Secret Worlds (329 page)

Beyond that was a large open road, bordered by buildings built upon one another of staggered heights. Each one had arched doorways of dark wood and a small hanging sign above the door. Some were dark while some remained alive with business. People walked to and from these opened stores. Some even gathered in small clusters. It seemed odd to view such a contrast within such a close area.

“This way,” Gandir said, pulling my attention back to where we stepped and not what was going on.

A small space between two buildings offered enough room for us to walk through in single-file. I only had to flick my hand to get my fingers to touch either wall. There were no windows in these walls, only rough stone squares stacked upon one another to form the sides of the buildings.

The farther in we went, the darker it became and the harder it was to discern shapes beyond our own. We arrived at the end of the small alley. Gandir knocked a couple times. A few knocks were returned, followed by something scraping against the ground. It sounded like stone on stone.

A stone door?

Seems like it.
Marren squeezed my hand.

“I’ve got some rather intriguing company here. Won’t ye let us in?” Gandir’s voice was low and deep. I couldn’t pick out anything on the other side of the stone door, but then it scraped some more, raising the hairs on the back of my neck, revealing a darkened room and a figure outlined in a light blue-green aura.

“Well, let us get a look at this intriguing company. Do step inside. Quickly.” The voice came from the other side, thickly accented and choppy. He was tall and thin in stature, judging by the way his robes cloaked him. He turned and walked further into the darkness.

Into the belly of the city. At least that’s what it seemed like. We walked through darkened halls after a long flight of stairs downward. Soon the shadows lightened, and the sounds of chatter filled the air. We turned down a hallway and into a room lit with sconces and lanterns. In the center of the room rested a small table, crudely made. A chair sat on the other side, appearing to have seen better days. The walls were bare, made from sandstone and left jagged in areas. Aside from the door, there were no other ways in or out of the room, including the extreme lack of windows.

“Please forgive my humble decorations. It’s difficult to find pieces to carry this far. And the dwarfs seem less enthused with building furniture than they are about carving this place out of the ground.” The man took a seat in the chair. It groaned loudly at his weight. He removed his hood to reveal long light brown hair, straight eyebrows, and bright green eyes. His lips were squared, yet puckered, and he had a large scar that crossed his face in a diagonal. I quickly averted my eyes when he caught my gawking.

“It’s quite the sight, isn’t it my lady?”

I glanced up, meeting his gaze again. His voice was free from sarcasm, and I didn’t detect a hint of anger in his expression. I smiled politely. “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect to see…well…”

“Relena was attacked when she was younger,” Marren said. “She was scarred horribly. You are the only one of the immortal races that she’s seen with scars like hers.”

“Ah, I see. Kindred spirits, you and I.”

I nodded.

“The name’s Lernn, elven rogue, and leader of this band of dying soldiers.” He stood and held out his hand to me. I placed my hand in his. He brought my fingers to his mouth and placed a gentle peck just below my knuckle.

“Pleasure to meet you.” He released my hand and stood formally while staring at Marren. “Master Marren, a lot has been said of you lately. Whispers, mostly.”

“Whispers?” Marren asked.

“Yes. It’s somewhat of a gift—a talent, if you will. I’m incredibly skilled at going unnoticed. I can blend into the shadows.”

“Interesting.”

“Yes. My talent is useful and saved us a time or two.”

“What kinds of whispers did you pick up exactly?” I asked.

Lernn’s eyes peeked over my shoulder. I followed his gaze to Gandir, standing silently in the corner. He nodded once before his eyes went to mine. I returned my gaze to Lernn. “I know that your daughter is being held in the lowest cells of the dungeon. Those reserved for the most heinous and foul offenders. Not many people actually make it that far. Most are beheaded first.”

“You know Naloud is here?” I turned around to face Gandir to yell at him for not being up front with me, but he wasn’t there. I hadn’t even heard the door. I turned in a complete circle searching for him.

