The Eight Walls of Rogar: An Epic Fantasy Adventure Series! (The Lost Kingdoms of Laotswend Trilogy--Book One) (30 page)

Andaris shuddered and, with panic rising in his throat, crawled the rest of the way out.  Once back in the other tunnel, he sat and closed his eyes, relishing the feel of stone beneath his body, trying to reign in his galloping heart.

When his head cleared, he opened his eyes, rubbed his face with his palms, and began mulling over his options. 
Could go five feet in and start digging to the right,
he thought
, which would be west.
  “Up and to the west,” he whispered.  “Might take a while, but I’d have to break through eventually.  Like father always said, sooner started sooner finished.  Works not gonna get done by staring at it.”  Smiling at his poor imitation of his father’s voice, Andaris took a deep breath and reentered the tunnel of snow.

He had only dug a few feet when he heard what sounded like three clangs, echoing to his ears with a marked sense of urgency.  He planted the torch in the snow and struck the handle of his shovel twice against the wall.  Gaven responded immediately with three distinct clangs.  There was now no doubt—the big man needed him.  Andaris signaled that he was on his way, put his shovel into his saddlebags, grabbed the torch, and began to crawl. 
I’m coming,
he thought.

When he was about halfway there he stopped and, once again, struck his shovel four times against the stone, mainly to let Gaven know how he was progressing.  There was a long silence followed by three very faint clangs, suggesting...what?  Had Gaven grown so weak that he could now barely lift his sword?  And if so, why had he grown so weak?  Was he ill?  Was he injured?  A finger of fear traced the length of Andaris’ spine, its chill touch making him tremble.  Could it be they weren’t alone in here after all?

As he neared the end of the tunnel, he began to visualize what he might find.  He tried to prepare himself for the worst, his mind’s eye filling with a number of very unpleasant possibilities.  The reality, however, turned out to be more disturbing than anything he’d imagined, for neither Gaven nor his things were anywhere to be found.  They had simply vanished, apparently into the ether, without leaving the slightest hint as to where they might have gone.  There was no sign of struggle.  No blood.  No nothing.  It was a mystery without clues, a puzzle without pieces.

Andaris stared in dumfounded silence, wholly undone by what he saw—or rather didn’t see.  A person doesn’t just up and disappear, especially not one so large as Gaven.  It was ridiculous.  For a long time he stared, unmoving, glassy eyed, unable to accept what was happening. 
Am I dreaming?
he wondered. 
Am I really back in the tunnel of snow, sleeping on the job?  Or is there some magic at work here?

He was about to slap himself to find out when he heard it—three clangs from somewhere beyond the end of the tunnel, from...the other side.  But how could there be another side?  Unless….  Gooseflesh rose on his arms.  “Gaven!” he yelled.  “Can you hear me?”

“I’m in here!” came the muffled reply.  “Lay your hands palm first against the stone.  Don’t worry.  You won’t be harmed.  It’s amazing, Andaris.  It really is.”

Flooded by relief, he started to do as Gaven instructed, and then hesitated.  What would happen if he laid his hands palm first against the stone?  Would he be transported through the rock somehow?  Would it open like a door?  How did he know the other side was better than this side?  And even if it was, what guarantee did he have that he wouldn’t be taken somewhere else?  What if this was another portal?  Come to think of it, how could he even be sure the person giving him instructions was Gaven, and not some creature pretending to be Gaven?  Whoever it was had called him by name, but what did that really prove?  If it had been listening to them, it would have heard both their names.

“What will happen?” Andaris finally asked.

“It will explode,” came the somewhat irritated reply.  “It will open, what do you think?”

It sure sounded like Gaven, and yet how could he be certain?  “Okay, if it’s really you, then tell me who we’re looking for?”

“You want the password?” inquired the voice.  “Are you serious?”

“I’m afraid so,” Andaris said.

“Well, let’s see, I can’t remember exactly, but it seems like her name rhymes with spade and means precious green stone.  She’s got four legs and a furry behind that’s always in my business.  Now come on, Andaris, quit fooling around and open the door.”

