Sister of the Dead

Chapter 4

L eesil awoke the next morning to a chilly room. The fire had died in the night, and mere was a chill in his stomach, as well. Today, they visited the keep where Magiere's mother had died.

Magiere woke beside him on the dirt floor and pulled back their blanket. Her stoic front couldn't hide the dread in her eyes. The sooner they finished with this, the sooner he could take her from this place.

She remained silent through their light breakfast, and this bothered Leesil as never before. Perhaps because mere were so many unanswered questions concerning Magiere's past or even questions he couldn't yet imagine. However, now that Aunt Bieja was certain he wasn't going to spirit off her niece, she sat and chatted with him, explaining all she could of local affairs. The zupan tending the keep and fief wouldn't be available until midafternoon. Still but a commoner himself, he had his own lands and household to tend, so he preferred dealing with fief matters in the early afternoon, and left any audiences for late in the day.

"Fief matters?" Leesil asked. "What exactly does he do?"

Bieja smiled. "We're more fortunate than most clanships.

Cadell handles the accounting himself and checks to see how the villages in each zupanesta in the fief are faring. There are five villages alone for our clan's zupanesta. If disaster strikes any village, and they cannot pay all their taxes, he faces the collectors of the Antes house himself."

Leesil's fondness for Aunt Bieja grew steadily, although she could be a little daunting at times. Strong and sensible, she was knowledgeable in spite of a lifetime of superstitions. After the previous night's misunderstanding, it was plain that lightning tempers coupled with protective natures ran in this family's women.

"Well, if we can't visit the keep until later," he said, "what can we do around here? By necessity, I've gotten handy at mending roofs and old furniture."

"I understood some of that," Wynn said, clearing bowls from the table. "If we have the morning free, I would like to wash out some clothes. Magiere?"

Magiere nodded as she shook out her black hair and began to braid it. "We'll tend to our own needs while we can. There's no telling when we'll have another chance."

"Here, let me braid that for you," Bieja said, stepping around behind her niece.

Magiere stiffened, but Bieja smoothed wayward wisps of hair back from her face. Magiere relaxed as her aunt's nimble fingers weaved and plaited.

Leesil tried not to stare but kept glancing over again and again. Bieja took her time, perhaps making up for the years she'd been unable to care for her niece. With an ache in his chest, he got up to step outside.

The rest of the morning was spent washing and repacking. Leesil split firewood for Aunt Bieja and stacked it beside the hut. They avoided the other villagers as much as possible, and no one stopped to visit. The day would have been peaceful if not for Chap's fretting and scratching at the door. But whenever Leesil let him out, he'd look around the village and whine pitifully.

"What's wrong with him?" he asked Wynn.

Wynn tried speaking to the dog with the talking hide, but shook her head. "He keeps saying horses and journey. He wants to leave."

Leesil patted the dog's head. "Hopefully tomorrow."

This only made Chap more irritable. He growled low under his breath as he slunk back to the hut's far corner and lay with head on paws, watching all of them. Leesil didn't know what to do for him.

At midafternoon, Magiere looked out the front window and heaved a sigh. Her jaw tensed as she turned to Leesil. "It's time."

He nodded and looked at his punching blades lying upon their bundled belongings in the corner. Their forward ends were shaped like flattened steel spades with elongated tips and sharpened edges all around. At their bases were crosswise oval openings, allowing the blades to be gripped by their backsides for punching. A gradual "wing" curved back from the outside edge of each blade head and ran the full length of his forearm, ending where his elbow would be. He'd had special sheaths designed so he could strap them to his hips.

"Blades… or just stilettos?" he asked.

Magiere hesitated before answering. "I'd rather not look ready for a fight, but I don't care to be unarmed either. Can you cover the blades with your cloak?"

She'd already donned her own cloak and pulled it around to hide her falchion, though the sheath's tip peeked out from behind.

"Fair enough," he replied, and followed her example as he shifted into Belaskian for Wynn. "Try to get Chap to stop whining. He's making my head ache."