“You’ll have to forgive him. We know that you would do anything and risk everything to find your daughter. Unfortunately, that is not the way to help her. If you go running in there like that, you’ll likely find your daughter dead.” Lernn’s words penetrated the air, dissolving everything around me until nothing remained except his words.

“What else do you know about my daughter?”

“That she’s extremely well taken care of, for being a prisoner and all.”

“What do you mean ‘extremely well taken care of’?” Marren asked.

“Well, it appears that she arrived of her own free will with a man by the name of Serid. They appear to be quite fond of each other.”

I clenched my fists together. “So you say.”

“Well, I’m no expert on love, but apparently Serid has been taking food and water personally to Naloud,” Lernn said. “Word is he’s even spent several days with her.”

A growl erupted from my throat.

Marren cleared his throat and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Not exactly the best argument you can present at this point in time.”

Lernn raised his eyebrows as though he was surprised but understood. “Very well.”

“Just tell me how to get my daughter back,” I said, enunciating every syllable.

“Well, it’s not going to happen tonight,” Lernn said, stepping around the table and toward the door. He gripped the handle and pulled. “You may want to see something first.”

I shifted my gaze to Marren to judge how he handled it. His eyes found mine, nodded once, and pressed his hand on the small of my back.

We walked toward the murmuring, which started out as a whisper then grew louder as we got closer. We approached a set of stairs and began our descent. The stairs led to a large open room with large tables and chairs. Lamps and sconces lined the walls and illuminated every corner of the room in a hazy orange glow. Groups of immortal races were gathered and conversing loudly with one another. None were even slightly aware of our appearance.

Lernn had stopped at the last stair and nodded at someone. Three loud booms filled the air, vibrating off the walls. Silence settled as all eyes fell upon me and Marren. Lernn’s gaze came with a smirk. He turned toward the crowd. “These two need no introduction. Their daughter is Naloud. They want to rescue her. Who will stand behind them?”

A loud roar came as a response. Lernn turned toward me then said, “We all want the king dead. And you will too as soon as you find out who he truly is.”

“Fine. How do you propose we do this?” I asked.

His smirk grew into a smile. “I’d hoped you would ask. Follow me.”

He stepped through the crowd, parting for us as we walked through the long corridor to the room at the end. A figure stood hunched over a table, reviewing a large scroll of parchment unrolled onto a flat surface. The figure’s form seemed familiar to me, and my heart skipped a few beats. Light caught golden strands of silk. I held my breath as we entered.

“I believe you three already met each other…” Lernn said as we entered the room.

Then he turned, and the sad blue eyes that I have come to know and love as my father met mine.

“Athair!” I ran into his arms.

“A’lainn,” he breathed into my hair and squeezed me.

“I was so worried about you. We were chased out of towns and nearly killed. I thought I wouldn’t see you again…I thought…” I started sobbing into Enid’s shoulder.

“Shh. I’m here. Everything will be all right. I’m all right. We are going to get through this. I promise.”

“And Raden?” I asked.

“Raden, unfortunately, shares much of the same fate as your daughter,” Lernn replied.

I nodded into Enid’s shirt then pulled away, wiping my nose on the sleeve of my robes.

“Enid,” Marren said with as much happiness he could muster into a calm conversation.

“Marren,” Enid held out his hand. They gripped each other’s arms at the base of their elbows and pulled each other close, giving a couple good and sound pats on the back then releasing each other.

“Family reunions. Beautiful events, aren’t they?” Lernn said to no one in particular. “Let’s arrange one final one, shall we?”

He bent at the waist over the large parchment on the table. I drew closer for a better look. It was a map of the city and the castle. The inside workings of it and a schedule tacked to the side.

***

For the rest of the night, all three of us poured over the plans. Marren and I learned the king’s true identity was Jiren and had actually raised Serid on the belief that we were responsible for Okelo’s death. Serid had started out his journey set on revenge. But, he didn’t account for the possibility of falling in love. If what Marren said proved true, then it only made sense that what Lernn said was true as well. About Serid’s caring for Naloud while she lay imprisoned in the castle’s dungeon. And with Lernn’s bit of vital information, recounting a story of how to kill ethereal beings, we made a plan of our own—a shaky plan at best, but was better than nothing, and anything was worth freeing the immortal races for good. The cost, however, seemed far too great.

