The lock was swiftly dealt with, and cold night air struck their faces as the door swung out onto a moonlit rampart. The square, flat surface they stood had been repaired, but the southern and eastern parapets had been left in ruins. The paving flags sent an aching chill up through their bare feet and ankles.
The wind moaned through the broken stonework, whipping their hair across their faces as they edged over to the remains of the southern parapet. The keep backed directly onto the cliffs; from where they stood, there was a sheer drop into the shadowed river gorge below.
"Caught in a high place again," Alec whispered nervously, hanging back.
"Not caught yet. Here's what we want," said Seregil, poking around in the shadows under the north wall, where the glow of his lightstone revealed another door. Scarred and weathered as it was, it, too, had a stout lock and hinges in excellent repair. Beyond it, a curving staircase spiraled down into darkness.
Seregil felt a familiar tightness in his belly as he peered down. "This place is dangerous—I can feel it. Draw your dagger and watch your footing. Keep count of the steps, too, in case we lose our lights."
The steps here were smooth but narrow underfoot, reminding Seregil of those leading down to the Oracle's chamber beneath the Temple of Illior. The curve of the smoothly dressed walls sliced away the view fifteen feet below at any point. Rusty iron sconces set into the stone at regular intervals held thick tallow candles, but these were dusty. The whole place had an abandoned, disused smell.
Counting softly to himself, Seregil moved down the steps with a wary eye out for trouble. Fifty-three steps down, something caught his eye and he held up a warning hand. A length of blackened bowstring had been fixed tautly across the next step a little above ankle height.
"That could give you a nasty fall," Alec muttered, peering over his shoulder.
"Worse than that, maybe," replied Seregil, squinting into the shadows below. Taking off his cloak, he shook it wide and cast it out in front of him.
It floated down a few feet, then caught on what appeared to be another string stretched at an angle across the stairwell. Examining it, they found it to be instead a thin, rigid blade.
Seregil tested the edge of it with a thumbnail.
"Fall just right and this could take your head off, or an arm."
They found three more pitfalls of similar design as they continued down. Then, rounding a final turn, they came to the top of the rubble pile blocking the first entrance.
"This doesn't make any sense!" Alec exclaimed in frustration. "We must have missed something."
"We found exactly what we were meant to find," Seregil muttered, heading back up the stairs.
"It's another diversion, too obvious and too dangerous. It does prove one thing, though; this tower is in perfect repair. They're hiding something here for certain."
Toiling back up the stairs, they came out again on the rampart.
"We have to work fast now," Seregil warned, glancing up at the stars, which had wheeled noticeably to the west already.
"What if the real way in isn't here?"
"That's a distinct possibility." Seregil ran a hand back through his hair. "Still, everything we've found so far tells me that this is the place. Look around, check every stone. You start there, at that corner. I'll begin here. Look for uneven stones, listen for hollow spots, anything. We're running out of time."
Shielding his light, Alec crossed back to the ruined wall while Seregil remained in the shadows near the door.
Despite Seregil's confidence, Alec renewed his search with little expectation of success. The mortar was sound, the stones solidly set together. Crossing back and forth, he checked and double-checked his section without finding anything new, and all the while the moon sank lower.
He was crossing to the northern parapet when his bare foot struck a slight declivity he hadn't noticed before. If he'd had his boots on he'd have missed it entirely, but the loose grittiness beneath his chilled toes felt distinctly different from the surrounding flagstones. Dropping to his knees, he found what
appeared to be a patch of sand slightly larger than the palm of his hand.
"Seregil, come here, quick!"
With Seregil hunkered down beside him, Alec scooped out the sand and uncovered a square niche sunk into the stone. At the bottom lay a large bronze ring fastened loosely to a staple. It was large enough for him to get a good grip and he pulled up hard, expecting the resistance of a heavy slab. Instead, an irregular section of thin flags lifted easily, revealing the square wooden trap door fastened to their underside. Holding their lights down, they found a square shaft, with a wooden ladder leading down to yet another door.
"Well done!" Seregil whispered. Descending the ladder, they pulled the door closed over them.
The door at the base of the ladder had no lock, just a curved latch, green with age. In his excitement, Alec reached for it but Seregil caught his hand before he could touch it.
"Wait!" Seregil hissed. Pulling a bit of twine from his pouch, he tied a noose in the end of it and looped it over the handle, then stood back and pulled. As the handle lifted, there was an audible click.
Four long needles sprang out, spaced so that at least one would be certain to pierce the hand of an unwary trespasser. Their tips were darkened with a resinous substance. As the door swung open Seregil released the handle, and the needles retracted like the claws of a cat.
"Never trust anything that looks easy," Seregil warned, giving Alec a reproving look.
From here, a steep wooden staircase followed the square shape of the tower walls down in a series of landings and right— angle turns.
"Of course! A double staircase," muttered Seregil, taking the lead again with dagger drawn. "One would have been for the servants, this one a secret escape route for the nobles in case of attack."
"Then we can get out this way, without having to go back through the keep again?"
"We'll see," Seregil replied doubtfully.
"It may have been blocked off to keep anyone from wandering in from outside."
Unlike the other stairways, this one was wooden, constructed of thick oak that probably dated from the original construction of the keep. Seregil tested each step as he put his weight on it, yet they seemed sound enough.
There were no trip wires here, no blades. Knowing better than to let their guard down, however, they grew increasingly vigilant, anticipating something more devious in the offing.
This stairway had been used recently and often. The dust that had settled over everything was much thinner at the center of each step and showed footprints on the landings. The tallow candles in the wall sconces smelled of recent burning. There were also spots of finer wax on the stairs, which spoke of someone carrying a taper with them as they descended. Some of the spots were dull with dust, others still shiny and fragrant of beeswax.
"How far down do you think we are?" asked Alec, pausing for a moment to catch his breath. They'd
been going up and down stairs for hours, and his legs were feeling the strain.
"We must be past the second floor by now, maybe near the first," replied Seregil, coming to yet another landing. "This is all taking a lot longer than I'd—"
Suddenly the landing floor seemed to fly up in Alec's face. Frozen on the stairs, he watched in helpless amazement as the wooden platform pivoted on diagonally opposing corners, its underside now standing vertically in front of him to reveal a sheer— sided pit of some kind below. A loose board fell free, tumbling into the blackness without a sound.
O Illior, Seregil!
The words hammered in Alec's throat as he stared, horrorstruck, into the gaping shaft at his feet. But no sound came out. It had all happened too quickly. His whole body went numb and cold.