The Lair of Bones (20 page)

Darkness is coming, Gaborn thought, a full night like we've never witnessed before. How can I save my people?

He imagined raising armies, attacking various nations—Indhopal, Inkarra, South Crowthen. It mattered not at all.

Darkness was coming, and attacking others offered no hope.

As he lay pondering, Averan pulled up some old dead tickle ferns and started a small campfire. Then she emptied the packs, setting things next to the fire to dry. She pulled out apples and nuts and whetstones and bits of flint and set them in one pile, then threw away the wet loaves of bread that had been destroyed by the water. When she finished, she repacked every-thing, leaving only some spare clothes and other oddments to dry.

The burning ferns had an odd peppery scent that only made Gaborn that much more hungry. Unfortunately, it would take nearly fifteen minutes for the fish to cook, and with his endowments of metabolism, it would feel more like two or three hours.

He glanced across to the far side of the cavern. The walls there looked almost flat, as if they had been carved by hand, and he spotted a couple of odd-shaped holes that looked like windows here and there, up near the ceiling of the cave. Stalactites hung from the roof, ugly things of dirty brown stone.

Gaborn dropped his mouth in surprise. He had only thought it
looked
like a fortress, but now he could see details: yes, down there was a gate, but part of the roof had caved in, landing at its door. Over the ages, the stone walls had buckled a bit, so that they wavered on their foundations. Stalactites hung like spears, hiding some of the windows.

“Human?” Gaborn wondered. “Or duskin?”

His heart hammered in excitement. Wondrous things could be found in duskin ruins—metalwork so fine that human hands could not match it, moonstones that shone with their own eternal light.

Gaborn got up and crossed the riverbed until he reached some fallen
stones from an old wall. They were coated with mud, like that on the outer walls, making them all but invisible. There had once been a portcullis here, and the wooden gate had been bound together with iron bars. Now the iron had all gone to rust, and the wood had rotted through ages ago.

Gaborn grabbed an iron rod and pulled on it. The gate all but collapsed. He kicked in some old timbers, and made his way inside.

The floor looked as if it were coated with plaster. At some time in the past, the fortress had flooded, leaving a thick coat of mud on both floor and walls. A few Underworld plants struggled up like black bristles from the floor, but it seemed that, for some reason, little could thrive here.

A yellowish creature with a broad back, like some strange eyeless beetle, came scampering toward Gaborn, waving its small claws in the air. Gaborn stomped on the bug with an astonishing effect.

There was a pop and a flash of light, and then the dead bug began to burn steadily with a sulfur smell.

A blazer, Gaborn realized. He'd heard of the bug once, long ago, in the House of Understanding. “They are the only animals known,” old Hearthmaster Yarrow had said, “that do you the courtesy of cooking themselves when you're ready to eat. Unfortunately, they taste worse than fried cockroaches.”

Gaborn peered about. He'd found what might have been a Great Room. On one wall the tattered remains of a tapestry still hung like a banner, but the colors had so faded that Gaborn could not even begin to guess at what it might have pictured. Ancient oil lamps rested in nooks in the walls; here and there was an odd piece of refuse—part of a rotted chair, the skeletal remains of a chest of drawers.

Mystarrians built this, Gaborn realized. I've seen clay lamps like these in the House of Understanding, in the Room of Time.

This place was old, very old. But Gaborn could not guess how old. He thought he knew, but dared not admit it to himself. Only three times in recorded history had Mystarria dared attempt to conquer the Underworld. Erden Geboren himself might have slept in these rooms, led warriors through these corridors during the first of those attempts.

The hair rose on Gaborn's arms. He could almost feel the presence of spirits here, of men who had died in battle.

A narrow staircase was chiseled into the stone at the back of one room. He climbed the stairs to the second floor. An ancient wooden door blocked the way.

Words were carved into the door. They were all in old script, a corrupt version of Rofehavanish that Gaborn could barely make out. The door had rotted away, leaving blank spots for some words.

“I, Beron Windhoven… this fortress… year of Duke Val the Wise!… Below… much foretoken of reaver.”