Yep, that’s Gaven all right,
he thought, reaching his hands forward.  When he touched the rock, he experienced a most peculiar sensation.  He felt as though someone, or something, were shuffling through his mind, flipping through his thoughts and memories as easily as a deck of cards.  Suddenly fearful, he tried to pull away, but could not.

There was a click and, with a grinding noise, the circle of stone at the end of the tunnel began to slide to his left, receding into the side of the wall.  When Andaris removed his hands, he lost all memory of the mental shuffling.  As far as he knew, the door had begun to open the instant he’d touched it.  The waxing moon shone with a soft purplish light, banishing the gloom both in the tunnel, and in his heart. 

Fresh air blew from the other side, making the flames of the torch do a final wild dance before abruptly going out.  Andaris looked up and grinned, for there was Gaven, standing there like he owned the place, the man in the moon with a wide smile on his face, his body bathed in the purplish light.

“But what,” Andaris fumbled.  “Where—”

“There will be time for questions later,” Gaven said.  “First, we need to wedge something in this opening before it closes again.  Try your shovel.”

Andaris placed the shovel’s point and handle into the channel in which the door would slide if it were closing, the point on the bottom left, the handle on the top right.  The shovel had been forged as one solid piece of steel for durability on the battlefield.  It would take a great deal to bend it, much less break it.

“There,” Andaris said, handing the saddlebags and torch to Gaven.  “That oughta hold her.”

Gaven set these items to the side, grabbed his friend’s wrists, and pulled.  As soon as Andaris’ feet were clear, the door started to close.  The shovel slid in the upper and lower channels, scraping against the rock until, with a violent jerk, it slammed into place—defiant, rigid, and strong.

The door strained to shut, pushing with mounting force.  Andaris got to his feet, scarcely aware of how good it felt to be vertical again.  They heard a metallic clunking from somewhere above, followed by a low, drawn out groan.  The shovel was set aquiver as a tremor shot through the stone.  The clunking grew louder, and more insistent.  The floor vibrated with barely contained energy, at which time, to their astonishment, the shovel began to bow.  At first only slightly, then by an inch or so.  They took a step back.  After all, the force required for even so modest a fluctuation staggered the mind.

The struggle became static—two wrestlers locked in place, unmoving, straining with all their might.  For several tense seconds it was unclear which would prevail, door or shovel.  Then with an angry, “clunkity clunk!” from above, the door recessed back into the wall.

“Hmph, now I know why I wasn’t able to pry it open,” Gaven said, his words touched with wonder.  “See how fast it started to close after you were through?  The same thing happened to me, except it did close.  Thought it was gonna bite my foot off, the big stone mouth.  Well, we showed it, didn’t we?”

“Why’d you go through without signaling me?” Andaris asked.

Gaven’s expression dimmed with shame.  “Well, a few hours after you left I started to…you know, feel around a little.  I couldn’t see anything.  It was so dark, almost like there was no such thing as light…and never had been, if you know what I mean.”

Andaris frowned, remembering all too well what he meant.

“I had begun to
imagine
things, like you said I might, movement and such.  I think it was worse because I was trapped.  A captive audience, I guess you could say.  I saw some pretty weird stuff, Andaris.  Makes me wonder about myself, cause I know everything I saw was in my head, at least I hope it was.  There was nothing for my eyes to do, so they started looking inward, like when you’re asleep.”

Gaven sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.  “I wasn’t…quite as comfortable back there as I let on.  Towards the end I really started to crack.  There was this face, bulging out of the darkness like a nightmare, shaped of the darkness, its mouth and eyes vacant holes, connected by a flood of…I guess you could say…evil—glistening black blood flowing into the eye sockets and out of the mouth.  It was crazy, to visualize something like that.  I don’t know, I guess my mind was having as much trouble adjusting to the dark as my eyes.  Speaking of which, Andaris, I want you to know that I have a new respect for what you went through.  Must have taken a great deal of courage not to have lost your wits.”