Wynn was dressed in her breeches and a red shirt borrowed from Leesil, as her white one was still drying. The shirt was much too big, but she'd managed to tuck it in. She pulled on her hooded short robe, but before she answered, Chap lunged for the open doorway.

The dog spun around to stand in the way, blocking it. Whining shifted to growling. The daylight spilling through doorway cast his silver-gray fur in a gossamer blue glow. His crystalline eyes filled with desperation as he bared his teeth and looked to Magiere.

"Stop that!" Leesil ordered. "What's wrong with you?"

He reached out to grab the dog by the scruff, and Chap turned on him, snarling.

"He does not want us to go," Wynn said. "Each time we mention the keep, he gets more upset."

"I don't want to go either, but we must," Magiere said in a sad voice, and she stepped closer to the dog. "There is no other choice if we want answers."

Chap barked twice, his arranged reply for no, and growled louder.

"Wynn, can't you talk some?" Leesil started, but a small realization occurred to him. He shifted back to Droevinkan as he spoke to the dog. "All right. You win. We'll pack up the horses and leave."

Chap's attitude didn't change, as if he hadn't understood a word said. Leesil turned his back to the dog, facing Aunt Bieja behind the table. She looked quite put out by the dog's outburst.

In all their years together, Leesil had spoken almost nothing but Belaskian around Chap. It was the most common language spoken in the coastal lands, even in the backwoods of Stravina. Elvish was the only other language that he knew Chap understood. It seemed even a Fay in a dog's body had to actually learn languages like anyone else.

Chap didn't understand Droevinkan any better than Wynn. Perhaps less.

Leesil smiled, which made Aunt Bieja frown in puzzlement.

"Do you have someplace we can lock him up?" Leesil asked quietly.

"There's a shed out back," Bieja offered. "The door could be barred, but how will you get him there?"

Chap remained on guard, and Leesil gave Magiere a knowing look before he turned to Wynn, shifting languages yet again.

"Let's not leave our gear in the way. We'll take it out back to the shed. " He hefted his pack, while Wynn and Magiere followed suit, and turned back to Chap. "Get your mangy backside out of my way. You've been a pain in my head all morning, and I've had enough."

He shoved Chap with a swing of his leg, hoping he didn't get nipped. Chap shuffled aside with a rumble, and Leesil pushed Magiere out the door ahead of himself.

"Quickly," he whispered to her.

Magiere gave him a perplexed look but took off at a jog around the side of the hut. Chap lunged forward, but Leesil blocked the dog as he ushered Wynn out. He didn't want to anger Chap further, but he needed to throw the dog off balance.

"Valhachkasej'a!" Leesil snapped, using one of the few Elvish phrases he knew. "You deceitful mutt."

And he slipped out the door. There was only a moment's silence before he heard an indignant snarl from Chap.

Leesil sped around the hut to find Magiere and Wynn standing beside the open shed door. He pulled up short to flatten himself against the hut's rear wall. When Chap skidded around the comer, he saw only Magiere and Wynn at first. The dog lunged forward, spotting Leesil too late. Leesil stepped in behind Chap, grabbed the dog by the haunches in midlunge, and shoved. In a clatter of wood scraps, hoes, and racks, Chap crashed into the shed's enclosure.

Magiere swung the door shut, and Leesil threw his back against it, digging his heels into the ground. The snarling and battering from inside began immediately.

"Could you, um… find something to brace this shut, please?" he asked Magiere.

She gave him a scowl that said this was another of his more idiotic schemes, then picked up a stout spade left outside and braced the shed's door with it.

Wynn's small mouth dropped open, as Chap continued to thrash about inside the shed.

"How could you do this to him? As a Fay, Chap may know far more than we do of the world. If he does not want us to be here, he must have a reason."

"And he's not giving it to us," Magiere answered. "Until he does, this is the only place where I might find answers. If he won't help, he can stay out of my way!"