“Duke Val the Wise?” Gaborn tried to guess at the age of the writing from memory. His mother's line came through Val. Val the Wise was the son of Val the Foresworn, who had conquered the Westlands seven hundred years ago.

So, this place was old even then, Gaborn realized. Which meant that King Harrill could not have built it.

Gaborn pulled the door latch; it came off in his hand. He gave the door his shoulder, and it cascaded inward.

There was little to see. Four dozen small rooms had been cut into the rock. It had the look of a barracks. There were privies chipped into the stone, but no ancient weapons, no rare antiquities plundered from duskin ruins.

Anything of value had been hauled off centuries ago.

Another staircase led upward. These would be the officers' quarters. Gaborn climbed the steps with a growing sense of reverence, came to a T. The left hallway led to a large room whose door had been kicked in. Gaborn suspected that Beron Windhoven must have claimed the room as his own. Part of the ceiling had collapsed into the room, and Gaborn dared not enter.

But to the right stood an ancient door of blackened metal, and upon it was a crest that Gaborn knew all too well: the face of the green man stared out at Gaborn through leaves of oak, all wrought into the metal of the black door.

Erden Geboren once slept in this room, Gaborn realized. He planned his wars and guided his men from here. I know the name of this place now: Abyss Gate, the Dark Fortress.

Knowledge of the whereabouts of this place had been lost in time, but its name was still remembered in the lore of Mystarria. Gaborn would have imagined it bigger, would have thought that it had housed a thousand men, for it loomed large in legend.

There comes a time in a man's life—if he is lucky—when he feels as if he has met his destiny. There comes a time when he recognizes that every path he has chosen, every plan he has so painstakingly laid, delivers him to a doorstep where he will confront his fate. And what may happen next is only a dimly hoped dream.

Gaborn had that premonition now.

Every step I have ever taken has led me in the footsteps of Erden Geboren, Gaborn thought. Why not here? Why not now?

In the distance, the sound of the reaver horde rushing through caverns above was like a distant thunder.

Gaborn reached out and scraped the door with his dagger, cutting a silver groove. The door was all of silver beneath the black. The door had tarnished that much over the centuries.

Everything else of value here had been carried away, but such was the regard that others held for the Earth King that no one had dared plunder this door.

Gaborn pulled the handle. The door was locked, but the keyhole was a mere indentation in the shape of the green man. Gaborn put his signet ring to the notch and turned. His signet ring had been cast in this very shape for more than a thousand years. The lock resisted at first, then broke free.

He pushed the door open.

The room was austere in the extreme. Gaborn had seen prison cells that were larger. Up here, sealed behind its door, the room had remained dry. The furnishings did not look so much well preserved as petrified. A cot with a wooden frame occupied most of the room. Upon it lay a reed mat and a brown woolen blanket. The bed had been left unmade.

A small table stood by the bed with a chair beside it. Upon the table lay a wooden plate and knife. A weathered book wrapped in leather lay next to the knife, along with an inkpot shaped like a lily, and the remains of a quill. A simple riding robe hung upon a peg on the wall, and a pair of tall boots peeked out from under the bed.

It looked as if Erden Geboren had simply eaten breakfast here ages ago and left, locking the door—never to return.

A realization struck Gaborn: that is exactly what happened. Erden Geboren had been at Abyss Gate, guiding his Dark Knights as they fought the reavers belowground, when he learned of the treachery at Caer Fael.

After an endless war fighting reavers and toth and nomen, he'd heard that the people of his own city had turned against him, the Earth King.

Little was known about why they rebelled. Some historians suspected that the cost of his war had been too great—he had led his knights through the Underworld for more than a dozen years, after all. Others argued against that, imagining that rogues and bandits had rallied against him in one last bid for domination. But one thing was certain: he died at Caer Fael, and no wound marred his body.

Now nearly eighteen hundred years later, Gaborn found himself in Erden Geboren's room, a chamber undisturbed since the very hour that he had ridden to his death.

Gaborn half expected to see the Earth King's shade patiently hovering in a corner, waiting to speak to him.

