Murtagh

The chamber inside was totally dark. Even Murtagh’s eyes—sharpened as they were by his bond with Thorn—could not pick out a single detail.

He returned to the tunnel and retrieved a candle. With his free hand, he grabbed the guard’s ankle and dragged him through the doorway into—

—a war room of sorts. A long wooden table occupied the center of the chamber, and on it, a map of Alagaësia, similar to the one in Captain Wren’s 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 he’d entered, there was another—smaller, darker, made of polished wood—that 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 find 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. “Interesting.”

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. “Môgren,” he muttered. The black-needled pinetrees that grew in the Beor Mountains, home of the dwarves. It was rare to find anything made of that wood in the western half of Alagaësia. 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 wasn’t one of them. What were dwarves doing here, and so long ago? he wondered. Or had the door been made elsewhere and then brought to Gil’ead at some later date?

Questions that he doubted he would ever have answers to. Perhaps the Eldunarí could have told him.

Unlike the first door, there was no keyhole cut into the Môgren, 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 Wren’s study. A lock, then. Possibly magic, but not necessarily.

“What are you up to?” he murmured.

Murtagh considered sneaking back into the barracks and over to Wren’s study to retrieve the mask, but dismissed the idea as too risky.

No, what he needed was…He 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, “Thrysta.”

Instead of releasing the power in a single burst, he restricted it to a gentle—but inexorable—push. The plank crumpled inward as if being crushed by an invisible boulder, and the wood fit itself to the lines and contours of the mask impression.

A small, tight smile formed on Murtagh’s face as he guided the spell. Just a little more…

The door broke with a loud crack, splitting up the middle.

“Son of an Urgal,” 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 dwarves’ flameless 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. Actual ribs. The bones of a dragon.

A horrible suspicion formed in Murtagh that he was looking at the ribs of Morzan’s 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 flasks, alembics, beakers, burners, bottles, and casks, and several braziers. 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 find himself looking at a list of words.