Belvedor and the Four Corners (Belvedor Saga Book 1) (38 page)

As they continued through the hallway of columns, they passed more and more doors, each centered between the parallel pillars. They were crafted of all sorts of material, each with their own untold story. Some stood twelve feet tall while others seemed meant for only children. One appeared in the normal rectangular fashion, yet others in the shapes of circles, diamonds, or squares. Many were constructed of wood or colored stone and others of metal or…

“Gold!” said Jeom, dragging his feet across the dusted, sandstone floor. He moved in a daze to where a large gilded door hinged into the air between the last two pillars, ending the long walkway. Flecks of gold melted into his brown eyes as he stretched his arm out to twist the lustrous knob.

“Wait,” said Lessa as she tugged on his robes. “We need to be careful!”

Too late the words spilled out of her mouth. Jeom rested his hand on the door to pull. He tugged with all his might, but the door wouldn’t budge. Not wanting to give up his pot of gold without a fight, he swung his axe at the handle.

The metal made a piercing sound that echoed in all corners of the room. Arianna lifted her hands to her ears, reminded of the bell. She watched as Jeom tried the doorknob again and again, but the door stayed locked tight. Moreover, the knob glowed a menacing red as Jeom yanked his hand back screaming in agony.

“Argh, it burned me!” he shouted as he dropped his axe from the other hand, squeezing at the wrist of his scorched palm to relieve some of the pain. “What do I do? What do I do?” he said as unbidden tears began to stream from his eyes. The wound throbbed, and the skin on his palm sizzled. Bubbling from the sudden heat, it looked as if it would melt off at any second.

“Here let me,” said Lessa, hurrying for her pack.

Jeom leaned his back against the door and slid to the floor as she pulled out one of the tubes Cyn gifted them for their journey.

The liquid inside looked dark red like congealed blood, and Lessa knew exactly what to do with it. “It’s prillyberry juice,” she said. “And it’s already mixed to perfection, so you’re in luck!” Inspecting it further, she tested some between her fingers. “This will only sting for a moment, but try and be still.”

He nodded, fidgeting from the pain.

Taking Jeom’s blistered hand in hers, she let a few drops fall onto the skin. As it dissolved into his flesh, she felt his whole body tense and watched guiltily as he clenched his teeth from the sudden, all-new kind of pain.

“I thought this was supposed to help?” he whined in gasps as the medicine worked its way around his hand.

“Hush, I need to concentrate.” Her eyes closed.

Arianna paid close attention as their healer began to recite the words Talis had drilled into her head so many times from a life that started to seem like a dream. “
Helthra saludis emencia,”
she said in no louder than a whisper.

She repeated the phrase over and over until she could feel Jeom’s body relax. When she opened her eyes, his hand looked almost normal but for a scar.

“Hopefully this scar will teach you a lesson,” said Lessa, smacking him on the forehead. “What were you thinking? We just walked through a magical wall into a room with floating doors… You’d think that might be warning sign enough, but no. Let’s go throw axes around the enchanted room and piss it off.” She pursed her lips and let his hand fall back to his side.

He lifted it in examination. “Thank you,” he said.

“You’re an imbecile,” she replied, but he just flashed her that white-tooth grin.

Arianna had walked off back in the direction of the other doors, and Lessa blanched as she wriggled more doorknobs. “Are you mad?” she said.

Arianna already made her way several feet away from her friends. “They’re all locked with magic,” she said. “The unlock charm didn’t work, but I think I know what to do.” She started testing all of the doors they passed before Jeom injured himself.

“Excuse me, miss,” said Jeom, “but my hand nearly liquefied. Or don’t you remember?” He grabbed her wrist and forced her to stop midair as her hand reached to test yet another door.

“Yes, well I just tried about five others with no noticeable injuries. I’m not trying to force my way in as you did. I’m sure the old-fashioned way will work just fine,” she said, shaking free of his grasp and turning the doorknob in front of her.

Jeom flinched as her skin made contact with the metal, but nothing happened.

“You may think me insane, but I have a feeling we need to start from the beginning,” said Arianna.

“You’re insane,” said Lessa as she and Jeom chased after her.

Arianna came to an abrupt stop as soon as she reached the back entrance of the simple, wooden door. She circled it to the front with her two friends by her side. “We might as well try,” she said, impatient. “If it doesn’t work, we can have a look through those tunnels, but I’d really like to know what the secret is behind these doors. If it’s worth hiding, then I think it’s worth finding.” Her voice purred and a dangerous gleam sparkled in her eyes.

“The door option has my vote as well,” said Lessa, swayed by her own interest. Arianna gave her a critical look as she played with Sano’s tail. “What? I’m just really bored of this whole endless-maze-of-tunnels nonsense. Besides, what’s life without a little risk? You taught me that.” She pumped her fist in the air.

“Enslavement,” said Jeom, howling in laughter. “Okay, you’ve convinced me. I could use a break from the haunted tunnels too.”

Before any more words could be exchanged to delay Arianna’s decision, she placed her hand on the cool bronze of the doorknob and twisted it. She heard a click, and the door creaked open with an eerie screech.

Instead of stepping through the threshold to the other side of the pillared hallway as she half expected, Arianna found herself standing in a large square room built of the same wood as the door. The room drank up the light of the lantern as if it had been lifeless for years. As the three moved inside, one after the other, thick dust billowed around their feet from the wood-paneled floor, and the door shut behind them.

Everything was layered in an inch of filth, and Arianna grinned as she spotted a broom in a far corner. She felt Lessa recoil at her side from the sight of the grimy place. Set along the two walls and parallel to them, benches stretched long enough to fit twenty people each. Facing them, on the far side of the room, sat a large desk clattered with what seemed to be old parchments. Arianna noticed a high-backed chair matching the desk strewn in the opposite corner, facing the wall.

