The Lost Realm (7 page)

A
t last they had reached the postern gate.

“So where's this place you're taking us?” Slater asked Gulph, shouting to be heard over the battle. He jerked his thumb at the huge door. “It had better not be through there. We only just got out of the city in one piece.”

Gulph turned to Ossilius, as curious as the others. Now that they were here, he had no idea where they were going next.

“We must push the Tauritus aside,” Ossilius explained. “Then all will be revealed.”

Before Gulph could ask what a Tauritus was, Ossilius hurried over to the statue of the bull-headed man standing beside the gate. It was fully twice his height. Gulph joined him, the others following close behind.

“I have a special task for you, Gulph,” said Ossilius. “Climb to the head. Reach inside the mouth. There is a lever.”

“Will that open the door?”

“Not exactly.”

Bemused, Gulph knotted the crown firmly to a loop of his belt, then scampered nimbly up the statue until he was perched on its shoulder. Stone eyes glared at him from beneath a granite brow. Ignoring their dead gaze, he grasped one of the bull-man's horns for balance and reached into its gaping mouth.

His hand fell at once upon a short, metal lever. He pulled it up. No movement. The rough stone inside the statue's mouth pinched his hand. Somewhere through the smoke came the guttural cries of the undead.

They're getting closer . . .

Impatiently, Gulph pushed the lever down instead. Still nothing.

“Ossilius!” he called down. “I can't . . .”

“Turn it!” shouted the captain. “You can do it!”

Gulph obeyed. The lever rotated with a satisfying click.

“Good!” Ossilius roared. “Now push, all of you! For your lives—push!”

Gulph looked down to see Ossilius pressing his hands against the statue's stone haunch. The captain strained so hard that the tendons in his neck stood out like ropes. Marcus, the soldier, set his weight beside him, the woman in the baker's apron and the little girl following suit. After a brief pantomime of reluctance, Slater joined them.

Slowly, the statue began to move, sliding sideways in a series of jerks that made Gulph's teeth rattle, then abruptly halted. Gripping the lever with both hands, Gulph looked down and saw that a narrow slot had been revealed in the pillar. It looked black and ominous. A secret doorway.

“Hurry!” cried Ossilius, urging the little group of survivors through the slot. It was so narrow they had to enter in single file. When they were all inside, he turned his face up to Gulph.

“In a moment, I will tell you to let go of the lever. When you do so, the statue will return of its own accord. Do not worry—you can move much faster than a block of stone. Are you ready?”

Gulph's mouth was dry. He imagined releasing the lever, then losing his grip and tumbling to the ground. He saw himself lunging for the doorway, saw the statue sliding back into place, bearing down on him as he lay helpless on the ground and slicing him in two. . . .

“I'm ready,” he said.

“Now!”

Gulph released the lever. Immediately, he felt the statue juddering beneath him. It threw him off balance; he went with the fall, flipping forward until his hands were planted on the bull-man's chest, then somersaulting out into clear air. He landed hard, letting himself tumble into a roll, then sprang up onto his feet again.

He could almost hear the applause.

“Gulph! Behind you!”

Two undead warriors staggered out of the thinning smoke. Both looked badly burned, and at first glance Gulph thought they were hugging each other. Then he saw that the burns had melted their rotting flesh together.

Ossilius darted from the doorway and hacked off the head of the first warrior. With a second stroke he split its body in two. The second warrior stumbled, weighed down by the flailing remains, but somehow came on.

Gulph reached for his own sword, but he'd lost it during his fall from the statue. Snatching up a stone, he hurled it at the oncoming monster. It hit the thing square in the chest, smashing frail ribs and flying straight out the other side. The impact spun the warrior completely around, and for an instant, the path to the secret doorway was clear.

But the doorway was almost closed.

Gulph sprinted toward it. The statue rumbled over the ground, some unseen mechanism dragging it in a series of juddering lurches. Ossilius had already ducked back inside and was reaching for Gulph with outstretched arms.

“Hurry!” he shouted.

Two more warriors appeared out of the murk.

The statue continued to grind its way shut. Now the slot was no wider than a man. Gulph leaped. Ossilius jumped aside, seizing Gulph's outstretched hands and hauling him through just as the Tauritus slammed back into place behind him with a head-splitting thump. Gulph felt the statue's cold stone brush his heels as he sprawled on the dank earth inside. One breath later and his legs would have been crushed.

He lay, panting for breath, blinking into utter darkness. The silence was just as complete. No light. No sound. Nothing at all.

“Are we all here?” said the woman, speaking uncertainly in the blackness. “I can't see a thing.”

Nearby, somebody started to whimper. Clambering to his feet, Gulph reached out blindly. Small hands found his: the little girl.

“It's all right,” he said. “We're safe now. What's your name?”

“J-J-Jessamyn,” she blubbered. “Where's my mama?”

“I don't know, Jessamyn. But you're safe. Just keep holding my hand. Nothing bad can happen as long as we're holding hands, can it?”

Something bumped Gulph's shoulder.

“Hey!” It was Slater, his deep voice unmistakable. “Give that back!”

“Give what back?” said Gulph.

“He means his sword,” said Ossilius, a little to Gulph's right. “You were right when you said you'd seen this man in the Vault of Heaven, Gulph. I remember him too. He is not a man I would trust with a sword.”

“Give it back!”

“Take it from me, if you would. But before you do, I would point out that I have been trained in the seventeen classes of combat. That includes combat in the full dark. Can you say the same?”

Slater hesitated, then grumbled something unintelligible.

“What did you say?”

“What good's two swords to a man?”

