his eyes had adjusted to the darkness. Instead he fought to control his breathing and said, “Nothing has jumped out to devour me yet.”
He was aware of the others coming in behind him. He could hear them grunting and scraping their way through the narrow opening, each of them in their turn struck dumb once they were inside by the profundity of the darkness. Morget took a step forward to put down one of their crates of supplies, and the rustling of the barbarian’s clothes was like summer thunder reverberating off rain-lashed hills.
Croy lit a lantern, a great flaring light that made Malden blink as his eyes watered. The candle inside the lantern flickered wildly in some unfelt breeze and then steadied, and light streamed out across the open space of stone.
The marble floor stretched ahead as far as the light showed. A pair of stout, twisted columns held up a roof that was high enough that the light couldn’t show it, leaving it shrouded in pitch-darkness. Something moved on one of the columns, inching through the lantern’s glow, and Malden nearly turned and dashed back out of the Vincularium, but then he saw it was only a millipede, no longer than his finger. Its glossy shell was translucent and he could see its clear blood surging through its body. Lifting feathery antennae into the dusty air, the insect turned and started crawling away from the light.
Morget started forward, one fist raised as if he would smash the thing.
“Be careful,” Croy whispered. “We don’t know what we’re walking into.”
Morget grumbled with impatience, but he stepped back again.
Cythera lit another lantern and pressed it into Malden’s hand. It had a looping handle on one side and he gripped it hard, like a man dying of thirst will grab onto a tankard of ale.
“So far so good,” Cythera said. She smiled at him. Obviously she meant to reassure him, but the light streaming upward across her face made dark pools of her eyes and made her look much more like a witch than Coruth ever had. He expected her to start cackling at any moment.
“There should be an exit from this room straight ahead,” Slag said, gesturing into the dark.
“All right,” Malden said. “I’ll make sure it’s safe.”
He was known in certain discreet circles as a master at evading traps. He’d bested the houses of sorcerers and the palaces of nobles because he could keep his wits about him and he knew when to step lightly. In all the Free City of Ness there was no one more qualified for it. And only a fool would think the way into the Vincularium would be free of pitfalls or snares. Dwarves were famous for their mistrust of interlopers and trespassers. The places they built underground were never meant for human intrusion, and over the centuries they’d become geniuses at constructing deadly surprises as a way of safeguarding their premises.
They also tended to have a lot of treasure, which attracted thieves. Over time those of Malden’s profession had learned ways to overcome or simply avoid dwarven traps. Of course, the traditional way to do that was to send one person forward ahead of the group, and if they didn’t die screaming in some horrible contraption, then you knew the way was safe. It looked to Malden like had been chosen for that honorable role.
He stepped out between the columns, careful to test the marble under his feet with each step. More columns loomed out of the darkness, perhaps a whole row of them. That was the obvious path, the way anyone coming inside would be expected to take. Safer to take the long way around. He turned to his left and raised his lantern high. There was a wall in that direction, so he moved slowly toward it and then reached out to touch it with one finger. The wall shone under his light, and he saw it was made of the same polished marble as the floor. A frieze ran along the wall just a little above Malden’s eye level, carved with dwarven runes he couldn’t read.
“Slag,” he called, and his voice boomed in the stone hall so much that he ducked his head and pressed his back against the stones. “Slag,” he said, in a much softer voice, “can you read this inscription?”
The dwarf came out of the dark toward him and peered upward at the frieze. His mouth moved silently for a while as he read. “Names, that’s all. It’s a standard formula,” Slag said, when he’d read enough. “It lists the dwarves who built this place, as well as the names of their fathers.”
“I was worried it might be warning us that only death awaited those who passed through this hall,” Malden said. That was the kind of thing he expected to find in a forbidden crypt.
“This was a city, before it was a tomb,” Slag told him. “When we lived here, there would have been fires burning all day and night in this room, and cups so full of mead you would never see their bottoms. This room would have been used for receiving visitors from the surface-elves or humans, anyone willing to trade with us.” He shook his head. “No, this was not a place of death, lad. Not till later.”
Malden nodded and headed forward, along the wall. He was trying to get a sense of its dimensions, but that proved difficult when his light couldn’t reach all the corners at once. The columns ran beside him, one every fifteen feet or so. Then he came to the far wall, and turned to his right, and moved forward again. Eventually he came to a wide stone door, no more than six feet high, mounted in a stone arch. The latch of the door was simply designed and had no lock. Cool air streamed through the crack between the bottom of the door and its jamb. He checked its hinges and all along its top, and found nothing to worry him.
“All right,” he said, “come the way I did, all of you. I think it’s safe.”
Croy, Cythera, and Morget came quickly to join him. Slag seemed to be taking his time. Before he entered the circle of light shed by Malden’s lantern, they heard him snuffling, and when the light touched him it gleamed on the tears in the corners of his eyes.
Malden panicked a little, but fought his fear back down. “Slag-what is it?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, lad, nothing. I just feel like I’ve come home, is all.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
The door opened easily on its hinges. It didn’t even creak. After eight hundred years, that was a small miracle-but Malden knew that dwarves built things to last.
Beyond lay a passage with smooth walls that curved down. A bronze handrail ran along the wall at waist height for a dwarf. Its shine was gone with age, but it ran unbroken as far as Malden could see. He stepped into the passage, and when nothing tried to kill him, exhaled deeply. Then he started downward. The others followed more slowly.
“Take care,” Cythera said.
“My eyes are open. Yet most likely,” Malden said, “we won’t run into a trap for a while.” He was expecting to find traps near the entrance, because they would have been needed back when this place was closed up. Something was required to keep the elves inside long enough for the exit to be sealed behind them. He was trying to think like a human general who died centuries before he was born. How would you layer your defenses? You expected the elves to try to break out en masse. “The barrier Cythera brought down would have been more effective if you weren’t expecting it-if the elves thought the way to freedom was clear. So there should be a good open run between the chains and the next trap. Also, we’re going the wrong direction, as far as the trap-makers were concerned. They wanted the elves to come down here unhindered. They just also wanted to make sure they didn’t get out again. So the traps will be laid to stop elves coming from inside, heading out. So it’s possible we’ll walk right past a trap without setting it off, because it only works one way. Of course, we need to find that trap anyway, since we’ll be coming back this way on our way out.”
Croy looked skeptical. “What makes you think there will be any more traps at all? There was enough power in those chains to decimate an army.”
Malden laughed. “I suppose there was. But you’re a soldier, Croy. Tell me, do you put all your troops in one formation and just assume the enemy will attack head on? If you did that and they simply flanked you, you would lose every time. No, you need to have multiple ways of stopping your enemy. Herward said the elves were famous for fighting dirty, and we know the people who sealed them in here were terrified of them ever getting out. Fear can be good sometimes. Paranoia makes you think of everything. There will definitely be another trap. And it won’t be magical.”
“No?” Morget asked. He looked a little foolish, ducking down to keep from striking his head on the ceiling. “Why not? Magic works.”
It was Cythera who answered that. “Magic was a good choice for the trap outside-it doesn’t wear off or rust or fall apart over time. But it isn’t perfect. Anyone with arcane training and enough power can defeat a magical
