Authors: T. A. Barron
Only then did I notice the continuous rumbling around us. The rumbling swelled, faded, and repeated, as incessantly as ocean waves. The sound of the castle turning on its foundation! As I clambered to my feet, I felt thrown off balance, both by the continuous shaking of the floor and the steady pull toward the outside wall of the room. I stooped to pick up my staff. Even with its support, I needed a moment to stand firmly.
I turned to Shim. “I would feel a lot better if I still had the Galator.”
“Look,” he replied, standing on his tiptoes by the open window. “It’s all so darkly out there! And feels the floor moving and shaking all the time. I doesn’t like this place.”
“Neither do I.”
“I is scared. Very, very, very scared.”
“I am, too.” I nodded in his direction. “But it gives me courage to be with friends.”
A new gleam appeared in Shim’s tiny eyes. “Courage,” he said softly to himself. “I gives him courage.”
“Come.” Carefully, I crept to the doorway. It led to a dark corridor, lit only by a hissing torch at the far end. “We must try to find Rhia! If she is alive, she is probably below in the dungeon.”
Shim’s small chest inflated. “Such a terribly place! I will fights anybody who is hurtsing her.”
“No you won’t,” I countered. “The castle is guarded by warrior goblins and ghouliants.”
“Oooh.” He swiftly deflated. “We should not fights them.”
“Right. We must outfox them, if we can. Not fight them.”
Trouble fluttered up to my shoulder, and we set off. Down the dimly lit corridor we stole, keeping as quiet as possible. Fortunately, the steady rumbling of the revolving castle covered most of our sounds, but for the slightest clacking of my staff against the stones. I reasoned that as long as we could keep ourselves from being discovered, the castle guards were probably not alert for intruders. On the other hand, I vividly recalled expecting the same thing of the goblins patrolling the notch near the Haunted Marsh.
When we reached the hissing torch, crudely jammed into a niche in the stones, the corridor turned sharply to the right. Arched doorways lined both sides of the next section, while only one narrow window slit opened to the outside. As we approached the window, I tensed as I saw shafts of darkness streaming through it, as shafts of light would pour through a window in any land not choked by the Shroud.
Gingerly, I placed my hand in the path of one of the shafts. Its coldness nipped at my fingers. My skin felt withered, half alive.
With a shiver, I withdrew my hand and moved on. Shim’s bare feet padded softly by my side, as Trouble’s talons hugged my shoulder securely. One corridor led to another, one sputtering torch to the next. All the rooms that we encountered were empty except for the writhing shadows of torchlight. I could only imagine how many such empty floors lay within this vast castle. Yet, for all our wandering, we did not discover any stairs.
Cautiously, we prowled the maze of corridors, turning left then right, right then left. I began to wonder whether we were traveling in circles, whether we would ever find any stairs to the lower levels. Then, as we approached one doorway, Trouble fluttered against my neck. Suddenly I heard several raspy voices trading rough remarks.
Goblins. Several of them, from the sound of it.
We waited outside the arched door, unsure how to get past without being seen. Trouble paced agitatedly on my shoulder. Then an idea struck me. I tapped the merlin on the beak, while pointing inside the doorway.
The hawk seemed to understand instantly. Soundlessly, he floated down to the floor. Keeping to the shadows by the wall, he slipped into the room. Just outside the doorway, Shim and I traded nervous glances.
A few seconds later, one of the goblins yelped in pain. “You stabbed me, you fool!”
“I did not,” another retorted, over the crash of something metallic.
“Liar!”
Something heavy thudded against the stone floor. A sword slashed through the air.
“I’ll show you who’s a liar.”
A brawl began. Swords clanged, fists struck, curses flew. In the commotion, Shim and I sneaked past the doorway. Pausing only long enough for Trouble to swoop back to his perch on my shoulder, we scuttled down the corridor. As we turned a corner, we found ourselves facing a stairwell.
Faintly lit by a flickering torch on the landing, the stone stairs wound downward in near darkness. I led the way, with Trouble riding close to my cheek, both of us trying to sense whatever might lurk in the shadows. Shim, whispering nervously to himself, stayed close behind.
