Leesil was about to follow Magiere but thought better of it. She sat on the bottom stair with her head down, elbows resting upon her knees. Her fading desperation would be covered by her usual anger. Anything he said would only make it worse.
"Leesil, come look at this," Wynn said.
"What is it?" he asked, stepping back into the room.
Wynn shook her head. "I am not certain. This room holds barracks equipment from many years past. Perhaps there was a military contingent here once. There is a parchment in this first crate. A list of some kind."
The worn parchment was frayed at the edges and torn along one ancient crease, where it had been folded in quarters. Leesil couldn't see the writing itself directly as Jan silently mouthed the words on the yellowed and dingy sheet.
"Just an account of the room's contents," Jan said. "From many years past. My father wouldn't have an interest in packing lists or inventories too old to be helpful."
Wynn studied the sheet and looked around the small room. She shoved the parchment in her pocket and opened another crate. With Jan's help, she searched the remaining crates but found nothing else noteworthy.
Jan looked at Leesil and shook his head.
"That's enough, Wynn," Leesil said, and gripped the young sage's shoulder. "We're done here."
Wynn pulled away, not ready to give up. She removed the parchment from her pocket to stare at it again, even though she couldn't read the language.
"Let's go," Leesil said.
He led the way out and down the passage, pulling each door closed as he passed. He could hear Wynn counting under her breath as she followed behind him-"One, two, three… five, six, seven"-until they reached the landing chamber.
Magiere looked up at him. There were no words of comfort he could find that wouldn't sound like hollow excuses. He held out his hand to her, and after a lingering silence, she took it and stood. Leesil headed up the stairs.
"Seven?" Wynn murmured from behind. "Leesil… there are seven."
When he looked back, she stood below in the small chamber facing the passage. Leesil couldn't see her face, but her head bobbed as she looked to the parchment and back down the hallway again.
"If this parchment accounts what these rooms once contained…" she muttered. "Seven lists… for seven rooms."
Magiere's grip tightened on Leesil's hand. She let go to scramble down the stairs and grab the parchment from the sage. She stared at it but a moment, and then looked up at Leesil. If there was hope in her eyes, it was smothered by fear of another misdirection.
"The seventh room could just be the chamber here at the stairs," suggested Jan.
Wynn's shoulders slumped, but Magiere kept her eyes on Leesil, waiting.
Leesil stepped back down to join her and tried to keep his expression impassive as he held his hand out to Wynn. "Give me the crystal."
Wynn's crystal in hand, Leesil dropped to one knee and inspected the chamber's floor. Strangely, along its center he found shallow traces of lines where something heavy had been dragged along the chamber floor and into the passage. The scarred lines were packed with dust and dirt, so were quite old. Closer to the walls were circular stains that suggested large barrels full of liquid had been stored here at one time, and he pointed them out.
Jan was looking at the list over Magiere's shoulder and shook his head. "There's no mention of barrels here, just crated goods," he said.
Leesil took a deep breath, careful to let it go silently before looking up at Magiere.
"Be certain," she said to him.
He stood up and let his gaze wander from the stairs to the ceiling, along the passage of doors, and down to the hallway's end with its blank wall. There was just this one cellar storage area and one dungeon under the keep.
Leesil looked up once again to the stone ceiling. Above these cellar chambers was the main floor of the keep, surrounded by its thick stone walls. Any hollowing below the keep to produce this passage of chambers would've been done with thought for the support of the upper building.
"Wait here," he told the others.
Leesil counted his steps as he climbed the curving stairs up to the main floor. With the exceptions of the entryway, the kitchen out back, and the stairs leading up and down, the main room's wall was the keep's outer wall. He paced the same number of steps back along wall until certain he stood directly above the cellar's landing chamber below. From there, he stepped out the distance to the other side of the keep-fifty-eight paces. He returned to cellar's landing chamber and looked down the passage of chambers.
"What is he doing?" Wynn asked.
"Be quiet, and let him think," Magiere answered.
Leesil's stomach rolled at the rekindled spark of hope in Magiere's eyes. This was all a hunch at best, but she nodded for him to continue. Leesil paced out the distance down the passage between the six rooms. At forty-two paces, he reached the end wall.
The passage was short of the distance across the whole keep along the same line.
This meant little, other than perhaps the cellar's end had been kept short of undermining the keep wall. The stones of the passage's end wall were newer than elsewhere but still well aged. It confirmed his earlier appraisal that the cellars had been slowly expanded over time from when the keep was first built many decades ago. He studied the end wall- and suspicion grew.
The stones were aged more uniformly than he'd noticed in his early inspection. There were no signs of patchwork here. He held the crystal close as he moved back and forth across its surface. The stones were fitted solidly up to the edge of the passage's side walls in both corners.
Leesil held his breath. He heard Magiere and the others moving in closer behind him.
"What?" she demanded. "You found something… I can see it in you."
He held the crystal close to the corner.
This end wall's stones had been cut off to fit inside the passage's side walls.
Something at the passage's end had been blocked off long ago, as the passage had originally been longer. Leesil took off his cloak and began unstrapping his blades.
"We need tools," he said. "This wall was added, and the passage runs beyond it."
"Hold there," Jan said. "Even if my father agrees, you can't start knocking down walls. Remove the wrong support, and the place could collapse on us."
Magiere grabbed Jan by the shirt. "Just do as he says!"
Leesil reached out and grasped Magiere's wrist, pulling her away from Jan.
"This wall was a later addition," he explained, keeping an eye on Magiere. "It isn't supporting anything. Get your father, and find us some tools! Wynn, go with him."
Jan turned away, muttering under his breath, and Wynn followed. Magiere's gaze was fixed upon the end wall.
"There must be something…" she whispered. "I can't… I can't leave here with nothing."
Her voice was so full of desperation that Leesil wrapped her in his arms. Magiere slumped forward, her face buried in his shoulder. He felt her tremble, and he rocked her slowly. What if there was nothing behind the wall? And what if there was something leading into Magiere's past? There was little hope either would bring her any relief.
Jan and Wynn returned with Cadell. It took some convincing, but once Leesil showed the zupan the wall's structure, Cadell was reasonably convinced it was safe to break it open. He seemed as disturbed by the discovery as Leesil. Jan had brought a pair of prybars and handed one to Leesil. The two of them set to breaking out the wall's top-center stones first.
The stench that wafted through the opening made all of them step away, gagging and coughing. Cadell caught Wynn as she stumbled, retching, and his face twisted in disgust at the scent of decay assaulting them.
Leesil's fear mounted. All he wanted was to drag Magiere from this place and never return. He thought he saw this same thought on her own pale face, but Cadell broke the silence.