Wynn flinched at her harsh tone. "Perhaps I should stay with him?"

"No, I'll need you if we find records," Leesil said, and he stepped away from the shed door. "I can read some Droevinkan, but you're the scholar."

Leesil led the way out of the village and toward the keep. They passed a few nervous villagers on the way, but none spoke to them. The keep disappeared from sight as they trudged the road through the forest. Climbing a final rise, Leesil felt the previous dusk's tension return as the keep reappeared at the crest of the hill, and he paused at the break in the trees.

It was a simple fortification, and more than a bit worn with age. Moss grew between lichen-spotted stones on its lower half. To one side was an undersized stable, while the other held a small abandoned barracks with a clay chimney. Around all the grounds was a stone wall decayed over the years to half height, and its gate doors were missing. The surrounding forest had been cleared away from the wall for thirty paces on all sides.

Wynn stepped close to Leesil, shivering in the dank afternoon. She was so small that she could have stood beneath his chin. With her hood up over her hair, only her oval face showed, making her anxious eyes seem rounder as she looked up at him. Magiere stood to his other side, unblinking.

Two men stood inside the courtyard near the keep's front doors. They talked quietly to each other, while a third led a horse to the side stable and a water trough.

"Are we still going in?" Wynn asked.

"Magiere… you know the way," Leesil said.

"No," she replied. "I don't."

He raised an eyebrow.

"This is as far as I've ever come," she said. "I was forbidden to come here… No one from the village ever came here by choice."

"But you spent your whole childhood living nearby," Wynn asked in surprise. "You must have-"

"I sneaked up here alone a few times," Magiere said, "but never farther than the tree line."

Leesil put his arm around behind Magiere and walked forward slowly. As he and Magiere passed through the doorless gate, the two men near the keep stopped talking. Each guard carried a spear, as well as a long-knife sheathed on his belt, but their clothes were plain and threadbare. They were likely no more than locals engaged by the zupan.

"Can I help you?" the shorter one asked, and his tone suggested that they state their business quickly.

"We need to speak with the zupan," Leesil said.

"Is he expecting you?"

Leesil felt Magiere's hand clench his with a shudder. She let go and stepped forward, her voice polite but cold.

"We arrived only last night. It's important that I see him."

The man shook his head. "Leave your petition with me, and I'll see that he gets it. If you come tomorrow, perhaps he will-"

"Oh, stop with your pretense, Cherock," a deep voice called out. "Father missed lunch, and he's having an early supper. Today's no more exciting than the rest, and he won't mind a few visitors."

Leesil turned, searching for the speaker.

In the keep's open doorway stood a slender man with coal-black hair that hung to his shoulders in a wild, unruly mass. His dusky complexion almost matched Wynn's olive tone, unlike the pale villagers and the would-be guards. He wore russet breeches with high boots and a baggy shirt of sea green with the cuffs rolled halfway up his arms. In one hand he held a fiddle, and in the other he lightly gripped a player's bow. The instrument's finish was worn away where the man's chin would rest. He smiled openly as he gestured them inside with the bow, and Leesil saw nothing behind the expression but a friendly welcome.

"Come, come," the young man called. "Cherock is doing his little duty, but my father doesn't stand on ceremony. Join us."

Such a relaxed invitation was unexpected, but Leesil and Wynn followed Magiere to the doorway. The young man looked over all three visitors but gave Wynn a longer appraisal as his smile broadened.

"I am Jan. Cherock acts as if my father has the schedule of a capital potentate, but we're not quite so overrun. Before we took to the keep, we lived in my father's central village or visited among my mother's people… and I'm dying for any company besides these courtyard hang-abouts."

As Leesil stepped past Jan to the keep's doorway, he noted a series of three silver hoops in the young man's left earlobe.

"And when was the last time he held an audience?"

Jan paused a moment. "Late summer, I think. One village needed coin for a new mule. I don't suppose you need an ass for your labors?" He nodded toward Wynn with a conspiratorial whisper. "I could give you a bargain on Cherock, if you like. A little exercise might improve his nature."

