Book 3: Chapter Twenty-Five

Ellerie shined her lantern over the fallen stone and dirt. “This one’s blocked too,” she said with a sigh.

It was the third tunnel they’d found leading away from the southern area of the city to what they expected would be another section on the east side of the mountain, but just like the first two, it was blocked by a cave-in.

Boktar rapped on the tunnel wall, then shouted and listened for the echoes. “This one’s man-made, so it sounds different, but I don’t think there’s any point in trying to dig it out. It feels like the collapsed section goes on for quite a distance. If we try to move any of it, I suspect more will fall.”

“Let’s go back then, and see if we can find another way,” Ellerie said. “Bobo, were there any other routes that would get us to the eastern side?”

“Not that I remember, but we haven’t explored any of the tunnels on the upper colonnade levels. Some of those might bypass the cave-in.”

“I don’t want to go back to the colonnades today. Let’s stay on the southern side for now, and we can try that tomorrow.”

“Maybe I can see the colonnades on my next trip,” Boktar said.

“Why not tomorrow?” Ellerie asked. He’d said he planned to give the mules and drivers a two-day break before leaving again.

“The wagons need work, especially our two,” he replied as they returned the way they’d come. “Nothing too serious, but I do want to replace an axle with one of the ones we took from the wagon we disassembled. It’ll all take some time.”

Ellerie grimaced. She was depending too much on Boktar again, like she always did, but he was the best choice for leading the drivers back to Livadi. Maybe after they had the routine down, Josip could handle the trips on his own.

It was a quarter of a mile back to the chamber where the tunnel began. Four other corridors led away from there.

“This one, right?” Corec asked, checking the chalk marks Bobo had left.

“That’ll get us back to the southern junction room, if that’s where we’re going,” Bobo said. That was what they’d named the chamber they’d found directly south of the central junction. It had a dozen tunnels leading to all corners of the southern portion of the city.

“Where do the others go?” Boktar asked.

Ellerie said, “The one to the south leads down to part of the aqueduct system. I don’t know what it was used for, but there were dozens of rectangular ponds carved into the stone. There must be an underground river or lake feeding into them.” She suppressed a shiver. That immense, dark cavern with the sound of dripping water had been more eerie than any other part of the ruins. “North was … I’m not sure what it was, but we didn’t find anything interesting there.”

Boktar pointed to the last tunnel in the room. It led west, like the tunnel Corec had indicated. “What about that one?”

“We haven’t gone that way yet,” Bobo said. He held his map up in front of his lantern. “Although, that might take us back to tunnel five in the southern junction room.” They’d numbered all the tunnels at the junction to help keep track of which ones they’d followed. “Should we try it, so we can cross that one off our list? If it doesn’t go back, we can return here and take tunnel four instead.”

“We might as well,” Ellerie said.

It didn’t take long to discover that the new tunnel wasn’t leading them back to the junction. It sloped downward instead. Soon, they were in a new chamber they hadn’t seen before. It reminded Ellerie of the junction room, but it was smaller and only had eight tunnels leading out instead of a dozen.

Treya spun in a slow circle to take it all in. “Where are we? Why haven’t we seen this spot before?”

“And how far down did we go?” Ellerie asked. “Where’s the southern junction?”

“We’re just below it,” Leena said.

“We’re on a new level, then?” Bobo asked. “Seven more tunnels. The one to the north looks interesting.”

The only tunnel along the northern wall was larger than the rest, twenty feet wide, with an ornate stone arch at the entrance.

Ellerie glanced around at her companions, but it was still early in the afternoon and it was clear that everyone wanted to continue. Even Nedley’s smile had returned. He’d been excited about his first chance to visit the ruins, but had grown discouraged when they hadn’t found anything interesting all morning.

“Let’s go, then,” Ellerie said.

Corec took the lead again and headed into the north tunnel, the rest of the group following behind. At regular intervals, they passed alcoves along the right wall and rusted metal doors on the left.

Boktar stopped at one of the doors. “Should we try to open it?” he asked.