“I could show you. However, I do not mean to use this as a weapon.”

Gulph listened to Ossilius's retreating footsteps. Then came an unpleasant screeching sound, followed by a metallic clang.

“I have used your sword to jam the mechanism that moves the statue,” Ossilius said.

“So now we're trapped,” sneered Slater.

“Now we are safe.”

“When you two have stopped arguing,” said the woman, “perhaps we could get some light in here?”

“You speak well, my lady,” said Ossilius.

“Hetty. My name's Hetty.”

“Well, Hetty, cast around with me. The chamber we are in is a storeroom. It is small, but it should be well stocked. We may find torches, perhaps even preserved food.”

Gulph gently released Jessamyn and stumbled into the blackness until his outstretched hands struck a wall. Fingering his way along it, he discovered a row of little doors, which he began to open one by one. From all around him came shuffling and scraping sounds as his companions made their own explorations.

Behind each door was a small cupboard. The first was empty, as was the second. The third contained what felt like straw, the fourth something horribly soft and squelchy. With a shudder, Gulph withdrew his hand and tried the next. A pile of wooden sticks lay inside this one, slick and oily, along with a small metal box.

He pried it open. Inside the box was a set of hard, cold nuggets. He knew what they were at once.

“I've found something,” he exclaimed.

Gulph plucked a handful of straw from the third cupboard and placed it blindly on the ground. He took two of the nuggets and struck one against the other over the straw. A spark flew, and the dry straw ignited. The light was painfully bright.

“Fireworks!” Jessamyn cried from the other side of the room.

Seizing one of the sticks, Gulph plunged it into the fire. A couple of breaths later, he was holding aloft a blazing torch.

“Well done, Gulph,” said Ossilius, striding across the chamber to slap him on the back. Gulph grinned.

Ossilius handed the rest of the torches around. Soon everyone was holding a burning brand. The orange light flickered across their faces, casting wavering shadows on the storeroom. Gulph turned a slow circle, taking in the shelves and crates and piles of what looked like moldering uniforms. Closer examination of the squelchy object revealed it to be a dead rat.

Gulph's heart sank. “There are no other doors.”

“So this was your great plan?” said Slater. “Bring us to a dead end?”

Wordlessly, Ossilius handed his torch to Gulph and crossed the chamber to the back wall. Embossed into the stone was a large, circular emblem: the sign of the King's Legion. He pressed the heel of his hand against the raised star in the middle, and pushed.

The star sank into the wall. With a pained grinding sound, the whole crest sank back too, then rolled sideways into a hidden cavity.

Gulph stared through the round hole thus revealed. Beyond it, a long tunnel plunged down and away into darkness.

“The Tunnels of the Legion,” said Ossilius, with almost reverential awe. “A secret known only to the elite.”

He looked back at his companions. Everyone—even Slater—looked amazed. Gulph felt the stirrings of something new in his heart.

Hope.

They made their way down the steeply descending tunnel. Gulph scurried close behind Ossilius, his boots slipping on the damp stone floor. The clammy walls seemed intent on banging his elbows at every opportunity, and he lost count of the number of times he bashed his head on the rocks that protruded from the ceiling. It was like racing into the throat of some sleeping, underground beast.

Soon they reached a flight of rough stone stairs leading even farther down. Ossilius paused briefly, holding out the blazing torch he was carrying. Hetty and Marcus held up their torches too, but their combined light showed them almost nothing at all.

“What's down here?” Gulph whispered. The tunnel was empty and clearly long-abandoned; nevertheless it felt wrong to speak too loudly.

“A safe haven,” Ossilius replied, leading them down. “Somewhere we can hide until Trident liberates the city. They will come, I know it. My son is at their head, and he will never give up. If anyone can find a way to cross the chasm, it's Fessan.”

The certainty in the captain's voice was heartwarming. But Gulph found it hard to share his resolve.

Limmoni leaped over the chasm
, he thought,
but she died. And the undead are so many now. . . .

“Who made these tunnels?” he said, trying to shake off the melancholy that was creeping over him.

“We did,” Ossilius replied. “That is to say, the men of the King's Legion. It took many years of sweat and labor.”

“But why do it at all?”

“The tunnels were designed as a bolt hole. Do you know what that is?”

“Somewhere to run to?”

“Yes, but more than that. It was decided, long ago, that if ever the city of Idilliam was overrun, the king would be taken to a safe place. Somewhere the enemy could not reach, but from where he could still rule.”

“A secret place,” Gulph murmured.

“So secret, no king has ever known of its existence.” He smiled at Gulph. “Until now.”

Gulph shivered. Despite the crown hanging from his belt, he didn't feel like a king at all.

“It's hardly a royal palace,” Ossilius went on. “But there's enough down here for us to survive. There are stores of preserved food—we should reach the first of these soon—and armories, meeting chambers, latrines . . .”

“It's like a city under a city.”

Ossilius barked out a short laugh. “Hardly! Underground realms are the stuff of myth and legend, Gulph. This is a rabbit warren, nothing more.”

They continued to descend, gradually using up the spare torches in Marcus's pack as they moved through the gloomy tunnels. Occasionally they passed a side passage. Each time they did so, Ossilius stopped, sniffed, and ordered them to continue forward.

“Are you sure you know where you're going?” said Slater at one of the larger junctions.

“Shut up and let him lead,” snapped Marcus.

“So you can follow like a mule?”

“Are you calling me a mule?”

“Only because you stink like one.”

“I know where I am going,” Ossilius said mildly. He ran his hand over the wall, where faint cracks ran from floor to ceiling. “But we must be careful from here.”

They plodded on.