, but it’s under the kitchen.”
“I don’t think roots are making that glow.”
“Parsnips can be pretty bright.”
As Rylana crept closer, her foot caught on something. Not a dog toy but a jagged crack in a tile.
She wouldn’t have thought much of it—the castle was centuries old—but the next tile was also damaged. Several of them were. And was that a sledgehammer leaning against the wall?
“I thought he was looking for a book, not to tear up the place,” Rylana said in exasperation.
No wonder Vormalt had wanted her father out of the castle for this sally forth into the library. And the butler. If he’d been around, he would have heard this.
It was only when she almost stood atop the source of the glow that Rylana could see through its brilliance to realize that one of the large square tiles had been removed, revealing a trapdoor in the subfloor.
It hung open on decorative bronze hinges that had been crafted to sit flush with their surroundings.
A dusty ladder led down into… into what?
“That’s not part of the root cellar,” she said.
Another chilly draft whispered past, floating up from below, and one of the throaty moans followed.
“You said you want to go first?” Rylana extended a hand downward in offering.
“Want to is not quite the applicable verb.” Sylin waved for her to step aside and started to sheathe her knife but opted for clenching it between her teeth instead. Thus armed, she set her lantern on the floor, crouched, and stepped onto the ladder. It creaked under even her slight weight.
Rylana hadn’t truly meant for Sylin to go ahead—this was her family’s home, after all—but with her instincts telling her that much was amiss, she couldn’t bring herself to hurry down first. She did follow, however, as soon as Sylin reached the bottom, stepping onto a rough floor carved from stone.
A tunnel about ten feet high and equally wide stretched in the direction of the courtyard.