“Try this one instead,” Corec called out from up ahead. “It’s in better shape.”

They joined him, Boktar using his hammer to pound off the worst patches of rust sealing the door shut. When he pulled it open, it made a horrible screeching noise.

Inside, they found a tiny room piled high with rusted metal and other detritus.

Bobo poked through the mess with his cudgel. “Is that wood?” he asked. There were pieces left that hadn’t completely rotted away yet.

Ellerie said, “We found the remains of wooden furniture back in Tir Navis, too. It must have stayed drier down here.”

Bobo nodded. “Unfortunately, there’s not enough left to say what any of it was.” He marked a note on his copy of the map.

They tried three more of the doors before Ellerie put a stop to it. Some of the rooms were larger, and sometimes there were several grouped together, but none held anything particularly interesting.

“We can come back to the rest of these later,” she said. “This corridor is obviously going somewhere. Let’s follow it and see where it takes us.”

Soon, the tunnel, which had continued almost directly north according to Ellerie’s compass, turned abruptly to the northwest. It remained just as wide, but several ranks of four-foot-tall metal walls had been placed along either side, leaving a narrower walkway in between.

“I think those are shields,” Boktar said. “Like a small defensive wall.”

Corec nodded. “Archers or pikemen could stand behind them and hold off advancing troops.”

“All the way down here?” Ellerie asked. “Who’d be attacking them here?”

Corec examined the nearest of the barriers. “They’re curved to deflect arrows and spears, and the curve is facing the way we came in, from the city, but they look like they’re permanently fixed in place, not portable. They might just be the Ancients’ version of the defenses you’d see around a king’s palace.”

Bobo said, “Or it’s like a fortress. You build it, then a village grows up around it. You build a wall around the village, but then the village becomes a town and grows beyond the wall again.”

“So we’re heading toward the fortress?” Ellerie said. “Or the palace?”

“We’re just guessing,” Bobo said, “but it seems logical.”

“Is that a light up ahead?” Treya asked.

Ellerie followed her gaze and saw a faint blue glow outlining the corridor. Nobody needed any prompting to continue on.

Beyond the last of the metal barriers, the tunnel opened out into a larger area. Corec summoned mage lights overhead to make the chamber easier to see. It was roughly in the shape of a diamond, and spacious but not nearly as large as the colonnades—perhaps forty yards across at its widest point. The tunnel had brought them to the southern tip of the room, and there was another tunnel leading away from the eastern tip. Three doorways lined the wall in between the two tunnels, though one of the metal doors had, at some point, fallen off its hinges and now lay on the ground.

The western side of the room was misshapen, appearing as if the stone of the walls had melted and flowed into distorted shapes before becoming solid again. It was similar to the blocked tunnel they’d encountered at the central junction room. Was this where that tunnel had led? There were two doors along the southwest wall before the melted section began, but the one closest to it was hanging open, a crack down its middle.

Blocking the view to the north was a wide basin holding a ten-foot-tall metal sphere. The metal gleamed, reflecting the mage lights.

“What do you suppose it was?” Bobo asked.

“A sculpture?” Ellerie suggested. “It’s perfectly round. How did they make it without any seams?”

“Not quite round,” Corec said, craning his neck up. “There’s something at the top. A flat section, or maybe an opening?”

Before they could look more closely, they heard Nedley’s excited shout. “I found the lights!”

They followed his voice around the orb to find him standing by seven more of the animal statues, this time constructed from marble rather than metal. This group wasn’t mounted on pillars, but even standing on their own, the statues were over eight feet tall. A blue light shone from the ground in front of each one, illuminating it. Like the statues outside the cave, they were arranged in two rows facing each other, with the fox statue facing an empty spot at the far end.

“Those are mage lights,” Ellerie said. “They must have made them permanent somehow.”

“Hildra said the Chosar and the first peoples could create permanent enchantments,” Corec mentioned.

“But which of the two groups lived here, and how were they related?” Bobo asked. “I always thought of the Tirs as belonging to the first peoples, which might or might not include the Chosar. But you said she called them Chosar cities?”