The stairs spiraled down to another landing, sinister in the torchlight. Swaying shadows crawled across the walls. As we descended, the rumbling and groaning of the turning foundation increased, as did the stale odor in the air. We followed the stairs down to another level, gloomier than the last. And to another level, still gloomier. Here the stairs ended, opening into a high stone archway. Beyond that lay a dark cellar that reeked of putrid air.
“The dungeon,” I whispered above the constant rumbling.
Shim made no reply except to open his eyes to their widest.
From the darkened entrance to the dungeon came a long, painful moan. A moan of sheer agony. The voice sounded almost human, though not quite. As the moan came again, louder than before, Shim froze as stiff as stone. Cautiously, I moved forward without him, poking at the blackest shadows with my staff.
Passing under the archway, I peered into the dungeon. To the left, beneath one of the few torches in the cavernous room, I viewed a man. He lay on his back on a bench of stone. From his slow, regular breathing, he appeared to be asleep. Although a sword and a dagger hung from his belt, he wore no armor except for a narrow red breastplate over his leather shirt, and a pointed helmet on his head.
Yet the strangest thing about this man was his face. It looked like paper, it was so pale. Or like a mask without any expression. Whatever the reason, the face seemed alive—and yet not alive.
The man suddenly started moaning and wailing. As the sound echoed in the dungeon, I realized that he must be dreaming, recalling in his sleep some moment of pain. Though I felt tempted to wake him, to spare him such torment, I dared not take the risk. As I spun around to tell Shim, I gasped. The little giant was gone.
Quickly, I darted back to the stairwell. I called his name, loud enough to be heard over the rumbling of the castle, but not so loud as to wake the sleeping soldier. Looking frantically, I could see no sign of him. I called again. No answer.
How could Shim have vanished? Where could he have gone? Maybe he had, at last, lost his nerve completely. He might be hiding somewhere, quaking. In any case, I had no time to look for him now.
With Trouble riding tensely on my shoulder, I turned around and crept past the sleeping soldier under the sizzling torch. Deeper into the dungeon I pushed. Where chains hung from the walls, the stones beneath were darkened with dried blood. I passed cell after cell, some with their heavy doors wide open, some still locked tight. Scanning through the slit in each of the locked doors, I found bones and rotting flesh still on the floor. I could not imagine Rhia, with all her zest for life, imprisoned in such a gruesome place. Yet, given the alternative, I desperately hoped that she was.
Since the day the sea returned me to Fincayra, I had discovered a little, but only a little, about my past. And I had learned even less about my true name. Yet those unfinished quests now pulled on me far less strongly than my desire to find Rhia. I was willing to put aside my own unanswered questions, perhaps forever, if only I could somehow reach her in time.
I found a cell with a skull crushed beneath a heavy rock. Then one in which two skeletons, one the size of an adult and the other no bigger than a baby, embraced each other for eternity. Then one that was completely empty but for the pile of leaves in one corner.
More despairing with every step, I trudged on. Had I come all this way to find nothing more than scattered bones and a pile of leaves?
I halted.
A pile of leaves.
I sprinted back to the cell. My heart pounding, I peered again into the narrow slit. Just loud enough to be heard above the rumbling, I made the sound that Rhia had shown me to make a beech tree come to life.
The pile of leaves stirred.
“Rhia,” I whispered excitedly.
“Emrys?”
She leaped to her feet and bounded to the door. Her garb of vines was tattered and filthy, but she was alive. “Oh, Emrys,” she said in disbelief. “Is it you or your ghost?”
In answer, I slipped my forefinger through the slit. Tentatively, she wrapped her own around it, as she had so many times before.
“It is you.”
“It is.”
“Let me out.”
“First I must find the key.”
Rhia’s face fell. “The guard. By the entrance. He has the key.” She squeezed my finger fearfully. “But he is—”
“A soundly sleeper,” finished another voice.
I whirled around to see Shim gazing up at me, an unmistakable look of pride on his small face. The little giant held out his hand. In it sat a large key wrought of iron.
I stared at him in amazement. “You stole this from the guard?”
Shim blushed, his bulbous nose turning almost as pink as his eyes. “He is a soundly sleeper, so it isn’t hard.”
Trouble, seated on my shoulder, whistled in admiration.
I grinned. It struck me that Shim might not be so small as he seemed after all.
With a rattle of the key, I unlocked the door. Rhia emerged, her face haggard but relieved. She embraced me, Trouble, and finally Shim, whose nose blushed more vividly than before.