“I don’t like it,” I argued with Marren after we were led to a room.

“You don’t need to like it. You just need to go with it. It’s his choice.”

“That’s not a choice. That’s a sacrifice,” I said.

Marren cupped my face in his hands and pressed his lips against mine. “He has nothing holding him here. His entire life had been taken from him. This is something he wants. This is how he can be at peace. Who are we to deny him that?”

I rolled my eyes, forced to admit the logic in his words. But it still didn’t seem right and made me sad and empty. I crawled in to bed with Marren following close behind.

“Tomorrow evening seems so far away,” I said just before the exhaustion claimed me.

“It will come quicker than you think.” Marren’s words echoed through my head as sleep took over my consciousness.

***

When I woke, I was stiff. So exhausted I didn’t shift once, instead lying in one position. I spent most of the afternoon and evening working on stretching my muscles and making my body more flexible, allowing me to fight without much resistance. I sat on the floor as Marren, Lernn and Enid poured over the plans and map of the city one last time. The way this place was built underground fascinated me. It had to have taken years to do this, yet it had been done so quickly.

“Does the city above have an awareness of this place?” I asked.

“They think they do,” Lernn replied. “But no one has dared to find out. Humans are more afraid of us than we are of them, and we’re the ones with the bounty on our heads.”

I became so lost in thought about all the things I would say to Naloud when we found her and all the things I would say to Jiren as the light of life faded in his eyes. However, something Lernn said caught my attention.

“They call it, A Night of Celebration.”

“Why?” I asked.

Everyone turned to face me with confused expressions on their faces, almost as if they were shocked I didn’t already know.

“It’s celebrating the approximate anniversary of the disappearance of our kind. They will dress up and try to pass as us,” Lernn offered. I had a knowledge of this celebration for years but never quite understood it. Tarn never allowed me to participate and never talked about it.

“Quite hilarious, actually,” Lernn continued.

I thought of someone trying to dress up to be a half-deranged elf or werewolf and stifled a chuckle. “Oh, I bet.”

“Actually, people should be crowding the streets as we speak. The time for battle has arrived, my friends!”

We followed the crowd up the winding road to the portcullis of the castle. We slipped through to the part of the castle wall overgrown with ivy. We crossed the courtyard to the back entrance of the dungeon, a towering turret that supposedly went as far down as it did up. Stairs, on the inside of the door, spiraled downward to the deepest darkest depths.

The trek seemed like an eternity descending the stairs, but we finally came to the bottom floor, nicknamed The Abyss for those condemned to this level. Solid ground, not stone, formed the floor as walls of bars lined the halls that spread out in four different directions. Torchlight gave away the cell Naloud sat in, along with two guards on either side as was expected, per the plan. I was to be the distraction.

I stepped forward but was stopped by Marren’s hand gripping me under my arm.
Be careful, uwoduhi.

I peered over my shoulder at him. His black eyes and his wolf face.
I promise.

He nodded once and released me, allowing me to continue on my quest to save our daughter.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” I said on my approach, hoping Naloud wouldn’t give my voice away.

They startled to attention.

“What are you doing here? No one is allowed down here,” one guard spoke. His voice was gruff and worn with age.

“Oh yes, I’m aware of that, but as you probably haven’t heard, the castle is under siege. The king wishes all his men to the gate!” I tried to put as much formality and urgency as to appear official.

“What do you take us for?” the other guard spoke. His voice came off grading and squeaky. Must be just coming into manhood.

I shrugged. “A couple of idiots that are going to lose their heads if you don’t obey his majesty’s orders.”

“Give up, girl. We were already warned of someone planning to try and get us to leave our guard,” the older guard spoke.

“Okay, I will inform his majesty of your denial.” I paused and cocked my head to the side and studied the men for a moment. “You’re going to come off rather incongruous without your heads.”