Murtagh

The off-putting glow from the slime and the smell of sulfur and his underlying wariness combined to turn his stomach, as if he’d eaten a duck egg that had been insufficiently cooked. He swallowed the spit that was filling his mouth and tried to ignore the feeling, though his body was telling him to flee to open skies and fresh air.

His right foot struck something hard.

A fist-sized rock rolled away. He stepped off the path and retrieved the stone. The rock glistered and gleamed as if burning from within. It was a perfect pair to the stone he’d had off Sarros in Ceunon what seemed like half a year ago.

His heart racing, he tucked the stone into the pouch on his belt.

Perhaps a hundred feet from the stairs, a huge curving wall emerged before him, rough and creviced. Three tunnels pierced the wall, and Thorn would have fit into each had he folded his wings tight and kept his belly against the ground, like a great glittering serpent. The tunnel in the middle was edged with finished stone: a ring of rectangular blocks carved with sharp-cornered lines and the same unfamiliar runes as in the village. In the center of each block was set a cabochon of opal, which reflected the slime-glow like so many cats’ eyes.

The tunnels to the left and right were plain, unfinished: rough tubes of stone that burrowed into the roots of the mountains. They did not look chiseled or hammered, and yet neither did they feel entirely natural. More than a little, they reminded Murtagh of the tunnels he’d fled through during his escape from Captain Wren’s secret chambers beneath Gil’ead—only far larger.

Faint sounds emanated from the depths of the tunnels. Whispers. Moans. Soft echoing cries that had a hooting, birdlike quality. At first he thought he was hearing speech or calls of animals, but after a time, he grew convinced it was the air itself moving through the veins of the earth that gave rise to the eerie sounds.

He chose to enter the central tunnel. The unknown craftsmen who had labored upon the caves had taken special pains with that one, and so it must be of importance or lead to importance.

He continued forward. Deeper into the womb of the earth. Deeper into the black unknown, seeking, seeking, always seeking a farther shore, every sense razor-sharp and razor-scraped, skin all goosefleshed, cold sweat dripping down the back of his neck and gathering around his belted waist.

The walls of the tunnel were sheathed with diamond-shaped tiles of rough stone that were lapped like the scales of a dragon. He felt as if he were walking inside a shed skin of enormous proportion.

Not far, then. A minute of walking, no more, and the darkness again encroached, for the tiles were free of slime.

Then he saw a room before him, warm with light. A pale room. A bone-white room clad in finest marble, the veins of which were chased with hammered gold. Brass censers hung on chains from the snouts of sculpted dragon heads, which projected from the circular, column-lined walls. Small flames burned in alcoves in the wall, but the fires consumed no wicks and no fuel; they seemed to spring straight from the marble.

Several open, human-sized doorways led to yet more tunnels. But it was what lay in the center of the room that captured Murtagh’s attention, for it was large and strange: a ring of rough marble, several hands high, with a lid of grey metal atop it, like a covered well.

As he crept closer, he saw a pane of clear crystal framed within the metal, and through the crystal…a vaporous void dropping deeper into the earth.

He frowned. Was this the sacred well that Grieve had mentioned? Was it—or what it contained—the source of Bachel’s power? The well itself didn’t look like much. And yet, the air seemed to thrum like a plucked string. It was true that not all magics were made by humans, elves, dwarves, or any other self-aware, thinking race. There were natural magics also, such as the floating crystals of Eoam, but they tended to be wild and unpredictable.

If the well were such a place, that could explain Bachel’s prowess with magic. And if so, it wasn’t the sort of thing that the Draumar ought to have dominion over. Not that he would want Du Vrangr Gata to assume control over such an important location either. This was exactly what the Riders had been created for: to oversee and mediate that which could destabilize the land.

He bent over the hammered lid and squinted as he tried to peer through the snakes of vapor swirling below. There was a hint of a shape beneath the haze: a vague outline that he could almost make sense of.

Opening his mind, he sent a cautious, probing thought into the murk. He didn’t know what he expected to find, but he suspected there was something of interest hidden at the bottom of the well….