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Near Roosterfoot, October 1st, III:Leeland 15
“The early Uellish alterations to the old Imperial excavation are evident here in the—hang on—”
Cyrus ducked a blade that came whipping out of a cunningly hidden socket in the stone wall, positioned precisely at the height of his neck.
“—outer wall that’s been built over the original.” He jammed a spike into the rusty iron of the blade’s extender arm and carried on, gesturing at the crumbling mortar just beneath the socket. “Look here, where the Uellish brickwork has decayed. You can see the characteristic smooth stone finish beneath it. Mind the blade on that trap, Hornhugger—it’s quite rusty. Now, as we carry on, eyes out for these foul little buggers.” He stepped gingerly on a pressure plate on the floor; it depressed slightly, and there was a sad little thwap from a tiny hole at chest height on the other wall. “The tension cables will have decayed long ago, but you can still trip on the plate. In dungeons from the later Royal Mediocrity, these things sometimes still shoot.”
He moved deeper down the passage, holding the oil lamp up and well ahead. Behind, he could hear the nervous shuffling of feet as his class tried to avoid the pressure plate.
“Look,” he instructed, pausing to indicate a faded brown stain on one wall. He tapped it with the point of his broadsword, holding up one finger for silence and listening carefully. “A wall-crusher. It caught some unlucky fellow here. This design was in vogue during Alexander’s first decade on the throne. It’s not definitive, but strongly suggestive. Our mad baron must have had some money—these things cost a fortune to set up and maintain. What is it, Hunter?”
He turned around and cocked an eyebrow at Miss Hunter. He corrected himself internally: Mrs. Hunter. She was crouched slightly, an arrow nocked to her bow and a look of caution on her face. Her hair was tied back in a tight bun, and she wore the standard form-fitting leathers that Triad University issued to third-year field trainees. Freddie Greensmith and Gerald Hornhugger were trying to watch her rear end without looking like they were watching her rear end. Kelestine Maliss and Aristine le Hen were plainly trying to work out how to make her murder look like an accident.
“Do you hear a rumbling sound?” asked Hunter.
Cyrus listened.
“No.”
“I’m quite sure I heard a rumble,” insisted Hunter.
“I heard it too,” volunteered Gerald Hornhugger, with a sidelong glance at Merrily. “So it can’t have been Hunter’s imagination again.”
“Probably one of the dart triggers misfiring,” remarked Cyrus, “or else it could possibly have emanated from Mr. Hornhugger’s—”
He was pulled from behind then, quite unexpectedly, just as a large section of the ceiling collapsed. Twisting frantically on the short oak pole that served as his right leg, he spun around and fell on his face, his breath fleeing his lungs as the flat of the broadsword jammed into his lower abdomen. The oil lantern shattered on the ground, and a pool of flaming oil began to spread rapidly toward his face. Gasping helplessly for air, he rolled to one side, away from the flaming oil, and found himself staring at a pair of feet. They were long, slim feet, wearing no shoes at all and sprouting slender, muscular calves. His eyes followed the legs upward and found that they were attached to a willowy female with green- and brown-painted skin, a skimpy outfit of woven plant fiber, and a narrow face sprouting a chilling pair of large, jet-black eyes.
He tried to curse, but then found that he still had no air. He held up a hand to the feyess, gesturing for her to wait while he choked and gagged himself back into breathing normally. Sheria obliged, watching him impassively and fingering the string on her oversized longbow.
“Pull me closer, and I will stick my blade in your nearest hole,” he finally managed. Cyrus’s grasp of the fey-tongue, originating as it did from a long-distant summer holiday spent with a pair of rather questionable feyess sisters, had not improved appreciably since he had come to know Sheria.
“Keep your sword in your pants,” replied the irritating feyess, speaking Uellish carefully. “In the close branches, I saved your life from malicious rocks.” She removed Cyrus’s cloak from around his neck and tossed it on the burning lantern oil.
“The rocks aren’t malicious, you feyess git,” he growled, trying and failing to get to his one foot, on broken ground in near-total darkness. “The Imperial priests who built the church upstairs were malicious. The fourth Baron of Roosterfoot who turned its basement into a dungeon for sport was malicious. Mr. Hornhugger,” and here he indicated the dark-haired young man climbing over the fallen rocks with his classmates, “is, I have no doubt, thinking foul and malicious thoughts at this very moment. But the rocks are not malicious, because they are rocks, made of sediment and utterly without the biological prerequisites for any form of self-interested cognition.”
