The chamber inside was totally dark. Even Murtaghโs eyesโ sharpened as they were by his bond with Thornโcould not pick out a single detail.
He returned to the tunnel and retrieved a candle. With his free hand, he grabbed the guardโs ankle and dragged him through the doorway intoโ
โa war room of sorts. A long wooden table occupied the center of the chamber, and on it, a map of Alagaรซsia, similar to the one in Captain Wrenโs study. Backless chairs surrounded the table, and a rack of scrolls rose against a side wall. Several tall iron candelabra stood around the room, and there were soot stains on the low vaulted ceiling, which was covered with bricks.
Opposite the door heโd entered, there was anotherโsmaller, darker, made of polished woodโthat led deeper into the catacombs.
Murtagh left the guard by the table and went back out into the tunnel to fetch the fallen pike and helmet. With both in hand, he closed the door behind him, locked it, and then placed pike and helmet on the table.
He glanced around, curious. Part of him wanted to linger, to see what was written on the scrolls, to see if he could ๏ฌnd out what sort of schemes Captain Wren was working on. But time was limited, and he had no intention of getting caught.
He checked on the guard one more time. Still asleep. The spell Murtagh had cast was a powerful one. Barring outside interference, the man should sleep for half a day or more.
Murtagh lit several tapers in the candelabra before proceeding to the next door.
He raised his eyebrows. โInteresting.โ
Lines of runes had been carved into the gleaming wood, which looked old and worn, ancient even. He touched the scarred surface; it felt denser than oak, hard as metal. โMรดgren,โ he muttered. The black-needled pinetrees that grew in the Beor Mountains, home of the dwarves. It was rare to ๏ฌnd anything made of that wood in the western half of Alagaรซsia. He looked closer. The runes themselves were of an archaic design, and as he tried to read them, he realized that they were indeed runes such as the dwarves used, not humans.
He shook his head. He could read many types of writing, but Dwarvish wasnโt one of them.ย What were dwarves doing here, and so long ago?ย he wondered. Or had the door been made elsewhere and then brought to Gilโead at some later date?
Questions that he doubted he would ever have answers to. Perhaps the Eldunarรญ could have told him.
Unlike the ๏ฌrst door, there was no keyhole cut into the Mรดgren, but there was an oddly shaped depression, as wide as his hand, in the center. Because of the shifting shadows of the candlelight, it took him a minute to realize what he was seeing: a reverse impression of the bear mask from Captain Wrenโs study. A lock, then. Possibly magic, but not necessarily.
โWhatย areย you up to?โ he murmured.
Murtagh considered sneaking back into the barracks and over to Wrenโs study to retrieve the mask, but dismissed the idea as too risky.
No, what he needed wasโฆHe glanced around the room. Wood. He needed wood.
He went to the rack of scrolls and, after examining it, pulled out one of the shelves. He placed one end of the plank against the depression in the door and whispered, โThrysta.โ
Instead of releasing the power in a single burst, he restricted it to a gentle
โbut inexorableโpush. The plank crumpled inward as if being crushed by
an invisible boulder, and the wood ๏ฌt itself to the lines and contours of the mask impression.
A small, tight smile formed on Murtaghโs face as he guided the spell.ย Just a little moreโฆ
The door broke with a loudย crack, splitting up the middle. โSon of anย Urgal,โ he said, teeth clenched. He ended the spell.
There was no helping it now; the guards would know someone had broken in. Literally.
Annoyed with himself, Murtagh started to pull the pieces of wood away. Once the opening was wide enough, he fetched a candle and stepped through.
Light blossomed overhead.
He winced and lifted a hand to shade his eyes. After a second, he could
see.
The light came from a piece of white quartz embedded in the ceiling; it
emitted a steady glow similar to that of the dwarvesโ ๏ฌameless lanterns, which he had seen throughout their city-mountain Tronjheim.
The chamber was longer and narrower than the war room. The walls curved inward and were supported by thick white ribs.ย Actualย ribs. The bones of a dragon.
A horrible suspicion formed in Murtagh that he was looking at the ribs of Morzanโs dragon, buried beneath the city by whoever had made that space.
Anchored between the ribs were shelves. On those shelves, and on a stone-topped table in the center of the room, were dozens of ๏ฌasks, alembics, beakers, burners, bottles, and casks, and several braziers.ย Alchemy. Or something like it.