He gingerly touched the book, untied the cords that bound it, and opened it to the first page. The leaves were mere loose sheets, and some were flaking into dust. A drawing occupied the title page—a great oak tree, and beneath it two creatures that looked like men with wings, but with faces like foxes. Each creature bore a long sword with a wavy blade. The picture had been painstakingly drawn in ink, though the artist showed no talent. Gaborn recognized that this was a work of love, most likely a rough draft by Erden Geboren meant to be refined by better hands into an illuminated manuscript. He could not read the title, for the characters and language were in a tongue older than any that he knew.

Still, Gaborn found himself trembling with excitement. He flipped through the pages. The writing was in an ancient language, Alnycian, a tongue that had been spoken at court for a thousand years but was all but forgotten now. Gaborn could not read it, yet here was a book scribed in Erden Geboren's own hand. He flipped to the next page. The script was strong and graceful. The ink was dark upon the yellowed pages. But the manuscript was far from finished. Words had been crossed out and passages inserted in their place. Questions were transcribed in the margins. This was obviously a work in progress.

Old Hearthmaster Biddies will love this, Gaborn thought. The tome would be cause for celebration among the keepers of the Room of Time. He tucked it into his shirt.

There was little else in the room: an old tin bell, gray with age, four
copper coins upon a shelf. Behind the door Gaborn found an ancient reaver dart somewhat longer than the norm, unlike any that he had ever seen. It was a kingly piece, fashioned not of steel but carved from one length of reaver bone, most likely from the shoulder of a large blade-bearer. There had been a leather grip wrapped around the shaft, but it was old and useless. The diamonds that tipped the dart were unusually large, long, and thin.

Gaborn smiled. The very weapon of Erden Geboren. The reaver bone would have hardened over the ages, becoming stronger than ever, and the grips could be replaced easily enough.

He would have wanted me to have this, Gaborn thought.

He took the reaver dart, then stood in the doorway for a moment, just observing.

Erden Geboren had been a humble man, Gaborn decided. The room showed no penchant for adornment, no love of display.

He closed the door once again, and locked it.

Iome had a dozen fish cooking on rocks around a small campfire. She glanced up at him, saw the gleaming amber javelin.

“What have you found?” she asked, a smile broadening across her face.

“The fortress of Abyss Gate,” Gaborn said. “Erden Geboren's old bed-chamber was there, untouched through the ages. I found his own reaver dart!”

“What else?” Iome pressed him.

Gaborn said, “An old book, a manuscript I think.”

“In Erden Geboren's own hand?” Iome asked. She looked as if she would get up and dance.

Gaborn nodded at her evident delight, but looked around in rising con-cern.

“Where's Averan?” Gaborn asked.

“She walked up the trail a way,” Iome said. “She said that she wanted to pee in private, but I think she's very upset about Binnesman. She just wants to be alone.”

Gaborn reached out with his Earth Sight. Yes, Averan had gone down the trail a way. He could sense no danger around her.

Gaborn pulled out the volume, and Iome unwrapped the leather that bound it. She opened to the title page, and read slowly, “‘The Tales'… no, I think that is ‘Lore of the Netherworld, as Told by One Who Walked Among the Bright Ones.'”

“You can read this old tongue?” Gaborn asked in astonishment. “I've never heard it spoken outside the House of Understanding, in the Room of Tongues. Where ever did you hear it?”

“I learned it from Chancellor Rodham,” Iome said. “He was quite the scholar and thought it infinitely more worthwhile for me to learn Alnycian than needlepoint.”

Gaborn studied her in frank amazement. “History has been silent as to what Erden Geboren learned from the Bright Ones and glories,” Gaborn mused. “Now we know why: he never finished his book. This is fabulous. Only the most powerful wizards have ever walked the path between our world and the netherworld, the One True World.”

Iome flipped to the second page. “This is old,” she said. “It's hard to decipher.” She struggled to read.

“'Mine voice is coarse… a crude tool, I fear. Mine tongue is of brass, untrustworthy. How may I recount the words of Bright Ones and glories who thunder, who…'—I don't know that word—'men with words of light, who whisper to… ‘or is it ‘in?… the ears of our spirits? Listen to the words of glories, if thou canst. Unless my poor voice fails, as I fear. Yet still I hope that thou shalt hear.'”