“She said the Chosar drove the other tribes out of the Tirs.”

Bobo shook his head and sighed. “I’ve never read anything like that. What I would have given to have seen her library. It’s a pity it was lost.”

Ellerie followed the pathway lined by the statues to the northern tip of the chamber, where she found a set of ornate double doors more than twice her height. They were made from wood, but showed no sign of rot or disrepair. There was a small metal plate affixed to the stone wall left of the doors. It looked like a plaque but there was nothing written on it.

The group gathered around her as she tried the vertical metal handle on the left door. It didn’t budge, so she tried the right side, with the same result.

Muttering, she stepped back and waved toward the door. “Could one of you … ?”

Corec and Boktar didn’t have any better luck, even when they both pulled at the same time.

“It’s not moving at all,” Corec said. “There must be something holding it closed.”

“Do you want to get an axe from camp and break it down?” Boktar asked.

“Wait,” Ellerie said, and cast her arcane sight spell. A white haze descended over her vision, but in front of her, the door lit up with an intricate defensive warding.

She turned to tell the others but stopped in surprise. The blue mage lights near the statues glowed to her sight, as she’d expected, but so did the massive sphere. Its entire surface was lined by an enchantment more complex than she’d ever seen before.

Stolen novel; please report.

She banished the arcane sight spell and her vision returned to normal. “The door is warded,” she said. “I don’t think we’ll be able to open it. And the orb is enchanted.”

“To do what?” Bobo asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe Hildra could tell us,” Corec said. “She said she has a knack for enchantments, and she wanted to see this place if we found anything.”

Ellerie shrugged uncomfortably. “I don’t want to bring anyone else in right now.”

“I meant that we could tell her about it on our way back, and ask her to send us a letter if she learns anything.”

“I suppose that would be all right. People are going to show up here as soon as Varsin puts the word out—I guess it’s better if it’s someone we know. But let’s make sure we learn everything we can before we leave. I want to make sure our book is the first.”

“Can you get us through the door?” Boktar asked her.

“I have a banishing spell, but warding spells can be tricky, especially if you don’t know what they’re warding against. If it’s warded against spells, it’ll be dangerous to even try, and if it’s lasted this long, I don’t want to risk it unless there isn’t any other choice. Maybe we can get around it through one of these other doors or that tunnel.”

“We’ve still got a few hours before we need to head back,” Corec said. “How about you take the doors and I take the tunnel?”

#

“More cots,” Corec said. The rusted furniture had mostly collapsed, but it was apparent enough what it had once been. “That’s ten of these rooms so far, two dozen cots per room. This is a barracks.”

“For an army?” Treya asked.

“Yes, for new recruits or maybe for young soldiers who didn’t have a family yet. Older soldiers and officers were probably housed elsewhere in the city.”

“We’ve skipped more doors than we checked,” Bobo said. “That’s a lot of recruits for an army.”

“How big was the kingdom?” Corec asked. “Not the city, but the rest of it?”

“We don’t really know. We don’t even know if it’s all one kingdom or separate kingdoms or an empire that spanned all of them. Each Tir was a city-state, like Tyrsall once was, or like Circle Bay is now. I imagine the surrounding lands looked to the nearest Tir for governance. If Aencyr was the next closest Tir, then I suppose Tir Yadar must have been quite large. Bigger than Tyrsall, perhaps.”

“Big enough to support an army the size of Larso’s, then. Tir Yadar could have been where they trained the recruits and housed most of the soldiers. Those smaller rooms have got to be bathing chambers, and the empty rooms we found before we reached the barracks could have been used for training. Practice yards and the like.”

“Why is there so much more furniture left down here than up above?” Treya asked.

Bobo said, “Maybe what was here wasn’t worth hauling away, or maybe they just preferred wooden furniture up in the colonnade sections. There was a lot more dust up there; it might have simply all rotted away.”

“Or it could have been more deliberate than that,” Corec said. “What was up above belonged to the people. These cots belonged to the army, the government. Maybe everything on this level did. Perhaps the army wasn’t able to take everything with them when they left.”