Becoming distracted by his surroundings, Andaris just nodded.

“So anyway, trying to reassure myself that things were as I remembered, I started running my hands over the walls.  You’re still here, I kept telling myself.  Nothing has changed.  Well, you can imagine my shock when that door slid open and I discovered this room.  That’s when I signaled you.  I meant to wait for you to get back before I went in, but I was getting this cramp.  I just wanted to stretch my legs.  How was I to know the door would shut so fast, and that I wouldn’t be able to open it from the other side?”

Andaris had now become too distracted to respond.  It wasn’t that he was disinterested in what Gaven was telling him.  It was just that, at the moment, the room demanded his full attention.  He felt compelled to admire it, unnaturally so, captivated by its unassuming beauty, by its quiet grace.  It wasn’t until much later that he realized how peculiar this was.  Gaven opened his mouth to say something else, and then began admiring the room, as well.

The ceiling, walls, and floor were made of stone, the surface of each polished as smooth as a pebble at the bottom of a streambed.  The domed ceiling loomed at least fifty feet above the floor.  On the far wall was a large opening that led into another room.  Above the opening’s peak, carved deep into the stone, was a symbol—a circle within a circle bisected by a vertical line.

Andaris ran his hand over the floor and smiled.  He had never experienced anything quite like it.  It was cool to the touch and, in spite of its appearance, felt like metal.  Gems of various colors and sizes winked at him from high up on the walls, some no doubt worth enough to make him rich beyond his wildest dreams.  Veins of quartz and gold, perhaps even real gold, sparkled in the purplish light, a warm glow with no discernible source, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. 

“Have you ever seen the like?” Andaris asked.

“No.  Can’t say that I have,” Gaven answered.  “And there’s more…maybe much more.  Through there.”

“So what’s it all doing here?  Who built it…and why?”

Gaven’s forehead creased.  “Good question.  I’ve been wondering the same thing.  I wish Ashel was here.  He would know.  He talked a lot about history.  He used to go on about how magic was once as fundamental to us as the air we breathe and the water we drink.  He said that long ago, when the world was young, it flowed through everyone and everything, like blood flows through our veins.

There was this ancient civilization he used to talk about—the Lenay, or the Lenoy, something like that.  They built these great underground cities.  Historians have been searching for them for centuries.  Most believe they’re a myth.  Ashel though…he thought different.  He said if we only believed in what we could see or hear…that we’d be closing ourselves off to what mattered most.  He said the cities were real, but wouldn’t be found until they were ready to be found, almost like they were alive or something.  I asked him what he meant by that.  Of course he just laced his fingers together, got a really condescending look on his face—you know the one—and said, ‘Gaven, how can I give you the answer to a question you have yet to ask?’ “

Andaris raised his hand as if in class.  “So…what are you saying?  That we’ve succeeded where generations of historians have failed?  That we’ve stumbled upon an entrance into one of these fabled cities?”

Gaven shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I guess it seems pretty far-fetched when you put it like that, but if not that, then what?”

Andaris stepped to the opening on the other side of the room.  The chamber into which the opening led was immense, lit by the same purplish glow.  The ceiling of the chamber was so high it made his head swim.  Somewhere in the distance, he heard the sound of dripping water.  “This place is huge,” he said.  “I wonder where the light comes from?”

Gaven walked up behind him.  “Andaris, how far did you get on your digging?”

“Not as far as I would have liked,” he admitted.  “It was pretty slow work.  I got about ten feet out…then had to backtrack and tunnel to the right to keep away from the edge of the road.  From there I started to dig up, up and to the west.  I had only gone a few feet when I heard your signal.”

Gaven nodded.  “It seems to me there should be more than one entrance into here.  The way we came was more like an escape route, a secret passage only to be used when the need is great.  I say we find the real entrance.  There must be one…for a place this size.  No sense risking our hide in that hole if we don’t have to.”