Chapter 16

A small candle, fixed to the ground, flickered fiercely in front of Brynn’s face. Its warm glow suffused the room. He pushed himself up into a sitting position. His hands were free of the manacles, but he was still in his cell. The cell’s heavy door stood ajar.

Brynn heard a murmur behind him. He turned in the direction of the voice. Sibila lay on the ground, mumbling to herself, staring up at nothing. He tried to listen to her words, but the sounds were nothing more than incoherent gibberish. He turned some more and froze.

Kynan’s lifeless body was crumpled to the ground, limbs askew, her face set in an expression of shock and horror.

Brynn involuntarily scrambled up and backed away and gagged. He quickly scanned the rest of the room. Themon was gone. There was no trace of him. He had either run away or the Darkness had taken him.

Brynn could not bear to look at Kynan, but maybe he could help Sibila. He tentatively took a step towards her. She continued muttering, ignorant of his presence. He went to take another step when movement by the door interrupted him. He reflexively raised his arms into a defensive position.

A familiar figure stepped in, carrying a lamp and a coiled length of old, rotted rope.

“Seleeku?”

“You’re up!” she replied, the relief evident on her face. She tossed the rope to the ground. “I thought I was going to have to drag you out of here.”

“What happened?” Brynn asked. She was wearing a jailor’s uniform, but still had the wimple on her head, hiding her ears.

“Everyone saw the guards arrest you. I followed you to this dungeon’s entrance. Sneaking into here was difficult, more difficult than the college, but I was eventually able to get an old jailor’s uniform. Then I had to wander around searching for you. They put you in the deepest, darkest cell for some reason. When I found you, you were unconscious, and they were …” she trailed off. “The key for your manacles was hanging just outside the door, but you wouldn’t wake up.” She looked down at the rope skeptically. “I thought maybe I could put this around you somehow and pull you out.”

Brynn turned back to Sibila. “We have to help her.”

Seleeku stepped forward and stopped him. “I tried, but there’s nothing to be done. The jailors will be here soon. They’ll get help for her. We can’t be here when they arrive.”

She was right, of course. Not only did everyone think he was corrupted, but now he would be considered a murderer too. Brynn risked a glance at Kynan. He had not known her very well, but he had heard that she had been a kind and intelligent person. She did not deserve what happened to her. No one did. He started crying.

“I’m sorry, Brynn,” Seleeku said sadly. “We have to leave.”

He stifled his tears and nodded. He did not have time for grief. He had work to do. He had to find a way to stop Kodroth, to stop the Darkness. He needed a way to learn their weaknesses.

He had a book to read.

---

Seleeku had stashed another jailor’s uniform in a nearby empty cell. Brynn reluctantly abandoned his druid’s robe for the uniform. It was ill-fitting—too tight around the waist and voluminous around the shoulders—but it would work as a disguise as long as other jailors didn’t scrutinize him too closely.

“The book that you stole, do you have it?” Brynn asked her as struggled into his new clothes.

She looked at him suspiciously. “I didn’t steal it. I borrowed it.”

“You borrowed—? Never mind. The book, where is it?”

“I put it back.”

“You what?!”

“I just said that I borrowed it. Besides, you told me that I should put it back, remember?”

Brynn shoulders slumped. Seleeku grabbed the top of the tunic to stop it from slipping down to his elbows.

“We need that book, Seleeku,” he told her.

She gave him a hard stare.

“I’m sorry!” Brynn replied. “I didn’t know it at the time.”

Seleeku shook her head silently and stepped out of the cell. Brynn followed her. This area of the dungeon seemed abandoned. Some of the rough-hewn tunnels had collapsed, creating a maze of passageways. Any cells they passed by were empty. Their contents had long since rotted away to dust.

“Why did you rescue me?” he asked her while they paused at an intersection. She seemed unsure which way to go.

“Isn’t it obvious that I need your help?” she replied, annoyed, and stalked off down the left tunnel. “I need your help in stopping the Darkness. More importantly, I need your help in saving Nessana.”

He hesitated before asking. “Is it one of your prophecies?”

She stopped abruptly and pointed at him. “Preserve portent!”