She shrugged lightly. “It is a wonder you think at all, with a language that does not describe the world as it may be.” She helped him up again, as the rest of the students gathered around. “I went ahead,” she continued, “and there are two ways down. One is probably a hole, and the other probably a stair.”
“You didn’t bother to look at them closely?”
“I did look closely.”
“Then why don’t you know if they are actually a hole and a stair?”
A confused expression crossed her face, and she said words in her own speech. “Blah blah blah blah trees blah blah see them blah blah clear.”
He nodded firmly. “Now I understand. Yes. It all makes sense. You slipped off and did a quick bit of frolicking while the dead hand of a deranged nobleman tried to kill us with his antique dungeon. Superb job on scout duty.” He retrieved his charred cloak and jerked his head abruptly at Hornhugger, Hunter, Greensmith, Maliss, and Le Hen. “Onward, Applied Historians. The loot won’t rescue itself.”
Sheria led them deeper, still muttering irritably. Soon enough they came to a large side chamber that did indeed have a hole in the center of the floor. It was perhaps ten feet wide, and the edges were cracked and rough, as though something had fallen through—or come up from beneath. The walls of the chamber were decorated with dense, angular etchings that made the eye swim to look at them.
Cyrus gazed at the hole. “Definitely, indisputably, without the slightest doubt, it is a hole.”
Sheria stared at him as though he were insane.
“What made it, do you suppose?” asked Hunter.
“Give me your lantern,” he replied.
Cyrus crouched down awkwardly, his wooden leg jutting out to one side, and regarded the jagged lip of the hole. The marks of tools were still evident in places—on the upper sides of the stone fragments. Below the floor he could see the remains of an arched dome. The light from the small lantern did not illuminate whatever surface lay below.
“Steel tools,” he surmised. “There’s a dome here; doesn’t look like the Imperial stonework upstairs. They tunneled in from here. What do you suppose, Mr. Hornhugger—”
As he looked up, Cyrus observed that Hornhugger and Hunter had drawn off to one of the walls, staring closely at its surface. They seemed to be arguing with each other. Cursing under his breath, he gave a quick leap with his left leg, propelling himself up into a standing position. Le Hen and Maliss followed him over to the wall. Cyrus looked closely over Hornhugger’s shoulder, holding Hunter’s lantern near the surface.
The network of tiny etchings resolved themselves, as he got closer, into a broad circle. Mrs. Hunter, he noted, was lightly touching the circumference of the circle, her face bearing an unusually subdued expression.
“Unbroken Circle,” he muttered. “Not surprising, with the church upstairs. The late Imperials liked to put one in every chamber of a crypt. The Baron must have had his stonemasons disfigure it when they got to this room. Why are we staring at it?”
Hornhugger traced his hand down the vertical diameter. “Look, professor,” he said. “There was something carved under the circle.” And indeed, there was a faint vertical indentation running through the center of the Unbroken Circle.
“Another one here,” added Hunter, tracing her finger along the horizontal diameter. “It looks like it was… rubbed out.”
“Good! Well spotted,” congratulated Cyrus. “It’s the minutiae of a diseased mind that makes it really interesting.” He peered at the wall closely. “Actually—hmm. I may be mistaken, but it appears the defacement of these crossed bars occurred before the Baron’s etchings. Maliss, stay here and take a rubbing.” He shrugged out of his heavy frame pack, rummaged out a folded sheet of hemp paper and a bit of charcoal, and handed them to the raven-haired young woman. Then he stumped back to the hole in the center of the chamber. “There’s more down there, but I don’t fancy rappelling into this. Who knows how long we have,” he added, glancing meaningfully back up the passage outside.
His students followed his gaze nervously, though Sheria remained impassive.
“What if Hobb’s men find us here?” asked Le Hen as Cyrus stumped back out of the room, shifting the heavy frame pack back onto his shoulders.
“Then, unless Gmork warns us in enough time to get away, this field lesson will be expanded to include advanced improvisational lying, fighting dirty out of an ambush, and possibly resisting torture,” he answered solemnly. “Sheria, show us the probably-stairs, as probably soon as probably possible.”