Wynn backed toward Leesil as she eyed the young man and tried not to smile.

"She's not familiar with the local language," Leesil said.

"Ah, lost in foreign lands, are we?" Jan opened his arms in a grand gesture. "My mother's people are well traveled. Vidaty vraveti Belaskina?"

Wynn seemed charmed and relieved that the zupan's son had formally asked her if she spoke Belaskian. However, it made Leesil suspicious about how a backwoods peasant had become so fluent in the language.

Jan ushered them through the short entryway into the keep's main hall, chattering at Wynn all the while. The main hall was little more than a large chamber, and it felt overly hot to Leesil after the chill outside.

Stairs circled up along the wall to the left, and matching ones went down below to the right. The timbered ceiling was twice a man's height and less aged than the stone, likely having been expanded well after the structure had been first built. The original fire pit in the hall's center was filled in with newer floor stones, and a hearth large enough to crawl into had been added to the far wall. A fire blazed therein, its smoke drafting up through a mortared chimney. An older man and woman sat at a table eating flatbread and roasted mutton.

"Visitors," Jan announced, plopping into a spare chair. "Cherock nearly turned them away. Father, you must speak to that man. Give him something more important to do than run off anyone of interest."

Jan's father looked up with a chunk of bread halfway into his mouth. Unlike his son, the zupan was a barrel of a man with pale skin, fading freckles, and cropped red hair peppered by gray flecks. He turned a discerning gaze upon Leesil and Magiere before pulling the bread strip from his mouth as he stood up.

"My son's good nature overbears his good manners," he said. "I'm Cadell, overseer of this fief and zupan to one of its clans. This is my wife, Nadja."

The woman stood, offering a smile, and motioned them to sit. Her manner was closer to that of Jan, and the son's resemblance to his mother was striking. She, too, was slender with wild black hair, and her complexion was darker than Wynn's. She wore gold earrings and a cyan dress tied at the waist by an orange paisley sash. Around one forearm wrapped a bracelet of ruddy metal, possibly a mix of copper and brass. It wasn't until they stepped near the table that Leesil saw the detailed engraving upon it of twining birds with long tail plumes and flecks of green stone for eyes.

Wynn turned her head several times between Jan and Nadja.

"You are mountain nomads… the Tzigan?" she blurted out in Belaskian. "I read a brief mention of your people. What are you doing so far south? What do you eat in those barren mountains? Is it true that you can read future happenings?"

Leesil let out a sigh that turned to groan before he could stop it. He and Magiere had rarely traveled the mountains, but he'd heard enough of the Tzigan to be wary. Not that they were dangerous, but things had a way of turning up missing when these people were about. Both Nadja and Jan blinked in surprise at Wynn's barrage of questions, and Jan burst out laughing. He set his fiddle upon the table and patted the chair nearest his own.

"Come sit with me, little one, and I'll tell you all. First, that we prefer the name Mondyalitko. That Belaskian word is… somewhat unflattering."

It certainly was, thought Leesil, but appropriate for vagabond thieves. This situation was getting out of hand, and he turned to Zupan Cadell.

"That isn't why we came. " And he nodded to Magiere. "My companion and I seek information and hoped you could help."

Nadja watched Magiere with open curiosity and held out her hand. "Come, sit. What is it you wish to know?"

"My father," Magiere answered, and shook her head at the offered chair. "I'm looking for some way to trace him. He held this fief twenty-five years ago when I was born, and that is the last I know of his whereabouts. The few villagers who knew of him don't remember his name or won't talk. I hoped you'd have records."

Nadja's olive brow wrinkled as she turned to her husband. Cadell rubbed his wide jaw as he stared down at the table a moment and then shook his head.

"When we arrived, the keep was in shambles," he said. "Some furnishings had been looted. No lord had lived here for nearly two years. Neither had any taxes been collected. I agreed to manage the fief on the condition that Prince Rodek forgo the lost taxes and allow me time to reorganize."