“Huh? What are you saying?”

“That’s part of the prophecy. The part about you.”

“That’s it? It doesn’t make any sense!”

“Who says it has to make sense?” Seleeku replied. “We can talk later. Right now we have to find our way out of here.” She looked about the tunnel, as if searching for clues to their whereabouts.

“Are you lost?”

“No, of course not,” she replied curtly. She turned around and looked backwards, frowning.

Brynn had travelled through these corridors when the jailors took him to his cell. He finally paid attention to his surroundings to see if anything looked familiar. The right wall was smooth stone, with delicate inlaid flower motifs. The left was simply unfinished rock. Half of the floor was made of cobblestones arranged in a complicated pattern that never seemed to repeat, while the other was muddy dirt. It was as if some sorcery had smashed two different corridors together.

“I wonder what happened here,” said Brynn, slowly.

“This dungeon must be cursed,” Seleeku replied. “I’m surprised I found you.”

Brynn groaned. “It’s probably easy to get to the cell. It’s getting out that’s hard.”

“Did your druids put a spell on this place? Can you reverse it?” she asked.

“My druids?” he said reproachfully. “No, this dungeon has been here for ages. Who knows who created it? It could have been elves for all I know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Humans and elves lived here in harmony long before the Great War! Anybody could have enchanted these corridors! I have no idea who created it or how.”

Seleeku have him a biting look and headed back to the intersection they had been at moments before. They arrived at a grand underground hallway instead, with several corridors and tunnels branching off in different directions. Seleeku cautiously entered and the entire cavern glittered from the light of her lantern.

“What is this?” Seleeku asked in wonderment.

Large twinkling pillars held up a lofty ceiling. Brynn could barely see it in the distance. He heard the occasional plop as a drop of water fell into one of the small puddles scattered around the floor.

Brynn got closer to one of the pillars and looked at the blue white stone. “I think it’s salt.”

Seleeku came up to him, and the light revealed the bones of a skeleton half-embedded in the column. Had the pillar of salt grown up around it? Could it have been there that long?

She moved her lamp around, examining the skeleton. Most of the skull was sunk into the salty stone, but it appeared to peering upward, its mouth open in a silent scream. Brynn followed its gaze. Were those arm bones sticking out above its head? Were the person’s arms raised upwards when this happened, pleading for mercy?

“Any ideas?” Seleeku asked.

Brynn shrugged. “There must be a ritual to reveal the true path, known only to certain jailors and the High Druids.”

“Do you think the spirits can help us?” She looked around as if expecting spirits to pop out of the nooks and crannies of the cave.

Brynn wanted to tell her that the spirits were the ones that created this maze and that they’d be unlikely to help. One glance at her face changed his mind. She was hiding it, but she was afraid. He was too. They could easily die here and end up like the poor soul embedded in their salty tomb.

“I’ll try,” he replied.

Any spirit that may have inhabited the skeleton had long since fled to a presumably more pleasant place. No one really knew what happened to a person’s spirit, or soul, when they died. A very few stayed on as bonewalkers, ghosts, or hollows—or haunted people’s dreams like Kodroth. Most disappeared from the realm, never be heard from again. Did they go to some form of heaven or hell? Who knew? The living asked for aid and comfort from the deceased through rituals and prayers. The dead rarely replied.

Seleeku cleared her throat. “If you’re staring at that skeleton because you think it knows a way to escape, I highly doubt it.”

“Not the skeleton,” Brynn said. “What’s behind it.”

“The pillar?” she asked dubiously. The base was made of compressed salt, large, round and knotted. It rose up high into the distance, tapering in the middle before expanding again towards the ceiling. Seleeku raised her lantern in an attempt to see the top, but it stayed hidden in the shadows.

“Maybe …” Brynn muttered to himself. The spirit of the pillar ignored Brynn and Seleeku completely. How could he reach something so foreign to his existence?

He tried anyway. “Oh great spirit of salt, could you show us how to leave these caves?” Seleeku looked at him and suppressed a laugh.