She remained motionless.
“What is it?” he demanded angrily. “Since you elected to frolic naked in the forest this morning instead of attending my lecture, let me remind you that there are scouting units of the Republican Guard in the area, and they will be just as eager to interrogate you as the rest of us if we’re caught.”
“I was not naked,” replied the black-eyed feyess calmly, “and I am not one of your students. And you did not ask nicely.”
Cyrus suppressed a sudden urge to throw something.
“Will you. Please. Show us. The stairs.”
Sheria smiled at him and slipped past silently. Cyrus shuddered, and mentally cursed Michael Rider for teaching his lover the rules of polite behavior.
The stairs—for, so far as he could detect, they were indisputably real—lay at the end of the main passage, past a row of extensively defaced Imperial crypts. The tiny etchings covering the walls continued, but Cyrus forced himself to ignore them. There was a task at hand, and limited time to accomplish it. He looked carefully at the narrow passage and descending steps.
“Hacked out of the rock,” he surmised, “with none of the grace or style of the Imperial period. I do detest a hack. Looks as though the Baron set his slaves at it. Hunter, you go first. Step lightly—these rocks are slippery.”
Hunter hoisted her lantern and picked her way down carefully. Cyrus followed, testing each step daintily with the oaken prosthetic before hopping down with his good foot. Behind him, Hornhugger, Greensmith, and Le Hen followed, breathing entirely too loudly.
“Hold up, Cy—er, professor,” said Hunter. Cyrus scowled, but held his tongue.
“There’s a problem,” she continued. To his chagrin, the problem was immediately obvious: a section of the tunnel’s stone roof had fallen in, leaving just a small gap at the floor where the stairs continued downward. He gave a light push at the stone, in the futile but hopeful way that people do when faced with an obviously immovable object. The fallen rock failed to budge in the slightest.
“This predictably poor outcome, ladies and gentlemen, is why we do not use slave labor for archaeology,” he remarked.
“I thought we don’t use slave labor because it’s grossly immoral?” asked Le Hen acidly. “And anyway, wasn’t slavery outlawed after the destruction of the Old Ecclesia? What makes you think a Uellish nobleman from the Middle Ages was using slaves?”
Cyrus nodded. “It is, it was, and he did. King Horace II had no qualms about leading the mass expulsion, and frequently the execution, of the entire priest class—but he couldn’t abide slavery. Officially, the explanation was that it was an institution of the Ecclesia that had to be destroyed. But the chroniclers insist the feeling was genuine as well.” Cyrus turned to face the young woman gravely. “But five centuries later, Miss Le Hen, the fourth Baron Roosterfoot bought and kept slaves in secret, and the rest of the Kingdom was too busy driving itself to distraction about Bloody Maude to inquire closely. After Alexander finally separated Maude’s head from her body, the Baron’s peers got around to discovering the truth about his labor force. Every neighboring barony invaded within months. After they’d defeated his forces in battle, the barons declared his family attainted and had the man himself hanged from the east gate of Roosterfoot.”
In the silence that followed, a faint clatter and the sound of distant raised voices echoed through the dim tunnels. Cyrus looked back over his shoulder, and Sheria stalked back up the stairs, quickly disappearing from view.
“Can you crawl through, Hunter?” he asked urgently. She knelt by the foot of the fallen rock, peering into the low opening.
“I think so,” answered Hunter, holding her lantern forward into the passage. “But I can’t tell how far in it goes.” Without waiting for his reply, she slithered head-first beneath the slab of fallen rock, farther down the rough stairs. Cyrus and his three remaining students waited in silence. The light from Hunter’s lantern grew dim, and then vanished.
Greensmith shuffled nervously. “Are we… going in there, professor?” he asked. “It’s just, I’ve never been much good in small spaces…”
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Cyrus favored him with a frosty gaze. “That is why we practice, Mr. Greensmith,” he replied. “Sometimes the work of Applied History requires us to penetrate the most uncomfortable of locations. The more times you do it, the easier it is.”
The sound of voices echoed through the caves again faintly, coming from above.
“Are we… practicing now?” asked Greensmith faintly.
“We are always practicing, Mr. Greensmith.”
Just then, Hunter’s voice came faintly through the narrow opening beneath the fallen stone. “Come through!” she could be heard to say. “It widens out!”