The idea of a fief left without an overlord for two years was far too strange for Leesil's taste, but he shook his curiosity off to deal with the matter at hand.

"There must be something," he said. "Accountings, ledgers… anything?"

"Not that I have found," Cadell answered. "Likely the last overseer took any such back to the Antes estate or else they were looted. I've had to begin anew, even to re-counting the local households among the villages and reckoning what is due."

Magiere's face fell, her gaze dropping to the floor. She gripped the back of a chair.

A small part of Leesil was disappointed. A larger part was relieved, which in turn brought a heavy guilt. Whoever Magiere's father had been, Leesil suspected her mother had faced an uglier death than dying in childbirth. He was no longer sure Magiere should learn of this. And worst for his guilt, if this ended Magiere's search, perhaps they would be back on the road north in search of his own mother. Magelia was gone, but there was a chance that Nein'a still lived.

"Where would the records be taken, if they were removed?" Wynn asked.

Cadell frowned. "The Antes castle is in Enemusk, the main city for this province, but I'd guess the records would end up in Keosnk, the capital. Prince Rodek Antes reigns as grand prince for another three years, and he will live on the royal grounds for his term. From what I guess, he doesn't trust his younger brother, Duke Luchyan, with care of their family's holdings. If records exist, you might find them in the capital, but there's no guarantee. With all the civil skirmishes between noble houses over the years, Keonsk is always the center of conflict. Buildings have been burned and records lost."

As Cadell began, hope rekindled in Magiere's eyes, but by the end of his words, Leesil saw it dwindle again.

"May we look around the keep?" Wynn asked. "I will not disturb anything, but there may be documents hidden in places that others have overlooked."

Leesil was dubious, and Wynn seemed to catch this in his expression.

"Cathologers among the sages," she said, "like myself and Domin Tilswith, are experienced in both the protection and care of records. I do know what to look for."

Cadell consented, provided that anything found was brought to him first. And the search began.

In addition to the main hall, there were storage rooms and a kitchen on the main floor. Upstairs were sleeping quarters, one such room converted into a study. Leesil had trained as a youth in the art of hidden spaces, and he, too, knew what to watch for. He walked each room, scanning walls, floor, and ceiling for telltale cracks or unusual structure. Wynn inspected furniture, checking their undersides and pulling out drawers to look behind and beneath them. She even checked to see if chair and table legs were loose, a suitable space for hollowed-out hiding places.

Neither of them found anything.

"Do not give in yet," Wynn reassured Magiere. "I thought we should start up here, as Domin Tilswith says to exhaust upper floors first. But most archives are kept in lower levels, where they are more protected from fire and illicit removal."

Leesil agreed. Back down on the main floor, Jan waited for them by the main entryway.

"Can I help?"

"Can we go to the cellars?" Wynn asked.

Jan retrieved a candle lantern from the table. "Follow me, little one."

Wynn pulled a cold lamp crystal from her pocket and warmed it in her hands until it glowed brightly. The sight of it raised Jan's curiosity so sharply mat Leesil became wary again. The young man asked no questions as the four of them walked down the curving stairwell and into the darkness below.

The stairs emptied into a square space at the head of a passageway running beneath the keep, and the air was as chill as outside. Jan led the way with Wynn just behind him, and he stopped briefly to light two oil lanterns on the walls.

Along the passage were six doors, three to a side, of thick wood and rusted iron fixtures. Between them were support arches of larger stones across the passage's roof. At midway, Jan pointed downward in caution to a floor grate so no one would trip upon its hinges. Leesil took Wynn's wrist and steered her crystal down closer to the grate.

Beneath it was a hollowed-out square chamber that smelled of stagnant moisture-the keep's dungeon for prisoners. For a moment, Leesil thought he saw gaunt faces peering up at him from below. He pulled away.

