Rocalla's Saga: Arrival

13: The Castle Depths —

1054 Riika 21

We first stop at the spot where we found Bishop Narvaan Kel’s body. “The body, what was left of it, was here,” I say, indicating the two manacles on chains hanging from the left wall. “It seems that the priests have removed the remains. The brick wall was here.” Three or four bricks remain in the passageway, the rest are now in two piles on either side of the room.

Elanor says nothing, she just takes all the information in as we describe to her everything we have seen. We do not learn much from looking at what little the priests have left behind. The whole area is well trampled now.

We proceed down the hallway and note that the other body has been removed as well. Continuing our walk to the narrow tunnel beneath the castle foundation, we arrive at the solidly constructed wooden door bound with iron. Dierdra steps up and tries the door.

“It’s locked,” she says.

Stepping forward, I offer to try an incantation to open the door. I say a brief prayer, concentrate on the door and my surroundings, and make the incantation. The door remains locked.

“I’ll give it a try,” Elanor says.

We stand back to give her some room as she shakes her shoulders and rolls her neck to loosen up. Then she starts to move her arms and murmur her magic. When she is finished, she stops and looks at the door quizzically. She steps forward and grabs the handle, only to find that it is still locked.

Elanor looks shyly behind her. “I’ll try again in just a minute,” she says. “Sometimes these things don’t go off right the first time.”

She prepares herself again, and repeats the spell. This time, when she is finished, a distinct click is heard, and the door swings open a few centimeters.

“Okay,” Elanor says, “It’s open. Now what?”

“Now we see what lies behind it,” I say. Holding my quarterstaff in one hand, I step forward, cautiously open the door, and lead the way through.

The tunnel extends another five or six meters forward, and then opens up into a large underground passage much like the one where the two bodies were found.

“Let’s prop this door ajar with something,” Dierdra says. She speaks almost in a whisper, as if fearing that someone will hear us around the corner. “I don’t want to find it closed again if we need to make a quick exit.”

We use a small wooden stake to keep the door from closing. Then I lead the way down the passage, following it northeastward for about thirty meters before it narrows into another tunnel of light-colored stone. This one is not as well made, however, and the remnants of a Sikorallan circular room can be seen on the left side, where the fill is not as even. In fact, the first half of the left side is not even a tunnel wall, but is instead the partially buried remains of a room, filled to within a meter of the top with loose rocks and dirt.

“Rocalla, give me the lantern,” Dierdra says. “I want to have a look.”

“I’ll hold it for you,” I say.

“Wait,” says Elanor. “I can help. I can cast light on the end of your quarterstaff, then you can use it like a torch.”

“The lantern will do,” I say. I see the hurt look on Elanor’s face, and immediately regret what I have said. In my heart, I know that her suggestion is a good one, but even I bear some prejudices against the use of magic on my possessions. Fortunately, Dierdra comes to my rescue.

“Elanor,” she says. “Can you cast light on my machete?”

“Yes,” says Elanor. “I could.”

Dierdra pushes aside her cloak and pulls out the machete. “Please do. That way I will have an excuse to keep it out.”

Elanor casts the spell, which is successful on the first try. Dierdra’s machete is glowing with an even white light, about as bright as a large torch, but much steadier.

“Okay, here I go,” says Dierdra. She drops her backpack and with her machete in hand she starts to scramble up the rocky slope. I stay by Elanor. She ignores my presence, instead looking around and examining the walls of the passageway. Returning my attention to Dierdra, I see she has reached the top of the earthen mound at the back of the dilapidated room.

“There’s a passage into a small side room up here,” Dierdra calls down. “It’s almost filled to the top, but I can probably squeeze through.” Without waiting for an answer, she starts to wiggle her way into the hole.

Elanor is standing away from me, but now her attention is on Dierdra. I look around to make sure that no one is approaching us.

Dierdra never completely leaves our sight; the lower half of her booted legs are still visible. In a couple of minutes, she starts to wiggle back out. Once her body is clear of the constricted passage, she turns around and scrambles down the rocks and earth to talk to us.

“The passage was tight. I could have made it, but I could see well enough into the room to know that there wasn’t much in there except for lots of dirt, rocks, and debris. I did find this, however, just inside the second room.” Dierdra holds out a well-made dagger. Its blade bears a dark stain from old blood.

Elanor takes a look at the dagger. “If that is what was used to kill the bishop, no wizard did it,” she says.

“How do you know that?” I ask.

“It’s not a wizard’s dagger.”

“Okay, assuming that a wizard wouldn’t just borrow someone else’s dagger, how do you know that this isn’t a wizard’s dagger?”

“Because it’s made of iron.”

I just look at her, speechless.

“Magic is incompatible with iron,” Elanor says. “At least you can’t cast any magic spells if you have any iron on you. I probably shouldn’t tell you that, but it is true.”

“At this point, it’s hard to tell what the victims were killed with, their bodies are so far gone,” I say. “But it’s possible that this dagger was used to kill at least one of them.”

“I’m ready to move on,” says Dierdra.

“Let’s go,” says Elanor.

I wrap up the dagger and put it in my pack, then lead the way through the tunnel. It opens onto a large circular room with four other rooms connecting to it. A faint smell of mustiness and decay permeates the air.