Cyrus nodded in satisfaction. “Time for more practice, Mr. Greensmith,” he said. “Move quickly. Our time here is limited.”
To his credit, Greensmith gamely crawled into the hole, followed by Le Hen. Hornhugger was about to follow, but Cyrus grabbed him by the arm.
“Not you, Mr. Hornhugger. Go collect Miss Maliss and her stone rubbing, then return here. Keep a watch at the top of the stairs. Warn me if we have unwelcome visitors.” He shrugged off the frame pack and handed it to Hornhugger. “I have set the contents of that pack in an extremely precise arrangement, Mr. Hornhugger,” he warned. “I will know if you have gone fishing in it, and doing so will cost you a full letter grade on this exercise.” The dark-haired young man looked at him sullenly, but took the pack and set it carefully against the wall of the stairwell. Cyrus gave him no more thought, kneeling with some difficulty and dragging himself into the narrow passage beneath the fallen stone at a sharp downward angle.
The passage did indeed re-open after some thirty vastly uncomfortable feet, and Cyrus found himself in the company of his three students at the bottom of the stairs. Hunter held up her lantern, and Cyrus saw that they were in a notably regular, carefully crafted passage running both to the left and to the right. The corners of the passage were rigidly square, and the floor was as flat as a librarian’s sense of humor.
Cyrus looked in wonder at the stonework, and the faint traces of ancient writing at regular intervals on the walls. “Well now. This looks quite familiar—does it not, Mrs. Hunter?”
She nodded, with a tense smile. “It looks just like the passages at the old finery in Devi Valley,” she confirmed. “And this writing…” she held the lantern near a set of graphemes on the wall. They were at once blocky and regular, but also twisting and rather discomforting to his eye. “It looks familiar too. Where have I seen it?” This last, she murmured almost to herself.
Cyrus stumped over to look at it, commandeering Greensmith’s lantern. “There’s a place name here,” he announced after a minute of study. “Ghorpol Ossa would be a fair translation. Le Hen, go back through that passage and get another sheet of paper and charcoal from my pack. I’ll want a rubbing of this. The paper and charcoal are near the top. Don’t make a mess of it, and when you’re done, go back to join Mr. Hornhugger and Miss Maliss. If Hornhugger gives you any trouble, tell him the terrible fate of his letter grade is suspended, but not withdrawn.” Le Hen dutifully crawled back into the low passage on the stairs and disappeared into the darkness.
Cyrus turned back to the writing and stared at it for precious moments. “This is the writing of the Empire of the Dawn, Mrs. Hunter,” he said softly. “You recognize it because we saw it on a fallen stone slab east of Hog Hurst two years ago. It also resembles sketches that Professor Weaselbeer-Yourfork sent me from… a room… they discovered at the finery. The Dawn Imperials used advanced phonograms with a considerable amount of embedded meaning that we do not yet understand.”
“Can you read it?” asked Greensmith. Cyrus shook his head.
“Obviously not in any detail. That’s why I want a rubbing. Come on—we’d better move.”
Hunter and Greensmith looked in both directions. The passage did not obviously slope up or down, and the writing on the walls was no help.
“Which way?” asked Greensmith.
“When the air is equally foul in all directions, Mr. Greensmith, then left… is always right,” opined Cyrus with a smile. He turned left. Hunter rolled her eyes cheekily.
The passage soon widened, and they passed into an open space with the beginnings of an arched dome ceiling just visible above. Rows of rigidly straight conduits, worn with age but still intact, ran in horizontal channels along the walls. Metal protrusions punctuated these at regular intervals, though the metal was mightily corroded. Two deep channels cut through the stone in the center of the round room at perfect right angles, running to the walls.
“Just like the pattern above,” remarked Hunter softly. “Except above, the channels went beyond the edge of the circle.”
Cyrus walked slowly over to a large pile of rubble in the center of the area and looked up. “We’re below that very chamber,” he said confidently. “This must have fallen down when they pierced the ceiling.”
“Isn’t it odd that they never cleaned it up?” asked Greensmith. “If the mad baron was so keen to make his little etchings on everything, why did he never come down here?”
Cyrus looked back at him in the dim light of the oil lantern.