The spirit slowly awakened, but Brynn could tell something was wrong. It hardly noticed him or Seleeku, but instead felt the great weight of the cavern ceiling pressing down upon it. How long had it been here, deep underground, while the weight of the world crushed its spine? Why should it stay? It wanted to be free, free, FREE.

The ground shuddered as Brynn heard a great cracking sound from above. Little pebbles showered down around him. Then he heard thumps of larger rocks slamming into the floor.

“Run!” shouted Seleeku.

Another crack shook the cavern. The pillar had broken in half and the top part was beginning to tumble down. Brynn bolted after Seleeku towards one of the outgoing corridors. Rocks and falling stones crashed all around him. White salty dust swirled over everything, choking him and obscuring his vision. He chased after the bouncing light of the lantern. He saw Seleeku dodge a plummeting column and jump into a tunnel. Brynn stumbled in after her.

The cavern collapsed with an ear-splitting boom. Rocks and columns roared down, filling the tunnel entrance with moon colored debris. There was no going back.

“Oh great spirit of salt? Really?” Seleeku grumbled.

A low moan echoed through the corridor.

“Are you hurt?” she asked, concern suddenly entering in her voice.

“No, that wasn’t me,” Brynn replied. They both looked down the corridor, which was little more than a roughly hewn tunnel. It looked like an abandoned offshoot of a salt mine, Brynn thought grimly, which could mean the tunnel could wind up being a dead end.

They had no choice but to move forward.

The faint wailing continued as the picked their way through the tunnel. They half walked, half climbed, as the tunnel twisted up and to the left. When they rounded the corner, they encountered the source of the whimpering.

“High Druid Themon!” Brynn exclaimed.

The old man sat on the ground, his back propped up against the jagged wall and his legs splayed out on the floor. His unfocused eyes stared up at the ceiling. A feeble keen escaped his lips.

Brynn looked him over. There was no blood or other signs of injury. He tentatively reached out and touched Themon’s shoulder. “High Druid!” he called.

Themon’s gaze floated over to Brynn. “I’m sorry …” he whispered. “Take …” His eyes wandered to the dagger at his waist.

“We’ll find a way out of here, High Druid,” Brynn said. “We’ll get you help!”

Themon shook his head slightly. A single tear streaked down his cheek. “Modos … tednuj … meg …,” he sighed. He exhaled his last breath and was still.

“No!” Brynn gave the man a gentle shake, as if to wake him, but it was no use.

“Who was he?” Seleeku asked quietly.

“He was a High Druid from the College. He saved my life when I was child. The book you stole—”

“—borrowed—”

“—belonged to him.” Brynn’s thoughts were a jumble. His emotions threatened to overwhelm him. “He and Sibila and Kynan … the ritual … affected him … he fled and wound up here …”

Seleeku gave him a sympathetic look. “What were his last words? They sounded like gibberish to me.”

Brynn took several deep breaths and settled himself. With shaky hands, he tenderly untied the belt around Themon’s waist. He needed to retrieve the dagger. “He was speaking in the Old Tongue.” His voice cracked, but he as able to keep speaking. “It’s the beginning of an ancient poem. There are no translations, unfortunately.”

“I recognize that dagger,” Seleeku said, frowning.

“The bonewalker we encountered in the swamp had a similar one.” He studied the hilt. The runes were unrecognizable to him, and he couldn’t sense any magic on the dagger. He wrapped the belt around his waist and did his best to hide it under his tunic.

Seleeku seemed to be on the verge of saying something about the dagger, but she changed her mind. “We still need to find a way out of here,” she said instead.

Brynn hesitated. If he left Themon here, he doubted he would ever be found. There was no way to carry him, however. Brynn would have to leave him to his fate. For now.

“High Druid,” he spoke as he stood up. “I swear to you that I will find a way to give you proper funeral. I don’t know how, but I will make it happen.”

Both Seleeku and Brynn shared a moment of silence. Then they looked ahead in the only direction they could go. Seleeku’s lantern illuminated the tunnel for a short distance. It continued upwards and then took another sharp turn, this time to the right.

“Ready?” asked Seleeku.

“Ready,” said Brynn. He wiped away a tear.

They stepped forward into the darkness.