“Suggesting they had to leave in a hurry.”

“Or that there wasn’t much of a government left to tell them what to do.”

“We don’t have anything to indicate that.”

Corec thought back to his conversation with Hildra. “Every kingdom falls eventually. If the people left because the land grew barren, that means there were no crops. Not nearby, at least. You know how difficult it was just to get our small group out here. I doubt any government that could survive that.”

“True, true. It’s not so much the distance—many of Matagor’s crops come from the free lands, which are farther away—but the difficulty in transporting them when there’s nothing for the animals to graze on. But if that’s the case, how did they haul everything else away?”

“The river?” Corec suggested.

“Or maybe the process was gradual,” Treya said.

Bobo said, “I don’t know if we’re finding more answers or more questions.”

The eastern tunnel Corec had volunteered to explore hadn’t been a tunnel at all but an entire complex, with corridors leading off to both the north and south. He, Treya, and Bobo were exploring the northern part, but hadn’t found any route back to the west. Each of the corridors they’d attempted had led them two hundred yards north before coming to an abrupt end.

They returned to the main tunnel and went farther east, but before they could find another corridor leading north, the light from the lanterns illuminated a mountain of rubble blocking the way.

“The cave-in,” Bobo said. “It’s got to be the same one as above.” He held his lantern above his head and peered up. “It broke through the ceiling—or, I suppose, the floor above us—and then stopped here. I don’t see a way through.”

“Let’s head back, then,” Corec said. “We’ll have to tell Ellerie there isn’t a way behind those locked doors from here. We can look through these other rooms later.”

They’d just started back down the tunnel when Bobo stopped and stared at the first door along the southern wall.

“What’s wrong?” Treya asked.

“The lettering above the door,” he replied. “It says Armory Three West. Should we take a look?”

Corec couldn’t resist. The door was stuck in place, but he managed to get it loose by wedging the blade of his sword between the door and doorjamb and prying it open. The rusted hinges gave way and the entire door popped loose from its frame. Corec caught it with a grunt, dropping his sword so he could carefully slide the heavy door out of the way, leaning it up against the wall.

He returned his sword to its harness, then retrieved his lantern and followed the other two into the room.

There was a metallic clanging noise and Bobo exclaimed, “Bloody hell!” A gleaming breastplate lay on the ground before him, and next to it was its accompanying backplate. “Why’d they leave it down there?” he asked in an annoyed tone, wincing and flexing the toes he’d stubbed. He’d switched back to wearing his sandals after the weather had warmed up.

“I think the stand rotted away,” Corec said. There was debris nearby that looked as if it could have been wood at one time.

Treya lifted the breastplate. “It’s light. Is it real armor, or ceremonial?”

“Let me see it,” Corec said, trading her his lantern for the breastplate. It was light, less than half the weight he’d have expected from a steel breastplate. “This is that metal that doesn’t rust. The stormborn say it’s stronger than it looks.”

“Is there more?” Bobo asked.

Corec summoned half a dozen mage lights, sending them as far out as the spell could reach.

“Oh,” Treya said, her eyes going wide.

The room was wider than it was deep, wide enough that the mage lights didn’t reach the far ends. The area in front of them was full of weapon racks. They were mostly empty, but there was enough remaining to be impressive. The closest rack held dozens of arming swords, and on the opposite side of it was a row of what looked like pikes. More cuirasses lay scattered in a row along the wall where Bobo had stumbled over the first one.

Corec pulled one of the swords from the rack and examined it. “It’s not the same metal. It looks like steel, but there’s no rust. I think it’s the same thing my sword is made out of.”

“Is it enchanted like yours?” Bobo asked.

“I don’t know. Wait.” Corec cast the arcane sight spell Hildra had taught him. His vision went almost black. He glanced at the sword, but couldn’t see anything unusual, so he gazed around the room. The only magical auras he saw were coming from Treya—her side of the warden bond, plus a faint aura he suspected indicated she was a mage.

“No,” he said. “Nothing in here is enchanted.”

