A flame danced in the air above an oil lamp, which, once ignited, illuminated a hand. The person attached to the hand was dark, clothed in gray, with a white beard hanging so long it reached a woven belt at the figure's middle. His visage was otherwise cast in dark shadow.

The mysterious figure gestured wordlessly to Felderon, inviting the two refugees to follow.

Felderon took a cautious step forward.

Smoke lingered below the tunnel ceiling. The lamp's glow hovered in mid air like a dragonfly. They shadowed the lamp and its mysterious person for a stretch, counting out the seconds with weighted steps as they pressed deeper into the tunnel, until gradually, torches appeared, illuminating a widening corridor.

In the near distance, the muffled cacophony of metal friction rose above the silence of the tunnel cavity.

"What is that?" Cylene whispered.

"It sounds like the clamor of a distant forge, or ten forges together!"

The stranger with the lamp answered, "It is the sound of the machine that always accompanies war. Come."

"Why? Why should we come?"

"You let yourselves in," the stranger said. "You asked to know. Come."

It was less an invitation than a command and Felderon stepped forward as though pulled by a puppeteer.

"You have been touring the tunnels, which until this point, have been entirely natural. Quite a miracle of the natural world, but from this point, you will begin to see that human industry has taken over. These tunnels are wide and the earth above them is braced with cedar timbers--a generational work of no small magnitude."

The tunnel had, in fact, widened a great deal and the torches burned brighter, and Felderon could see by their light that the tunnel had widened into a kind of hall, or large bunker, which was not empty.

What was all of this? Was it armor? Shields, helmets, breastplates were stacked against the walls. Spears, swords, cannons, and all manner of weaponry.

"We've walked into the backdoor of an armory," he said to Cylene. "large enough to outfit the armies of the Three Kingdoms!"

"A secret armory."

"Whose is it?"

"Yours."

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Something caught in Felderon's throat. "You mean my father's?"

"Why would the dead need an armory?"

"The dead?" Had his father died in battle? Been assassinated? How? "I have no armory."

"You are a sixth son—a prince and the heir of the Chalbeams. Of course you have an armory."

"The sixth son and heir? What? All his brothers had died?" His throat tightened. All five of them?

Felderon surveyed the bunker. Weaponry hung from the walls. Swords forged with ornamental hilts of copper and brass were stabbed into a barrel of sand and Felderon grasped one, withdrew it from the sand, and examined the blade with an appreciative eye. The steal was fine.

What he would give for a sword of this quality.

He flinched at this thought and a new question followed.

What would it take? From him? From the rest of the Three Kingdoms?

The cast of the light shifted, and with it, the shadows.

"Felderon!"

A cry of warning jarred Felderon back to time and space. He startled and cast his gaze around to Cylene behind him.

"Cylene?"

Nothing but a dark black cavity.

He blinked. She had to be there. "Cylene!"

"Who are you calling to?" The white bearded stranger asked.

"The woman who was with me! Where is she?"

"I saw no woman. I saw only you, to whom I have been speaking, to whom the entire armory belongs, and an army of soldiers besides."

"No! NO! She was right here! I carried her for miles! I heard her say things--awful things! She is real!"

"Of course. But the Caves of Curiosity are famous for phantasms. So lifelike."

Felderon's throat closed, choking him. "I can still feel the weight on my back--"

"You've been through an underground maze, a labyrinth of illusion. Grasp the tangible!" The stranger brandished a sword from the barrel and the reflected torch light gleamed off of the surface of the steal. "This is material. Impossible to deny."

And yet impossible to explain. Felderon grimaced. "What did you do to her? Let her go!"

"Go? Search the armory. No one will stop you. As I say, it belongs to you. I, in fact, am your loyal subject."

"My subject?"

"Of course."

"Wrong! Wrong! It is you who are the illusion!"

"Do I seem so?" The stranger unsheathed a dagger and sliced the meat of his palm. "Looks like blood." He licked his oozing red palm with his tongue. "Tastes like blood.”

Felderon's knees buckled. Where was she? Had he only imagined the beautiful Cylene? Conjured her from some deep psychological need? His head swam and he blinked his eyes to clear his vision.

Was he a king, then? Was he mad? The Chalbeams family line, in fact, carried the strain of insanity. He squeezed the hilt of his sword, cool in his grip. Solid.

"If I have done wrong, only tell me, Your Majesty." The stranger took a knee and his long beard swept the ground.

"What are you called?"

"I am Symon, Your Majesty. Follow me to your war room. Your advisors have assembled, and they await your command."

Advisors?

"Under circumstances of great urgency. One quarter of your army is locked in battle in the Della River valley. They are cut off from resources and will perish without decisive intervention. Renada's armies have fallen, all but this single company in the river valley. Though they have the advantage now, they cannot prevail. We must move soldiers quickly without sacrificing--"

Symon rattled off names of places, ranks, a string of facts Felderon couldn't follow. Was it too late to interfere--to stop the war from happening? Was the war a fait accompli? So quickly? How much time had elapsed since he had first entered the Caves of Curiosity? And another question rattled around in his brain, urgent but still buried beneath consciousness.

If Cylene were only a phantasm, why was he carrying the broken tassel of her cloak in his pocket?