“You’ll spend all your life asking after the reasons of a madman, Mr. Greensmith, and be closer to madness yourself than to truth. But if I had to guess, I’d say he found something down here he didn’t like.”
They split up to walk the circumference of the chamber. As they now possessed just two lanterns between the three of them, Hunter gave Greensmith hers and followed close behind Cyrus. Greensmith’s light grew tiny and faint as he drew away. Cyrus walked slowly and carefully, knowing his own mobility was limited by the wooden leg, and fearing a sudden opening in the floor.
“Look there, Cyrus,” said Hunter as they drew near one of the deep channels. She pointed, and Cyrus could see that the channel disappeared under the chamber’s stone wall. But there was a more pressing matter to address.
“Mrs. Hunter! Mind your tongue,” hissed Cyrus. “You mustn’t be familiar with me in the classroom. We’ve had this conversation at least a half dozen times over the last two years, and yet somehow we keep having it.”
Even by the light of the lantern, he could see Hunter’s face flush with anger. “There’s no reason I shouldn’t use your name, Cyrus Stoat,” she retorted. “I’ve saved your life at least twice by my count, and we’ve travelled the length and breadth of this kingdom together. Why you should insist on treating me like some raw first-year student with ink-stained fingers—"
“Because, Hunter, the principle of academic neutrality—”
They were both interrupted by a high-pitched voice from above.
“Professor-Cyrus-Stoat! Are you down there?” The voice, speaking in the goblin tongue, had a deranged, sing-song inflection, like a drunk circus performer arguing righteously with an indifferent pig.
Cyrus and Mrs. Hunter both turned to face the center of the room and looked up. In the dim light, they could see a rope drop down from the hole above them, and a small figure, faintly visible, slid down it. Forgetting their quarrel, both of them shuffled over to the rope as quickly as they dared in the darkness. When they reached it, Cyrus squatted down cumbersomely and put a friendly hand on the shoulder of the small person.
“Gmork!” he exclaimed with a relieved smile, addressing his assistant in his native speech. “What news?”
The goblin before him—small even for his race, his eyes bulging with excitement and his potpourri hat disheveled—hopped back and forth on his feet nervously. “Riders, Cyrus!” he blurted, speaking the goblin tongue. “Two riders saw your horses and gear at the church. They wore the red clothes of the big-man King, and their hats were large!”
Cyrus rubbed his eyes in frustration. “Where are they now, Gmork?” he asked. “And what about the big-people who came with us from Roosterfoot?”
“The two riders went away, fast,” continued the goblin, speaking rapidly despite his recent exertion. “The big-people who came with us from Roosterfoot went away too.”
Cyrus emitted a colorful goblin curse and turned to translate to Mrs. Hunter. “Scouts from the Guard saw our horses and wagon. They rode away, and the militia we hired in Roosterfoot legged it.”
Hunter shrugged. “No surprise. Their sergeant told us plainly they wouldn’t tangle with Hobb’s men. Roosterfoot is still trying to maintain neutrality between the King and Queen.”
“No,” agreed Cyrus, “but I’d hoped they’d at least stand around and get in the way. Well, time’s up.” He took a deep breath and shouted. “Greensmith! Get back here now! We’re leaving.” He peered out into the darkness. Greensmith’s lantern was nowhere to be seen. Cyrus dusted off some of his Old Svegnian profanity.
“Hunter,” he concluded, “stay here and wait for us unless I call. If we’re not back in five minutes, climb the rope and get the rest of the class out of here. I’m leaving you in charge.” Then he turned back to the small goblin. “Go and get one of the other fire-boxes and bring it down to Merrily Hunter. Make sure the rope is tied well up top,” he instructed, “so that big-people can climb it. If one of us falls, I will climb up there myself and tie your legs in a knot to hold the rope, then leave you when we’re finished with only broccoli to eat.” Gmork, who in common with almost every goblin of Cyrus’s acquaintance appreciated a fine and colorful threat when he heard it, smiled happily and scrambled back up the rope. These days, most of Gmork’s brethren were working hard to learn and speak only Uellish—but Cyrus secretly hoped this little fellow continued to struggle with the new language. He’d miss flinging around outrageous threats in the goblin tongue with a wink and a smile, once they all started behaving like unusually short Uellishmen.
“Alright, then,” he muttered to himself. “No Applied Historian left behind today.” And with that he set off into the darkness to look for Freddie Greensmith.