These were only old guilts resurfacing in Leesil's mind. How many had he helped put in such a place-or worse- beneath Lord Darmouth's keep in the Warlands?

"What is in these rooms?" Magiere asked. She pushed on the first door in the passage's left wall, but it would not open.

"One holds stores we've gathered," Jan replied. "Another has surplus goods collected for taxes in place of crops and coin."

"And nothing was found here when you first came?" asked Leesil, studying Magiere's obstinate door with its rusted latch.

"Nothing of note," Jan answered. "Old crates with moth-eaten cloth or tin plates, probably from when the barracks were manned. I didn't look in all of them myself."

'Time to do so," Magiere said, and pointed to the doors. "Are these locked?"

"This one isn't," Leesil offered. "Give it a shove."

Magiere joined him to push. The door shifted enough for Leesil to work the latch.

"They should all be open," said Jan. "There's nothing here worth locking up."

Wynn stepped in behind Leesil, holding out her crystal so that its light spread through the doorway. The room was large enough to lie down in, but it was empty. Leesil took the crystal and scanned once along all four walls before shaking his head at Magiere.

"It's an old keep, and not one of importance," he said regretfully. "We'll look carefully, but don't expect this forgotten place to hold many secrets."

"Next room," she said, ignoring his forewarning.

They proceeded one by one through the doors along the passage. Some opened more easily than the first. Cleaned and swept, they held recently added goods delivered by villages for taxes due from the fief. A few loose or broken wall stones had been replaced or remortared. There was nothing else of note.

Leesil studied the stones of the hallway. Cracked or broken ones had been replaced over the keep's history, and the walls were a patchwork of shades and textures. Likely wet weather and dank earth had combined with the weight of the keep to wear away at the understructure. There were signs of other erosion by time, repaired or not, and also hints that the lower level had been slowly expanded since the keep's first construction. The stones at the passage's end were not as aged as those nearest the stairs and the landing's chamber.

Only the last two rooms on opposing sides held anything interesting. Inside were stacked crates, which contained wares likely stored from the long-abandoned barracks. Leesil stepped out into the passage to face Magiere.

She glared down the passage of open doors as if searching for an enemy that would not reveal itself.

"There's nothing here," Leesil said.

She turned on him, expression cold like the stone surrounding them, as if neither his words nor his presence affected her. Her resistance faltered as she inhaled deeply. "Finish with the crates," she said, and turned away to walk back down the passage.

Leesil returned to the last room, where Wynn looked at him with sad eyes.

"Go through them all," he said, gesturing to the crates stacked around the small chamber's walls. "Empty them all… and then we're done with this."

Wynn nodded, and even Jan remained silent as he pulled the first crate down to the floor and opened it.

Leesil was about to follow Magiere but thought better of it. She sat on the bottom stair with her head down, elbows resting upon her knees. Her fading desperation would be covered by her usual anger. Anything he said would only make it worse.

"Leesil, come look at this," Wynn said.

"What is it?" he asked, stepping back into the room.

Wynn shook her head. "I am not certain. This room holds barracks equipment from many years past. Perhaps there was a military contingent here once. There is a parchment in this first crate. A list of some kind."

The worn parchment was frayed at the edges and torn along one ancient crease, where it had been folded in quarters. Leesil couldn't see the writing itself directly as Jan silently mouthed the words on the yellowed and dingy sheet.

"Just an account of the room's contents," Jan said. "From many years past. My father wouldn't have an interest in packing lists or inventories too old to be helpful."

Wynn studied the sheet and looked around the small room. She shoved the parchment in her pocket and opened another crate. With Jan's help, she searched the remaining crates but found nothing else noteworthy.

Jan looked at Leesil and shook his head.

"That's enough, Wynn," Leesil said, and gripped the young sage's shoulder. "We're done here."

Wynn pulled away, not ready to give up. She removed the parchment from her pocket to stare at it again, even though she couldn't read the language.

"Let's go," Leesil said.

