Chapter 18 #2
The house’s interior was even larger than it seemed from the outside, and it was fully furnished, also, with a kitchen, a dining table, and a cozy seating area.
At first glance, the layout almost reminded Raye of her own cottage, if it had been multiple times larger, and how had Kalfr ended up here? What was he doing here?
“Have you lived here long?” Raye asked him, her voice harsh. And though Kalfr’s lean body instantly angled toward her, his glinting eyes gazed beyond her, holding to the wall over her shoulder.
“No,” he replied, with a cool, empty smile. “Only a few moons.”
A compulsive quiver wrenched up Raye’s spine, while beside her, Gaelfr shifted, and settled his hand against her back. “You ought not to be here alone,” he told Kalfr, his gaze steady and unflinching on his face. “This is not safe.”
That refrain sounded excessively familiar, enough that Raye slightly sagged into Gaelfr’s touch. And if Kalfr had been anyone else, she might have been tempted to meet his eyes, or even to smile. To ask, So he does this to you, too?
But Kalfr’s eyes were still carefully blank, and that might have been a low growl, rumbling from his throat. “You ken I am not safe here alone?” he asked, with biting politeness. “Then tell me, where have you been all these moons, Gael?”
Raye didn’t miss Gaelfr’s twitch beside her, or the spasm of his hand on her back. “I went away,” he hissed, “as you wished me to do.”
Kalfr scoffed, his eyes suddenly blazing on Gaelfr’s face. “As I wished?” he echoed. “What about any of this was what I wished?!”
His voice was harsh and seething, and his eyes swept back toward Raye.
Holding hers with sudden, staggering intensity, glittering with more pure, ravenous hatred.
And Raye could only stare back, frozen, while flares of ice and heat charged up her spine, and deep down into her belly.
And suddenly she wanted to yell at him, to rush at him, to — to —
But then Kalfr’s eyes wrenched away, and back down to Svein.
Who was standing close beside him, watching with wide, worried eyes.
And Kalfr’s chest shuddered as he inhaled, his eyes briefly closing, his head tipping back.
As if he was sending up a silent, fervent prayer to his goddess, begging for peace, for control.
“You must all come, and see the rest of my home,” he said, his voice flat and formal. “Svein, mayhap you can scent the way to the underground tunnel for us?”
Svein’s eyes brightened, and soon he was scampering around the large room, sniffing at furniture and corners.
While Raye dragged in deep breaths, and desperately fought to focus her floundering attention on Svein, and on taking a closer look at the house around them.
Despite the stone-walled interior, it was surprisingly bright, thanks to the multiple large windows, all framed with heavy wooden shutters that were pinned open on the inside.
The kitchen area was well-outfitted, with a large, polished stone counter, a fireplace with a steel grate, and what appeared to be a small stone oven tucked above it.
Beside the kitchen was a dining area, with a long wooden table and benches, and nearby, several cozy cushioned chairs and a sofa were clustered around a second, even larger fireplace, nearly as tall as Svein.
And though the house seemed to be mostly the one room, Raye could see a small second room, tucked there at the opposite end, while above them, there was an open loft, framed by large windows at each end.
“I can’t find the tunnel!” came Svein’s plaintive voice from across the room. “Papa, I can’t find it!”
Raye twitched toward Svein, because she knew that tone in his voice all too well — he was overtired, overstimulated, and in rapidly increasing need of some quiet time, if not an actual nap.
But before she could reach him, Kalfr strode over and knelt before him, clasping both his shoulders, and flashing him a swift, reassuring smile.
“This is only because the tunnel is very well hidden, enough to fool even most full-grown orcs,” he said lightly. “And I did not even give you a hint! I would look for aught like a… hole, mayhap.”
He betrayed a purposeful look sideways, toward the tall fireplace by the sitting area.
And once Svein had drifted over toward it, he sniffed hopefully at the arch of rounded stone, and — after glancing down at the wide, swept-clean hearth beneath — he stepped carefully inside the fireplace, frowning toward the left.
“It’s here!” he exclaimed, with a relieved smile back toward them. “It’s not a fireplace at all! It’s a door!”
Raye blinked, but when she and Gaelfr went to look, Svein proved to be correct.
The fireplace appeared fully operational, with a sturdy stone chimney, and a steel brazier where fires would be lit.
But once you ducked inside, there was an open stone door to the left, and a staircase leading down into darkness.
“It is a working fireplace, also,” Kalfr told Svein. “So if we ever need to hide the tunnel, we only need to light a roaring fire, ach? But most days, we would only light the fire here in this steel hearth, and draw out this barrier. Can you pull here?”
He tapped a stone at the back of the fireplace, where there appeared to be a small handhold — and when Svein tugged it, a stone divider drew out from the wall, separating the fireplace from the tunnel’s entrance.
Transforming the fireplace into a normal-sized one instead, with a narrow door to the tunnel beside it.