The only thing not fashioned from oak proved to be a stone door hinged on the very opposite wall from where they stood. Arianna recognized it as the same locked door they had discovered behind the wooden one under the pillars. She nodded her head, understanding the mystery of the doors a little better.

“See, I knew it! We have to start from the beginning if we want to get to the gold. No cheating,” she said, patting Jeom on the back. He smiled down at her, amused.

“Wait,” said Lessa as she put her hand on Arianna’s shoulder to stop her from going any further into the room.

Arianna laughed. “It’s just a little dirt. You should be used to it by now,” she said, pulling at her robes.

“No, really. Something’s wrong…” she said, scanning the room from the doorway.

Arianna became more alert, trusting the intuition of her friend just as much as her own. She figured since they both had experience outwitting each other, they must be equally witted in some things.

“She’s right. Look,” said Jeom, pointing to the floor.

Everything would have seemed in place if not for the large footprints clearing the dusted floor, tracking further than their own into the room. Arianna’s mind flew to alert.

“Somebody’s been in here recently.” Jeom stepped back. “Do you think it’s the lost souls of the slaves?” he said, wide-eyed in all seriousness.

“Ghosts can’t leave footprints,” said Arianna with a solemn look. “And I don’t think Jacob and Damon will be coming to our aid again.”

“Then what do you suspect caused them, Belvedor?” he said.

“I don’t know,” she hissed. “It’s probably a different magical monster seeking vengeance.”

She tried to stay calm, but she felt Lessa’s nerves radiating off of her. Jeom sniggered as he registered the fear in her eyes. She chewed on her lip, resolving to work on her facial expressions since they seemed to mirror her feelings and not the calm exterior she always hoped for.

“I think I could be of service,” said a harsh voice from the far corner of the room.

As soon as the words resonated throughout the dusted chamber from the invisible source, Lessa, Arianna, and Jeom all screamed at the top of their lungs. Ghost or no ghost, all of these surprises started to take a toll on their sanity. Their voices filled the wide space and bounced around their ears in a heady distraction. With the same thought coming to each one’s mind simultaneously, they turned to run back through the entrance they had first come. To their horror, they found the door locked tight.

As they spun back to face their fate, they noticed the forgotten high-backed chair in the corner slowly turning to face them.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

A nameless voice wrapped beneath deep olive robes sat in the grand chair before them. The lengthy cloak bunched on the dirty floor and the sleeves hung loose so that neither hands nor feet appeared visible. With the hood of the cloak pulled low over what Arianna hoped to be a head, all traces of possible mortal existence stayed absent. 

The cloth of the cloak looked tattered and old, coated in white and black muck. Whatever, or whoever, the robes concealed sat completely still, seeming as if it had been waiting there forever in the rotting room. More unnerving still, the arched blade of a scythe leaned against the figure. Generous portions of the steel were covered in what Arianna deemed dried blood, and she shivered thinking she stared upon Death.

No one said anything as they waited for the startling presence to attack. With each passing second their hopes diminished, wondering what would happen next, wondering if they could survive yet another battle.

Arianna couldn’t bear the suspense any longer, and she found her hidden voice. It shook with fear as she spoke, but her words still surfaced. “What are you?” she said. The words danced around the room on strings of dust. Lessa had gone rigid beside her while they all waited for a reply.

Time ticked by slowly, and they stood paralyzed with fear before words trickled back towards them from the ominous figure. “I am just another lost soul… like you,” said the splintered voice, rising to an upright position. His hood hung so low that only a dark shadow appeared visible in the space where a face should be. Arianna stiffened as she spotted a white, crinkled hand gripping the scythe, exposed as the loose sleeve gathered around its wrist.

She stifled a scream and tried to steady her swords as the monster inched closer. “Wait!” she bellowed, frantic as it began to glide towards them. The jade cloth rolled across the floor, and the creature seemed to float like the ghosts she had encountered. Closer still it came as a cloud of dust stirred and choked their already desperate lungs.

“What do you want from us,” said Jeom in a croaked voice as it neared.

“A way out,” it said in a murmur.

No one knew what to do as they stepped backwards, pressing their backs flat against the door with their weapons quivering in their grasps. Lessa screamed as the floating robes crumpled into a pile on the floor at their feet. As the cloth billowed to the ground in a mound of blackened green thread, a mortal physique began to piece together.

The hood had inched back just enough so Arianna could make out a brown hairline of a head face-down on the floor. Black, muddied boots became clear at the feet, and the scythe had fallen away from the figure’s hand. Even Arianna now realized that dried blood did not cling to the blade but instead grimy clumps of the same black mud that layered the figure’s robes. She stepped around the body and kicked the weapon out of reach, followed by Lessa who cautiously observed the scene from a distance.

Jeom gathered his courage and bent down to turn over the crinkled, white hand of the figure.

“What are you doing?” hissed Arianna as she and Lessa stayed safe at arm’s length.

Jeom never even flinched as he rolled back the robes of the fallen voice, inspecting him further.

“This is no ghost,” he said, pulling the body into his arms. “This is… I think this is my brother.” The words faltered, and Arianna and Lessa stood dumbfounded, trying to comprehend his conclusion. Jeom looked up with disbelief in his eyes, meeting the worried gaze of his friends. “His name is Demetrius. This is my brother. I know it is.”

Arianna’s lips moved to try and form a sensible response, but she thought of nothing. Instead she took Lessa’s hand and pulled her down to kneel next to Jeom. When she got a closer look at the body lying limp in his arms, she realized that the skin didn’t wrinkle at all like she had thought. The hand she glimpsed earlier was coated in the same dirt and mud which covered both his weapon and clothes.