“It seems we are outside the castle again; that looks like part of the north foundation,” I say, looking at the wall behind us.

“But we are still underground,” Dierdra says.

“Yes.”

“So what do we do now?”

“Look around, there must be some other way out of here.”

We spend the next hour silently wandering from room to room in the underground complex. The dusty floors muffle our footsteps, and the spaces are eerily quiet. There are about thirteen rooms of various sizes, all in the circular patterns of the Sikorallan culture. All of them are empty. A few are partially demolished, where the castle foundation passes through them. But there is no sign that any of them has been occupied in recent times.

Returning to the large room that we first entered, we take a break, sit down, and eat the rest of the dwartlun and bread that I brought. Once we have satisfied our hunger, we get up and leave by the one passage yet to be explored, which leads into a medium sized circular room to the west. This room is similar to the others, except that it has another archway on the far side which is longer and more elaborate than any we have seen before. We walk through, and the space beyond it is not circular.

We are still underground, but the open area before us is at least as large as the biggest of the chambers in the Sikorallan ruins. It is roughly kite shaped, but irregular, and the walls are variously constructed. The side through which we have entered is made of the now familiar sepia bricks of the Sikorallan ruins. The walls to our left and directly in front of us are perfectly straight and are constructed of the large blocks of light-colored stone that make up the castle’s foundation. The other side is more irregular and is made of blocks of brown colored rock.

The floor is paved with stone, and a wide ditch stretches across the far end of the room from the castle foundation on the left to the opposite wall. The stench of excrement and waste fills the air. I decide to walk up to the ditch for a closer look.

“It seems that we have found the main sewer out of the castle,” I say.

“Wonderful,” says Dierdra, “Now what? We still haven’t found a way back into the castle.”

“I don’t see a way across the sewer; I don’t see any doors on the far side either.”

“There must be another way out of here. Elanor, let’s have a look around.”

While Dierdra and Elanor examine the walls of the room, I study the sewer. Where it flows out of the room, large iron bars spaced about ten centimeters apart block the way. There does not appear to be another room beyond the wall on that side; all I can see is a long tubular tunnel leading toward the river. With my head close to the opening, I can hear the lapping of waves on the rocky shore at the far end. Crossing to the place where the sewer flows into the room through the castle foundation, I examine that opening as well. Here the tunnel is rectangular in shape, and its ceiling rises about one and a half meters above the filthy water in the sewer ditch. I lean over the side to peer upstream. The foul odors are intense, and bile starts to rise in my throat before I force it back down again. The ceiling is dripping with scum and ooze, but there are no bars in sight. The tunnel is over ten meters long, and I cannot tell what lies at the far end.

After seeing what I can see, I crawl back away from the edge and sit down with my back against the castle wall. Breathing in and out slowly until my stomach settles, I wait for Dierdra and Elanor to complete their explorations.

“It’s another dead end,” Dierdra says as she and Elanor walk over to where I am sitting.

“Maybe there isn’t another way in,” Elanor says.

“Then why would there be a door through the castle foundation?” I ask.

“Well, if there is another way, I can’t find it,” Dierdra says. “Do we go back to the door and start looking again?”

“There is a way into the castle,” I say. “There’s the sewer tunnel.”

“Is there a walkway along the sewer?” Dierdra asks, walking over to take a look.

“No,” I say.

“Well then how do we get in?”

“We could wade in the sewer and walk upstream through the tunnel.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“You have a better idea?”

“Any other idea would be a better idea,” Dierdra says.

“It’s a way into the castle.”

“How do you know if it leads anywhere other than the latrines?”

“I don’t, but I don’t know of a better alternative at the moment.”

“You can’t seriously expect me to wade into that filth.”

“I’m not going to carry you,” I say.

Elanor has remained silent until now. “Dierdra, let’s take another look around this room,” she says.

I wait by the ditch for another half hour, while Dierdra and Elanor search again. They walk back with a dejected look on their faces.

“We can’t find the passage out of here,” Elanor says. “It must be well hidden. Or in a different room.”

“I’m not giving up,” I say. “We’ve come this far, and I want to see what is in the castle. I’ll explore the sewer tunnel. If there is a way out of the sewer on the far end, I will dip my lantern up and down three times to signal to you. Then you can follow. If there isn’t a way out, I’ll just come back.”

“Why don’t you just keep right on exploring, and tell us what you find when you come back,” Dierdra says.

“You’re not coming?”

“I really, really don’t want to go slopping through a sewer tonight,” Dierdra says.

“Dierdra,” Elanor says, “We have come this far, and I am very curious about what lies in the castle. I’m not particularly fond of taking this way in, but it could take us all night to find a different route. If Rocalla is willing to go ahead and explore the sewer, then I’m willing to follow if she finds a way onward beyond the far end of the tunnel.”

“Could you use your magic to clean all the filth out of the water first?” Dierdra asks.

“Sorry, but I don’t know any spells that would do that.”

“Or maybe something to allow me to float over the mess instead of wading through it?”

“That’s beyond my capabilities,” Elanor says.

Dierdra turns to face me, “Are you certain you want to do this?”

“I don’t want to do this, but I want to find a way into the castle tonight. So I’m going.”

With that I slide over to the edge of the ditch, swing my legs over the side, and lower myself into the foulness before I have a chance to change my mind.