Murtagh slowly walked through the room, stopping at times to examine this or that. The place was a treasure house for any magician. He picked up one of several books and opened it to ๏ฌnd himself looking at a list of words.
Words in the ancient language. Words with de๏ฌnitions.
Excitement shot through him as he realized what he was holding.ย A dictionary!ย His lips moved as he sounded out several of the entries:ย โFlauga, ๏ฌautja, ๏ฌautrโฆโย Of all the valuables in the chamber, a compendium of the ancient language was by far the most precious.
The book released a small pu๏ฌ of dust as he closed it. Hardly able to believe his good luck, Murtagh carefully placed it in the pouch on his belt and continued forward.
Two steps farther, he found a small ornate box full of faceted gems. He picked up a teardrop-shaped yellow diamond nearly as big as his thumbnail and, on a hunch, attempted to touch it with his mind. A torrent of coiled energy twisted and turned before his inner eye, constrained by the substance of the gem.
He withdrew his mind and smiled a crooked smile, bouncing the gem on his palm. After a momentโs thought, he tucked the diamond into the hem of his cloak, where no one was likely to ๏ฌnd it. Having extra equipment was always a good idea, whether it was a weapon, armor, orโin this caseโ energy to fuel his spells.
The more Murtagh looked, the more questions he had. The room seemed to be devoted to the study of all things magical. On a shelf was a line of bottled liquids labeled with such words asย Health, Strength, Fire, and so forth. Potions, he guessed, enchanted to achieve certain e๏ฌects.
Deep disquiet stirred within Murtagh. Was Wren the magician who used the room? Or was there another? Some unknown spellcaster who lurked in Gilโead while engaged in arcane study? And what invidious need could they possibly have for werecat younglings?
He touched one of the ribs along the walls. The bone was cool and smooth against his hand, and he felt a pang imagining it was Thornโs. But he was not sure how much sorrow he felt for Morzanโs dragon. The creature had chosen to serve Galbatorix as much as Morzan had himself; they were both culpable for their sins.ย As are we all, he thought.
He hurried through the rest of the room. Surely he couldnโt be far from
Silna now, though he feared what he might discover when he found her. If she was even there.
Yet another door met him at the far end, and it too di๏ฌered from those that came before. The lancet structure was made of a single piece of yellowed dragon bone. Perhaps a shoulder blade or a section of enormous skull. An iron ring hung from the center of the door. Embedded above it was a decorative pattern of gems of all di๏ฌerent colors: rubies and emeralds and rainbowed diamonds. Tourmaline, star sapphires, and banded chrysoberyl.
Wary, Murtagh touched one of the stones. As he suspected, it contained a notable amount of energy.
He lowered his hand. The door was trapped. That seemed obvious. And if he triggered the trap, there was a good chance it would alert the magician who had made the door. At least, that was how Murtagh would have done it.
Or was it? What if the magician were on the other side of Alagaรซsia?
Alerting them might take a prohibitive amount of energy.
Murtagh scratched his chin, thinking. He could just trigger the trap and trust his wards to protect him, butโฆthat was hardly the smartest path forward. The question was, what would it take to outthink the magician who had enchanted the door? If the spellcaster were clever enough, doing anything to meddle with the door or its surroundings would set o๏ฌ an alarm. Even the Name of Names was no guarantee that Murtagh could completely subvert someone elseโs spells, as his experience with Muckmaw had taught him.
Blast it. I canโt waste time.
He paced back and forth, debating. What if he tunneled around the door? That would take a lot of energy; heโd be exhausted by the time he broke through into the room on the other side. And there was a good chance that the walls surrounding the next room were enchanted with some sort of warning spell as well. Again, it was whatย heย would do.
Murtagh squatted and rested his head in his hands. To subvert a ward,
you had to think in a sideways fashion. Which was hardโvery hardโbut in a way, that was the point. The di๏ฌculty of imagining a new approach was what protected the person or thing behind the ward.
He imagined inverting a sphere without breaking it. He imagined moving in a straight line down a right angle. Every impossible action that his mind could conceive, he thought of.
A small smile formed on his lips.ย PerhapsโฆEragon had defeated Galbatorix not by trying to hurt him but by trying to help him understand the consequences of his own actionsโan approach that neither the king nor his many enemies over the years had thought of. It was possible that a similar indirect approach might work on the door.