He led the way out and down the passage, pulling each door closed as he passed. He could hear Wynn counting under her breath as she followed behind him-"One, two, three… five, six, seven"-until they reached the landing chamber.

Magiere looked up at him. There were no words of comfort he could find that wouldn't sound like hollow excuses. He held out his hand to her, and after a lingering silence, she took it and stood. Leesil headed up the stairs.

"Seven?" Wynn murmured from behind. "Leesil… there are seven."

When he looked back, she stood below in the small chamber facing the passage. Leesil couldn't see her face, but her head bobbed as she looked to the parchment and back down the hallway again.

"If this parchment accounts what these rooms once contained…" she muttered. "Seven lists… for seven rooms."

Magiere's grip tightened on Leesil's hand. She let go to scramble down the stairs and grab the parchment from the sage. She stared at it but a moment, and then looked up at Leesil. If there was hope in her eyes, it was smothered by fear of another misdirection.

"The seventh room could just be the chamber here at the stairs," suggested Jan.

Wynn's shoulders slumped, but Magiere kept her eyes on Leesil, waiting.

Leesil stepped back down to join her and tried to keep his expression impassive as he held his hand out to Wynn. "Give me the crystal."

Wynn's crystal in hand, Leesil dropped to one knee and inspected the chamber's floor. Strangely, along its center he found shallow traces of lines where something heavy had been dragged along the chamber floor and into the passage. The scarred lines were packed with dust and dirt, so were quite old. Closer to the walls were circular stains that suggested large barrels full of liquid had been stored here at one time, and he pointed them out.

Jan was looking at the list over Magiere's shoulder and shook his head. "There's no mention of barrels here, just crated goods," he said.

Leesil took a deep breath, careful to let it go silently before looking up at Magiere.

"Be certain," she said to him.

He stood up and let his gaze wander from the stairs to the ceiling, along the passage of doors, and down to the hallway's end with its blank wall. There was just this one cellar storage area and one dungeon under the keep.

Leesil looked up once again to the stone ceiling. Above these cellar chambers was the main floor of the keep, surrounded by its thick stone walls. Any hollowing below the keep to produce this passage of chambers would've been done with thought for the support of the upper building.

"Wait here," he told the others.

Leesil counted his steps as he climbed the curving stairs up to the main floor. With the exceptions of the entryway, the kitchen out back, and the stairs leading up and down, the main room's wall was the keep's outer wall. He paced the same number of steps back along wall until certain he stood directly above the cellar's landing chamber below. From there, he stepped out the distance to the other side of the keep-fifty-eight paces. He returned to cellar's landing chamber and looked down the passage of chambers.

"What is he doing?" Wynn asked.

"Be quiet, and let him think," Magiere answered.

Leesil's stomach rolled at the rekindled spark of hope in Magiere's eyes. This was all a hunch at best, but she nodded for him to continue. Leesil paced out the distance down the passage between the six rooms. At forty-two paces, he reached the end wall.

The passage was short of the distance across the whole keep along the same line.

This meant little, other than perhaps the cellar's end had been kept short of undermining the keep wall. The stones of the passage's end wall were newer than elsewhere but still well aged. It confirmed his earlier appraisal that the cellars had been slowly expanded over time from when the keep was first built many decades ago. He studied the end wall- and suspicion grew.

The stones were aged more uniformly than he'd noticed in his early inspection. There were no signs of patchwork here. He held the crystal close as he moved back and forth across its surface. The stones were fitted solidly up to the edge of the passage's side walls in both corners.

Leesil held his breath. He heard Magiere and the others moving in closer behind him.

"What?" she demanded. "You found something… I can see it in you."

He held the crystal close to the corner.

This end wall's stones had been cut off to fit inside the passage's side walls.

Something at the passage's end had been blocked off long ago, as the passage had originally been longer. Leesil took off his cloak and began unstrapping his blades.

"We need tools," he said. "This wall was added, and the passage runs beyond it."

