“Cease fire.”
Chase looked a bit confused but obeyed the command and ordered his men to hold.
Alexander reached into the ring with his mind. Now that he’d established a connection, it was as if the ring, or more accurately, the Keep, was an extension of his own body. He could feel the span of the bridge with his mind. It was as easy as scratching an itch on his face. He willed the bridge into its place outside of this world. There was a moment of hesitation, like the Keep was asking if he was sure, then with a flicker, it faded from existence, leaving the enemy two thousand feet up in the empty sky. Alexander felt a twinge of guilt for the horses as they plunged to their deaths.
The enemy tumbled through the air, screaming until they were too far away to be heard anymore. Alexander looked across at Rangle and watched the Wizard send a bubble of liquid fire streaking across the chasm. It was too late to retreat. Abigail tried to burst it with an arrow but missed. The bubble came right for the top of the stone arch. When it hit, the angry orange-red liquid fire within would burst forth, showering everyone with droplets of death and pain.
Even as it came toward them, Alexander felt the awareness of the Keep linked to his own mind and he knew that they were safe. Men scattered away from the arch but Alexander stood and watched. The bubble of fire burst twenty feet from the side of the Keep as though it had hit a wall of glass. It sprayed out over the chasm but not a drop crossed the plane of that invisible magic shield. It was a magical Keep after all. Alexander was coming to understand the truth of that statement.
Alexander waved to Rangle before turning back to his friends. “Looks like we made it.” He leaned his bow against the wall and walked out into the midst of the Rangers and stepped up on a pile of rocks that had once served as a fence corner.
“We’re safe from the enemy out there,” he pointed toward Rangle and the giant far across the chasm. “But we don’t know what lies within the Keep. This is a place of profound magic. We must be cautious until we know what to expect and what is safe.”
All of the Rangers nodded their agreement. Blackstone Keep was a place of legend. Not a single wizard in two thousand years who entered the Keep had returned. Alexander was almost certain that he could control the magical protections of the ancient structure, but he didn’t want to take any chances.
“Erik, secure the paddock. Do not enter the Keep. Set two men at every entrance to the Keep and another two men to watch the bridge arch. Make camp and tend to the horses.” Erik saluted, fist to heart, and started giving his Rangers their orders.
There were forty-seven rangers left from Erik’s company of one hundred. They had paid a heavy price for the mission that Alexander had assigned them. Many of the Rangers had lost close friends in the past two weeks. They were sad and angry at the same time. Dinner that evening was quiet and somber.
The giant and Rangle were camped on the far side of the bridge with only a few men left. Alexander wanted to finish them off but knew it wasn’t worth the risk. He had more important business within the Keep, and his enemy was powerless to harm him here.
He spoke to the Rangers after dinner, expressing his gratitude for their loyalty, admiration for their valor, and sorrow for their losses. After a brief and heartfelt speech, he made a point of going to each squad of Rangers to sit with them for a time and listen to the stories they told of their fallen. The personal details of the people who died by his order brought a lump to his throat and heaviness to his heart. Each one of the fallen Rangers was a person with hopes and dreams for the future, with families and loved ones.
Isabel stayed beside him, listening wordlessly to the stories of friends she knew and had lost. He could see the glistening sorrow in her green eyes. She didn’t try to hide it. She loved many of these people, grew up training to become a Ranger with some and had lifelong friendships with others.
Alexander did his best to simply listen to those who remained. He did it more for himself than for the Rangers. They didn’t know it. They thought he was trying to comfort them, and he was. But he was also burning the memory of each person who died by his word into his heart and mind. They were gone because he asked them to risk their lives. He knew with terrible clarity that these would not be the last to fall by his command and he wanted to make sure that he understood the full consequence of what he was going to ask of others. He never wanted to forget. He didn’t ever want it to become easy to send good people to their deaths.
Each and every life was precious and priceless beyond measure. Each death was a tragedy that would eat a giant hole right out of the center of many other people’s lives. He knew his purpose was just and worthy of such sacrifice. He knew that these Rangers had volunteered for this risk with open eyes. And he knew that he never, ever wanted it to become easy to send men into harm’s way. Hearing their stories seared the pain of their loss into him with exactly the ruthless severity that he wanted.
His soul was marked by it, just as it should be.
He slept soundly that night and woke after full light the next morning feeling an air of expectancy. The enemy still occupied the bridge platform across the chasm but they were powerless to reach the paddock. Abigail took a shot across the chasm just to see if her new bow could reach that far. It was close but fell just short. She wrinkled her nose with a frown.
“I want that wizard. He’s been nothing but a nuisance since Southport.” She looked up at the walls rising on each side of the paddock and picked out a few places where passages opened to platforms jutting out of the sheer rock face. “I bet I could reach if I had a little more altitude.” She pointed to a platform two hundred feet up that wrapped around the corner of the wall, looking down to the paddock on one side and the chasm on the other. “I could get him from there.”
“I bet you could,” Alexander said, looking up to the place she was pointing at. “Maybe we’ll see if we can find our way up there later, but I have something else I need to do first.”
After breakfast, Alexander told Erik to maintain a secure perimeter and to stay out of the Keep.
There were three tunnels leading from the paddock, one in each of the three walls enclosing the broad grassy field. The place was amazing. The Keep itself looked to have been carved from the mountain of black stone by a master sculptor who simply removed the excess material to create spires, towers, bridges, rooms, halls, and chambers. It was the most impressive building that Alexander had ever seen.