The jewels contained energy needed to power whatever enchantments were imbued into the bone door. And if that power were consumed, it would need to be replaced. So itย oughtย to be possible to both place and remove energy from the gems without triggering an additional trap.
Again, it depended on how clever the mysterious magician had been.
Murtagh decided to chance it. What was the worst that could happen? A grim chuckle left him. Most people might sayย death, but dying was far from the most fearful fate. He and Thorn had already passed through the darkest valley; nothing the wards might do could approach the depths of pain, fear, and debasement they had already faced.
First he needed a place to funnel the energy; it was too much to hold within his body. Heโd burn up if he tried. Normally he would store energy within Zarโrocโs ruby pommel, but without the swordโฆ
He retrieved the teardrop-shaped yellow diamond from his cloak. It seemed the stone was going to prove its usefulness sooner than expected.
Holding the diamond in his left hand, he pressed his right against the door. The facets of the jewels were sharp against his palm. He closed his eyes, took a breath, and slowly, cautiously, began to siphon energy out of the gems and into the yellow diamond.
For the ๏ฌrst few seconds, the ๏ฌow of energy was smooth and untroubled. But then he felt increasing resistance, and the diamond grew warm in his hand. The heat quickly increased to an unbearable level. His skin began to burn.
In an instant, he realized the stone was about to explode. He dropped the diamond and gasped, โBrisingr!โ
A bright blue werelight sprang into existence to his right: a burning ball of ๏ฌame hanging at eye level, the rippling ๏ฌames causing the air to shimmer and waver like crystal water.
He diverted the energy into the werelight, which grew brighter and brighter, until it was painful to look at, and waves of heat washed o๏ฌ the ๏ฌst-sized knot of ๏ฌames. Murtagh ducked his head and leaned away, but he kept his hand on the gems, and he kept drawing on them.
He slowed the ๏ฌow of energy when the heat became unbearable. Beyond that, his own wards would have been triggered.
Minutes passed while the miniature sun blazed beside him, a pocket furnace suspended by invisible forces, fueled by the potential stored within the jewels.
At last, he felt the ๏ฌow subsiding, and the werelight dimmed and cooled. He drained every last iota of energy from the gems, emptied them of their dregs, and left them as brittle chalices ready to again be topped to the brim.
Then he ended his spell, and wings of shadows wrapped around him as the werelight vanished.
He wiped the sweat from his brow. His heart was pounding painfully fast, and he felt shaky. The spell, he knew, had nearly killed him. If the diamond had exploded, he doubted that his wards would have been strong enough to protect him.
He picked up the gem. It was still uncomfortably warm. Murtagh had never had di๏ฌculty storing energy in a gem before. Though now that he thought about it, heโd only really used the ruby in Zarโrocโs pommel, and that was a far larger stone, of ๏ฌner quality too, and woven through with elven enchantments. The diamond had none of those advantages. It must have already been ๏ฌlled to its limit. That or there had been signi๏ฌcantly more energy stored in the door than heโd realized.
He carefully tucked the diamond back into the hem of his cloak. It was a matter that bore more attention, when he had the time.
He squared his shoulders. Now for the most dangerous partโฆ He pushed on the door.
It didnโt move.
He pulled, and stillโฆit remained obstinately closed.
Angered, Murtagh said, โLรกdrin.โ Open, and he put the full force of his will behind the arcane word.
With an alarmingย creak, the door swung inward on hidden hinges. Murtagh waited a moment to see if heโd triggered a trap, but nothing happened, so he again took up his candle and stepped across the threshold.
 |
Another light sprang to life from a piece of quartz set into the ceiling of the third room. By the calm, unwavering light, Murtagh saw an underground garden. Raised beds of dirt, edged with brick, lay to the right and left of a narrow path, and in those beds grew trees, ๏ฌowers, vines, bushes, and all manner of small, woody herbs. The air was warm and aromatic with a heady perfume, and it was moist too, as if a bank of mist had settled across the ground. The low hum of bees sounded amid the leaves.
Some of the plants Murtagh recognized: healing plants, poisonous plants, plants for inducing visions and compelling sleep. But many were unknown to him. There was a lily whose leaf and stem seemed made of living gold and whose petals were of a whitish metal. A drooping tree with berries that glittered like beryls. Mushrooms that had purple caps and electric-blue gills.