Bobo sighed. “I suppose it was too much to hope for. If we could just find something like your sword, it would pay for the expedition.”

Corec gave the blade a few experimental swings. “I don’t know if we need to worry about that. A sword that’s lasted thousands of years without any sort of corrosion? This should be worth a fair bit. If that armor actually works, it’ll be worth even more.”

“What’s this?” Treya asked, holding up a small, slightly curved oblong metal plate.

“Armor plating,” he replied. “Maybe from brigandine or a coat of plates, but the cloth or leather has rotted away.”

“It’s too bad the armor didn’t survive,” Bobo said.

“The metal’s the expensive part. If this stuff is any good, the plates are still worth something. Did you see any more of it?”

“Yes, over there,” Treya said, indicating a wide scattering of black dirt mixed with the gleam of metal.

“An armorer might buy the pieces to reconstruct whatever it was,” Corec said, putting the sword back in its place. When he tried to lift one of the pikes from the stand behind it, the shaft crumbled in his hands. The long, heavy spear point fell to the floor with a clang.

“Was that wood?” Bobo asked.

“Yes,” Corec said, brushing the dust from his hands. He stooped down to pick up the point, which was made from the same metal as the arming swords. “Pikes are usually built cheaply, out of whatever’s available. I suppose they didn’t want to waste money on them.”

“They did on these,” Treya said. “They look like Sarette’s.” She’d found a stack of staff-spears piled up on the floor. Unlike Sarette’s weapon, which had a wooden shaft, these were constructed entirely of metal.

“The stormborn believe their military traditions were passed down from the first peoples,” Bobo said. “This could be evidence of that.”

“We should send them one of these for their museum,” Corec said. Maybe it would make up for the sword he’d borrowed. He hadn’t had a chance yet to tell the stormborn that their sword was bonded to him, and would remain so until he died. He wasn’t sure how they would take the news.

Bobo nodded. “Some of the other pieces, too, if Varsin Senshall doesn’t mind.”

To the west, they found racks with long swords and flanged maces, and beyond those, along the western wall, were piles of metal arrows and crossbow bolts, mixed in with debris that suggested the projectiles had been stored in wooden crates. The shafts were made from the lighter metal that didn’t rust or tarnish, while the tips were made from the metal that looked like steel. They were sharper and more uniform than any arrowheads Corec had seen before.

There were rows of mounting hooks along that wall, but the weapons themselves were gone, either taken or rotted away.

The east side of the room held four metal crates full of daggers. For soldiers, they’d likely been a secondary weapon, much like Corec’s own long knife—useful for stabbing through gaps in armor, or when there wasn’t enough room to wield something larger. Shields were propped up along the far wall, both large tower shields and smaller rounded shields.

There were also several suits of plate armor made from the special metal. Unlike the cuirasses, these armor stands were still intact, but the armor itself had fallen to the ground after the straps had rotted away. Nearby were messy piles of mail, as if it had been sorted through and left in heaps on the floor. The mail was thinner than usual, intended to be worn under heavier armor.

Bobo said, “I would have expected a wider variety of weapons.”

“An army will standardize on as few as they can manage,” Corec said. “They’ve covered most of the major needs. I would have wanted something in between the pikes and the staff-spears, and some hammers and bills to take care of opponents in heavy armor, but maybe they took all those with them when they left.”

“Well, then, does anyone want to start an army?” Bobo asked jokingly. Judging by the size of the room, less than a tenth of the contents remained, but even excluding the arrows, that still left hundreds of pieces.

Corec didn’t reply, but he shared a glance with Treya. During their conversations with Katrin and Shavala about what to do after returning to Aravor, they’d discussed different ideas for dealing with Rusol. Katrin had suggested hiring mercenaries, so they’d be on even footing if the prince sent soldiers or more red-eyes after them. They’d put that suggestion aside since they didn’t have the money to hire and equip their own troops, but perhaps this armory changed things.