At the far end of the large round chamber from where they entered, Cyrus found another exit—and, far off in the darkness ahead, he saw the twinkle of a light. He limped down the flat, regular passage angrily, his hand brushing the strange conduits on the wall for balance. As he walked, his mind labored to formulate just the right invective to deliver to his errant student once the young man was located. And then, quite unexpectedly, he tripped over something and once again went sprawling. This time, he managed to keep the lantern from shattering, and rolled quickly to a sitting position, broadsword extended before him.
The thing he tripped over was Freddie Greensmith.
The young man was hunched against one wall, sitting without any obvious motion. Cyrus’s heart sank, but then he saw that Greensmith’s chest was rising and falling slightly. He held the lantern close to the pallid face, and saw his eyelids flutter. Cyrus reached into one of the many pockets in his cloak and withdrew a tiny vial. He uncorked it, held it away from his face as the piercing scent of ammonia filled the air, and waved it under Greensmith’s nose. After a moment, Greensmith gave a start, and his eyes opened. Cyrus clapped a hand over his mouth before he could shout, and held his own face close, looking the man in the eyes.
“Hush now,” he whispered. “All is well. I’m going to take my hand off your mouth, and I want you not to scream. Alright?” Greensmith nodded slightly.
Cyrus took his hand away and re-corked the smelling salts. He let Greensmith catch his breath for a moment.
“What happened?” Cyrus asked, after his student had calmed down.
Greensmith took a deep, shuddering breath.
“Something talked to me in the dark, professor,” he said.
Cyrus looked at him levelly for a few moments.
“Did it?” he said conversationally. “And what did this… something… in the dark say to you?”
“I don’t know,” answer Greensmith. “But I heard words. I’m sure of it. I don’t hear things that aren’t there, Professor Stoat, but I heard this, as clearly as I can hear you right now. It said something.”
“Do you remember the words?” asked Cyrus intently.
Greensmith shook his head.
“Where did it come from? What direction?” he asked.
Greensmith nodded his head farther down the passage, where the tiny sliver of light could still be seen in the distance. It did not flicker like flame, but was steady, like sunlight.
“Is that your lantern?” asked Cyrus slowly.
“No,” answered Greensmith. “I ran, and I accidentally hit the lantern against the wall. It went out. That’s when I… lost track of things. Professor, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I know I didn’t do the right thing—I didn’t do what an Applied Historian should do. I did it all wrong. I… I know I probably failed.” He didn’t sniffle, but he looked like he wanted to.
Cyrus shook his head. “No, Greensmith. You didn’t fail. You learned. Man partakes of the world with his eyes—through light and motion. When he loses the light, the world becomes a place of terror and evil and mystery. To be an Applied Historian, you must learn how to live in the dark world too. And that means getting into the darkness and learning what fear really means.”
From behind him, Cyrus heard a high-pitched goblin voice, and Mrs. Hunter calling his name.
“Now look, Greensmith. We need to get out of here, and fast—but I’m going to go have a look at that light up there. We came here to rescue some history for Peacock Hall, and I’ll be damned if we’re going home empty-handed. You can come with me, or you can wait here.”
Greensmith immediately got to his feet.
“Good lad. Take my hand.”
They walked forward slowly, hand in hand, toward the light.
As they drew near, Cyrus saw that it emanated from a crack on the right wall. Further progress along the passage was blocked by a heavy slab of featureless metal that extended, floor to ceiling, across the entire passage, forming an impenetrable barrier. Cyrus ran his hand over the metal, finding it nearly free of corrosion and almost impossibly smooth. Letters in the style of the Dawn Imperials were inscribed at about the height of his eyes, but he could not read them. Instead, he did his best to stare and remember their appearance.
Cyrus’s roving fingers discovered a sharp protrusion emerging from the surface of the metal. Closing them around it, he tugged, and it came loose reluctantly. The dim lamplight revealed the object to be a very thin rod of metal, perhaps six inches in length. The surface was quite cold, as if it had been stuck in a block of ice and just withdrawn. Something was odd about it; and then Cyrus realized that it did not reflect the light of his lamp at all. It was like a bar of solid blackness in his fingers. He tucked it into one pocket, and then examined the crack in the wall.