"Hold there," Jan said. "Even if my father agrees, you can't start knocking down walls. Remove the wrong support, and the place could collapse on us."

Magiere grabbed Jan by the shirt. "Just do as he says!"

Leesil reached out and grasped Magiere's wrist, pulling her away from Jan.

"This wall was a later addition," he explained, keeping an eye on Magiere. "It isn't supporting anything. Get your father, and find us some tools! Wynn, go with him."

Jan turned away, muttering under his breath, and Wynn followed. Magiere's gaze was fixed upon the end wall.

"There must be something…" she whispered. "I can't… I can't leave here with nothing."

Her voice was so full of desperation that Leesil wrapped her in his arms. Magiere slumped forward, her face buried in his shoulder. He felt her tremble, and he rocked her slowly. What if there was nothing behind the wall? And what if there was something leading into Magiere's past? There was little hope either would bring her any relief.

Jan and Wynn returned with Cadell. It took some convincing, but once Leesil showed the zupan the wall's structure, Cadell was reasonably convinced it was safe to break it open. He seemed as disturbed by the discovery as Leesil. Jan had brought a pair of prybars and handed one to Leesil. The two of them set to breaking out the wall's top-center stones first.

The stench that wafted through the opening made all of them step away, gagging and coughing. Cadell caught Wynn as she stumbled, retching, and his face twisted in disgust at the scent of decay assaulting them.

Leesil's fear mounted. All he wanted was to drag Magiere from this place and never return. He thought he saw this same thought on her own pale face, but Cadell broke the silence.

"Finish it. Tear it down."

Leesil and Jan rammed through stone and mortar with their prybars to widen the opening. When enough of the wall fell away to allow him to step through, Leesil found the dark cavity where the passage continued, but it reached only a short distance. Another wall obscured by darkness stood before him, and he held Wynn's crystal out.

"The seventh room," Wynn said from somewhere behind him.

The door in the revealed wall was severely decayed, and the air smelled of rotted wood over the top of something more rank. Magiere tried to step past Leesil, but he held her back with a shake of his head, and began carefully inspecting the seventh door.

There was no sign of anything unusual, but the years had eaten at the wood. He hooked the door's latch with his pry-bar, stepped as far back as he could, and pulled. The door collapsed outward as it broke from its hinges, and the fetid stench mounted until he could taste it in his mouth.

Leesil heard Wynn moan as his own stomach lurched.

Magiere stood close behind him as he held the crystal up in the doorway. The crystal's light, undiffused by a lantern glass, was so sharp mat it deepened the room's shadows as much as it revealed pieces of what lay within.

The back wall appeared to be old mortared stone. It barely caught the light, so the room was quite large. Near it, Leesil. spotted what he drought were the shattered remains of a large wooden crate or box. One strut remain vertical, its height above his own waist. There was another slightly smaller crate to its right.

Leesil stepped in and spotted a large crusted vat to the left. Next to it was a crumpled mass, and other such piles appeared here and there on the floor along the wall. As he approached the vat, shadows turned around the walls as the crystal's light moved with him, making the dark heaps upon the floor shift like animals disturbed from slumber in their unearthed burrow.

One appeared to roll its head, and as Leesil stopped, the shadows froze all around him.

A mass on the floor in the left front corner took shape in the light as Magiere gripped his shoulder.

It was a body in a sitting position. Rotted clothing par-tially obscured the bones but not the skull. It narrowed toward the dangling lower jaw, hinting at a triangular face it once wore. Its dark eye sockets were larger than those of human skulls Leesil had been forced by his parents to study in his youth. And upon it still clung wisps of white-blond hair. Slender fingers too long for a human rested on a narrow rib cage.

Leesil didn't need a closer look to recognize the tall lithe stature. This elf had died and been entombed without ceremony in the dark forests of Droevinka, far from its homeland.

Magiere's other hand flattened against Leesil's side. Her grip on his shoulder tightened as she pulled him around to face the chamber's back wall again.

Around the base of the walls were the remains of more bodies.