Cavern Of Fear

1 - Secrets

The flickering lamp made an island of light in the darkness. The wrinkled hand moved slowly across the page.

Outside, the city of Del lay silent, wrapped in sleep. Even those who had long lain awake, grieving for their lost loved ones, had at last fallen into uneasy slumber. The writer’s lamp was hidden. The only lights visible in Del burned in the palace on the hill. Lights to comfort the guards who stood watchful by the stairs. Lights that guided two shadows as they slipped through the palace grounds and into the most hidden of its doors.

Soon it would be dawn. But the writer worked on. He had lost all track of time. He had been alone so long that for him day and night had almost lost their meaning.

He ate when he was hungry, and slept when he was tired. And in the long stretches of time between, he wrote, his expert hand rarely faltering, his world shrunk to his secret island of light…