“Ufta.”
Something clicked, a cog unhinging itself perhaps, and the golden door quietly swung open. The voices outside seemed as though they were right at the archway.
“Quickly, inside,” Par-Salian hissed.
The three slipped through the narrow opening and put their backs to the door, forcing it shut again. It closed with the barest whisper. They stood there a few moments, listening for any noises outside, any shouts of discovery or hammering on the door. For a moment, there was nothing then finally a muffled voice that said, “They’re not here.”
After that, silence.
Par-Salian and Tythonnia breathed a slow sigh of relief and only then caught Ladonna’s wonder-filled expression. It was a simple corridor, nothing extravagant in its design save for the carved friezes showing a procession of priests and pilgrims heading off in different directions down the corridor. Otherwise, it was shrouded equally in shadow and dust.
“We’re inside,” Ladonna whispered, her tone almost giddy. “Nuitari’s Kiss … we’re inside the High Clerist’s Tower. Not even the knights venture inside the tower proper these days. Not while there’s no High Clerist living here.”
“I know precious little about this place, I must admit,” Par-Salian said.
“My teacher, Arianna-bless her for this-had me spend much of my training in the library of Wayreth. I read a great deal about this place. I fantasized about finding a way inside. And now … I have,” she said with a great, honest smile that lit up her face. She caught herself a moment after, and the smile vanished behind those cunning eyes. “We have quite the task ahead of us,” she said. “This place is reputedly a maze with secret passages and false corridors-oh! And haunted at that.”
“Is that why it’s abandoned?” Tythonnia asked.
“As a religious center, it lost much esteem when the gods left us. Politically, the Solamnic Knights aren’t well liked, so as favor with them waxes and wanes, so, too, does this place. When the Solamnics are in favor, this place is partially opened to serve the religious and political needs of various noble households, pilgrims, and the clergy. Think of it as a meeting place, a conclave of sorts.”
“So when the Solamnic Knights aren’t in favor,” Tythonnia said, “nobody comes here except pilgrims? Like now?”
“Like now,” Ladonna responded. “It’s the best time to explore this place … unravel her secrets.”
“We can’t stay here,” Par-Salian said.
“I know.” Ladonna moaned. “More’s the pity.”
“It won’t take them long to realize where we are,” Tythonnia said. “We best move.”
They explored the right corridor first, but within a few steps, they hit a dead end. Without their travel packs, Tythonnia enchanted the blade of her dagger to glow. It did not trouble the shadows to stir, but it was still enough to see by.
From the walls hung dust-coated tapestries depicting great moments in Krynn’s past, from the passage of the Graygem, which created many of the demiraces and monsters, to the heroism of men and women such as Vinas Solamnus and Huma. Simple doors opened into empty rooms and cells, each one possessed of intact desks, tables, cots, and shelves. Thick cobwebs coated whatever the shadows didn’t claim, speaking volumes of its long isolation, but stacks of papers and books lay waiting in orderly piles.
As the corridor turned another corner, again following the contour of the octagonal walls, Par-Salian motioned for them to join him. He stood at an opening opposite one of the golden doors. The chamber beyond was a narrow room, with an ornate bas-relief of the Fisher King carved into the opposite wall. It was a blue phoenix with feathers that seemed to curl into licks of flames. In its claws was a sword engraved with a rose, its hilt pointed left. Its eyes glittered with large gems, and a crown of jewels surmounted its beaked head.
Ladonna’s eyes widened as she registered the gems, and she took a step forward, but Par-Salian blocked the door.
“Don’t enter,” he said and motioned to the left and right of them where two statues stood at either end of the small room. They were iron knights bearing the rose-engraved swords of the Solamnic Order. Both swords were pointed to the floor as the knights grasped the hilts. “In every story read to me as a boy,” Par-Salian said, “if there’s a statue, it comes to life.”
“True enough,” Tythonnia said. “Let’s search somewhere else. We can come back here if we have to.”
They quietly agreed, though Tythonnia noticed Ladonna throwing one last forlorn peek back at the bejeweled Fisher King. The three followed the corridor further, encountering more small rooms and cells, a third golden temple door facing the outside wall, as well as another narrow room dedicated to the Fisher King. It was a replica of the previous room. There was no way out they could see other than the three golden doors, each leading to one temple outside.
“You said the tower was riddled with secret passages?” Par-Salian asked.
“That I did,” Ladonna responded.
“Maybe one of the rooms with the iron knights?” Tythonnia offered.
“Unfortunately, I think so as well,” Par-Salian said. “There’s something peculiar about those two rooms.”
“Maybe we have to pry the jewels free to open the door,” Ladonna suggested with a smile. “I volunteer.”
Par-Salian said nothing, but a grin escaped him.
They stood at the door once again, staring at the Fisher King carving. Something was off, something that wasn’t entirely right. But what was it? The jewels? The flaming feathers? The sword pointed to the right?
“The sword,” Par-Salian said with a snap of his fingers. “The knights would never point a sword to the right in any standard … always to the left.”
“I’ll check,” Tythonnia said, and before anyone could stop her, she stepped into the room. She walked up to the carving and noticed that both the claw and the sword were slightly removed from the wall. Tythonnia grasped the hilt and turned it downward. It resisted with age-rusted joints. Tythonnia could see the seam in the claw’s wrist, where the mechanism was supposed to rotate, but it wasn’t budging. She put her weight into it and struggled to rotate it one way then the other.
“Tythonnia!” Ladonna shouted.
The heads of both iron statues snapped up. A metal groan filled the chamber, and dust shook loose from the shoulders and heads of the statues. In unison, they pulled their feet loose of their moorings and stepped forward, their footfalls echoing sharply. Both raised their swords in mirrored precision.
Tythonnia grunted and pushed all her weight into the sword. With a rust-grinding click, the sword swung down and to the left, toward the sinister. The two statues strode forward, their blades poised to strike. The Fisher King’s sword locked in place, and the wall panel upon which the bas-relief was carved heaved open.
The two statues stopped immediately, and in perfect imitation of their advance, reversed their course move for move, back to attention again. Par-Salian exhaled in relief while Ladonna grinned; she was enjoying it.
The secret panel opened into another corridor that paralleled the one they just left. No tapestries hung there, however, no doors to entice the curious. There was only a winding stone stairwell at one end that corkscrewed upward.
“Down,” Par-Salian said, exasperated, “we must go down.”
“Sometimes you have to go up to go back down,” Ladonna suggested cheerfully.
Par-Salian grumbled something under his breath that Tythonnia couldn’t hear, but Ladonna’s smile widened.
The stairs opened into a small corridor that ended at a wall. A quick examination by Ladonna, however, and a touch of her light fingers, revealed a latch. The brick-faced door swung open into a dining room. It was a large chamber with a great table running along the room’s spine and dark chandeliers above. The places were all set, the silverware reflecting Tythonnia’s dagger torch, the goblets filled with some dark drink, and the plates stacked with potatoes and rice and a generous carving of boar meat. Seven doors lined the sides of the room while opposite the secret passage lay a wide corridor.