17. Darkness
Darkness
Icrashed into something a lot harder and colder than the wooden wardrobe.
Again, it happened so fast, I didn’t manage to take a breath, or even comprehend I hadn’t crashed into the roof itself.
I managed to stay mostly upright, a miracle in itself, mostly because I had my hands out in front of me, and, even though it all seemed to happen in an instant, something about phasing must have slowed my momentum.
If it hadn’t, I still would have broken a few bones, if not my neck.
Yet another thing that hadn’t occurred to me until now.
If it had, I might have second-guessed the wisdom of falling from such a height, regardless of whether I phased or not. If I’d arrived here going the same speed as my fall, I would have died anyway, just as surely as if I’d landed on the arched roof.
Luckily, that didn’t happen.
It still took me almost a minute of standing there, panting and sweating, completely jacked up on adrenaline, gripping the stone wall in front of me tightly in my fingers, before I could move, or even make sense of where I was.
It might have been fear, too, that kept me upright.
Despite being alive, despite not smashing every bone in my body from the fall, I knew immediately that I wasn’t safe here, either.
Also, I’d been pretty sure I was going to die by the time I got close enough to the roof feel the heat rushing up from the stone, so at least some of my reaction was likely to be from that.
I wasn’t dead, I hadn’t wanted to be dead, but now I was in shock that I was somehow still alive.
I hadn’t expected to be alive. I didn’t yet quite understand how I was alive.
That stunned feeling mixed with whatever danger I felt instantly where I’d landed.
It blared like an alarm, rippling through my magic like a cold wind.
Death, near death, danger.
Danger. More danger. Still in danger.
Even with those feelings crashing together, that hard, desperate feeling from before still burned in my chest.
I had to find Bones.
It was the thought that finally got my mind moving again.
I could already sense I needed to move. I felt exposed, although I still had no idea where I was, and my eyes swam with spots as I fought to right my vision.
Despite that feeling of urgency, I remained where I was for a few seconds more, facing the stone wall where I’d been thrown.
I needed to be able to see before I could do anything.
I already knew I wasn’t back behind the wardrobe.
As my vision darkened and gradually sharpened, I looked carefully around.
This definitely wasn’t the crypt.
My hands still pressed flatly on the wall as I focused on the long, opulent corridor in front of me.
I was still breathing too hard, my heart thumping with adrenaline and shock.
My mind reoriented around the black and white tile, the dark stone walls, the paintings hanging every few feet along one side.
I stared at a portrait lit from below in the distance, and a suit of armor not far from where it hung.
Then I turned my head and stared in the other direction.
By then, my eyes had adjusted completely to the dim light.
I stood in a long hallway made up of black and white marble tile laid in a tessellated, chessboard pattern.
Everything about the corridor struck me as immediately familiar, although I struggled to locate it precisely for a few seconds longer, definitely longer than it would have taken if I hadn’t still been in shock.
I stared at the suit of armor a second time, then focused on the high-set wall sconces with flickering, magical, green and gold flames.
Two arched, stone-framed windows with colored glass pulled my eyes next. They aimed into a shady area of a courtyard garden, framing the dark lines of large oak trees. It was night now, but I remembered the corridor as always being dark, even in the daytime.
Now, the full moon gave it a tiny amount of illumination by the windows. The trees and stone walls kept out most of the light, but small pools of blue-tinted moonlight stuck hazily to the floor and illuminated dust particles in its path.
I knew this. I knew this place.
This wasn’t just some random part of the castle. It was familiar.
The adrenaline was dampening down in me now.
My stomach hurt from where it pooled in my lower abdomen.
That sick, heady feeling of alarm about Bones still made it difficult to think.
It also stretched time. What had probably only been a few seconds stretched into long-feeling minutes, a formless, lengthening pause that only worsened my panic.
You have to get to Bones. Now.
Before Malefic feels you here.
My exact location clicked.
Eye of Ra, how had I not recognized this place immediately?
I’d walked this same corridor more times than I could count, day and evening over those weeks of winter break I’d spent here with Varya Bones, particularly during the period while her son remained unconscious.
I was on the north side of the main castle structure.