Turning to me, she asked, “How do we get out of here?”
“I haven’t figured out that part yet.”
“Well, then, let’s begin.”
“I only wish I still had the Galator.”
Rhia’s jaw dropped. “You lost it?”
“I . . . gave it up. To get here.”
Even in the dungeon, her eyes glowed. She hooked her finger around my own again. “You still have us.”
Together, we started walking toward the entrance. Trouble fluttered against my neck. Even without the Galator against my chest, my heart felt a bit warmer.
But only a bit. As we passed the cell with the crushed skull, I told Rhia, “Getting in here was difficult, but getting out will be even more difficult. That is . . . getting out alive.”
“I know.” She stood as straight as a young beech. “In that case, all we can do is hope that Arbassa was right.”
Trouble, who had started to pace across my shoulder, stopped. He cocked his head as if he were listening.
“About meeting again in the Otherworld?”
Rhia gave an uncertain nod. “After the Long Journey.”
I could only frown. I was sure that, if we died today, there would be no more journeys for us—long or short.
Shim tugged on my tunic. “Let’s get goings! Before that snoringly guard wakes—”
Suddenly the soldier stepped out of the shadows. His face, deathly pale under his helmet, showed no expression at all. Slowly, he slid his sword out of its scabbard. Then he lunged at me.
36:
T
HE
L
AST
T
REASURE
Look out!” cried Rhia.
I threw up my staff, deflecting the blow with its gnarled top. As chips of wood flew, I pulled out my dagger. At the same time, the soldier drew back his sword. He prepared to make another thrust.
Screeching, talons gouging, Trouble flew straight into his face. One talon slashed his cheek. Without even a cry of pain, he swatted at the attacking bird. I seized the moment to bury my dagger deep in the soldier’s chest, just below the breastplate.
I stepped back, expecting to see him fall. Trouble flitted back to his customary perch on my shoulder.
Astonishingly, the soldier merely stood there, his emotionless gaze fixed on the hilt of the dagger. Dropping his sword, which clattered on the stone floor, he grasped the dagger with both hands. With a sharp tug, he pulled it from his body and cast it aside. Not so much as a single drop of blood trickled from the wound.
Before he could retrieve his sword, Rhia grabbed me by the arm. “Flee!” she cried. “He is a ghouliant! He cannot die!”
We dashed through the dungeon’s entrance and ran up the stairs. Not far behind, the deathless soldier bounded after us. Rhia led the way, trailing torn vines from her leggings, followed closely by me and Shim.
Up the spiraling stairs we raced, nearly tripping over the stone steps in our frenzy. Past the next landing, with its sputtering torch. And the next. And the next. The stairwell grew narrower as we climbed higher. Rhia, her legs as strong as ever, pulled farther ahead of me, while Shim fell farther behind. Panting, I glanced over my shoulder. The ghouliant had drawn within a few steps of him.
Seeing Shim’s danger, Trouble took off, his wing slapping the side of my neck. His angry screech echoed in the stairwell as he flew again into the face of our pursuer.
The ghouliant fell back a few steps, trying to fight off the bird. As they battled, so did their shadows on the dimly lit stone walls. I hesitated. Should I follow Rhia, or go back to assist Trouble?
I heard a scream from up the stairwell.
“Rhia!”
I practically flew up the stairs, taking them two at a time. The stairwell curled tighter and tighter, narrowing almost to a point. Breathing hard, I rounded a bend and arrived at a landing much larger and better lit than the lower ones. At once, I stopped.
Before me spread an enormous hall, its walls lined with flaming torches and glittering objects, its ceiling vaulting high overhead. But my attention was fixed on the center of the hall. Rhia had been captured by a warrior goblin! His tongue flitting around his gray-green lips, the goblin had pinned her arms behind her back. His burly hand covered her mouth so that she could not cry out again.
“Welcome to our castle,” thundered a powerful voice.
I swung around to see a large man, his face as stern as chiseled stone, seated upon a red throne that shimmered eerily. His mouth seemed etched in a permanent frown. Grim though he was, he looked darkly handsome as well. Beneath the gold circlet he wore on his brow, his black eyes glared intensely. Over his face and body wavered some strange shadows, although I could not tell what caused them.