The room had three doors along the northern wall, including the one they’d come in by, and all three led back to the eastern tunnel. There was only one other exit leading out of the armory. It took them to a short hallway ending in a strange circular contraption which was locked into metal rails at the top and the bottom. The rails extended off to the right. On the left side, there was a small metal plate affixed to the wall.

“I think it might be another room,” Bobo said. “This is like a door, but it rolls to the side instead of opening outward.”

Corec grabbed the vertical handle and pulled, but nothing moved. “Are you sure?” he asked.

“Am I sure there’s a room on the other side?” the other man said. “No. But I’m certain it’s supposed to move. Just look at it. That’s the only reason for it to be built like this.”

“There’s dirt in the tracks,” Treya said.

Bobo crouched down and wiped dust and dirt out of the lower railing. “Try it now.”

Corec tried again, but didn’t have any luck. “I can’t get it to budge,” he said. “Maybe it’s rusted in place.”

“I don’t see any rust. Could it be warded like that other door we found?”

“Hold on.” Corec cast the arcane sight spell again, then had to close his eyes as a wave of dizziness washed over him.

He felt a warm hand against his brow, and opened his eyes to find Treya standing in front of him, barely visible behind the veil of his arcane sight.

“You need to stop casting spells for a while,” she said “You’re starting to go into drain shock.”

He’d only cast the arcane sight spell twice that day, but he’d summoned more mage lights than he ever had before.

“Can you help?” he asked.

“Not until you’re a lot worse off than you are now. Just don’t use any more magic today. I can’t carry you out if you fall unconscious.”

He grinned at her, then glanced at the door. It was covered in glowing golden lines laid out in geometric shapes. “There’s some sort of magic on it,” he said. “I don’t know how to tell if it’s a warding spell or something else.”

Bobo sighed. “Another door we can’t open. At least we actually found something this time. I’m sure Ellerie will be interested in the armory.”

Corec tried the handle one last time, but the door still didn’t move. When he let go, a faint golden line extending from the door to the metal plate pulsed brightly.

“Did you see that?” he said.

“See what?” Treya asked.

“It must have been part of the spell.” Corec touched the plate to see if anything else would happen. It felt cold and smooth. Like the one they’d found earlier near the big doors, there was no writing on it.

When he took his hand away, the glowing symbols all turned green. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but if the spell was intended to lock the door, and the spell had changed, perhaps the door would open. He grasped the handle again. This time when he pulled to the right, the door rolled with the screech of metal rubbing against metal.

“Help me,” he said to Bobo.

Together, the two of them were able to roll the door halfway open, wide enough for one person to slip through at a time. Treya had stepped away, covering her ears with her hands.

“How did you do that?” Bobo asked.

Corec didn’t answer. He hadn’t released the arcane sight spell yet, and he’d seen a glow coming through the opening. Stepping inside, his eyes widened. There was a small assortment of weapons there, and each one was lit up.

He laughed. “Bobo, you were asking for enchanted weapons?”

“What?” Bobo asked, joining him. “Which one?”

“All of them.” Corec’s eyes were growing strained, so he banished the arcane sight spell and his vision returned to normal. The glowing auras disappeared.

The weapons were mounted on the wall, reminding him of the armory in Tir Navis where he’d found his sword. Taking pride of place in the center were two crossed arming swords. To the right of those were two staff-spears, and to the left were a longsword and a heavy mace. A tower shield hung from the east wall, and near it was a shirt that glimmered as if made from metal.

“Really?” Bobo said, a smile growing on his face. “Well, how about that? But how did you open the door?”

“I just touched that metal plate and it changed the spell that was holding it closed. There was one of those plates by the other door too. We should go tell Ellerie.”

“What about all this? Should we bring it with us?”

“Maybe Ellerie should check it first for warding spells. None of it looked as … I’m not sure of the right word. None of it looked as complicated as my sword, but I don’t know enough to say if any of it is dangerous.”

“I suppose,” Bobo said, “though I suddenly find myself worried the door will close while we’re gone, and we won’t be able to open it again.”

Corec laughed. “We can wedge it open. Go grab one of those swords from the other room.”