The crack itself appeared to have opened at some time in the past when the bedrock of the passage shifted. Though the massive portal itself was entirely intact, the right wall had shifted slightly, pulling away from the edge of the metal. And it left a tiny gap, through which Cyrus could just about insert a hand if he wanted to—which, it must be said, he did not.
Instead, he placed his face to the crack. To his disappointment, he could see little—the passage, it appeared, continued into the darkness, with the rigidly straight conduits running on either side. However, to his excitement he could just make out an opening on the left side of the passage, beyond the door, from which the light emanated. But no more was visible.
Something whispered in the darkness.
Cyrus could not understand the words, but they were dry, flat, and neither friendly nor hostile.
“Did you hear that?” he breathed.
“Yes,” returned Greensmith, just as faintly.
Cyrus stood up and turned to his companion.
“Dead end, Mr. Greensmith,” he announced, trying to keep his voice steady. “It happens in historical research, sometimes. There’s a light source, but I can’t see it. We’ll have to come back once things settle down and there’s more time for a proper excavation. I imagine we could move this door, with enough time and the right tools. Right now, we have neither.”
He turned, and, glancing frequently over his shoulder at the crack in the wall, walked steadily back to the large domed chamber, and the rope back to the world of light.
✽✽✽
The snorting of horses and the voices of men greeted them as they walked out of the catacombs of the ruined Imperial church and into the daylight. A dozen riders, all armed with spears, bows, and crossbows, were scattered around the small forest meadow at the front of the ruined church. Two were positioned near Cyrus’s covered wagon, and a third held Daisy’s lead line; the black warhorse looked mightily displeased. Cyrus’s heart sank, and he began to rapidly concoct an outrageous plan. Sheria strung an arrow on her enormous bow. The students followed her lead, readying their irregular collection of ranged and melee weapons. Even Gmork pulled out a jagged, rusty dagger.
“Cyrus Stoat, Professor of Applied History at Triad University,” announced a hearty voice just behind him, near the corner of the church. The voice spoke Uellish with a cultured, southern Carolese accent.
Cyrus, recognizing the voice, whirled around. The speaker, riding a fearsome-looking chestnut stallion, was a tall man with nearly black skin, curly black hair, and a broad smile. He had a pair of elegant sabres slung across his back, and he was dressed in a flamboyantly trimmed suit of dark-stained leather armor.
Cyrus returned the smile. “Professor Rayth!” he exclaimed in relief. “And that’s Tenured Professor of Applied History, thank you sir,” he added pointedly.
Vicod Rayth slid off the charger and bounded over to Cyrus, embracing him fiercely. “I’ve been searching all over this tick-infested jungle for you, Cyrus Stoat,” said the Carolese historian. “We encountered a Republican scout patrol not long ago, and I sent three of my class to lead them away from here. You haven’t much time before they tire of chasing my students and circle back. Pack up your loot and saddle that disaster of a warhorse, Cyrus Stoat, for you must be off.”
Cyrus shook his head in wonder. “I recovered nothing from this trip but a few rubbings and a bizarre needle, but I do owe you a favor, Vicod,” he admitted.
“You owe me three favors,” replied Vicod. “You have once again contrived to forget the bandits in Westurnip last summer and the secret door in the library at Widebottom’s Wold. And now… what is the name of this church? I shall add it to my ledger as the third favor owed by Tenured Professor Cyrus Stoat to Visiting Professor Vicod Rayth.”
Cyrus stumped over to the cart and hoisted out his riding saddle. “I’d call it Ghorpol Ossa, from the Dawn Imperial script in the second deep. We can argue over drinks tonight whether my rescue of you from the Rose Tower offsets either one or both of those first two. There’s a barely acceptable tavern in Upper Tater.”
“Cyrus, you must make haste,” replied Vicod, his face growing serious. “I did not lead my class to Roosterfoot by accident. A messenger reached me while we conducted skills training outside Green Bridge. I was told to find you with all possible haste. Queen Anne herself requests that you return to the Charter City at once, Cyrus.”
“What? Why?” asked Cyrus, looking up sharply at the taller man. “What’s happened?”
Vicod cast his eyes down, a flash of pain and regret shadowing his face.
“I am sorry to be the one to tell you, Cyrus, but I must. Rolland Gorp has been killed. The Queen desires that you find his murderer.”