This particular corridor connected the less formal sitting room to the main receiving hall, with a lot of doors in between, most of them locked.
It was also the fastest route to the largest of the three libraries I’d visited inside the Bones Estate.
I normally used it when I went between the kitchen and the library, or between the kitchen and––
My mind clicked on for real.
The crypt.
I wasn’t anywhere near the crypt this time.
What could that mean?
This corridor eventually led to one of the crypt’s entrances, but I wasn’t anywhere near that stone staircase now, nor the iron and wood door at the lower floor.
I wasn’t near the foyer mirror, either. The crypt was two floors down, and the public-facing portion of that level was a good eight minute walk from where I now stood.
Why here? If Alaric was right, the phasing mechanism should have dropped me as close to Bones as I could safely get.
It hit me then, the reality of what happened earlier that day.
I hadn’t gotten out of here clean the first time.
I’d been seen.
That guard saw me through the crack between the wardrobe and the wall.
He would have reported to Malefic by now.
Could they have changed access to the lower floors so quickly? All of that happened only a few hours ago. Would Malefic really be so spooked by the idea of someone breaking in that he’d stop everything to lock down every floor below the ground floor?
It struck me as likely.
He wouldn’t want to risk anyone getting close to Bones. As far away and as trapped as I’d felt, I imagine it was still too close for Malefic.
The thought that this might actually be as close as I could get made me want to scream. Maybe I was standing two very deep floors directly over him, and this was the best the phasing part of my magic could do.
The thought made me want to scream again.
That’s when I heard the voices.
I turned sharply to my left.
The sound drifted lazily through the air from that same direction, down the longest segment of high, stone walls from where I stood.
“Has a date been set, then?” a voice murmured, echoing towards me on the stone. “Already? I thought there would be some discussion about…”
The last part faded.
I continued to stand there like a rabbit in headlights, unmoving for the barest breath.
Thank the gods, in that breath I still couldn’t see them. They hadn’t yet rounded enough of the gradual curve of stone to be visible to my eyes, or I to theirs.
The instant that realization hit, I moved.
I threw up a magical shield and tightened it around me, and especially around the sun primal and my aura.
My feet never stopped moving as I worked, venturing deeper down the hall.
Once I had my aura and primal completely locked down from view, I ignited the magic around my sun primal, and sent out a command to snuff out my reflected monocerus primal.
It dissipated in a whisper of gold and blue particles.
I never stopped walking in the opposite direction of the voices.
My eyes darted over every inch of the stone walls as I silenced my steps and breath with a quick mudra. Luckily, I had some idea what I was looking for now.
For the same reason, I found it quickly.
The deeply shadowed, narrow alcove cut into a segment of the outside wall. Located on my right, it was just a little ways before the suit of armor and roughly fifteen yards from the next sharp turn, where the massive, illuminated portrait of Malefic lived.
That portrait had always made me uneasy.
Part of it was just how realistic and true-to-likeness it was, but I’d wondered if it had been magicked in some way, too. It always seemed to be actually staring at me. I’d even wondered if a linking spell meant Malefic could see me, even from the Pyramid Gaol.
Whether the painting could see me or not, I hated it.
I darted towards the portrait now anyway, unable to see a good alternative.
I reached the crevice, which I’d speculated used to house an artwork of some kind, maybe even a small shrine, and threw myself into the opening.
There was nowhere else to go.
The main receiving hall was just past the curve where Malefic’s portrait lived. There could be a lot more Magicals inside, and even if it was empty, I could be seen from outside through one of the many windows.
I’d have to cross the entire hall to get to anyplace else. Even if I could outrun whoever was coming towards me, it struck me as suicide to risk that.
No, the alcove was better. I receded as deep into the cold, clammy darkness as I could, cramming myself against the far wall.
I would wait until they passed, and hope no one picked up on any trace of my magic or presence.
While I stood there, slightly claustrophobic from the narrow space, my head tilted upwards as I rested it on the stone wall behind me, I silently mouthed a few more casts to reinforce the shields I’d put up around my magic.
Meanwhile, a second, deeper voice grew audible.
“––I was last told it could happen as soon as tonight,” the voice finished.
“Tonight?” the first one asked, startled.
His higher voice echoed louder.