And he saw a plant unlike any he had encountered before. It had a single stem topped with a ๏ฌeshy, pitcher-shaped cup perhaps two hands high. And from the cup stood small orange tentacles, which waved gently in the air.
Even as he watched, a frog hopped past the pitcher plant. Two of the tentacles reached out, fast as snakes, grabbed the frog, and pulled it into the mouth of the cup and held it there.
The frog uttered the smallest, most pitiful screech Murtagh had ever heard. Then it made no more sounds.
His face tightened, and he gripped the hilt of the arming sword, half-minded to chop the tentacled plant in twain.
After a moment, he thought better of it. But he kept his hand on the sword as he continued down the path.ย What witchery is this?
He was so focused on the odd sights that he forgot to watch where he was walking, and he caught an ankle on the corner of a brick that stuck out. He stumbled forward a step. As he recovered, he saw a crystal case sitting between two bushes, nearly hidden by the leafy branches. And resting in the case, a blue-black oval that was half a foot wide and half a foot tall. An egg. An evil-looking egg.
He stared at it, unsettled.ย What sort of creature hatches from such a thing?ย Not a dragon, that seemed sure, nor any other being he was familiar with. For the ๏ฌrst time in his travels, he wished that Eragon or Arya were there with him. Whatever the purpose of the rooms underneath Gilโead, they had been built and furnished with serious intent, and he had a creeping feeling that whoever it was that used them was dangerous in the extreme.
His gaze turned to the door at the back of the gardenโthe last door that needed opening, or so he hoped.
With quiet steps, he moved toward it.
The door was made not of wood, not of bone, but of grey granite, as hard and unyielding as an oath of revenge. The surface had a dry, textured appearance, and there were veins of tarnished copper running throughout. A handle also made of granite was mounted upon the left side.
Murtagh stood before the door, wary. He probed with his mind and feltโฆnothing. No gems, no stored energy, no hidden consciousness watching him, just cold dead stone, heavy with the weight of ages.
He pushed his thoughts past the door, into the chamber beyond. Even there, he found nothing but blank emptiness.
Worry and anger hardened his mind. Had Carabel been telling him the truth about Silna? Suddenly he had doubts.ย What if all this was a ploy to deceive me into coming here?ย But for what reason? To gather information on Carabelโs behalf? To confront the spellcaster using the chambers? Was Carabel working at Relginโs behest?
Murtagh wasnโt willing to give up on the idea of Silna, though. He had to know for sure whether she was imprisoned beneath the barracks.
He grasped the handle.
The garden remained as before, bees humming in the background.
He pulled.
The door swung open in perfect silence.
|
The room past the garden was a bare stone cell. The walls were roughly quarried granite, devoid of windows, with a single iron bracket hung next to the door. On the bracket sat a stub of a candle.
A small sky-blue blanket lay crumpled on the ๏ฌoor. And that was all.
The sight made Murtaghโs heart ache. For a moment, it felt as if he were back in Urรปโbaen, in the dungeons beneath the citadelโhe and Thorn both
โlistening to the screams of other prisoners while the overpowering weight of the kingโs mind bore down upon him. The walls seemed to close in on him, and he had a sudden feeling of being deep underground, alone and isolated, trapped in the airless dark.
He picked up the blanket. It was barely bigger than a kerchief and smelled ofโฆsmelled of fear. Silna, or some other child, had been held captive there. That much seemed certain.
Tears welled in his eyes, but they did not fall.
He blinked and took a closer look at the back wall. Was there something on theโฆYes. A faint line of white chalk. He traced it with his eyes and found that the line drew an arch from ๏ฌoor to head height.
An arch or a doorway. Theย ideaย of a doorway. A yearning for freedom.
He touched the back wall. It was hard, with no hint of movement, and when he tapped on the stone, it sounded solid.
His breath caught in his throat, and an oppressive grief collapsed upon him. Then a terrible rage began to build atop the grief, and his hands closed in ๏ฌsts, and he set his teeth and ground his jaw.
They would pay. They would all pay for what they had done to the werecat youngling, and he would teach them to fear him as they had feared his father.
โCurse you,โ he muttered, and spun around to leave.
A blur of brindled fur sprang toward him from the back corner of the cell. Weight struck him against the neck and shoulders, and hisses and yowls echoed in his ears as a ๏ฌurry of white claws tore at his throat.