“Wow!” Svein exclaimed, sliding the divider back into the wall, and out again. “It’s like magic, Papa!”
Kalfr smiled and nodded, while more questions churned through Raye’s thoughts. This apparatus couldn’t have been easy to build, and had Kalfr built it himself? And why had he felt the need to hide his tunnel to begin with?
But Kalfr wasn’t offering any answers, and he waved Svein forward, toward the tunnel. “Now, can you scent the way down, son?” he asked. “Lead, and we shall follow.”
Svein rapidly nodded, beaming up toward Kalfr’s face before scampering down the stairs.
And at Gaelfr’s nudging, Raye followed him down into the shadowy stone stairwell, while the questions and unease kept swirling, jangling higher and sharper with every step.
What was this place? Why did Kalfr live here?
And how much did he hate her, what would he do next, she was doing this for Svein…
An unlit iron lamp hung on the wall near the bottom of the stairs, and Gaelfr picked it up and lit it with a flick of his claws, illuminating the underground room around them.
It was again surprisingly large and open, perhaps as big as the main room above, but with several more arched doorways cut into the stone walls, leading off into darkness.
Raye followed Svein and Kalfr toward the nearest doorway, and found that there were more tunnels behind it, leading to an impressively stocked storeroom and root cellar, and even a latrine.
Beyond that, there were multiple small, cozy rooms, lining both sides of a long, curving corridor, apparently leading to a hidden exit out into the garden.
And while some of the rooms were empty, some were furnished with beds and shelves and washbasins, and all of them had sturdy oaken doors, embedded into the surrounding stone walls.
As if Kalfr expected guests, or as if this was some kind of elaborate inn?
Beside Raye, Gaelfr looked nonplussed too, frowning around at the rooms with his nostrils flaring.
“What is all this for?” he demanded toward Kalfr, who was still up ahead with Svein.
“And does this” — he jabbed his claw further up the corridor, to where it twisted off into the darkness — “head toward the mountain?”
Kalfr nodded, but didn’t elaborate. And Raye exchanged a speaking glance with Gaelfr, seeing her own confusion and disbelief in his eyes. What was this place? Were the beds related to it being an outpost, like Gaelfr had said? But they didn’t look like military barracks, did they?
“Do you sleep here, Papa?” Svein asked Kalfr, once they’d headed back down the tunnel again, and he’d stopped at one of the bedrooms, near to the larger main room.
This bedroom looked indistinguishable from all the rest, with a simple bed and a single fur, but Svein jumped onto the bed, flopping onto the fur. “I can smell you here!”
Kalfr smiled and nodded, and Svein burrowed closer onto the fur, inhaling deep. “It’s nice,” he said, with a sigh, and a flutter of his eyes. “Do you want to smell, Mama?”
Raye blinked, her face inexplicably heating — but she took a breath, and squared her shoulders. “Of course, love,” she said thickly, as she went over to the bed, and sank down onto it beside Svein. “It is very comfortable. A good place for a little rest, I think.”
Svein nodded and yawned, flopping his arm over Raye’s waist, and snuggling into her side. “I think so too,” he mumbled, with another yawn. “We’ll stay, won’t we, Mama?”
We’ll stay. Raye couldn’t find an answer to that, but perhaps she didn’t need to, because Svein was already growing heavier against her, his breaths deepening into the fur.
And when she shot a look at Kalfr and Gaelfr, both still standing by the open door, Kalfr was staring at them with something she couldn’t read in his eyes, while Gaelfr nodded, and nudged Kalfr out of the room.
It didn’t take long for Svein to fully fall asleep, his body sprawled against the fur, his breaths deep and even. And Raye watched him for a long moment in the faint light from Gaelfr’s lamp beyond the door, and she drank up the sight of his sweet sleeping face, the lingering smile on his mouth.
He’d been so happy today. He’d loved this trip. He’d loved meeting Kalfr, and exploring his home with him. And no matter what happened next, Raye could keep doing this, for Svein. For a few more days.
She perhaps should have stayed there with Svein, either dozing too, or making sure he didn’t sleep for too long, and thereby ruin his night’s sleep.
But she could still see Gaelfr’s lamplight just outside the door, as if he was waiting for her.
As if he didn’t want to leave her behind, perhaps, or alone without a light in the dark.
So Raye carefully extracted herself from Svein, and quietly slipped out the door. Where she found not only Gaelfr, but Kalfr too, both of them standing there unmoving outside the room, and intently looking away from each other.
“He’s asleep,” she told them, unnecessarily, because surely they could both smell it.
And though Kalfr didn’t look at her, Gaelfr nodded, and quietly shut the door of Svein’s room.
And then, waving Raye and Kalfr after him, he strode the short distance back into the large main room, where he hung his lamp from a metal bracket on the wall.
“Good,” he said flatly, once Raye and Kalfr had followed him back into the room. “Now, we shall finally gain some answers.”
And with that, he spun toward Kalfr, and — charged.