He went to one of the walls of the paddock. It was made of black granite with faint grey speckling that he had to look closely to see. It looked like the giant block of stone that should have filled the space the paddock occupied had been cut away and discarded, although Alexander couldn’t imagine where they had put it because it would have been enormous, at least two hundred feet wide by three hundred feet long by another five hundred feet high. He realized that the builders had cut this section of the mountain away to bring the place where he stood down to the same level as the bridge platform across the chasm.
He put his hand on the cold stone of the wall and closed his eyes as he focused on the ring, and the Keep came alive in his mind. He could see a three-dimensional map of the entire place, in all of its impossibly intricate detail, floating within his consciousness. There was so much to see, so many rooms and halls to explore, and so many secrets to discover. Some areas of the Keep looked like they were off-limits or dangerous. He couldn’t quite describe how he knew they were dangerous but he knew with certainty that those areas should only be explored with caution.
The place was vast. There were hundreds of towers and buildings on the top of the mountain and thousands of rooms, chambers, galleries, halls, corridors, staircases, quarters, laboratories, and libraries cut into the interior. Whole wings looked to be devoted to the study of magic in all of its varied manifestations. Other sections looked like barracks and still others were quarters and living areas. There were halls organized like marketplaces, and other areas opened to the sky and provided places for fresh food to be grown, while still others looked like training grounds for soldiers. The place was bigger than most cities. There were countless levels, from towers that rose thousands of feet above the level of the paddock to passages that delved down into the bowels of the mountain and even beneath the level of the ground far below. Alexander could hardly grasp the complexity or the immensity of the place. He knew that a person could easily get lost within and never find their way out if they weren’t careful.
He could see that sections of the Keep could be magically shielded and that some corridors could be sealed to prevent access. The place had been built with the purpose of war and security, first and foremost. The more he explored the image in his mind’s eye, the more aware he became of the undercurrent of deadly magic that pervaded the fortress. The Keep itself could kill unwelcome guests. Some areas were open and accessible, while others were severely limited to those with expressly granted access.
Alexander searched for the one place he needed most and found it easily. When he focused on the small, dome-shaped chamber with a little building in the center of it, he found that it lay in a room off the central stairway that wound up through the central tower: The wizard’s tower. He could see the way there. It would be a long walk.
Chapter 54
They took lightweight packs and set out for their ultimate goal. Alexander led them into the central tunnel that cut right into the heart of the mountain. The floors were not made of stone block but of smooth black granite. The walls were not brick or plaster but more of the same cleanly cut, seamless black stone.
The light faded when they moved farther inside the twenty-foot-wide, twenty-foot-high arched tunnel.
“Ah, I was hoping for an opportunity to try my latest acquisition.” Lucky rummaged around in his new bag and pulled out a small pouch. Bright, clean white light spilled out when he opened it. He removed three heavy glass vials filled with a brightly luminescent substance. “These are the remains of the night wisps we killed in the forest. If you let the gelatinous goop that’s left over when they die dry out in the sunlight, it turns into a brightly glowing powder that’s ideal for producing light in dark places. It’s almost as if it absorbs the sunlight for later use,” he said with a satisfied smile as he handed one vial to Alexander and another to Jack. The vials cast a bright yet soft light that filled the tunnel with illumination for several dozen feet in every direction.
The tunnel ran straight and level into the side of the mountain for several hundred feet without any hint of a door or passage until it opened into a giant room, five hundred feet square and at least two hundred feet tall. Huge support pillars stood every fifty feet or so, and a maze of bridges and stairways ran all through the chamber. On every wall were numerous doors and hallways, some opening onto the main floor while others opened onto the many bridges that crisscrossed overhead. Some of the passages looked big enough to carry wagon traffic, while others were clearly meant for foot traffic alone.
“This is the entry hall. Each passage takes you to a different part of the Keep. We need to go this way,” Alexander said, pointing off across the giant room. Each step sent eerie echoes bouncing around in the ancient, abandoned Keep.
He stopped abruptly at the sight of a skeleton lying on the floor. Its owner was long dead. What remained of his clothing was just a dusty stain on the floor. The man’s staff had rotted into nothing more than a line of color on the black stone where it had fallen. The bones looked brittle and desiccated and no flesh remained, not even scraps of dried sinew. Alexander knew that wizards had tried to enter the Keep over the years and none had ever returned. He wondered if he was looking at one of those who had tried and failed. More importantly, he wondered what killed him. There was no sign of a struggle and no apparent reason for his death. Alexander reminded himself that caution was still in order.
The place was dark, foreboding, and ominous while at the same time it was the most magnificent achievement Alexander had ever seen. The walls and floors were so precise and exacting that he was convinced that the construction tool of choice was magic. No hammer or chisel had cut these halls. The stonework was simple, clean, and utilitarian.
Alexander led them across the giant entry hall and took a staircase up to the first level of bridges, then found an open passageway along one wall. He led them through passages, halls, and chambers on his way to his destination. They moved steadily upward through the belly of the mountain-sized Keep. Once deep inside, the silence was almost oppressive.
Abigail whispered, “Are you sure you know where you’re going?”
Alexander chuckled, “Why are you whispering?”
She frowned a little and spoke in a voice just above a whisper. “It’s so quiet. It doesn’t feel right to disturb the silence.”
“I guess I can see what you mean.” He pointed down the hall. “We’re almost there, just a few more minutes.”
They walked on. When they rounded a corner, Alexander suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. He could see the colors of a plane of magical force that guarded the hall. Even if he couldn’t have seen it, he could feel the hair on his arms standing on end.